The day Andrew Sullivan found out Santa Claus does not exist:
A few things have unsettled me these past couple of weeks about the Obama campaign. It is not the small adjustments to previously-held positions – FISA, the Second Amendment, Iraq. It’s a sense that Obama’s ample self-regard is lapsing into hubris. The signs of this are pretty trivial on the surface, but they are troubling nonetheless. That simulated faux-presidential seal was both tacky, silly and presumptive – a small version of “Mission Accomplished” Obama could well do without. The decision to give his acceptance speech in a stadium, rather than the traditional convention hall is also an unnecessary over-reach. The night will be freighted enough with history; it needs no new drama to set it apart. And the drama of the first black man accepting the nomination — with Obama’s rhetorical brilliance — will be more than enough for impact. Lastly, I was gob-smacked by the Obamas’ decision to include their children in a soft-focus TV interview. I can barely credit that Michelle Obama agreed to this and that Barack Obama went along with it – it’s not what they would have done a few months ago. One great aspect of the Obama marriage has been the way in which they appear to have brought up their daughters as very regular girls, down-to-earth, normal and sane. Displaying them in this way was bad judgment and poor parenting. Fame is a toxin. Children deserve to be protected from it as much as they would from lead paint. Any one of these misjudgments would be a trivial lapse — and we all make mistakes. It’s the combination that concerns me — and the possibility that this campaign is becoming far too cocky for its own good.
Wait until the world sees the campaign video that uses the Fourth of July in Butte, MT as just another prop in what is fast becoming a Disneyesque theatrical production.





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