How Are the Doughy Fallen

So President Obama was delivered of a State of the Union address this week, ably dissected as usual by Whatever It Is I'm Against It. (Can you believe it? When George W. Bush shambled off into history and Obama replaced him in the Oval Office, WIIIAI worried that he would have trouble finding good satirical material in the new President's speeches and behavior. That didn't last long, and besides, we'll always have the Republican debates.)

Roy Edroso's mission is to find funny and stupid material in the writings of right-wing Republican politicians, pundits, and bloggers -- shooting fish in a barrel, in effect. Occasionally he strays, as when he calls the 2012 SOTU "snoozy." But that's only on the way to making fun of National Review's legacy blogger Jonah Goldberg, known to the wits at alicublog as Doughy Pantload, for attacking Obama's celebration of the American military as an encroachment of Liberal Fascist Collectivism, blah blah blah.

It seems, though, that even liberal Democrats are losing enthusiasm for the increasingly unrewarding task of exalting Obama. One commenter began his attack on Goldberg by describing Obama's militarism as "a simple--and bullshit--rhetorical point in a staged Speech Event." Partly that's just rhetoric itself, of course: you pretend that what your guy said was no big deal compared to your opponent's crazy ranting: "... part of a secret plan by a Kenyan anti-colonialist to militarize America, because liberals." But still. After years of Obama's devotees telling us what a great orator he is, "a simple--and bullshit--rhetorical point in a staged Speech Event" strikes a note of exhaustion. Okay, yeah, he's a pompous blowhard. You wanna make something of it? But there's nothing we can do, because Republicans. Take up your pom-poms, girls -- it's going to be a long nine months.