[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

He won’t lose popularity, or at least not because of this. One of Obama’s few real rhetorical gifts is his knack for dumping on opponents stridently while not sounding strident. He’s always cultivated a cool-headed, above-the-fray, “adult in the room” image — it was key to his post-partisan shtick circa 2008 — and he does a solid job of maintaining it for the benefit of low-information voters who don’t follow politics closely day to day. There’ll be plenty of “we are one America” in this speech to cushion the “Republicans are destroying America” verbiage, and that’ll work just fine for casual watchers.

[GOPJ]

He’s always cultivated a cool-headed, above-the-fray, “adult in the room” image — it was key to his post-partisan shtick circa 2008...

The press fell for that image because they wanted to fall for something that made him larger than life. Of course they also fell for John Edwards and every other dem no matter how creepy...