Maureen Dowd had an absolutely marvelous piece on Obama in Sunday’s NY Times, titled, “Dreaming of a Superhero.” Seriously.
On Friday, an ugly job market report led to the stock market’s worst day of the year. As the recovery flat-lined, the president conceded to a crowd at a Honeywell factory in Golden Valley, Minn., that “our economy is still facing some serious headwinds” and getting sucked further into Europe’s sinkhole. In depressing imagery for the start of the summer campaign, cable channels carried the red Dow arrow pointing down while Obama spoke; the Dow wiped out all of its 2012 gains.
The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters. His campaign is offering Obama 2012 car magnets for a donation of $10; cat collars reading “I Meow for Michelle” for $12; an Obama grill spatula for $40, and discounted hoodies and T-shirts. How the mighty have fallen.
“Dazzle,” heh. Yes, the “Mighty” have fallen, you sad, sycophantic fool.
Once glowing, his press is now burning. “To a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear,” John Heilemann wrote in New York magazine, noting that because Obama feels he can’t run on his record, his campaign will resort to nuking Romney.
In his new book, “A Nation of Wusses,” the Democrat Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, wonders how “the best communicator in campaign history” lost his touch.
“Lost his touch?” Here’s the bad news. He never had a “touch.” Obama was never mighty. And Obama was never even close to being the best communicator in campaign history. That’s insulting. But that’s The Narrative, a product of a fawning, unquestioning media, and an uncritical electorate, and it’s laughable. President Teleprompter can’t do anything without his precious script, and even when he’s reading it, he’s a screw-up (from visiting “all 57 states” to “Polish Death Camps,” he just reads what’s in front of him). Obama can not run on his record because it has been a stuttering clusterf*ck of a horrible, disastrous failure. He is style without substance, an empty shirt. And his Presidency is objective evidence compounded daily that progressive liberal governance is a pipe-dream and a failure.
What we’ll see from here to November is a nuclear attack on Romney. Scorched Earth. We’ll see Obama and his compliant media ignore his own record of failures while mercilessly attacking Romney’s successful career by deliberately misrepresenting his accomplishments, positions, history, family, religion and anything else they can distort and pervert to their benefit. They’ll continue to blame. Blame Bush. Blame Europe. Blame Republicans. Blame banks. Blame the rich. And on and on. It’s going to get ugly and personal. And we’re just getting started.