Though I Do Agree Americans Should Be Polled Regularly. And At Length.

George Eff Will, Leading "Conservative" Intellectual, "Obama's Apogee in His Rearview Mirror". July 1

EFF, you say:

If Obama has a second term, it probably will be, as most are, more difficult than the first, during which his party’s brand has been badly damaged in just 17 months. The 22nd Amendment renders reelected presidents instant lame ducks. Public boredom is induced by the incontinent talkativeness of those who occupy the modern rhetorical presidency. And power seeps from reelected presidents as attention turns to selecting their successors.

So, naturally, it would surprise you to note that in the run-up to the 2004 election Will was anticipating--oh, do not get ahead of me!--George W. Bush finally being able to concentrate on his Domestic Agenda Plain-Talking Texas Awesomeness (now that all that forced focus on International Unpleasantness was behind him), solving Social Security (by turning it over to Just the Man for the Job: Alan Greenspan!), and reforming Taxes and Welfare. (How ironic, then, that these would prove the twin sticking posts which would drag his Grand Domestic Schemes down! If only Public Assistance and High Taxes hadn't crashed the Global economy!) Followed by the natural withering of the Democratic Party when its Tax and Spend Lifeline is permanently kinked shut.

Sure, sure, the first instance speaks of "most" second terms being more difficult; the second of the specific salivary prospects of George War President Bush being unleashed on domestic enemies. Still, it's not exactly unreasonable to expect the general principle of 2010 to've tempered your views in 2004.

And if you don't like general objections, try the specific on for size: by 2004 Bush's popularity had plunged below 50%, on its way to Historic Levels of Suck; it briefly revived just in time for the election. His days of hiding behind The Day That Changed Everything were rather clearly numbered. You might think a paid political observer of whatever stripe would've noticed.

(Is there even any reason to point this shit out anymore? The Daily Show can do this nightly if it wishes, just by having an intern monitor Fox and Friends, tempered only by the Law of Diminishing Comedic Returns. These people are liars, ever' las' one of 'em. And in a culture which has decided the penalty for that is thirty years on This Week, the only response is that there can be no more appealing to "facts". And whom does this benefit? "Conservatism" and its intellectuals? The Republic? As we've noted here before, Mr. Will, it's you guys who insist you believe that Lying can send you to a Lake of Fire for All Eternity.)

The remainder of Obama’s first term will be complicated by this November’s elections. Turnout in this nonpresidential year will be significantly smaller than in 2008. The largest declines will be among young and minority voters who were energized by Obama being on the ballot. So this year’s turnout will be older, whiter—and more conservative.

Speaking of Gehenna fire, it's where people who now insist Obama was elected by young, idealistic idiots belong. Right next to the people who two years ago were celebrating the fact that young, idealistic idiots were going to drive a national election.

Many conservatives were too dispirited to vote in 2008.

Yeah, We let you guys win.

Not now.

Look, we don't engage in this kind of shit, and we wish George Effing Will wouldn't either. But we realize this "the Real America thinks exactly as I do" is either in "Conservatism's" DNA, or his bowtie's been on too tight. Why aren't "conservatives" still dispirited? Their party's still in the hands of microencephalics, mule traders, fast-food culture "personalities", and various mixes of all three; it has already proven in spades it can't govern, and its ideas are toxic. If Sarah Palin doesn't want the 2012 nomination her All-Powerful Endorsement Powers might determine where it will go, and she'll still get her own night at the Convention. You're facing the prospect, at best, of achieving Congressional majorities which won't be filibuster or veto proof (though they will have the advantage, as always, of having the Democratic party as opponents), and every Obama veto will make him look like the last goddam hope of Moribund Sanity. (Fuck, that could've been his plan All Along. Nothing else explains it.)

Gallup reports a four-poll average of 59 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents saying that this year they are unusually enthusiastic about voting, the highest number Gallup has recorded for a midterm election since the earthquake year of 1994, when Republicans gained 54 House seats. In Gallup’s June poll, 53 percent of Republicans said they were unusually enthusiastic, 39 percent said they were less; 35 percent of Democrats said they were unusually enthusiastic, 56 percent said they were less. The Republicans’ net of plus 14 more enthusiastic compared with the Democrats’ negative 21 is the largest party advantage Gallup has ever recorded for a midterm election.

Which still doesn't make it anything but gibberish, George.

As a theory, the swift and total opposition to everything Barack Obama touched will prove to be a mistake, in that 1) you were bound to pick up seats in the midterms anyway, building toward Palin/Daniels '12; but now you've already begun wearing out your welcome ahead of time, and 2) you've got nowhere to go, and you don't know how to stop yourselves from going there, over and over. Your solutions don't work. Only your complaints do, on occasion. And in practice, well, George: your people are assholes. They couldn't keep their mouths shut about Barack the Magic Negro even when they imagined he was the wildly popular focus of a temporary mass Messianic delusion. What're they gonna do when they imagine they almost have him pinned?

The Teabagger shit won't hold, George; you didn't do a goddam bit of self-reevaluation after the utter public failure of "conservative" truths which was the Bush administration. Somebody somewhere in your party needs to get it to stop jumping at every shiny mirage of Returning to Reaganite Glory, and start working on how to effectively govern the country. The real country, not the one you imagine. And at this point it's becoming clear that'll have to wait for the first generation of "conservatives" who can't remember who th' fuck Reagan was.