President Oba-Me

Steve Benen finds "narcissistic" is the new Obama Derangement code phrase for the Wingers:

Periodically, conservatives latch onto a new line of attack against President Obama. Apparently, the new one is "narcissism." Marty Peretz talked it up yesterday in a bizarre piece, and George Will endorsed the argument in his column today.

In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance.

Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about . . . themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 Games on aesthetic grounds -- unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport. [...]

[S]ometimes the Olympic Games are a net subtraction from international comity. But Obama quickly returned to speaking about . . . himself.

Putting aside Will's fondness for dramatic ellipses, his criticism is simply detached from reality here.

The speeches are online, and reading them, it's tempting to wonder if Will even read the remarks before using them as the basis for a cheap column.

Or as Atrios puts it:

It's all just code for "uppity"...

And it always has been. There's a cottage industry of Wingers finding new ways to refer to Obama's race without actually referring to Obama's race, and we're seeing all the classics as well as relatively new stuff.

Of course, things like that have been going on in America for generations now.