After so many years of fear and loathing, we had almost forgotten what it’s like to feel good about our country. On Thursday night, that long-dormant emotion came rushing back, like an old dream that pops out of the deepest recesses of memory, suddenly as clear as light. “They said this day would never come,” said Barack Obama, and yet here, right before us, was indisputable evidence that it had.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No one appreciates a good rush or buzz more than I, but apparently neither the unwashed masses nor the corporate media appreciate that mass euphoria is just a kinder, gentler form of mass hysteria. The flag-waving has begun, if it ever stopped: After so many years of fear and loathing, we had almost forgotten what it’s like to feel good about our country. On Thursday night, that long-dormant emotion came rushing back, like an old dream that pops out of the deepest recesses of memory, suddenly as clear as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-pW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/UntitledMustillCollage%20%28240%29.jpg\" "\\"'Untitled,'")
<\/a>That’s the red-white-and-blue lede in Frank Rich’s column<\/strong><\/font><\/a> this morning, as though Obamarama-cum-Huckababy could flush the B<\/strong><\/font><\/a>a<\/strong><\/font><\/a>n<\/strong><\/font><\/a>a<\/strong><\/font><\/a>n<\/strong><\/font><\/a>a<\/strong><\/font><\/a>R<\/strong><\/font><\/a>e<\/strong><\/font><\/a>p<\/strong><\/font><\/a>u<\/strong><\/font><\/a>b<\/strong><\/font><\/a>l<\/strong><\/font><\/a>i<\/strong><\/font><\/a>c<\/strong><\/font><\/a> down the drain with, he adds, a “palpable sense that our history was turning a page whether or not Mr. Obama or his doppelg\u00e4nger in improbability, Mike Huckabee, end up in the White House.”
\nPlease, Frank. Cut the bullshit<\/strong><\/font><\/a>. The winds of change don’t smell all that<\/i> good. Just read what George McGovern says<\/strong><\/font><\/a> this morning about impeaching the Bullshitter-in-Chief<\/strong><\/font><\/a> and Attack Dog<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, the chief’s partner in high crimes and misdemeanors. Or have a look at Norman O. Mustill’s collage, above. Maybe it will pop the nightmare instead of the dream “out of the deepest recesses of memory.”
\nFor all your shiny prose, dear Frank, and all your anti-establishment chest-thumping about the willful Beltway stupidity of mainstream political journalism — as though a polished reference to “fear and loathing” could channel Hunter S. Thompson — your column sounds a helluva lot like that old-time religion<\/strong><\/font><\/a>.
\n(Crossposted at HuffPo)<\/strong><\/font><\/a><\/p>\n
\nPostscript:<\/strong> A reader who goes by the moniker “LittleBrother” writes, per the HuffPo posting:<\/p>\n
\nMoreover, “media” and “mania” only differ by two letters — mass media not only gloms on to any form of “mania”, but incorporates it into a self-propelling, self-inflating, self-confirming mega-mania.
\nThus, in the course of a single week, Mr. Obama becomes the Feel-Good Hit of the new year.
\nDo the lemming-like hordes enthralled by their lemming-herders not remember what we wound up with after the last “Morning in America”?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"