by Ann Coulter
It is impossible to imagine any conservative describing any Republican in such teeny-bopper patois. Haley Barbour is like totally the dreamiest! And did you see the way he hugs men? But it’s never-ending with the Party of the Mob. Reporting on Senator Teddy Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama in 2008, ABC’s David Wright said, “Today, the audacity of hope had its rendezvous with destiny. The Kennedy clan anointed Barack Obama a son of Camelot.”18 On ABC’s Good Morning America, anchor George Stephanopoulos said of Obama’s incoming cabinet, “We have not seen this kind of combination of star power and brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet in our lifetimes.”19 (He left out “affinity for evading taxes.”)
It’s almost like a “Can You Top This” game with liberals describing their political idols. In a Time magazine cover story, reporter Nancy Gibbs compared Obama to Jesus—and not sarcastically, the way the rest of us do. The article began, “Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope.”20 Of course, as the leader of twelve apostles, even Jesus had more executive experience than Obama. (But I’m sure the risen Christ appreciated the shout-out.)
Run-of-the-mill Democrats behave the exact same way. Time magazine’s Walter Shapiro reported that the “swooning and the cooing on the rope lines during the last days of the Clinton campaign were unavoidably reminiscent of Kennedy. In Louisville, Kentucky, the scene seemed out of Beatlemania.”21 Except that when one of the Beatles claimed they were bigger than Jesus, people got upset. Newsweek’s Joe Klein talked about the “emotional connection” crowds had for Clinton.22 The Washington Post’s Phil McCombs described the Democratic crowds pouring out to glimpse Bill Clinton: “To watch this President connect with people emotionally is an awesome thing.”23 (And if you think that’s awesome, you should see the guy dry-hump a cocktail waitress in an elevator.)
But Clinton was just a hustler from Arkansas compared with Obama. Barack’s supporters posted endless YouTube tributes to him, taught schoolchildren to sing paeans to him, wore Obama T-shirts for their mug shots, cried and fainted at his speeches. “You can see it in the crowds,” ABC’s Terry Moran said on Nightline of Senator Barack Obama’s supporters. “The thrill, the hope. How they surge toward him. You’re looking at an American political phenomenon.… He inspires the party faithful and many others, like no one else on the scene today.” Except maybe Kanye West, I would have added if anyone had asked me. Moran continued, “Around here, they’re even naming babies after him.”24 At that point, Obama hadn’t even been in the Senate for two full years.
NBC anchor Brian Williams reported that in Berlin Obama “brought throngs of people” into the center of the city, “surging to get close to him, to hear his message.… I heard one American reporter tonight say it’s hard to come up with a list of others who could draw such a crowd, but then again it’s hard to know what we witnessed here today.”25 Wasn’t there another political leader who brought out the crowds like that in Berlin once?
Harold Koplewicz, president of the Child Mind Institute, explained the liberal esteem for Obama by saying, “He was going to end war, end the recession, improve education, improve our image to the world, and provide universal health care. Whether or not he could actually do it wasn’t important. It was the belief in him that was.”26 Well, exactly. When a guy’s that good at making promises, who cares about actual results? Bush lied, kids died! Go green!
It’s remarkable how similar it is for nearly every Democratic president.
Giving President Andrew Jackson the strange new label of “rock star,” his biographer Jon Meacham reports that this father of the Democratic Party drew “staggering” crowds of admirers, with one newspaper describing Jackson as “happy in their affections and loving them with all a parent’s love.”27
A parent’s love? What is it with these Democrats? It is nothing more than the mass psychosis of a mob.
In a YouTube video made by actor Ashton Kutcher just after Obama’s inauguration, dozens of Hollywood celebrities pledged “to be a servant to our president and all mankind.”28 It was like something out of an Aztec festival of the gods—if what the Aztec gods wanted was for Hollywood actresses like Eva Longoria to use “less bottled water.”
I don’t remember Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope producing a video pledging themselves to be servants of Ronald Reagan. In fact, if anyone had ever made a video with people reading the exact same lines as Demi and Ashton’s friends about a Republican president, MSNBC would be running specials on the rise of fascism in America. I mean, even more than it does now. Reagan won the Cold War, rescued the economy, set the country on a decades-long path of peace and prosperity, and was a terrific speaker. And yet Republicans were able to listen to him give a speech without fainting.
In his book Obama Zombie: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation, Jason Mattera describes liberal blogger Michael Whack’s giddy account of his encounter with Obama at a 2008 campaign event. After seeing “the guy” in front of him shake Obama’s hand, Whack wrote:
As the guy drew back his hand I asked him, “You shook his hand didn’t you?” Happily the guy said “Yes.” I then said, “give me some of that” and the guy shook my hand with the same hand he had just clasped with Barack’s. A woman friend of mine who was standing next to me saw me shake hands with the guy. I turned to her and said “He [the guy] just shook hands with Barack,” to which she responded … “Hey, give it up.” We then shook hands. She then turned to the person next to her and shook hands. This chain of handshakes went on for about five or six more persons.29
Democrats would drink Obama’s bathwater.
Perhaps it is because they don’t believe in the real God that liberals are compelled to turn so many humans into living deities. Elena Kagan, liberal Supreme Court justice, said she “sat down and wept” when Liz Holtzman lost the 1980 election for the U.S. Senate.30 Can you imagine John Roberts crying when G.H.W. Bush lost his reelection bid in 1992? For that matter, can you imagine even Barbara Bush crying over that?
When California Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein won their 1992 primary elections for the U.S. Senate, Time magazine’s Margaret Carlson said she felt “a rush, an exultation, that surpassed any political moment I have ever known.”31 Uma Thurman proclaimed Al Gore “adorable” and “sexy,” saying that looking at him was like “watching a beautiful racehorse run.”32 (A racehorse who came in second in a two-horse race in 2000.)
Margaret Carlson called Hillary “the icon of American womanhood”—an “amalgam of Betty Crocker, Mother Teresa and Oliver Wendell Holmes.”33 (That last one perhaps explaining why Hillary always wears pants.) The Washington Post’s Martha Sherrill said Hillary was “replacing Madonna as our leading cult figure.”34 Time magazine’s Lance Morrow said Hillary was “somewhere between Eleanor and Evita, transcending both,” and that her run for the Senate marked the moment “when the civilization pivots, at last, decisively—perhaps for the first time since the advent of Christian patriarchy two millenniums ago—toward Woman.”35
Conservatives are never disappointed because they never expect much from their leaders. They certainly don’t have sex dreams about them, or describe them as “rainbows.” Perhaps conservatives aren’t looking for a savior on the ballot because they already have one.
Most of the time, conservatives can barely tolerate their leaders. Republican presidents are lucky if their own party doesn’t move to impeach them. President Nixon lied once to the country, not under oath, and his own party demanded that he resign immediately. Bill Clinton lied repeatedly under oath in two depositions and a grand jury inquiry, and yet every single sitting Democratic senator voted to keep him in office. (Clinton also lied not under oath, to his friends, to his party, to his wife—we’re told—in public and in private.)
Although there may be enthusiasms about a popular Republican leader, the cultlike worship of politicians, common to mobs, is peculiar to Democrats. Republicans d
idn’t even idolize Ronald Reagan, indisputably among the nation’s greatest presidents. Forget the warm nostalgia conservatives have for Reagan today, based on his record. There was no hero worship of the man at the time. Contrary to our whitewashed memories, Reagan was criticized early and often by conservatives—or “the New Right,” in the parlance of the day.
A year into office, the Washington Post ran an article about how Reagan’s favorite newspaper, Human Events, was devoting a lot of ink to attacking him. “Ronald Reagan’s ‘favorite newspaper,’ ” the Post said, “is giving him fits lately.” Although there weren’t “two more committed true-blue-Reaganite-to-the-core conservatives anywhere” than editors Thomas Winter and Allan Ryskind, the Post reported, Reagan himself had noticed the attacks, telling them, “I’m still reading you guys, but I’m enjoying it less.”36
At about the same point in Obama’s presidency, Obama singled out his cheerleading squad at MSNBC to praise them for providing “an invaluable service,” and keeping “our government honest.”37
A perusal of the headlines throughout Reagan’s presidency makes it clear that conservatives did not view even their most-admired president as a demigod. True, Obama gets the occasional fake denunciations from a few showoff liberal bloggers trying to prove what badass Marxists they are, but it is inconceivable that any Democratic president could produce this many headlines about liberal angst.
Try to imagine a stream of headlines about Obama and his base along the lines of this small sample from the Reagan years:
Conservatives Attack Reagan Appointees
—United Press International, February 25, 1981
“New Right” Disillusionment with Reagan Breaks into the Open
—Washington Post, February 25, 1981
The Far Right Splits with Reagan
—United Press International, July 14, 1981
For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over
—Washington Post, July 21, 1981
Conservatives Meeting to Discuss Disappointment with Reagan
—Associated Press, January 21, 1982
President Warned by Conservatives
—New York Times, January 22, 1982
Conservatives Disappointed with Administration’s First Year Record
—United Press International, January 22, 1982
Is Reagan Betraying the Right?
—Washington Post, January 27, 1982
Reagan Hears Thunder from the Right
—U.S. News & World Report, February 1, 1982
When Mr. Conservative Is Too Liberal
—Christian Science Monitor, February 26, 1982
Rumblings on the Right
—The National Journal, March 13, 1982
New Right Meeting Grumbles About Reagan
—Washington Post, July 28, 1982
Conservatives Blame White House for GOP Losses
—Associated Press, November 4, 1982
New Right Decides to Part Company with Reagan
—Miami Herald, November 26, 1982
Leftward Drift of Reagan Decried; Some Conservatives Shop for a “New Face”
—Washington Post, February 4, 1983
Reagan Bid Reopens Rift with Right
—New York Times, February 19, 1983
Conservatives Criticize Reagan
—United Press International, September 4, 1983
New Right Disappointed by Reagan’s Reactions
—Washington Post, September 6, 1983
Conservatives Divided on Support for Reagan
—Associated Press, September 11, 1983
The Right Is Really Sore at Reagan …
—Washington Post, September 18, 1983
New Right Poll: Alarm Bells for Reagan
—Associated Press, October 13, 1983
Right Critical of Reagan in Hostage Crisis: Longtime Supporters Attack Policies
—Washington Post, June 29, 1985
Even Conservatives Are Abandoning Ship
—Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1986
Trouble on the Right
—U.S. News & World Report, December 29, 1986
Baker Helping Reagan Renew Ties to Conservative Leaders
—Associated Press, March 30, 1987
Reagan Seeks to Calm His Right-Wing Critics
—Los Angeles Times, September 6, 1987
Reagan’s Arms-Control Dream Is Nightmare for Conservatives
—Washington Post, November 30, 1987
There would never be such unremitting criticism of Kennedy or Clinton—to say nothing of the angel Obama—from the Democratic base.
By September of Reagan’s first year of office, he was not even the most popular conservative in the country. According to a poll by the Conservative Digest of more than a thousand of its readers, the Reverend Jerry Falwell was No. 1 and William F. Buckley was No. 2. Then Reagan.38
By contrast, in Obama’s first year in office, he was consistently voted the most popular human on the planet. Even before becoming president, Obama was showered with awards. He won not one but two “Best Spoken Word Album” Grammy awards for his audiobooks, Dreams from My Father (2006) and The Audacity of Hope (2008). (He then gave the least profanity-laced acceptance speech of any African-American Grammy winner in history.)
His concession speech after the New Hampshire primary was turned into a music video, which won an Emmy Award. In 2008, the Obama yard sign/bumper sticker became a status symbol accessory like a Prius, solar panels on your house, or an adopted Malawian baby.
Throughout 2009, headlines incessantly announced, “Obama by Far the Most Popular Political Leader in Europe and U.S.; No Other Head of Government Comes Close.” Liberals around the globe worshipped Obama, and suddenly America became the most admired country in the world, jumping six places to do so.39 Obama even won a Nobel Peace Prize based on his first twelve days in office.
Like a first-time bestselling author obsessively checking Amazon rankings, liberals were transfixed by Obama’s sky-high popularity, commissioning poll after poll on the subject in February, April, May, and December of 2009. The last such poll taken seems to have come in April 2010, when Obama’s worldwide popularity began to sink. At home in the United States, the Dalai Lama beat Obama, who merely tied with Hillary Clinton at 57 percent. And so the poll was taken no more.40
Also during his first year in office, Obama was named “the sexiest politician in the world” by OnePoll.com.41 His wife Michelle was named one of the “100 Sexiest Women on the Planet” by Maxim magazine, which called her “the hottest First Lady in the history of these United States.” Obama was the runaway winner of Gallup News’s Most Admired Man poll in both 2008 and 2009.42 He came in fifth in Jockey International’s “Celebrity Dad Most Women Want to See in Their Undies” list, just behind Brad Pitt, Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Jackman, and Will Smith.43
Obama was more popular than Justin Bieber (and for my money, a hundred times dreamier!).
A few years into Obama’s failed presidency, liberals were still besotted. Washington Post readers got this crucial update in the October 12, 2010, edition: “The moment was vintage Obama—emphasizing his zest for inquiry, his personal involvement, his willingness to make the tough call, his search for middle ground. If an Obama brand exists, it is his image as a probing, cerebral President conducting an exhaustive analysis of the issues so that the best ideas can emerge, and triumph.”44
Who knows what issue was being probed, what zestful inquiry instigated, or what tough call being made. For all we know, he was deciding which flavor ice cream to order during the next geopolitical crisis. The point was: Obama was a dreamboat.
The Left’s passionate adoration of President Obama—and Clinton, FDR, JFK, Hillary, Teddy Kennedy, and on and on—are the primitive emotions of a mob. These are sentiments generally associated with women, children, and savages, according to Le Bon. It’s not an accident that when Republicans of all stripes—Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and C
hristine O’Donnell—choose an epithet for Democrats, it’s to call them women. Everyone sees it: Democrats are a mob.
The flip side of liberals turning their own leaders into icons is that they also “consider as enemies all by whom [their dogmas] are not accepted.”45
Being a successful president, Reagan was detested by liberals. There were mob protests throughout Reagan’s presidency in all the usual hotspots—Germany, Spain, Italy, London, New York, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, and Madison. Month after month, filthy wastrels hurled paint and projectiles at police, smashed windows, burned Reagan in effigy, and vandalized military bases—pausing occasionally for a round of “We Are the World.”
Forget that liberal mobs are always on the wrong side—protesting, for example, Reagan’s bombing of poor, innocent Libya in retaliation for Moammar Khadafy’s murdering U.S. servicemen. One does not see conservatives out smashing windows, throwing rocks, or vandalizing buildings even in support of a good cause—such as bombing Khadafy.
Decades later, liberals would force one another to retract the mildest praise of Reagan. During the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, Obama cited Reagan’s “clarity” and “optimism,” and liberals reacted as if he had praised Hitler. Hillary instantly launched TV and radio ads accusing Obama of actually liking Reagan.
Obama was soon forced to deny that he had ever had any warm thoughts whatsoever about Reagan. “What I said,” Obama bleated during a Democrat debate, “is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to.… I spent a lifetime fighting, a lifetime against Ronald Reagan’s policies.”
Meanwhile, Republicans issue constant, nauseating praise for FDR and Kennedy.
Depending on who’s in the White House, the enemy of the liberal mob is either the president or the people. Americans are either enlightened truth-seekers or racist, paranoid haters. “Dissent is patriotic” only when a Republican is president, and we must have “respect for the office” only when a Democrat is president.