Exciting New Horizons In Obama Derangement Syndrome

Forget the Village conventional wisdom that the GOP will retake Congress, the stakes are now much higher as Politico's Roger Simon puts his chips on the board.  The notion that Obama won't make it through even his first term has gone from wingnut fantasy to Village conventional wisdom, and the Village always has a stake and seeing its predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.  Obama's job as President apparently is to manage the polls, and Roger Simon's admission as much is as devastating a damnation of our failed media as it is breathtakingly cynical as he tries to snark his way through what the Village is thinking with such obvious winger fodder as to descend into self-parody:

Honest to goodness, the man just does not get it. He might be forced to pull a Palin and resign before his first term is over. He could go off and write his memoirs and build his presidential library. (Both would be half-size, of course.)

I am not saying Obama is not smart; he is as smart as a whip. I am just saying he does not understand what savvy first-term presidents need to understand:

You have to stay on message, follow the polls, listen to your advisers (who are writing the message and taking the polls) and realize that when it comes to doing what is right versus doing what is expedient, you do what is expedient so that you can get reelected and do what is right in the second term. If at all possible. And it will help your legacy. And not endanger the election of others in your party. And not hurt the brand. Or upset people too much.

Like I was saying earlier, don't rock the boat, don't borrow trouble...

You could not put the conventional wisdom more clearly: It is far better for a president to do nothing than to choose a side. Even if the side he chooses is the right one from an ethical or moral perspective, it is a “blunder” politically because inevitably it will upset some people.

The problem for Obama is that he appears to have taken seriously all the “change” stuff he promised during his campaign. And he has been unable to make the transition from candidate to president.

A candidate says, as Bobby Kennedy did, “Some men look at things the way they are and ask why? I dream of things that are not and ask why not?”

A president says: “What do the polls say?”

A recent CNN poll found that 68 percent of Americans do not want a mosque built close to ground zero. Which should mean: End of story. That’s all she wrote. Let’s move on to the next crisis.

I don't know where to begin.  Stay at the back of the bus.  Don't eat at the front of the lunch counter.  Don't drink from the wrong water fountain.  Don't build Cordoba House too close to ground zero.

But the best part is that Simon tries to cover up what he believes on the second page by going "Just kidding!"

Which may be true. You can go back to the mid-1800s and find a lot of legislators saying that Abraham Lincoln should stop lecturing people about ending slavery and listen to them about keeping it.

And there were plenty of lawmakers who said President Dwight D. Eisenhower was “disconnected from the mainstream of America” when he ordered the 101st Airborne Division to go down to Little Rock, Ark., to make sure some black kids could go to school with white kids.

Both decisions may have been “off-message,” which is about the worst sin you can commit in Washington. But what’s so wrong about being off-message if you are right about the issue?

See, ol' Roger is just reminding us that other Presidents have paid a political price for doing the right thing too.  Frankly, given the speed the Wingers are jumping on this one the nuances of Roger's sarcasm are missed...but the fact remains Simon is oblivious to the fact he's part of the problem here, not the solution.

Hey look, Simon calls the outfit "Politico" not "Do The Right Thing".  He's just being honest, getting re-elected is always the most important thing and he feels Obama is violating this principle to the point where he may have to resign before his first term is up.  That really is how America's political system works, and while Simon mocks it, he's not exactly doing anything to correct the misconceptions laid out in his own online political site.  He's trying to have it both ways, posting a piece of avowed Obama-bashing Drudge bait in order to get eyeballs when he's really going "Haha, I'm just pulling your leg you wacky wingnut guys you!" and maintaining his centrist cred, knowing full well why and how he's doing it by playing the exact political media game he purports to bemoan.

This is your reward in 2010 for taking any sort of principled stand.  Bigots get political power in America.  Those who rock the boat?  Well...not so much.  Guys like Roger Simon see to that.  The Colbert Report this ain't, but depressing reality.

And now the floodgates have opened where Democrats are now taking Simon's advice, offered "in jest", at face value.

We deserve what the GOP will do to us over the next few years.  We really do.