During the Presidential campaign, we warned more than once that people around the country were projecting their hopes and expectations into an empty vessel - Barack Obama.  There wasn't much published in the main stream media about Obama's background.  Not they he didn't have a background, but just that the media made the cognitive decision not to inform the public about who this candidate really was - his affiliations, his voting record, what there was of it, and the hard details of his lack of experience in national and global policy making.  It was ok for the New York Times to delve into salacious rumors and innuendo about infidelity by candidate John McCain.  And it was ok to delve into the Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palins' family troubles, some even going so far as to question the paternal origins of her youngest child.  All the while Obama's family history and doings was strictly off limits, as declared by Obama himself, and obediently adhered to by leftist media.  This is but one example the media manipulating the masses to cast doubt on Obama's opponents while stonewalling any news regarding Obama that might prove less than appealing for a person aspiring to be President of the United States of America.  However, while the media is duplicitous in the causes of Barack Obama, they are only successfully so because a lazy populace allowed them to get away with it.  If we see the obvious, others can too, if only they would invest the time to look past headlines and sound-bites designed to manipulate.         

Those pesky wretched few right wingers in the media who were poo-pooed (and worse) when they had the audacity to suggest Obama's past and then current affiliations with a variety of radicals pointed the way to what an Obama administration might be like, turned out to be mostly correct (so far).  Those who projected centrist into the Obama psyche turned out to be as wrong as we knew they were.

Now, still less than the magical hundred days in, the disillusioned "conservatives" who felt the country was better off with Obama than McCain are having voter regrets.  And the left of center Democrats are also distressed by what they've seen so far out of the Obama Administration.  Even one or two folks who count themselves as die-hard liberals are mumbling 'whoa' at what has transpired thus far.  How ironic that the disillusioned intelligentsia in conservative ranks have had their self-illusion about Obama punctured by Obama himself.    Of course, we will never know if McCain would have governed better, though we are hard-pressed to imagine a worse 50 days for a new President and his administration in modern history.  At least a few talking heads have had the guts to admit their folly.

And here we sit, fairly obscure bloggers, without national pedigree or pathos, who saw the painfully obvious truth while big names, some of whom get paid a lot of money for their "analysis" of current events, chose to stick their heads in the sand, and literally fool themselves into supporting a socialist for President.

So, now we have a socialist as President, and we are stuck with him for the next four years.   Few things energize a group more than the perception of a clear and present danger to their way of life.  Obama has erred by pulling hard left.  Though he has won early victories in the cause of socialism, his actions have served to re-energize the conservative ranks still hung-over by the Bush Administration, and it's own heady failures.  Just as with the opening of World War II, when America was dealt a surprise and heavy blow, then faced defeat after defeat before finding her footing and crushing her enemies, conservatives may very well wind up repeating history.

We are beginning to understand why Obama identifies most with President Lincoln.  But that is for another post, coming soon.

"An ignorant populace cannot sustain a democracy."