Who broke the Messiah?

During the last few months, a number of political activists proposed a rather interesting meme - American people are frustrated with Obama because they simply expected too much of him. As Spike Lee correctly noted: "People expected Obama to be like Jesus and walk on water. "  And surely Lee is not alone - you can easily find thousands of articles repeating the same idea - American voters over-estimated Obama's promise, that no president could have achieved what was expected of him.

Granted, the liberal intellectuals did had some unrealistic hopes - for example watch this highly educated and motivated African-American woman telling the media that when Obama is elected, she "won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car....  won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage”. Not to be outdone, Louis Farrakhan (a respected Black leader and a renown expert of the extraterrestrial life) proclaimed that Obama was the Messiah. Surely our President did not run away from promising quite a bit on his own - for example he assured the American people that he would single-handily lower the sea levels, provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless. And yes, the Guatanamo Bay was supposed to be closed, the unemployment were to stay below 8% and the US allies would be delighted to help America to win the war in Afghanistan and kill Osama ben Laden - while Iran would be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons.

An attentive reader may ask a rather obvious question stands - how did people in the age of information were so misinformed as to clearly over-estimate the abilities of a former community organizer? Indeed - how could it happen? Americans are known to be practical people, and yet they fell in love with the crook and gave him the keys to the house. Who is responsible for this mess?

Back in spring 2010 I told two of my liberal friends that GOP would very likely took back the House in the next elections. The guys laughed at me, and said that I was nuts. According to them, Obama was wildly popular with American people, Tea Party was crazy and would surely push away the independents. In short, they could not imagine how GOP could win the 2010 elections. Clearly, my friends were convinced that Democrats would not lose the House, and I decided to check just how certain they were in their belief. I offered each of them a $50 bet - and both of them gladly agreed to it. A few months later they both conceded that they lost the bet. As you could imagine, I was mocking them mercilessly the entire time - telling them just how much I would enjoy spending their money on a good cause. But I went further and told them that the result of this bet was not accidental. Unlike my liberal friends, I actually listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox News, and both of these sources provided me with enough valuable information to conclude way ahead of my friends that GOP would take over the House. As one of my friends replied - what I said was even more painful to him than losing $50.

Indeed, the smart ass comment to my liberal friends have a lot of truth in it. Quite a lot of people did expect a lot from Obama administration - one could say no politician could do what he was supposed to do. Today, it's a rather common place argument that Obama suffers from the unreasonable expectations of the public. And yet - I did not have those unreasonable expectations - actually I thought he was a man with no experience, useless education and extreme left-wing beliefs. Nearly every man who listened to Rush Limbaugh and watched Fox News surely realized that Obama was not an able administrator, nor could expect him to be better than an average US president. And yet, millions of people saw Obama as "some kind of God".

There are two lessons that American people have to learn this debacle. Firstly, they need to understand that they need to listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox News if they want to get valuable information about liberal politicians. It surely is not enough to get the news and analysis from the Mainstream Media. And secondly - anyone who proclaims that Obama was burdened with too much expectation should explain who EXACTLY created this expectation. It's not sufficient to proclaim that the Obama hype of 2008 damaged his presidency - one must immediately point out the media outlets and specific reporters and journalists who promoted the Obama myth, who failed to inform the American people about the limitations of the new president. Let's start naming names - Chris Matthews, David Weigel and thousands of others. These are the people who created the Obama myth - and who could never trusted again. And the biggest losers are the so-called "conservatives" like David Brooks who blindly fell in love with Obama. The same conservatives who smugly denigrate Rush Limbaugh and Fox News as too simplistic, fell to the primitive swindle of a used-community organizer. As Brooks infamously remembered his encounter with Obama: "“I remember distinctly an image of -- we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.” Well, David, you should have ignored the pants and listened to what Obama was saying.

So, do you still wonder who broke the Messiah? The media did. They turned a man of average intelligence and murky past into the Savior of the Nation. Of course he underperformed. Blame the media. Keep in mind that most of people in mainstream media are stupid, and don't forget to listen to Rush Limbaugh - he tells you the truth. I've got $100 to prove it.