“I know you are, but what am I”

Last week, I commented on Thomas Frank’s weird defense of Obama’s attack on the media.  Basically, Frank’s whole defense was that Nixon was worse. I don’t know about you, but to say “my guy isn’t as bad as the guy I, a liberal, consider the worst, most paranoid president ever,” doesn’t strike me as a ringing endorsement.

Now comes Maureen Dowd, taking on Rush Limbaugh’s contention that Obama is an inexperienced narcissist who is in well over his head.  Dowd’s defense:  Rush is mean and, by the way, he had an Oxycontin addiction.  Oh!  And by the way, Bush was also immature.  The only thing she actually says in Obama’s defense is this little bit of psychobabble:  “The 48-year-old Obama is skinny and getting skinnier, but there’s nothing childish about him. He more or less raised himself and came to terms with his Oedipal demons on his own, and he radiates a hard-won maturity.”  So there!

Distill her argument and you get this:  Obama is a skinny guy with a bad childhood and it’s unfair for mean journalists to pick on him, never mind that Obama himself desperately wanted the job as most powerful person in the world.

Do these people really think that they’re making intelligent arguments when they write this way?