The Cult of Personality- Mr. Obama & Liberals

Glenn Greenwald has a wonderful post explaining how those on the political right, with George W. Bush, and on the left, with current US president Obama, voluntarily abdicated rationality and independence to engage in hero-worship of their beloved leaders. He elaborates

Those who venerated Bush because he was a morally upright and strong evangelical-warrior-family man and revere Palin as a common-sense Christian hockey mom are similar in kind to those whose reaction to Obama is dominated by their view of him as an inspiring, kind, sophisticated, soothing and mature intellectual. These are personality types bolstered with sophisticated marketing techniques, not policies, governing approaches or ideologies. But for those looking for some emotional attachment to a leader, rather than policies they believe are right, personality attachments are far more important. They're also far more potent. Loyalty grounded in admiration for character will inspire support regardless of policy, and will produce and sustain the fantasy that this is not a mere politician, but a person of deep importance to one's life who -- like a loved one or close friend or religious leader -- must be protected and defended at all costs.

A year into his administration, Mr. Obama appears either unable or unwilling to exorcise the demons of corporatism, militarism, and crony-capitalism that have long possessed congress and made any real reform, in favor of the public interest, impossible. Whether it is the promised reforms to Washington's corrupt and as usual politics or putting an end to the many reckless and undemocratic Bush era policies, a great many of those on the left who once believed Mr. Obama's exhubrant rheotric, are seething at the lack of change. As Bob Herbert of the New York Times said in his column, "Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House."