But He's So Dreamy!

It's a hard time for liberals when they're reduced to stuff like this:

Whatever my feelings about Obama's centrism I've got to say that he and Michelle really adorn the White House. As a couple they are just...well...magnificent and the children are fucking adorable (same age as my two so I really feel for them). The huffpo lineup of former first ladies and their dresses at these state dinners was like the evolution of humanity from grotesquely old and billowy faux victoriana to blooming, statuesque, youth.

Those words were written by a commenter on this post at alicublog, a hardcore Obama supporter and Democratic party loyalist. (No permalink, but it's on the first page of comments.) Now, I confess I paid tribute to the Obamas' charm (with due reservations on the table) before the killing, torture, jailing, and general suppression really got going, and his emptiness was confirmed once and for all. On one hand, slobbering about their glory like a courtier (who probably has never yet gotten within grovelling range of Himself, but evidently still Hopes) while brushing aside his "centrism" (! -- does she consider Dubya a centrist?) is obscene. On the other, even she recognizes that she has nothing else positive left to say about her Leader's policies and actions. Flattery: the last refuge of political apologists.

And then I found this on the FAIR blog. Obama's new press secretary is a former journalist, and married to a journalist. (Hell, why didn't he just appoint Rachel Maddow his new press secretary?) The writer, Peter Hart, then quotes Howard Fineman, whom we've heard from in these precincts before, and he's nothing if not consistent: always on the side of the cool kids, the In Crowd.

Among his other attributes, Jay Carney is a cool dancer. I know that because I saw him and his wife, Claire Shipman, getting down on the tented dance floor of a fancy Georgetown wedding years ago. Jay Carney, who went to Yale and was a foreign correspondent in Moscow, is--besides being smart, savvy, loyal and well-connected with the right sort--suave.

Don't touch that dial! There's more:

There are few better-connected couples in the Washington media and social scene than Carney and Shipman. Their children attend the Sidwell Friends School with the Obama girls. They are the kind of well-liked, Ivy-credentialed insiders who make the Tea Party boiling mad. But why should Obama care?

To my mind, there are better ways to infuriate the Teabaggers, but it doesn't surprise me that Obama chose this one.

Howie -- I'm sure he won't mind me calling him "Howie" -- concludes by comparing Carney and outgoing press guy Robert Gibbs.

Gibbs, the son of teachers at Auburn University, liked to celebrate Auburn football victories by wrapping White House trees in toilet paper. I could be wrong, but I don't think Jay has done or will do that for a victory over Harvard.

Well, I'm sure that at the very least Carney would have underlings TP the trees for him. When I was a child, I TP'ed trees as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things and let the servants do them on my behalf.