Nymphos On The Honeymoon

by digby

I normally find Micheal Gerson to be one of the most sanctimonious jackasses in the Republican Party and always loathed the smarmy speeches he wrote for Junior that made the villagers swoon in breathless delight. But I have to give credit where credit is due for this felicitous turn of phrase:

So far, Obama is attempting to be a unifying national figure — in spite of his most insufferable supporters. “Indeed,” explains Joe Klein of Time magazine, “as the weeks have passed since the election, I’ve felt — as an urban creature myself — less restricted, less defensive. Empowered, almost. Is it possible that, as a nation, we’re shedding our childlike, rural innocence and becoming more mature, urban, urbane . . . dare I say it, sophisticated?” Indeed. Is it possible for a pundit to be more like a college freshman who has just discovered the pleasures of wine, co-ed dorms and Nietzsche — shedding the primitivism of his parents and becoming, dare I say it, an annoying adolescent?
Obama does not need the service of nymphomaniacs on his honeymoon. In 2009, he will require sober supporters — and loyal critics — to get through challenges that will not yield to charm.

(I don’t know why he wouldn’t want a nympho on the honeymoon, actually, but this is Michael Gerson and he’s very straightlaced so maybe he thinks too much pleasure is automatically a bad thing, I don’t know. But it is an evocative phrase until you think too much about it.)

He should have listened to his own advice, however, because let’s face it, stuff like this makes it a little bit difficult to take any Bush supporter’s criticism of starry eyed, hero worship seriously:

Nothing since Reagan has been as good in presidential oratory. The president’s speech writers crafted a luminescent call to arms. It was measured without being weak; it was moving without a trace of melodrama; it was stirring without being jingoist. And there was something about the president’s demeanor that suggested to me at last that he knows why he got this office. To speak of his growth at this point would be to condescend. He gets it. He means it. He knows what this war is fundamentally about. My cherished moment was when he rightly described this threat – and its twisted ideology – with the other great evils that have threatened freedom in the last century and before. “The unmarked grave of discarded lies” is a phrase that resonates deeply and truly. God bless the man and the country he finally indisputably leads.

(This is the kind of puerile drivel that turns people into cynics.)

It’s not that Klein and other city slickers (like me) don’t have a right to revel a little bit after years of beltway worship for pork rind scarfing Real Americans. There should be a few perks to winning. But as much as Gerson is hardly in a position to say it, his main point is true. Obama will need sober supporters and loyal critics. Just imagine how different things would have been if Bush had had some sober supporters and loyal critics instead of a cadre of sycophantic schoolkids drooling over his masterful manliness and a press corps that followed them around like wallflowers desperate for attention.

Hopeful idealism (and a strong sense of relief) is to be celebrated. But with eyes wide open and a willingness to call bullshit. Presidencies need this or they can become exercises in hubristic egomania inside the DC bubble and we’ve seen how well that worked out. I suspect that Gerson failed to see the irony of him preaching this particular sermon, but that’s just because he’s …. so him.

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