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Steven Den Beste:

[Obama's] enchanted with the pomp, the title, the fact of being in the position itself. This whole business with him creating his own candidate seal, and “the office of President Elect”, for example. What it all reminds me of is Richard Nixon, who also was enchanted with the fact of holding the office, with the pomp.

It used to be a bit creepy listening to Nixon talking and using “the President” to refer to himself rather than “I” or “me”. I fully expect that Obama will start talking that way, too, probably within the first six months of taking office.

Oh, I think we’ve all noticed that Obama’s a bit obsessed with the trappings of office, but I don’t recall anyone making the connection to Nixon before. And yeah, that’s pretty creepy.

But here’s the thing: I don’t remember Nixon allowing any of that to show during the campaign.

For Obama, that was most of the cards in his deck. Obama is all about pomp and circumstance, charisma and style. Obama was elected, not in spite of his royal leanings, but because of them.

I can’t imagine anything scarier than a man carried in to the Oval Office on the shoulders of disciples who believe in his royalty as much as he does.

Gods, Richard Nixon with charisma and a constituency of True Believers.

And without even Nixon’s honesty and integrity.

Oh, yeah, can’t remember where I saw this, but here’s my new name for Obama: “The Magic Negro”.

Fans of popular TV shows, movies, and books sometimes write stories known as “fanfic”. Often these stories feature a character who is an annoyingly perfect stand-in for the writer; such a character is known as a “Mary Sue“. [Warning: Link contains TVtropes.]

Such works often garner criticism from other fans, such as the following:

Dear America,

please stop it. Your [Original Main character], Obama, is the worst Sue I’ve seen in a long time. Your Work In Progress] has been going on for a while now, with frequent updates, but so far, we haven’t seen a single flaw. Coolest guy in town, funny, smart as a particularly smart whip, easily catches the eye of every swing state, about to adopt a puppy… even rappers like him. Rappers! The world is a hostile place. Suspicious European governments aren’t going to be excited to the point of dribbling on their shirts the moment he appears on their doorstep. 200,000 people in Berlin? Come on. That name alone. Seriously, what’s with people and their love for unusual names? John and Bill are perfectly fine for a president. Or Milhous. Even worse, your John McCain is completely [Out Of Character]. That man’s a war hero, he’s not going to suddenly, I don’t know, campaign with a fake plumber or something, just to make your character look better. Even more ridiculous: al Qaeda endorsing McCain to show how awesome your Sue is. And I’m not even talking about Sarah Palin. The world doesn’t work that way.

However, the worst thing is the puppy. Please, don’t let him have a puppy. If that happens, the planet will spontaneously combust to be replaced by a big ball of fluff and sunshine. Seriously. Al Gore was bad enough–Oscar AND Nobel Prize, puh-lease–but at least he had the decency to lose the election. For the love of puppies, give us some flaws, something to work with, okay?

Lots of love,
Europe

[Acronyms expanded and links to definitions provided for the uninitiated. Hi Mom!]

Sometimes, such criticism is deemed overly harsh:

Dear Europe,

Your review is too negative. You’re required to offer constructive criticism rather than just flaming America. After all, they’re young and they’re still trying.

Your Forum Moderator,
Canada

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.

jim Treacher:

I heard Carl Cameron once answered his hotel room door in a full Wonder Woman costume

I’m not sayin’ it’s true, I’m not sayin’ it’s not. That’s just what I heard. And no, I won’t tell you who said it. Under the new standard of journalism, it’s plausible until proven otherwise. And I get to decide what constitutes proof.

Better get out in front of this one, Carl!

[My link, for those of you wondering what the hell this is about.]
Jim, if Carl wants to run around hotels in her Wonder Woman costume, that’s entirely her business, as long as she doesn’t start lassoing other guests.

Meanwhile, here’s the story I want tracked down:

Been hearing unattributable talk that to deflect from Obama’s inability to deliver on his promises, or do much of anything with the economy, Democrats will divert attention the old fashioned way. Moscow Trials. The machinery is supposedly in motion to drag the entire Bush administration before congressional inquisitions. If you think there’s raw feelings now between the Obama left and constitutional Americans, you ain’t seen nothing yet. It also looks like Democrats Dodd, Frank, et al, will escape scrutiny for their major role in the subprime disaster. Sweet being a Democrat these days. eh wot?

As one of Roger’s commenters says, “Thats the step that will end liberal democracy. When going out of power leads to personal jail time or execution - no one will go out of power freely.”

Spread this one far and wide. Demand President-Elect Hussein prove it wrong.

I mean, it’s not any worse than the charge that President Chimpy personally ordered airliners flown into the World Trade Center as a kind of Reichstag Fire maneuver, is it?

Moreover, if BO is even remotely thinking of this, maybe airing it out will kill the idea, like, oh, say, exposing his entire Transition “Platform”, the one where he proposes mandatory servitude for all teenagers, made it fall down the memory hole.

(No, no, that last is absolutely true. People have screen shots.

(That’s going to have to be the rule for reporting on Obama’s Presidency. Save screenshots and local copies, because whenever he’s caught out telling the truth about what he wants to do, the official copies will disappear. )

Iowahawk stretches his hand out across the aisle:

Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don’t care whether you are a conservative or a liberal — when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation’s highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread.

Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let’s not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama’s election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country’s struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we’ve come, and it’s something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left.

Less than fifty years ago, African-Americans were barred from public universities, restaurants, and even drinking fountains in many parts of the country. On Tuesday we came together and transcended that shameful legacy, electing an African-American to the country’s top job — which, in fact, appears to be his first actual job. Certainly, it doesn’t mean that racism has disappeared in America, but it is an undeniable mark of progress that a majority of voters no longer consider skin color nor a dangerously gullible naivete as a barrier to the presidency.

It’s also heartening to realize that as president Mr. Obama will soon be working hand-in-hand with a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard like Senator Robert Byrd to craft the incoherent and destructive programs that will plunge the American economy into a nightmare of full-blown sustained depression.

Yeah, there’s more. You should read it.

I will say it again and again: The thing I most resent so far about B.O.’s campaign is that he has robbed me of the privilege of being able to vote in good conscience for the first more-or-less black President. For that alone, I damn him to very Hell.

Eventually, though, he’s going to do something so awful I’ll resent him even more for that.

We are so screwed. Not, mind, because Barry Hussein’s going to be President, but because there are enough well-meaning idiots like these to vote him in:

With newfound patriotism, Seattleites want to wave the flag, hang it from their homes and stick it on their cars.

“The thing that’s kind of astounding to me is I never ever would have cared to own a flag,” said Rosemary Garner, 42. “This is the first day in my life I actually feel this funny sense of pride about my country. It’s a very foreign feeling, but it’s a good one.”

Garner, a self-described “flag virgin” who lives on Capitol Hill, bought eight flags Wednesday — some to wave and others to stick on her car to “mix and match with some nice Obama and peace signs. Then I bought a couple of flags for some friends who wanted to hang them from their truck along with their biodiesel stickers.”

“Flag virgin.” Gah.

So, tell me, is dissent still the highest form of patriotism? Because I’m planning on being real damned patriotic for the next few years.

And yes, my flag is still out on my porch, still right-side up, just like it has been for the last four years or so.

You want me to take it down because the wrong guy is in the White House, or because you think that I don’t deserve to show it since I didn’t vote for that guy and strongly disagree with him on most things, you’ve got a fight on your hands.

Michael Moore asks,

Who among us is not at a loss for words?

Not he, of course. Air sickness bag at ready, take a look at an email that appears to be going around:

Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair.

In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea. The racists were present throughout the campaign and in the voting booth. But they are no longer the majority, and we will see their flame of hate fizzle out in our lifetime.

There was another important “first” last night. Never before in our history has an avowed anti-war candidate been elected president during a time of war. I hope President-elect Obama remembers that as he considers expanding the war in Afghanistan. The faith we now have will be lost if he forgets the main issue on which he beat his fellow Dems in the primaries and then a great war hero in the general election: The people of America are tired of war. Sick and tired. And their voice was loud and clear yesterday.

It’s been an inexcusable 44 years since a Democrat running for president has received even just 51% of the vote. That’s because most Americans haven’t really liked the Democrats. They see them as rarely having the guts to get the job done or stand up for the working people they say they support. Well, here’s their chance. It has been handed to them, via the voting public, in the form of a man who is not a party hack, not a set-for-life Beltway bureaucrat. Will he now become one of them, or will he force them to be more like him? We pray for the latter.

But today we celebrate this triumph of decency over personal attack, of peace over war, of intelligence over a belief that Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs just 6,000 years ago. What will it be like to have a smart president? Science, banished for eight years, will return. Imagine supporting our country’s greatest minds as they seek to cure illness, discover new forms of energy, and work to save the planet. I know, pinch me.

We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness, enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover the greater truths. When FDR was ushered in with his landslide in 1932, what followed was Frank Capra and Preston Sturgis, Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange and Orson Welles. All week long I have been inundated with media asking me, “gee, Mike, what will you do now that Bush is gone?” Are they kidding? What will it be like to work and create in an environment that nurtures and supports film and the arts, science and invention, and the freedom to be whatever you want to be? Watch a thousand flowers bloom! We’ve entered a new era, and if I could sum up our collective first thought of this new era, it is this: Anything Is Possible.

An African American has been elected President of the United States! Anything is possible! We can wrestle our economy out of the hands of the reckless rich and return it to the people. Anything is possible! Every citizen can be guaranteed health care. Anything is possible! We can stop melting the polar ice caps. Anything is possible! Those who have committed war crimes will be brought to justice. Anything is possible.

We really don’t have much time. There is big work to do. But this is the week for all of us to revel in this great moment. Be humble about it. Do not treat the Republicans in your life the way they have treated you the past eight years. Show them the grace and goodness that Barack Obama exuded throughout the campaign. Though called every name in the book, he refused to lower himself to the gutter and sling the mud back. Can we follow his example? I know, it will be hard.

I want to thank everyone who gave of their time and resources to make this victory happen. It’s been a long road, and huge damage has been done to this great country, not to mention to many of you who have lost your jobs, gone bankrupt from medical bills, or suffered through a loved one being shipped off to Iraq. We will now work to repair this damage, and it won’t be easy.

But what a way to start! Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Wow. Seriously, wow.

I’d love to pick this apart, line by line, but…I’m at a loss for words.

Over at JustOneMinute, bgates comments:

Elliott, I’m so proud that our nation can finally say we’re able to elect someone who lived in Hawaii.

A second holocaust is a small price to pay to boast that the American people can elect a President who played high school basketball.

Will card-check and other strongarm legislation cost millions of jobs and possibly trillions of dollars? Sure. But for I think the first time ever, voters have made a college transfer student the President of the United States. And I think any patriot has to wipe away a tear at that thought.

The world’s economic engine is about to be retrofitted with a big sail lest it emit enough carbon to reverse the cooling trend of the past ten years, which will make people the world over materially worse off. At the same time, we have proved to the world that we can name a man who uses those little Nicorette patches, or maybe the gum (I’m not sure), the head of our government. The Founders for all their gifts never anticipated having a man in the White House who used transdermal nicotine delivery (again, or the gum) to stem physiological cravings, but we have been blessed to see it happen.

Oh, and did I mention he’s black? No I did not, because I don’t give a fuck.

For all my misgivings, this from Dale Franks at Q & O:

As Mr. Obama came to the stage tonight, Jesse Jackson was in attendance. Tears were streaming down his face.

Forget the Jesse Jackson you know now, and whatever you may think of him. Whatever he has become over the years, think of him as he was 43 years ago.

On “Bloody Sunday”—March 7, 1965—when the Selma to Montgomery marchers were savagely beaten by police for the temerity of marching to the state capitol to ask, as American citizens, for the right to vote, he was a young seminarian at Chicago Theological Seminary. When he heard this, he and some friends drove down to join the march.

For days, they tried to march. It took two weeks to complete the march. Despite the harassment of police, obstruction, and the ever-present danger of another Bloody Sunday, they marched.

So, I looked at Jesse Jackson’s tears, and I thought, here is a man who, in the space of his adult life, has watched black people beaten for peacefully demanding their basic rights as American citizens…and a black man elected president of the United States.

Yes. Yes indeed.

My Dad was down in Selma with the college students from his church; he was hounded out of that church, and out of town, for taking them there. They gave him several thousand dollars severance pay, a significant chunk at the time for a preacher, if he would be out of town before he could corrupt the new students coming in for the fall semester.

He’s out of town tonight; I’m eager to hear what he says about all this.

I want this to be unalloyed victory over racism, but I’m afraid we’re going to pay a terrible price for it.

Scott Johnson’s “Ten Theses on President-Elect Obama”
Mostly the things that Obama did right in his campaign — right, at least, from the tactical standpoint.

These four points, however, need to highlighted:

7. The campaign gave new meaning to the term “hoist on his own petard.” Obama’s incredible fundraising prowess outside the system of public financing should kill McCain-Feingold on practical grounds after it should have been killed on constitutional grounds.

8. Despite his thoroughgoing liberalism, Obama did not run as a liberal. Liberals can run successfully for president under camouflage donned for the occasion. The camouflage will be accorded respect and deference by the press like that accorded the Emperor’s new clothes.

9. Senator McCain ran a flawed, weirdly constrained but honorable campaign against Barack Obama under circumstances that were aggravated from the difficult to the impossible. No other Republican candidate could have overcome them or run a more successful campaign.

10. The substantially enhanced Democratic majorities in Congress stand poised to pass a raft of legislation that ranges from the destructive to the abominable and the tyrannical. It will serve as an early challenge to the judgment of President Obama, and to the efficacy of the loyal opposition.

[I've fixed two or three typs.]

About Number 9:
Jennifer Rubin’s “Top Thirty Errors That Doomed McCain”

Johnson’s Point Seven, about McCain Feingold, belongs on Rubin’s list as well, so make that “Thirty One Errors”.

I am not happy.

Yes, I may even be ever so slightly bitter.

So be it.

To reiterate what I said below: America’s best hope is that President-Elect Hussein really is as unprepared and incompetent as many of us think, so that he is unable to effectively rule. Rule, I say, not govern. He faces an entrenched and intractable bureaucracy, staffed by lifers with widely varying political agendas, but whose primary agenda is always their ow careers. Some will turn into the new wind — but many will fight fiercely to hold their current domains.

===

I am at once deeply proud of my countrymen for having elected a more-or-less black President, and deeply shamed that it was essentially by affirmative action. All my adult life, I’ve wanted to be able to vote wholeheartedly for a strong, competent President proudly dedicated to defending the principles of liberty instantiated by the Constitution, and humbly serving the People it protects — but whose skin happened to be black. If there is any one thing I resent B. Hussein Obama for, it is for robbing me of that privilege.

Nevertheless, I never, ever, ever again want to hear how racist America is, particularly from snooty, poxy foreigners who have never elected a leader whose skin color differs from the national majority.

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I await with dread the terrorist attack our Vice-President Elect has assured us will “test” Obama.

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And you reporters? Over the next four years, the American People are going to learn how badly you’ve lied to them, how passionately you defended your anointed one, how cruelly you attacked those who not only opposed him, but simply failed to support him strongly enough.

I hope we do not take too much hurt in the process.

Many of you will lose your jobs as your papers, magazines, and networks fail. I will shriek with laughter.

I hope you burn. You may well be the pall-bearers for the rights you so egregiously abused. Shame.

===

OK, done. Onward through the fog.