Am the Me I've Been Waiting For

Charles Krauthammer has written a biting editorial showing us all the malignant narcissism that is typical of Barack Obama. It is difficult for me to remember any politician in my lifetime who was at once so embarrassingly ignorant and pompous at the same time. Krauthammer uses the planned campaign excursion to Germany as an illustration of everything that is self-absorbed about the Obama Messiah and it really is a hoot, or it would be if it weren't a real possibility that we might actually get a President who thinks there are 57 states.

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times.

As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history — "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" — when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow."

As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.