Scene from a Cootie Catcher

Unlike every single person who lives in the great D.C. metropolitan area, I have no plans that involve reading Double Down, the 512-page cootie catcher roman à clef (without the "roman" or the "clef") that seeks to get to the heart of the burning question, does he like me or does he like-like me?!

However while taking a break from reading about a meaningless, gay-bashing, headline-generating ritual that will soon be performed by the leader of an Iron Age cult which operates near my home, I chanced upon this excerpt from Double Down which I found kind of hilarious:

...

Obama faced a more immediate challenge, which was to arrest the metastasizing panic among his supporters. In 2008, Plouffe had airily dismissed Democrats who lost their minds in the midst of Palinmania as “bedwetters.” But now there was a similar drizzle as the public polls sharply narrowed—and worse. “Did Barack Obama just throw the entire election away?” blared the title of an Andrew Sullivan blog post.

Chicago’s internal polling strongly suggested that the answer was no—the race was back to where it had been following the party conventions, with Obama holding a three- or four-point lead.

Even so, as the full desultoriness of his Denver performance sank in, the president was consumed by a sense of responsibility—and shadowed by fears that his reelection was at risk. Outwardly, he took pains to project the opposite. When his staffers asked how he was doing, he replied, “I’m great.” To Plouffe, who had volunteered to soothe Sullivan, Obama joked, Someone’s gotta talk him off the ledge! 

... 

In July, around the time her husband’s prep started, [the First Lady] met with Plouffe and expressed firm opinions. That Barack had to speak from the gut, in language that regular folks could understand. Had to avoid treating the debates like policy seminars. Had to keep his head out of the clouds. (Michelle’s advisers paraphrased her advice as “It’s not about David Brooks; it’s about my mother.”) FLOTUS loved POTUS like nobody’s business, but she knew his faults well.

...

The good news is that the  dream of the Liberal blogosphere has come true -- the Leader of the Free World now actually worries about making bloggers cranky.

The bad news?

It's Conservative bloggers like Andrew Sullivan (and Conservative columnists like David Brooks) that the Leader of the Free World worries about mollifying.