pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2010/08/01/the-hikers-the-mullahs-and-their-friends/

This article illustrates an interesting mental disorder of a sort that I believe brought us the election of Obama, a man both politically inappropriate for the US as well as a candidate that was uniquely unqualified for the office of President.

That disorder, if I might call it that, is a combination of mental weakness in the sense of an inability to think beyond the superficial, a naive belief in people are the same everywhere and are by and large good at heart, and that good intentions will be recognized and honored by even the most evil and wicked.

In the case of the election of Obama, I remain in awe of the ability of otherwise intelligent people to ignore the obvious faults of this man, and to instead believe the most inconsistent statements made by him, as long as those statements are delivered smoothly and seemingly intelligently. They see and hear what they want to.

"I heard him talk, and he is a very inspiring speaker," is what I heard during the election. There was no effort to consider how he planned to actually be a "post racial President," nor how he was planning t0 actually succeed in "reaching across the aisle" and eliminate partisanship. No matter that he had spent 20 years attending a church headed by a racist, radical preacher. No mention of why he expected to be successful in his supposed post partisanship when generations of politicians had not and really did not even want to make that happen.

It's a crazy way to think. You almost have to turn off your ability to think, to analyze, to find and consider facts in support or in opposition to what you are hearing. Like the hikers, who couldn't imagine that the Iranians wouldn't see their good intentions, wouldn't appreciate their solidarity with the mullahs, those who voted for Obama had to willingly refuse to see what was right in front of them.

So, it should be no surprise now that Obama is entirely incompetent in his job (because he was singularly without accomplishment that was earned, as opposed to simply given to him through affirmative action ... and what about that Nobel Prize?), or that he is anti American, and even anti Western (when it was obvious that he had long associated with radical anti Americans like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayres).

This mental issue is in fact widespread in our society, and I suppose the only way to get people to recognize they suffer from it is, like the youthful hikers, to get arrested and imprisoned without sympathy. Here in the states, some are losing their naive ideas as Obama wrecks the county, the economy and fails to do what he said he would during the campaign, all to their shock and horror. The only question is whether that will be enough to make them think for themselves the next time a smooth talker comes along with honeyed words and ideas that seem so beguiling, so attractive.

I hope so, for all our sakes, lest we be trapped here in a prison of poverty and totalitarianism, which indeed seems to be just on the horizon, just like those foolish hikers in Iran.