Free What the (Bleep) Just Happened? by Monica Crowley Page B

tsunami. If Bill Clinton had indulged the Elvis cult, Obama ratcheted up a level and indulged the Jesus cult. In fact, the Obama campaign even trained volunteers to “testify” about how they “came to Obama” the way one would testify about how they “came to Jesus.” These would be the same Obama campaign staffers who often referred to him as a “black Jesus.” John Lennon had provoked a public outcry in 1966 when he claimed that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” Forty-two years later, Obama laid claim to the same proposition and was adored for it.
    The mainstream media fell into the Obama trance as well, although they needed even less of the hypnotic induction than most people. Since the vast majority of reporters and editors in print and television media are left-wing, they had a built-in ideological affinity for Obama. They were predisposed to love him and he them, like two juvenile delinquents at a warehouse rave party taking Ecstasy and playing with glow sticks. In the past, however, although many so-called journalists would openly support the Democratic candidates, they didn’t necessarily fall in love with them. Until Barack. Many in the left-wing media either remembered or idealized the Kennedy years, with a young, handsome Democrat in the White House, surrounded by a glamorous wife and young children. Obama updated Camelot for the twenty-first century, and the media lapped it up like parched puppies. They would do their part to re-create the Kennedy mystique around this dynamic black couple, help him get elected, and maintain the mythology.
    The press took their cheerleading to absurd levels. The then Newsweek editor Evan Thomas took the “black Jesus” metaphor literally when he gushed, “I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above—above the world, he’s sort of God.” MSNBC host Chris Matthews spoke of the homoerotic charge he got while listening to Obama speak: “I have to tell you, you know, it’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg.”
    In June 2008 the Associated Press went out of its way to tell us that Obama is a “great man.” In a piece of ostensibly straight reporting, the AP gushed: “Indonesians were rooting for the man they consider to be a hometown hero. Obama lived in the predominantly Muslim nation from age 6 to 10 with his mother and Indonesian stepfather and was fondly remembered by former teachers and classmates.” The AP then helpfully quoted from some “regular” admirers:
    “He was an average student, but very active,” said Widianto Hendro Cahyono, forty-eight, who was in the same third-grade class as Obama at SDN Menteng elementary school in Jakarta. “He would play ball during recess until he was dripping with sweat. I never imagined he would become a great man.” Away from the reporter and missed by the AP, the man then added, “But as I remember, the great man still has a terrible jump shot.” Just kidding.
    Shortly after Obama had clinched his party’s nomination, the AP ran another piece suggesting that if you don’t vote for Obama, you might be a racist. They posed two questions about the candidates:
    “Will [Senator John] McCain be able to overcome the country’s intense desire for change by separating himself from the unpopular Bush while sticking close on issues of war and taxes?” And, “Will Obama be able to overcome the country’s unsavory history of slavery and lingering bigotry that deeply divides the public to be elected the first black president?”
    In other words, if you don’t vote for McCain, you’re anti-Bush. Yay! But if you don’t vote for Obama, you’re a racist. And you hate America.
    The AP’s work here is done. I could go on with a gazillion other examples of the mainstream media drooling over Obama, but then this book would be the size of the ObamaCare bill.
    A particularly