We have a winner. Dana Milbank goes nuts and rips into Senator Obama’s so-called presumptuousness.
Barack Obama has long been his party’s presumptive nominee. Now he’s becoming its presumptuous nominee.
Hoo-hoo. Get it? Presumptive and presumptuous? They sound similar. Har. And it gets worse from there. Milbank compares the senator to both Bush and Cheney and uses words like “arrogance” and “hubris” to describe his attitude. He quotes the senator telling House lawmakers:
“This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for,” adding: “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”
Yeah, I don’t recall any presidential candidate ever suggesting that he or she would restore America’s greatness and blah blah blah. What a crock — a candidate for anything ballyhooing his greatness. Who’s ever heard of that? But the larger point is that the world — Americans in particular — are desperate for an end to the dark ride of the Bush years. And Senator Obama’s entire pitch is that he’s the antidote for it. So… what’s the big deal here?
After eight years of hearing President Bush whine and complain about “hard work,” it’s about time we had a president who was, you know, fired up and ready to go.
UPDATE: Ben Smith has the paraphrased full version of the quote.
BUT A DEMOCRATIC SOURCE SAYS: “His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him. [The Post] left out the important first half of the sentence, which was along the lines of: ‘It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol … .”
UPDATE THE SECOND: From the comments, Paddy writes re: MSNBC’s analysis:
Johnathan Capehart literally just said he’s “bumping up against that uppity line” on TV.
So presumptuous and uppity have been officially coupled. Nice. Thank goodness these guys want Senator Obama to win.
