My October 5, 2012, article from Front Page Magazine:
Leftists Gone Wild Against Obama
By Matthew Vadum
Following Wednesday’s historic presidential face-off in Colorado, supporters of America’s failed president have already begun their journey through the Five Stages of Grief.
It’s a necessary part of healing.
After Republican Mitt Romney gave Barack Obama the most savage beat-down of his political career during the presidential debate in Denver, Obama-worshippers are understandably despondent.
Incidentally, it was quite possibly the only beat-down the coddled radical who is unaccustomed to being challenged by anyone has ever experienced.
Most Obama idolators will eventually recover but those who don’t may turn on Obama. Many TV talking heads, like the ones discussed below, are already turning on Obama. That’s what happens when one’s god falls short and reveals himself to be merely human. Look at what happened to Daniel Dravot in Rudyard Kipling’s novella, The Man Who Would Be King.
People don’t like learning that their messiah is no messiah.
According to the
Kübler-Ross model, there is denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Even though most Obama zealots are in the denial or anger phases they remain outwardly consistent, clinging to their religious belief that America is an irretrievably racist nation. In a sense, they believe that Obama is too good for rotten old America.
On debate night as the Left saw Obama going down in flames, MSNBC blabbermouth Ed Schultz
could not accept that the great prophet of hope and change was weighted down by his record of failure and hopelessly outgunned by Romney. When in doubt, it’s about race:
“It was just very frustrating to watch a guy [i.e. Romney] lie to the American people and not be counter-punched because we’re afraid he’s going to be called an angry black man. When I see the president, I don’t see a black man. I see a president who has inherited an untenable position and turned it around to a great positive to where we are right now. He has brought it down to 8 percent unemployment without any help from the Republicans.”
Of course Obama helped to cause the massive spike in unemployment that he is now supposedly helping to ameliorate, but that’s a discussion for another day.
The same night one of the Left’s most televised pseudo-intellectuals, academic fussbudget Michael Eric Dyson, suggested that the real Obama would have skewered Romney. But the real Obama was nowhere to be seen as the president allegedly held back during the debate.
“Lest we forget this, lest we pretend that that doesn’t make a difference, the specter hanging over his neck that, ‘I can’t come off as too vigorous because then it looks like I’m being an angry black man.’ And because of the angry black man phenomenon, Mitt Romney is able to be a vigorously engaged man who’s able to play to his strength.”
Bill Maher, who gave $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC, posted a distress call on Twitter in mid-debate,
writing, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter.”
Alas, Maher showed minutes later that, like so many other left-wingers, he too remained in denial. Although “Romney won the debate, Obama had the facts on his side,” he tweeted. It’s so sad when people who don’t grasp economics have to reckon with reality. Painful, really. They need our understanding and support.
Former Vice President Al Gore blamed the high altitude of the debate forum. On his Current TV network, Gore said that “Obama arrived in Denver at 2 p.m. today – just a few hours before the debate started. Romney did his debate prep in Denver. When you go to 5,000 feet, and you only have a few hours to adjust – I don’t know.”
Self-described “communist” Van Jones did his best to cover for his former boss. “I think he took Romney too lightly. I think he did not expect Romney to be able to throw that kind of heat,” he said. “Romney was able to ‘out-Obama’ Obama. On the connection piece, on the authenticity piece, on the being able to tell the story.”
After the debate, the logorrheic Chris Matthews
skipped to the bargaining stage in which the patient argues that an approaching trauma can somehow be postponed. On MSNBC he apoplectically critiqued Obama:
“There’s a hot debate going on in this country and you know where it’s being held? Here on this network is where we’re having this debate. We have our knives out, we go after the people on the facts, what was he doing tonight?! He went in there disarmed, he was like, ‘oh wait, an hour and a half, I think I can get through this thing and I don’t even look at this guy.’ Whereas Romney — I love the split-screen — staring at Obama, addressing him like prey. He did it just right. ‘I’m coming at an incumbent. I got to beat him. You’ve got to beat the champ and I’m going to beat him tonight. And I don’t care what this guy, the moderator, whatever he thinks he is because I’m going to ignore him.’ What was Romney doing? He was winning.”
If somehow Obama fights harder, redoubles his efforts, watches and learns from the skilled debaters on MSNBC, he’ll be able to turn it around, an exasperated Matthews said. If not, he’s toast. “If he does five more of these nights, forget it,” said Matthews.
Former faux conservative Andrew Sullivan seemed unhappy as he
live-tweeted the debate. “How is Obama’s closing statement so fucking sad, confused and lame? He choked. He lost. He may even have lost the election tonight.”
At 10:31 p.m. he tweeted,
“Look: you know how much I love the guy, and you know how much of a high information viewer I am, and I can see the logic of some of Obama’s meandering, weak, professorial arguments. But this was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look.”
Romney commanded the stage. “This was Romney the salesman,” Sullivan wrote. “And my gut tells me he sold a few voters on a change tonight. It’s beyond depressing. But it’s true.”
Strangely, Michael Moore seems to have the healthiest perspective of the bunch. Five weeks ago he
accepted that Obama was doomed:
“I think people should start to practice the words ‘President Romney.’ To assume that the other side are just a bunch of ignoramuses who are supported by people who believe that Adam and Eve rode on dinosaurs 6,000 years ago is to completely misjudge the opposition.”
Michigan’s answer to Leni Riefenstahl (but without the cinematography skills), offered merely perfunctory criticism of the debate process on Wednesday. “Fire all debate consultants now,” he limply tweeted, giving some the impression he still cared. “This is what happens when [you] pick John Kerry as your debate coach.”
Most Jimmy Carter supporters from 1980 have reached the acceptance stage but many Al Gore supporters from 2000 have never moved on. Poor things. For many, it can be a long, painful process.
Let the healing begin.
