Demonic (4 page)

Run-of-the-mill Democrats behave the exact same way.
Time
magazine’s Walter Shapiro reported that the “swooning and the cooing on the rope lines during the last days of the Clinton campaign were unavoidably reminiscent of Kennedy. In Louisville, Kentucky, the scene seemed out of Beatlemania.”
²¹
Except that when one of the Beatles claimed they
were bigger than Jesus, people got upset.
Newsweek
’s Joe Klein talked about the “emotional connection” crowds had for Clinton.
²²
The
Washington Post
’s Phil McCombs described the Democratic crowds pouring out to glimpse Bill Clinton: “To watch this President connect with people emotionally is an awesome thing.”
²³
(And if you think that’s awesome, you should see the guy dry-hump a cocktail waitress in an elevator.)

But Clinton was just a hustler from Arkansas compared with Obama. Barack’s supporters posted endless YouTube tributes to him, taught schoolchildren to sing paeans to him, wore Obama T-shirts for their mug shots, cried and fainted at his speeches. “You can see it in the crowds,” ABC’s Terry Moran said on
Nightline
of Senator Barack Obama’s supporters. “The thrill, the hope. How they surge toward him. You’re looking at an American political phenomenon.… He inspires the party faithful and many others, like no one else on the scene today.” Except maybe Kanye West, I would have added if anyone had asked me. Moran continued, “Around here, they’re even naming babies after him.”
²⁴
At that point, Obama hadn’t even been in the Senate for two full years.

NBC anchor Brian Williams reported that in Berlin Obama “brought throngs of people” into the center of the city, “surging to get close to him, to hear his message.… I heard one American reporter tonight say it’s hard to come up with a list of others who could draw such a crowd, but then again it’s hard to know what we witnessed here today.”
²⁵
Wasn’t there another political leader who brought out the crowds like that in Berlin once?

Harold Koplewicz, president of the Child Mind Institute, explained the liberal esteem for Obama by saying, “He was going to end war, end the recession, improve education, improve our image to the world, and provide universal health care. Whether or not he could actually do it wasn’t important. It was the belief in him that was.”
²⁶
Well, exactly. When a guy’s that good at making promises, who cares about actual results? Bush lied, kids died! Go green!

It’s remarkable how similar it is for nearly every Democratic president.

Giving President Andrew Jackson the strange new label of “rock star,” his biographer Jon Meacham reports that this father of the
Democratic Party drew “staggering” crowds of admirers, with one newspaper describing Jackson as “happy in their affections and loving them with all a parent’s love.”
²⁷

A parent’s love? What is it with these Democrats? It is nothing more than the mass psychosis of a mob.

In a YouTube video made by actor Ashton Kutcher just after Obama’s inauguration, dozens of Hollywood celebrities pledged “to be a servant to our president and all mankind.”
²⁸
It was like something out of an Aztec festival of the gods—if what the Aztec gods wanted was for Hollywood actresses like Eva Longoria to use “
less
bottled water.”

I don’t remember Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope producing a video pledging themselves to be servants of Ronald Reagan. In fact, if anyone had ever made a video with people reading the exact same lines as Demi and Ashton’s friends about a Republican president, MSNBC would be running specials on the rise of fascism in America. I mean, even more than it does now. Reagan won the Cold War, rescued the economy, set the country on a decades-long path of peace and prosperity, and was a terrific speaker. And yet Republicans were able to listen to him give a speech without fainting.

In his book
Obama Zombie: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation
, Jason Mattera describes liberal blogger Michael Whack’s giddy account of his encounter with Obama at a 2008 campaign event. After seeing “the guy” in front of him shake Obama’s hand, Whack wrote:

As the guy drew back his hand I asked him, “You shook his hand didn’t you?” Happily the guy said “Yes.” I then said, “give me some of that” and the guy shook my hand with the same hand he had just clasped with Barack’s. A woman friend of mine who was standing next to me saw me shake hands with the guy. I turned to her and said “He [the guy] just shook hands with Barack,” to which she responded … “Hey, give it up.” We then shook hands. She then turned to the person next to her and shook hands. This chain of handshakes went on for about five or six more persons.
²⁹

Democrats would drink Obama’s bathwater.

Perhaps it is because they don’t believe in the real God that liberals are compelled to turn so many humans into living deities. Elena Kagan,
liberal Supreme Court justice, said she “sat down and wept” when Liz Holtzman lost the 1980 election for the U.S. Senate.
³⁰
Can you imagine John Roberts crying when G.H.W. Bush lost his reelection bid in 1992? For that matter, can you imagine even Barbara Bush crying over that?

When California Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein won their 1992 primary elections for the U.S. Senate,
Time
magazine’s Margaret Carlson said she felt “a rush, an exultation, that surpassed any political moment I have ever known.”
³¹
Uma Thurman proclaimed Al Gore “adorable” and “sexy,” saying that looking at him was like “watching a beautiful racehorse run.”
³²
(A racehorse who came in second in a two-horse race in 2000.)

Margaret Carlson called Hillary “the icon of American womanhood”—an “amalgam of Betty Crocker, Mother Teresa and Oliver Wendell Holmes.”
³³
(That last one perhaps explaining why Hillary always wears pants.) The
Washington Post
’s Martha Sherrill said Hillary was “replacing Madonna as our leading cult figure.”
³⁴
Time
magazine’s Lance Morrow said Hillary was “somewhere between Eleanor and Evita, transcending both,” and that her run for the Senate marked the moment “when the civilization pivots, at last, decisively—perhaps for the first time since the advent of Christian patriarchy two millenniums ago—toward Woman.”
³⁵

Conservatives are never disappointed because they never expect much from their leaders. They certainly don’t have sex dreams about them, or describe them as “rainbows.” Perhaps conservatives aren’t looking for a savior on the ballot because they already have one.

Most of the time, conservatives can barely tolerate their leaders. Republican presidents are lucky if their own party doesn’t move to impeach them. President Nixon lied once to the country, not under oath, and his own party demanded that he resign immediately. Bill Clinton lied repeatedly under oath in two depositions and a grand jury inquiry, and yet every single sitting Democratic senator voted to keep him in office. (Clinton also lied not under oath, to his friends, to his party, to his wife—we’re told—in public and in private.)

Although there may be enthusiasms about a popular Republican leader, the cultlike worship of politicians, common to mobs, is peculiar
to Democrats. Republicans didn’t even idolize Ronald Reagan, indisputably among the nation’s greatest presidents. Forget the warm nostalgia conservatives have for Reagan today, based on his record. There was no hero worship of the man at the time. Contrary to our whitewashed memories, Reagan was criticized early and often by conservatives—or “the New Right,” in the parlance of the day.

A year into office, the
Washington Post
ran an article about how Reagan’s favorite newspaper,
Human Events
, was devoting a lot of ink to attacking him. “Ronald Reagan’s ‘favorite newspaper,’ ” the
Post
said, “is giving him fits lately.” Although there weren’t “two more committed true-blue-Reaganite-to-the-core conservatives anywhere” than editors Thomas Winter and Allan Ryskind, the
Post
reported, Reagan himself had noticed the attacks, telling them, “I’m still reading you guys, but I’m enjoying it less.”
³⁶

At about the same point in Obama’s presidency, Obama singled out his cheerleading squad at MSNBC to praise them for providing “an invaluable service,” and keeping “our government honest.”
³⁷

A perusal of the headlines throughout Reagan’s presidency makes it clear that conservatives did not view even their most-admired president as a demigod. True, Obama gets the occasional fake denunciations from a few showoff liberal bloggers trying to prove what badass Marxists they are, but it is inconceivable that any Democratic president could produce this many headlines about liberal angst.

Try to imagine a stream of headlines about Obama and his base along the lines of this small sample from the Reagan years:

Conservatives Attack Reagan Appointees

—United Press International, February 25, 1981

“New Right” Disillusionment with Reagan Breaks into the Open

—Washington Post
, February 25, 1981

The Far Right Splits with Reagan

—United Press International, July 14, 1981

For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over

—Washington Post
, July 21, 1981

Conservatives Meeting to Discuss Disappointment with Reagan

—Associated Press, January 21, 1982

President Warned by Conservatives

—New York Times
, January 22, 1982

Conservatives Disappointed with Administration’s First Year Record

—United Press International, January 22, 1982

Is Reagan Betraying the Right?

—Washington Post
, January 27, 1982

Reagan Hears Thunder from the Right

—U.S. News & World Report
, February 1, 1982

When Mr. Conservative Is Too Liberal

—Christian Science Monitor
, February 26, 1982

Rumblings on the Right

—The National Journal
, March 13, 1982

New Right Meeting Grumbles About Reagan

—Washington Post
, July 28, 1982

Conservatives Blame White House for GOP Losses

—Associated Press, November 4, 1982

New Right Decides to Part Company with Reagan

—Miami Herald
, November 26, 1982

Leftward Drift of Reagan Decried; Some Conservatives Shop for a “New Face”

—Washington Post
, February 4, 1983

Reagan Bid Reopens Rift with Right

—New York Times
, February 19, 1983

Conservatives Criticize Reagan

—United Press International, September 4, 1983

New Right Disappointed by Reagan’s Reactions

—Washington Post
, September 6, 1983

Conservatives Divided on Support for Reagan

—Associated Press, September 11, 1983

The Right Is Really Sore at Reagan …

—Washington Post
, September 18, 1983

New Right Poll: Alarm Bells for Reagan

—Associated Press, October 13, 1983

Right Critical of Reagan in Hostage Crisis: Longtime Supporters Attack Policies

—Washington Post
, June 29, 1985

Even Conservatives Are Abandoning Ship

—Los Angeles Times
, December 9, 1986

Trouble on the Right

—U.S. News & World Report
, December 29, 1986

Baker Helping Reagan Renew Ties to Conservative Leaders

—Associated Press, March 30, 1987

Reagan Seeks to Calm His Right-Wing Critics

—Los Angeles Times
, September 6, 1987