A MOB, PERMANENTLY PARTYING LIKE IT'S 1998

I really don't care about the Judd Gregg situation. I'm certain the public doesn't give a damn: for ordinary Americans, this is a problem that ranks on the priority list somewhere around the need for prompt removal of pocket lint.

But notice where we are: the public continues to have great confidence in the Democratic president and wants him to succeed, while the press is fixated on portraying him as a self-sabotaging stumblebum who never learned the ways of the world he lives in, in contrast to the admirable torch-wielding mob that wants to hound him to his political death.

You know where you are? You're in 1998, baby.

For Republicans, of course, there are only two modes: flight suit and 1998. Unquestioned dominance and slow-motion bourgeois riot. And remember that, for Republicans, the meaning of 1998 wasn't "Clinton survived and thrived" but "Republicans laid the groundwork that defeated peace and prosperity in 2000." Obama, of course, doesn't have anything resembling peace and prosperity.

Obama may well survive. He may even win handily in 2012. He may leave office with the public still on his side and a long list of accomplishments. But a guy the press seemed to love for quite a while has lost that respect -- less, I think, because his nominees had tax problems or because it turned out that he wasn't really the Wingnut Whisperer than because the journos realized, Hey, he's a Democratic president! Bwahahahaha!

Which means that, to the press from now on, he'll always be Bill Clinton at best. And we know the torch-wielding GOP will always see him that way as well.