David Brooks has confused the sign for the wonder, in the same manner that certain Christian sects have confused water Baptism for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The New York Times Columnist and sometime conservative commentator felt pressed to explain why President Obama is still polling so well against Mitt Romney, even though every factor of his presidency, from support for gay marriage, to a stagnant economy, to failed foreign policy ventures in the Middle East — aside from the death of Osama bin Laden — have soured the American people, 53% of whom were hoping for hope and changed parties for the sake of change for the better. After three years of progressive politics, the nation is still struggling to recover, statehouses and the Capitol are struggling with immense debt and entitlement liabilities, and the United States' standing has diminished considerably in the world on all fronts: economic, cultural, and political.
Still, David Brooks attributes success toPresident Obama's remaining within two to three percentage points of Romney in current polls. Indeed, segments of the Democrats' dependable demographics are growing (the single and the secular), and the "magnetic" charisma of the first black president in United States history still stirs certain voters.
But the sheen that is shining on Brooks into blindness is a hack job by the mainstream media, which has been a mainstay for this president since he took office. While Romney has had to surmount attacks against his childhood, his connections with Bain Capital, and his differing stances on issues such as the role of the state in health care or gun control, the President has been fielding easy questions from a fawning press, right down the "Hardball" Chris Matthews, who is till feeling a tingle up his leg.
The "transcendent, messianic" tone of 2008 has given way to the metallic, pendantic drone of four years of failure. The style which Columnist David Brooks attributes to the incumbent is nothing more than the media's hangover after daily intakes of the Obama "kool-aid."
Indeed, the president's overbearing self-confidence has smoothed his attempts to soothe simmering Middle East peace talks, has broken the effect of lobbying for the 2016 Olympics, and has marginalized his party with marginal, statist policies, like the medical insurance mandate and signature achievement "ObamaCare." Hardly masculine, the President has come off more like a hen-pecking house wife scolding the American people for not seeing things his way. His overweening arrogance drove away substantial Democratic majorities in 2010, and he is certainly going to be driven from the White House in November of 2012.