Just in case you’re feeling pleased with yourself because—finally!—if we elect Obama, it will reflect the America you dream of and everybody will love us again, here’s a little something to make you think:

Americans should not fall in love with their own virtue, and should not expect non-Americans to take that virtue on faith.

That was Reinhold Niebuhr in The Irony of American History (Scribner, 1952).

No, not for Hillary, you sillies, though this is also for a woman (women are never be front-runners, dontcha know?).

This one is for New York’s own media darling (from a decade ago)—Tina Brown (from the Daily Intelligencer):

Late last week, we received a very nice invitation to a luncheon sponsored by the Magazine Publisher’s Association and the American Society of Magazine Editors. It was their annual lifetime achievement awards, and guess who is being honored? Tina Brown. Apparently the former editor of Tatler, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and the ill-fated Talk is at that point in her career when the final retrospective is in order. You know, the point in her career that comes at the end.

They’ve written her professional obituary before.

[updated to include the Frank Luntz link and quote; they got lost in the ether when I first published this post earlier today, Jan 8]

Hope is good. Change is good.

Those pieces of conventional wisdom are driving Obama’s surge. I feel it, too, even as I feel sorry for Hillary Clinton (who’s feeling sorry for herself). There’s only one problem:

Hope is ephemeral—here today, gone tomorrow. If feels good while it lasts. But to build a future on the foundation of hope is to ask for misery when its promise goes unfulfilled.

What is Obama’s program for “change”? I wonder.

I voted for George McGovern.

I voted for Jimmy Carter.

I voted for Bill Clinton, twice.

I voted for Al Gore.

God help me, I voted for Walter Mondale.

I am loath to admit this, but I even voted for John Kerry.

Obama speaks particularly to those who believe that America has gone astray under George W. Bush. There are a lot of people in that category, and you can find them across the entire political spectrum.

On the right (nominally) there’s David Brooks, who has had a man crush on Obama for quite a while now, and of course Andrew Sullivan, who is in a category by himself and apparently unembarrassable.

On the left, there are many. Here’s one of the more sober voices:

[Obama] presents this election as a continuum, from the minuteman to the abolitionists, to the union movement, to the greatest generation to the civil rights workers to today. We look back at the Revolutionary War and the ending of slavery and the defeat of fascism and the civil rights movement as great moments in American history; because they represent times when Americans not only affected change, but made a concerted effort to ensure that this country lived up to its founding ideals. Obama is selling the idea that America can produce that type of change again, but only if Americans are willing to take the leap of faith and believe that it’s possible. Indeed, this notion of believing is the climactic element of his stump speech.

In order to fall for Obama, part of you has to believe that America is lost, that it has stumbled badly, that it has strayed far from its purpose and mission, that it has sinned unconscionably and must be saved. I don’t subscribe to that notion. Unconsciously, however, Hillary is giving Obama the advantage among people who believe that America is “fallen.”

Last week, she said:

“But after seven long years of this administration, we finally have the opportunity for a new beginning.

There’s a conundrum here that she can’t escape. She has put her finger on what the Dem base wants, but the Dem primary voters (and others) seem to see the solution in Obama, not in her.

Tough luck, but it’s an insular problem for the Democrats. At the moment, we’re witnessing a Democratic soap opera. It’s excellent as entertainment.

Frank Luntz, pollster extraordinaire, is jazzed:

Luntz called 2008 the “most undecided, most fluid” election he’d seen in his lifetime. “I’m so lucky I get to study it. People wait for 50 years to have an election like this.”

Last night, Mickey Kaus was hoping that both of his pet theories might pan out:

If Romney pulls off a N.H. win after really only turning around in the Fox debate Sunday night, it will be a stunning confirmation of both the Feiler Faster Thesis and Jerry Skurnik’s theory that because uninformed voters are more uninformed than ever they only learn enough to actually make up their minds very close to the Election Day. …

Crazy times, folks.

Stewart and Colbert back on the air. One thumbs-up and one thumbs-down:

It’s not unusual, when a problem or subject consumes us, to assume everyone is as consumed as we are. But when you’re being paid to entertain, the least you can do is put some effort into making your obsessions amusing.

Stewart’s goal, instead, was to educate us on the union’s goals, with a side lesson on what he apparently sees as the union’s unfair treatment of The Daily Show. Even if viewers were interested — and my guess is most viewers have no great interest in the strike beyond “when will it end?” and “what’s going to happen to 24?” — couldn’t it wait until after the primary was over?

Generally, The Daily Show is the better of the Comedy Central duo, but last night, the prize went to The Colbert Report.

Roger L. Simon deconstructs Obama, image and text:

Maybe I missed something, but the “Change” poster behind Barack Obama seems to have, well, changed. (There’s

that word again.) The words “We Can Believe In” have been added to the bottom, for the first time acknowledging, pace Orwell, that not all changes are equal. … Nazi Germany, for an example, was a change. So was Stalinism (although less of change from Leninism). …

So far Obama is doing a brilliant job of being vague about what “change” he is referring to. “We Can Believe In” is a masterpiece of obfuscation. He has some good writers.

Simon came out against “change” early:

If there is one thing we learned from tonight’s debates on ABC, it is that the word “change” - formerly so useful - must now be banned from the English language. … [T]he poor parole has been put been in disgrace and rendered meaningless by a collection of nitwit politicians and pundits, so sayonara to “change.” It’s been nice knowing you. We give you your gold watch - bye bye.

Droll. But Obama is a good salesman, and mundus vult decipi. (You could look it up.)

People want to believe in magic, as  P.T. Barnum, for one, knew.

Despite its prominence in Barnum lore, historians agree that he probably never said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” What he said was less cynical and more astute: “The people like to be humbugged.”

The Times piece from which I took the quote above goes on to note:

Barnum humbugged the highbrow as well as the low. In 1850 he brought the opera diva Jenny Lind, “the Swedish Nightingale,” to Manhattan for the start of an American tour. Neither he nor anyone else in America had heard her sing a note.

“Jenny Lind’s story is perhaps Barnum’s single most extraordinary accomplishment,” Ms. Maher said, “because he took something that was absolutely nothing in American society and created a frenzy, a mania, very much equivalent to today’s rock stars.”  [e.a.]

The way Barack Obama is being covered by the media and the blogosphere, he’s not a political candidate anymore—he’s a celebrity. He doesn’t have political followers—he’s got fans. He doesn’t have a political platform—he’s got a one-word slogan—”change” [which works, 'cause "change is good," just like Nissan says, right?]. He makes narcissists feel so good about themselves.

Andrew Sullivan’s Obama Blogorama—all Barack all the time, except when he’s dancing on Hillary’s grave—is exhibit number one. Not enough Obama links for you from Sullivan? Here’s another one, about Obama’s “Sweet Spot.” (Contrast Mickey Kaus’s reaction to this nauseatingly “pompous” [scroll up] post from Ezra Klein about Obama.)
As I understand it, Sullivan used to be a conservative Republican and a devout Catholic. Now he worships “change,” as you can see in this exchange of questions and answers:

[Bainbridge]: What specific changes in law, society, or polity, if any, that Obama supports do you also support?

[Sullivan]: I support a fresh start in foreign policy, a willingness to negotiate where necessary, a new outreach to allies, and prudent, expeditious withdrawal from Iraq. I favor an end to poisonous partisan polarization. I favor strong measures to innovate new energy sources. I favor a restoration of the Geneva Conventions.

Why are those changes “necessary”?

Because the war is draining massive resources, and, despite recent tactical success, is clearly a historic mistake. Because the U.S. is extremely isolated and needs more support in the world, and especially a new appeal to moderate Muslims worldwide. Because the red-blue divide has poisoned our polity to the detriment of practical problem-solving. Because dependence on foreign oil is both environmentally fatal and dangerous for our future security. Because torture gives bad intelligence and is un-American.

What evidence is there, if any, that Obama would be prudent in effecting such changes?

Obama’s legislative record, speeches, and the way he has run his campaign reveal, I think, a very even temperament, a very sound judgment, and an intelligent pragmatism. Prudence is a word that is not inappropriate to him.

No, because Obama is Sullivan’s American Idol: the God of Change.
Look: I like Obama, from the little I know of him. But so far he’s mostly a mirage.