David Brooks on Hope-amine Madness

Dudes, don't stare at that picture for too long. You'll have a freak-out.

But this is so funny.

The afflicted had already been through the phases of Obama-mania — fainting at rallies, weeping over their touch screens while watching Obama videos, spending hours making folk crafts featuring Michelle Obama’s face. These patients had experienced intense surges of hope-amine, the brain chemical that fuels euphoric sensations of historic change and personal salvation.

But they found that as the weeks went on, they needed more and purer hope-injections just to preserve the rush. They wound up craving more hope than even the Hope Pope could provide, and they began experiencing brooding moments of suboptimal hopefulness. Anxious posts began to appear on the Yes We Can! Facebook pages. A sense of ennui began to creep through the nation’s Ian McEwan-centered book clubs.

The description of Hillary as Richard Nixon is satisfying. But it gets better.

As the syndrome progresses, they begin to ask questions about The Presence himself:

Barack Obama vowed to abide by the public finance campaign-spending rules in the general election if his opponent did. But now he’s waffling on his promise. Why does he need to check with his campaign staff members when deciding whether to keep his word?

Obama says he is practicing a new kind of politics, but why has his PAC sloshed $698,000 to the campaigns of the superdelegates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics? Is giving Robert Byrd’s campaign $10,000 the kind of change we can believe in?

If he values independent thinking, why is his the most predictable liberal vote in the Senate? A People for the American Way computer program would cast the same votes for cheaper.

Obama donates $10K to former Klansman Byrd. File that under only in America. Of course, none of Obama's ancestors got lynched by Byrd's drankin' buddies. But this is a digression. I know the GOP is not immaculate, but I'm just glad I'm a member of a party without this "super-delegate" sham.

But Brooks goes on to point out that as much lip service as Obama pays to bringing everyone together, he has been conspicuously absent on most of the hands-across-the-aisle deals in the Senate. Judging from the record, his ideological purity rivals that of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. And speaking of Republicans, if there are as many "Obamacans" out there as the Obama camp is claiming, I have a public service announcement for them: "Don't take the brown acid!"