Not Manchurian so much as Mandarin

Roger Simon is tempted to think of Obama as a Manchurian candidate, but ultimately dismisses the notion:

Barack Obama is not the Manchurian candidate. That’s just an excuse. The only problem is…

He’s worse. He’s far worse. Barack Obama doesn’t have to be a Manchurian candidate. He can and is doing more damage without being one. A Manchurian candidate could be exposed (yes, and possibly could not). Barack Obama doesn’t need that. He and the media and the brainwashed public that elected him are destroying our country (and the West) all by themselves. They don’t need any secret conspirators in the back room. They’re all there in public view. And how.

Surely this is the tell-tale sign of a dying republic: a society secure in the knowledge of the value of individual freedom and alive to the difference between good and evil in the world would have shaken off the progressive disease like a mild cold long ago. The gradually growing belief that the state is now a kind of primary caregiver to which we should yield up our patrimony of liberty in return for promises of security from every need and against every danger (unfulfillable promises, inevitably - Surprise!) indicates that our country’s political immune system is perhaps fatally damaged.

Has the imbecilariat finally taken over? We shall see (and I do not believe it will be a particularly long wait).