It must be very strange to be a very stable genius…
by digby
Does everyone remember this bit of fatuous nonsense from the right wing Powerline blog back in 2005?
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
That notoriously idiotic post made the rounds in the blogosphere for many years as an example of the Bush worship that characterized the era.
Now we have a president who declares himself a genius and his supporters are naturally following his lead:
Brett Baier, who has carved out a profitable sideline moonlighting as a Presidential historian, reeled off what he sees as striking parallels between Trump and Reagan, and his book makes much of everything from their “similar rhetoric in big speeches” to tough media coverage and a shared penchant for being “underestimated.” Decades after many of the details about precisely what happened in Reagan’s eight-year Presidency, in the twilight of the Cold War, have faded from public memory, he remains an exalted figure in the Republican pantheon. Most significantly, Baier argues, Reagan met with the Soviets, but only after years of talking tough about the “evil empire.” A generation later, Trump may be poised for his own expectation-scrambling summitry with the North Korean leader, an example Baier and some Trump partisans portray as a modern-day equivalent of Reagan’s policy of “peace through strength.” “Heads were exploding back when Reagan was elected, and heads are exploding now,” Baier said, as we talked about the twin challenges of covering Trump, a President “unlike any we’ve ever seen…”
Yeah, Reagan and Bush weren’t geniuses and neither is Trump. But Trump isn’t just similarly simple minded, he’s also got serious personality problems, is corrupt to his core and completely unprepared for political leadership.
But that won’t stop them from creating a completely unbelievable hagiorgraphy. It’s already started. Oh god.
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