Obama 2012: The Audacity of Cynicism? Or The Cynicism of Fascism?

I'm taking that line from this post in Contentions, where Peter Wehner's head spins while trying to wrap his mind around the contradictions, cluelessness, and collective falsehoods that make up Barack Obama's re-election campaign:

But to really enter the Twilight Zone​, consider these two priceless sentences from the Times story: “Winning a full-year extension of the payroll tax, [Joshua R. Earnest, the president’s deputy press secretary] said, will still be a top priority. He noted that House Republicans were now also arguing that it should be extended for a year, after some initially opposed extending it at all.”

Come again? On December 13, the GOP House passed a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut – and was promptly criticized by – you guessed it — the president. Obama favored a much shorter, two-month extension. House Republicans, under intense political pressure, eventually agreed to the two-month extension. Now the White House is declaring a full-year extension is a “top priority.” Yet as recently as three weeks ago the opposition to the president’s “top priority” came not from House Republicans but from Obama himself.

We are now reaching the point in which the president is running a truly post-modern campaign, in which there is no objective truth but simply narrative. Obama’s campaign isn’t simply distorting the facts; it is inverting them. This kind of thing isn’t unusual to find in the academy. But to see a president and his campaign so thoroughly deconstruct truth in order to maintain power is quite rare. The sheer audacity of Obama’s cynicism is a wonder of the modern world.

Wehner calls Obama's world a "Twilight Zone", no doubt a nod to this weekend's excellent marathon presented by SciFi. And it is quite apt: Obama's world is one where seeing is not believing, where the grip upon reality is tenuous at best, and a place where, when common sense dictates one thing should occur, you had best prepare for its opposite instead.

Over at The Weekly Standard, Daniel Halper declares that President Obama's entire re-election team lives not in an alternate zone of reality, but within an entirely different planet whatsoever, circling some cruel and distant sun. He reports a quote from Obama's 2008 guru, David Axelrod:

“We took a guy who speaks about vision and values in as compelling a way as anyone of this generation, and we made him into a narrator of the day-to-day decision making of government.”

Halper is stunned:

So, in other words, Axelrod is realizing that the problem with Obama is that eventually he had to govern, which requires “day-to-day decision making” and which also requires the decision maker to explain why he’s making certain decisions to the people who elected him. I guess he now wants Obama not to have to explain his decisions to the general public, since that’s been weakening the president’s political position and instead Axelrod wants to utilize “a guy who speaks about vision and values in as compelling a way as anyone of this generation".

Not stunning, really. Just 21st Century fascism, with the inevitable postmodern spin. Axelrod is honest - he simply declares his desire to use Obama's charming (if false) facade, along with his deceptively earnest speaking voice, as a front for a regime that will take control of every aspect of American life. Now, Axelrod confesses, Obama may not actually be up to the actual day-to-day tasks of dictatorship, but he can still be an effective smokescreen for the people who are willing to do the dirty work.

Like Lisa Jackson. And Eric Holder. And Kathleen Sebelius.

They'll be the ones hiding behind the curtains in 2012.  Would be best for the country if the Republicans shined some light on who is really pulling the levers in the Obama Administration...