Hillary vs The Automatic President

“I am missing Hillary…”

That’s the email I found this morning from a regular correspondent who trends left, and who sent this piece by Dana Milbank along to explain his thinking:

Along the way, he traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual president’s. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities, which included a fundraiser at the Mayflower where donors paid $10,000 or more to have photos taken with him. His schedule for the day, announced Monday night, would have made Dick Cheney envious:

11:00 a.m.: En route TBA.
12:05 p.m.: En route TBA.
1:45 p.m.: En route TBA.
2:55 p.m.: En route TBA.
5:20 p.m.: En route TBA.

The 5:20 TBA turned out to be his adoration session with lawmakers in the Cannon Caucus Room, where even committee chairmen arrived early, as if for the State of the Union. Capitol Police cleared the halls — just as they do for the actual president. The Secret Service hustled him in through a side door — just as they do for the actual president.

Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, “This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for,” adding: “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”

I’d love to know if Milbank is being snarky with that last line, or if Obama actually said it. It sounds like satire…but lately Obama himself sounds like satire, so who can tell.

Jake Tapper is saying there was a preceding line, and that Milbank was selective in his quoting. Say it ain’t so, Jake! We’ve never seen that before in the “legitimate” press, have we?

[Apparently the preceding line was on the order of “”I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions…it’s about America; I have become a symbol. Then he launched into his ‘this is the moment’ schtick.

Ooookay. By the way, excuse me if I thought we, in liberating millions of people from tyranny, vastly weakening a terrorist group that attacked us every two years in the 1990’s and saving countless lives in Africa and reducing homelessness by 30% under this president, were already working in “our best traditions”…what could I have been thinking… – admin]

Brackets added for clarity.

Allahpundit has lots of links, pursuing the question of whether or not Obama thinks the world of himself.

It must be said, his campaign has more than helped along the “he already thinks he’s president” meme.

“When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech [overseas], it is not a political speech or a political rally.”
“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter noted.

I can’t wait for this political season to end.

Hillary said of Obama, “what has he actually done? He gave a great speech, once.”

Richard Cohen is daring to ask the same question.

Bill Clinton called it “the biggest fairy tale” he’d ever seen.

I’m starting to think Bill and Hillary were for once, speaking desperate truth.

130 votes “present” in the Illinois state legislature, 140 working days in the US Senate, no legislation behind him, the thinnest resume possible – and Obama is the president-presumptive. You couldn’t write this scenario – except as farce – and get it published anywhere.

I don’t know if it’s a fairy tale. Maybe it’s all an illusion. The whole question of his prayer at the Western Wall and its subsequent publication rings a bell of illusion (and sleight-of-hand) to this Israeli friend of Donald Sensing’s

All I know is, lately when I see the Automatic President, all I hear is this piece from “Jeckyll & Hyde”:

Related:
The Wheels on the Bus: say hello to Ludacris!
He should have visited the troops alone in Germany. it would have been seen as the right thing to do, not a political move. That was a bad miscalculation on his campaign’s part.
Is Obama’s Economic Outline stealth socialism?
More than one economist is pondering that question and calling yea.
Pursuing Holiness calls Obama the Post-modern PresidentJuliette Ochieng on the black vote in the hip pocket
Michael Novak: the flag is too small to contain Obama
Gateway Pundit has the halo shots