WHY RIGHT-WINGERS ARE HITTING THIS COFFEE CUP THING SO HARD

I wrote about Coffee-Cup-Ghazi yesterday, not realizing it would become a massive story on the right and in the mainstream media. I know that the process of cultivating Obama-hate is relentless on the right, but in October 2012, when I wrote a post about a photo of Obama saluting with a cellphone in his non-saluting hand, I found only scattered outrage -- and now I learn that the photo in question was from early 2010, and barely caused a ripple at the time. Why is this different?

Right-wingers are working this much harder because, as midterms approach, they're worried about the political impact of this anti-ISIS campaign. There are a lot of reasons to question Obama's strategy, but the public wants some action, preferably not involving ground troops, and the administration is delivering exactly that. The policy may prove wrongheaded in the long run, but the right is worried that the long run will be long after November.

OBAMA GOLFS WHILE BUTCHERS BEHEAD YANKS!!! was really working for the GOP. Notice you haven't heard any Obama golf jokes for a while. The feckless-president-ignores-terror narrative had Republicans believing they were on course to make gains, in particular, with female voters, specifically the so-called security moms. That's not going to last if there are bombs falling on Raqqah.

Maybe you don't believe that this campaign is going to be a winner with the voters. The point, though, is that Republicans probably believe it is. They know how much electoral benefit they got in 2002 from 9/11 and from pressuring Democrats to sign on to an authorization of force in Iraq.

So they have to seize whatever they can that might undermine Obama's image right now. They were calling him "unserious," but they're afraid that swing voters think those bombs look surprisingly serious. So the right is working extra hard to seize on anything that makes Obama look ridiculous.