How about we make the first Wednesday in November NATIONAL PUNDITRY AWARENESS DAY?This idea could really take off: people love punditry and rarely get enough of it. Why not also celebrate punditry instead of just reading it, hearing it, and watching it? Pundit parades. Best pundit costume. Pundit punch. Pundit songs, pundit marches, pundit races.
Here's some punditry of my own.
In D.C., the striking thing for us visitors and denizens has been the disparity in energy levels between election day and the day after. The Obamans who nearly climbed on my car Tuesday night seem utterly worn out, and dispirited. I had expected the kind of office/street excitement yesterday that you see after some team wins some playoff. Little clusters around the water cooler. High fives. Animated chatter.
None of that here. Exhaustion (?) and introspection reign.
I have to salute Onion TV with it's dead-on simulationcast, "Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are." If you look at the lifeless shuffling in the background of some scenes you'll get a good picture of DC the day after.
Another way to look at this is that this week's surge voters - who are normally disengaged - have faded back into their non-political wallpaper.
Brian Maloney, quoting Rush L, says "... Obama's 'progressive' left will be forced to find new outlets for their eternal rage and anger."
Ah, not so sure about finding. They have been lining those ducks up for months. The proper form is to say,
Obama is not a leftist, would that he were; he is a liberal pragmatist [grimace, head shake].Inference: I will turn on him at the first sign of liberalism or pragmatism.
I have heard that nearly verbatim, from professors on O'Reilly and on Pacifica. It is a hunting license issued to self in the name of "progressive conscience." BHO "sold out" his progressive intimates. Never mind whether it's true. The preparations continue.
I believe the Left knows that Obama is less Daffy and more Bugs; that any plunge into wabbit season may result in a series of Fudd-like accidents.
In this line, Democracy Now! had a little segment yesterday on (my rendering) "How are we going to manage our Obama problem without hurting ourselves?" How to keep BHO out of the liberal carrot patch?
We might understand their worries better if we distinguished between Liberal and Left views, but in a world of two-syllable political analysis, talking heads, and garden-variety talk radio, that is not possible.
Some may see a reprise of the first Clinton election here, a president with an intensely hostile opposition and a deeply suspicious left wing. Needless to say, Obama lacks Clinton's political skills and he is going to have problems with the Congressional leadership.
All we need now is a Newt.
