Today's Magic Word is INCLUSIVE

Not surprising to hear Obama exalting Reagan. Ah, yes... the excesses of the 60’s and 70’s. As Barry Crimmins responded in an exchange at The Field: "Like what? The civil rights, peace and environmental movements? Thank goodness Ronald Reagan turned us back from those dangerous paths."

I have the big picture. I’m supposed to shut up and fall in line behind the latest, greatest pitchman for the myth for American exceptionalism. Ronald Reagan bullshitted this country by pretending to be on its side before screwing it over. Those with an actual working knowledge of the man's background were not surprised. He did the same thing to his brothers and sisters in the Screen Actors Guild when he was an undercover toady for thug studio bosses, as well as Hoover and McCarthy (while serving as the president of the guild.)

So what if Obama is only bowing to the myth of Ronald Reagan? It doesn’t change the fact that Reagan was a horrible president who did an awful lot of damage to innocents at home and abroad. As he did this, we were told again and again how he made us “feel better about ourselves.” How? By living lives unencumbered by conscience?

Obama made his calculation by bringing Reagan into this. No one asked him to so much as mention the scrotum-necked ghoul. He made a decision to play to the dopes and perhaps he will benefit from it. But he will lose some historically literate people in the process. I’m sure that’s a statistically insignificant slice of the American demographic pie so I guess he’s pretty shrewd.

How fortunate we are to live in these enlightened, moderate times. Thirty years ago, no one could have foreseen Americans being liberated from wretched excess in 2008. You've come a long way, baby.

Pick a card, any card. Whether it's Social Security, National Security or, as with his recent case of name-dropping Saint Ronnie and all those nasty "excesses" of 60s & 70s, Cultural Security, Obama can be counted upon to adopt the prevailing right wing narrative.

This is the very definition of a serious and electable candidate. The prenuptial contract required for ascendancy. The reason I don't care who wins the Democratic primary. And why I expect an impressive spectacle of chaos and disorder in the streets of Denver at coronation time, regardless of who prevails.

Obama's supporters call this inclusiveness. That’s a little too “inclusive” for me. Contrary to what most Democratic voters are all too eager to assert, inclusiveness is a paper-maché word, not a virtue. Like its paper-maché cousin, the candy-stuffed piñata, inclusiveness conceals its rewards until it is busted open as the party reaches its high point, at which time votes and cash (an artificial distinction if ever there was one) rain down on the jubilant, virtuous supporters.

At election time, the Dem rank & file, like well-trained mice, will support anything their candidate might do which curries favor with the mythical Reagan Democrats, a demographic which magically ceases to exist when separated from the halo of hyper-nationalist fantasy. Thanks to the endlessly accommodating behavior of Democrats in the House & Senate, even the dumbest political observer understands "election time" means every single day.

Obama may become the first black president. But he sure as hell won't be the first human hologram to reach the pinnacle of executive ordination. Nor the last. It's a prerequisite for the job.