Pushing a Rock Up a Hill

Sully says it well HERE re: Obama has turned the GOP, formerly known as the "Non-Nonsense, Button-Down" party into one that demands baby-squealing emotion and superheroes flying in to save the day.

This is just a glimpse into the distortion inherent in our current political and media culture. It's way easier to comment on a speech - his hands were moving too much! - than to note the truly substantive victory, apparently personally nailed down by Obama, in the White House yesterday. If leftwing populism in America were anything like as potent as right-wing populism - Matt Bai has a superb analysis of this in the NYT today - there would be cheering in the streets....And that's why Obama's incrementalism, his refusal to pose as a presidential magician, and his resistance to taking the bait of the fetid right (he's president - not a cable news host) seems to me to show not weakness, but a lethal and patient strength. And a resilient ambition.

Obama's refusal to get sucked in and play Super Daddy just because of some fake noise is, of course, no surprise to those of us who weren't looking to merely get worked up by big-dicked magic voodoo speeches intended for babies in the first place.