Want a summary of the first two weeks of Obama?

Victor David Hanson breaks down the first fourteen days of the new president, and it's not pretty:

Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny.

We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion—and with no Dick Morris to bail him out—brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking.

First, there were the sermons on ethics, belied by the appointments of tax dodgers, crass lobbyists, and wheeler-dealers like Richardson—with the relish of the Blago tapes still to come. (And why does Richardson/Daschle go, but not Geithner?).

Second, was the "stimulus" (the euphemism for "borrow/print money") that was simply a way to go into debt for a generation to shower Democratic constituencies with cash.

Then third, there were the inflated lectures on historic foreign policy to be made by the clumsy political novice who trashed his own country and his predecessor in the most ungracious manner overseas to a censured Saudi-run press organ (e.g., Bush is dictatorial, the Saudi king is courageous; Obama can mend bridges that America broke to aggrieved Muslims—apparently Tehran hostages, Rushdie, serial attacks in the 1990s, 9/11, Madrid, London never apparently occurred; and neither did feeding Somalis, saving Kuwait, protesting Chechnya, Bosnia/Kosovo, billions to Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinians, help in two Afghan wars, and on and on).

Fourth, there was the campaign rhetoric of Bush shredding the Constitution—FISA, Guantánamo, the Patriot Act, Iraq, renditions, etc.—followed by "all that for now stays the same" inasmuch as we haven't been hit in over seven years and can't risk another attack.

Fifth, Gibbs as press secretary is a Scott McClellan nightmare that won't go away, given his long McClellan-like relationship with Obama (McClellan should have been fired on day hour one on the job). Blaming Fox News for Obama's calamities is McClellan to the core and doesn't work. He already reminds me of Reverend Wright's undoing at the National Press Club—and he will get worse.

Six, Biden is being Biden. Already, he's ridiculed the chief justice, trashed the former VP, bragged on himself ad nauseam in Bidenesque weird ways, and it's only been two weeks.

And the result of all this?At home, Obama is becoming laughable and laying the groundwork for the greatest conservative populist reaction since the Reagan Revolution.

Abroad, some really creepy people are lining up to test Obama's world view of "Bush did it/but I am the world": The North Koreans are readying their missiles; the Iranians are calling us passive, bragging on nukes and satellites; Russia is declaring missile defense is over and the Euros in real need of iffy Russian gas; Pakistanis say no more drone attacks (and then our friends the Indians say "shut up" about Kashmir and the Euros order no more "buy American").

This is quite serious. I can't recall a similarly disastrous start in a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton's initial slips). Obama immediately must lower the hope-and-change rhetoric, ignore Reid/Pelosi, drop the therapy, and accept the tragic view that the world abroad is not misunderstood but quite dangerous. And he must listen on foreign policy to his National Security Advisor, Billary, and the Secretary of Defense. If he doesn't quit the messianic style and perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will devolve into Carterism—angry that the once-fawning press betrayed him while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.

Who's to blame for this joker getting elected? It's two-fold. Mr. Hanson is right to assign the bulk of the blame on the media. They didn't vet him at all, didn't investigate his record or background. They placed him on a pedestal, and attacked anyone who attacked him; accusing many of his critics as racist. (Um, he's half-white you morons, and secondly no one was attacking him on his race. Who did these idiots screw to get a job?)

The other blame lies at the feet of an ignorant electorate. Now before you lose your cool and start deluging our e-mail box with accusations that I just called everyone in the country stupid, step back and take a breath. I didn't say that. I said the electorate was ignorant, specifically in the realm of politics and current events. I heard the on-the-street interviews conducted by several talk show hosts where people were asked about Obama. His supporters knew nothing about him. Not one damn thing.

They didn't know what he did in the Illinois Senate. Or the US Senate. They couldn't get specific on his policy positions (mostly because he wasn't), and when asked what "change" he was bringing to the United States, there wasn't an answer.

We elected the most inefficient, unskilled, and maladroit individual to ever hold the office of President of the United States. I summed up what we were getting after the election to friends and co-workers, and the reaction I got was amazing. See, they see it too, and they're not happy with the electorate for saddling us with this rube.

In Barack Obama we will get: The paranoia of Richard Nixon; The utter incompetence of Jimmy Carter; The lies and appeasement of Bill Clinton.

We're already seeing it, and I'm seldom wrong in my assessments.

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/f7b13312-778d-4e9f-9f2f-c44d86031812">HT to Hugh Hewitt

Publius II