Honey, I Shrunk the President

Wall Street Journal ^ | October 4, 2012 | JAMES TARANTO

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.....We could spend hours quoting disparaging reviews of Obama's performances from journalists who were never as head-over-heels as Matthews and Sullivan, but we like to pretend as if we have space constraints, so we'll just take one representative example,...Tunku Varadarajan writes: "My God, in the four years that we've seen him in the White House, I don't think we've ever seen the president so flaccid, so dull-brained, so jejune, so shifty, so downcast."

This columnist has to disagree. Obama's lame performance last night seemed typical to us. We can think of a few occasions in which we've seen the president less flaccid, less dull-brained, less jejune, less shifty, less downcast. But only a few.

But these qualities--or, to put it another way, this lack of quality--was harder than usual to miss last night because of the contrast with the highly effectual Romney. One reason it came as such a shock to Obama is that it was the first time in his career that he shared a debate stage with a serious opponent.

...... The test he failed last night is one to which he had never been put.

But the journalists who are pointing the finger at Obama have three fingers pointed back at themselves. Instead of challenging the president, the press corps--with a few honorable exceptions,like ABC's Jake Tapper and the guys from Univision--have spent the past four-plus years puffing him up and making excuses for him. The American Spectator's Jeffrey Lord explains:

>>>"The great James Taranto...long ago posited what is called the "Taranto Principle." In short, it means that the liberal media so coddles liberal politicians that they have no idea how to cope outside that liberal media bubble...

Barack Obama has been so totally coddled by the liberal media that he looked absolutely shell-shocked in this debate. Stunned,unhappy,angry,sour--and at some points genuinely incoherent..........."<<<<<

[lentulusgracchus]

Mark Levin holds Hannity in high regard as guess what? A conservative. Is mark wrong about Sean?

Well, to say someone has the Good Housekeeping Seal of Lie-beral Refusal from a die-hard, come-and-get-me-you-faggy-bastards conservative like Levin no doubt means something, but I've just formed a different impression of Hannity during the primaries, and I came to the conclusion he wants to align with the RiNO High Command and beat Democrats, rather than take it to them (as you say he has done, but I never have heard him do that).

I still think Hannity's position, shorn of self-applied labels and recusal to register as a Republican, has been, over the last year, largely MOR Establishment Republican, aligned with Romney and Hugh Christie and Alan Simpson and his Loggie pals. Sorry, but I think that's where Hannity comes from. He wants to talk about "economic" and "fiscal" not "social" conservatism, and if socons and traditional morality -- the foundation-block of the Republic -- fall off the truck, well, that's politics, that's life, and the constitution and society 'grow', you know. There are no bright red lines for Sean, I don't think. I think he's a relativist.