Some Forms of Idol Worship....

Some Forms of Idol Worship....

You would think that people would be embarrassed to publicly admit. This piece from the March 31, 2009 Washington Examiner is especially tragic:

Obama "walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere," George Clooney gushed to Charlie Rose.

"I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make [Obama’s] pathway clear,” Halle Berry recently told the Philadelphia Daily News, “I’ll do whatever he says.” (Does Michelle know about this?)

Hollywood stars aren’t known for their political wisdom. More disturbing is how starstruck the mainstream media has become. Hardball host Chris Matthews isn’t the only one who gets a “thrill” up his leg at the very thought of our new president.

Last summer, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford wrote that "Many spiritually advanced people I know … identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who … can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet."

The Politico recently ran a 900-word article entitled "The Power of Obama's Hand," reverentially describing how the president "uses touch to control and console simultaneously," laying hands on supporters and opponents alike.

And in February, author Judith Warner used her New York Times blog to confess that “The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs.”

Instead of keeping that information to herself, Warner “launched an email inquiry,” which revealed that “many women—not too surprisingly—were dreaming about sex with the president.”

Now, the article goes on to suggest that Bush's supporters were similarly embarrassing, and quotes some very gushing remarks about Bush in the short period after 9/11 when his leadership was actually pretty impressive. But none of these quotes even begins to approach the "laying on hands" craziness, or "follow him anywhere" nuttiness.

Of course, there are examples of people who had that kind of idol worship of political leaders in the past. "Uncle Joe" Stalin. Hitler. "The Great Helmsman" Mao Ze Dong. It is no surprise that the same leftists who admired all of these people (and Hitler, remember led a party that was until 1931, truly a National Socialist party) are much like the leftists who are drooling all over Obama.

I don't want to suggest that Obama is in the same category as those other objects of leftist worship. For one thing, those others were pretty competent at the day to day business of seizing power. Obama's competence level is so low that he makes Carter look like a competent politician; Bill Clinton look honest; and George W. Bush look like a master orator. (Bush didn't need his teleprompter to deliver three minute introductory remarks, and he could answer a question without dozens of "uh" "um" and similar verbal boo-boos.) To be fair, Obama is still more exciting than George H.W. Bush!

But the same worshipful reverence from the followers is there. About as close as I have ever seen on the Republican side was the way that some (like my father-in-law) gave Reagan the benefit of the doubt when I wasn't prepared to do so. And even that isn't at the level of craziness that the Obama dog whistle ("Inaudible to most, but irresistible to those who can hear it.") produces.

I call him the "Obamination of Desolation" as a wicked little pun on the phrase "abomination of desolation" that is used in Daniel and Revelations, not because I think Obama is the Antichrist (who will be, I'm sure, a vastly more competent administrator than Obama), but to make fun of the bizarre religious aura in which Obama's worshippers have cloaked him.

Back a couple of weeks ago, when I attended the Boise Tea Party, there was a guy walking his dog who stumbled into our little demonstration by accident. He had voted for Obama, and was beginning to realize that Obama was in way over his head. He told me that he had tried to talk some sense before the election into his Obama-worshipping friends--to emphasize that he was a politician, and couldn't walk on water. But he wasn't getting anywhere.