I don't want to take Newsweek Editor Tina Brown's political musings too seriously. Ms. Brown, after all, is the Queen of Buzz, not George Will. Still, Ms. Brown's off-hand remark on "Morning Joe" that President Obama "wasn't ready" to be president is a very big deal. Why?
It's not because Ms. Brown has her finger on the pulse of the nation. It's just the opposite. I don't want to say Ms. Brown is shallow because she is one of the truly great editors of our era. So let's just say she has her finger on the pulse of the glitterati and the overlapping media elite and leave it at that. In fact, this is precisely why Ms. Brown's observation, delivered almost in passing, packs such a wallop. It is a devastating indication that Mr. Obama is in jeopardy of losing one of his most loyal constituencies: the beautiful people.
An interesting item on the Media Research Center's website provides insights into how the beautiful people, who are, alas, sometimes inclined to have more opinions than actual thoughts, felt about Mr. Obama in those halcyon days before his policies had taken our economy from bad to worse:
On December 31, 2009, Brown mocked Rush Limbaugh, who just hours earlier had been taken to the hospital with chest pains, as a "bad fairy" who ruined the magical story of Obama. She portrayed the radio host as "the bad fairy at Sleeping Beauty's christening" and added, "…Rush Limbaugh utters the words, 'I hope you fail.' 'I hope he fails,' he said, and from that moment, the sort of the Pandora's box opened."
Sleeping Beauty? Well, the president did turn out to be sort of a Sleeping Beauty, didn't he? He awoke from the glamour of a media savvy campaign to the reality of a recession. He awoke to 7.2 percent unemployment and his policies made it 9.1 unemployment. Now things are so bad that even those pampered souls who voted on the basis of charisma are waking up to see that they made a misjudgment.
Next thing you know, Evan Thomas will be announcing that, on second thought, President Obama isn't god.
Meanwhile, I think there is a cautionary tale here: Listen to the debates, read everything you can, and think about the candidate's positions. Don't let yourself fall in love. Love is blind. The beautiful people learned this the hard way.