Cult of Personality

Trey Smith

The most honest approach to this quandary has come from those, like [Jennifer] Granholm, who simply admit that they would vehemently object to all of this if it were done by Bush (or some other GOP President), but don't do so because it's Barack Obama doing it...On Sunday morning, MSNBC host Chris Hayes devoted a full hour to Obama's assassination program, and before doing so, he delivered an excellent monologue addressing the many progressives who complain any time he critically covers Obama's actions in this area. He cited an amazing post by an Obama supporter who wrote: "I support President Obama's drone attacks. And I admit that I'm a hypocrite. If a republican administration were executing these practices, I'd probably join the chorus to condemn them as unconstitutional, authoritarian or worse".
~ from DOJ Kill List Memo Forces Many Dems Out of the Closet as Overtly Unprincipled Hacks by Glenn Greenwald ~

What we have here is what is called a "cult of personality". Because Barack Obama has been successful in selling to progressives this idea that he is noble, fair-minded and just, they would follow this guy over a cliff, if he so much as hinted it. The President somehow has transformed himself into a weird combination of Jesus, Gandhi, Mister Rogers, and John Wayne!

With credential like that, how could he do us wrong?

And that's the kind of mentality he is banking on. If you love someone no matter what they do, you are inviting them to do some very bad things and there's a good chance they will stab you in the back. Why should he worry about disapproval when his ardent supporters have signaled that they will stand by him come hell or high water?