As Irrationalbutsane notes in his or her diary today, some in the MSM have adopted a new narrative that seems, at first blush, counter to the smears we on the left have come to expect. Upon closer inspection, however, these are just smears dressed up but not terribly well hidden as snark and hate. At least three columnists, including Maureen Dowd an erstwhile liberal, have embraced the narrative that Obama is both prophet, king, savior, and god. Some putrid examples after the jump...
Charles Krauthammer, a repug writing for the inherently biased WaPo writes:
Obama may think he's King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.
Diary on "The One"
Further, Krauthammer advances a narrative that:
For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is?
We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.
In one column, the WaPo's editorial page manages to suggest that Obama is like an ancient king of the north, the redeemer, and for lack of a better term, christ the king. Pretty incredible stuff sure to turn the stomach of christians which, of course, is exactly the point. This counter-narrative hopes to help stanch the bleeding of once-conservative christians to more liberal positions including saving the environment and promoting greater understanding. God forbid that the Dems succeed in removing the false division between red-state and blue-state, people of faith, and other ways that the oligarchy has tried to slice and dice the electorate.
Another lovely example is R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr., in the Washington Times. Tyrell is apparently a:
founder and editor in chief of the American Spectator, a contributing editor to the New York Sun, and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute.
I'm sure "scholar" is a term used quite loosely.
Tyrell writes (incorrectly) that:
Thus I am not surprised to see the likely Democratic presidential standard-bearer slip into a dead heat this week with the likely Republican presidential standard-bearer. What is more, readers of this column might recall that weeks ago I spotted the darkest of dark clouds glowering down on the unctuous young senator's halo.
Tyrell, wishing he had the oratorical skills of Senator Obama notes further that Obama's:
speech becomes a series of gaffes, allowing us to rechristen the affable senator the gaffable senator. Soon all civilized members of the electorate begin to snicker every time the Prophet Obama steps toward a microphone - nose raised heavenward, eyes glistening - to pontificate on the metaphysics of "hope," the imminence of "change," and the glories of "tomorrow" or "the day after tomorrow" or anytime in the future - just get us through this god-awful vacuous speech.
Yes, I think the Prophet Obama is in trouble. Thus members of the Obama cult within the media are striving to ever higher levels of inventiveness to maintain their oracle's exulted presence in the presidential race. One tactic they tried this week was to claim that Obama haters on the fringes of the blogosphere have been planting slanderous misinformation about the Prophet amongst members of the moron vote. Some claim that he is a covert member of the Muslim faith. Others insist he attended Islamic schools in a faraway country. Still others spread the rumor that he smokes cigarettes, possibly even indoors. None of this is true, cult members in the press insist. So he should be elected president.
Not surprisingly, while insulting the religious beliefs of millions of christians and muslims Tyrell slanders the media (tough to do I realize) while repeating all of the untrue smears as fact. Impressive!
Tyrell closes with a paean to the the Minister of Mayhem himself:
Anyone familiar with Mr. Limbaugh's work - and there are many millions - knows that you can get an avalanche of laughter working the Obama persona. My only complaint is that Rush calls him The Messiah. To my mind Mr. Obama is The Prophet - only I am not quite certain of what he is prophesying. He is so famously vague.
Finally, Maureen Dowd can't figure out if she wants Obama to be "The One" as advanced by the rethugs or if she wants to pinch his cheek calling him "Commander in Chiefy."
Could she be any more patronizing? Could these "opinion shapers" for much of the uninformed do more damage to Senator Obama's reputation? Sure they could. Let's hope they won't.
Perhaps some push-back on this meme would be appropriate.