Lovin Obama
by digby
It seems that everywhere I turn professional Republicans are falling all over themselves about how much the love our president elect. While I don't doubt that many GOP members of the public are enthusiastic, let's just say I'm a little bit skeptical that all these beltway insiders are being altogether sincere in their praise.
Newtie started the trend with his little scold to the RNC about the Blogjevich controversy, which I explained here. It's a ploy, don't believe it. When you see snakes like Alex Castellanos saying this, watch your back:
MALVEAUX: He's an electrifying figure. He does have celebrity status as we've seen. How does he use that to his advantage as president? How does he turn all that attention and magnetism that surrounds this figure and become an effective communicator reaching out to the American people?
CASTELLANOS: It's such a great gift. Reagan had it, John F. Kennedy had it. It's become very valuable to a country when it's uncertain about its future. How does he use it? Look at the way he's using it now. There was interesting research done that said the president's job is to be half late night talk show host, half Moses. He gathers the country together, share the common stories of the country, then say here is where we're going to go. How does he use this stature, celebrity, you inspire? You don't stop campaigning because just the campaign is over. You still communicate regularly with the country. It's not about policy. Say, hey, here is the future. We're going to go over here. Follow me. He's doing that, and I think that's an important part of leadership in this uncertain world.
That's the guy who did the infamous "rats" ad in the 2004 election. The look on his face was so sour, you could see he was going to have to have a stiff shot after the show to wipe the taste of those words out of his mouth. He's the guy who said that calling Hillary Clinton a bitch was just a descriptive term. If anyone thinks this guy (or Pat Robertson) has been converted, think again. They are doing this for political purposes. They want to make sure that he owns the next couple of years, which are likely to be very tough. They will obstruct, of course, but all this happy talk is a pretense designed to appease the masses who are hoping against hope that Obama can turn this ship around.
(Again, I'm not suggesting that a regular people don't love Obama. Obviously they do and it's a huge advantage. but I certainly hope that nobody is fooled that professional political assassins like Castellanos are caught up in it.)
.