Excuse my mastery of the obvious, but I have to believe the greatest obstacle to America’s return to policy sanity is the electorate’s cultish adoration of Barack Obama.

If it weren’t for this disturbing phenomenon – not to discount a healthy dose of blind partisanship – it is inconceivable that the majority of people would tolerate Obama’s dismantling of America’s free market system, his returning America to a pre-9/11 mindset against terrorists, his increasing usurpations of power, and his corrupt ties and practices, from the public funding of ACORN to the summary dismissal of the case against the Black Panthers to his firing of inspector general Gerald Walpin apparently for uncovering corruption by Obama’s friends.

I don’t quite understand how people, especially religious people, can place their trust for salvation in a fellow mortal, but history shows they do, and present-day America shows they are. From MSNBC’s Chris Matthews’ admitting Obama sends a thrill up his leg to audience members’ fainting at his speeches to young girls’ kissing his statue like brainless bookends, the trend continues unabated.

Even some not entranced by his supposed charisma are indirectly affected by it, evidenced by their unbounded willingness to give him the benefit of every doubt. They are impervious to his narcissism, indifferent to his megalomaniacal pursuit of power, ceaselessly forgiving of his childish scapegoating of the previous administration, and oblivious to his extremism.

The mainstream media are his biggest institutional enablers, drooling over his every utterance, irrespective of his many contradictions, his assaults on the Constitution and our liberties, and his spate of broken promises.

“So what?” you say. “The MSM are ends-justify-the-means liberals who believe exactly as he does. Of course they ignore his unprecedented expansions of government, his deceit in furtherance of accomplishing a radical liberal agenda of which they approve, his opportunistic breaches of promises, and his nose thumbing at the Constitution.”

True, but there’s more to it than that. The media’s fixation with Obama transcends their shared ideology, and I’m not just referring to Evan Thomas’ deification of Obama. Did you see the CNSNews.com interview of Chris Matthews (sorry to bring him up again)? I knew he was a Kool-Aid drinker, but this was embarrassing.

When the correspondent asked Matthews whether Obama still sends a thrill up his leg, he replied: “I have a feeling about my country. When he talked about it, I was inspired.”

Then came the scary part. Asked whether the press should give Obama more scrutiny, he said: “I think we have to question the numbers . the amount of money that’s been printed and the size of the deficits and the addition to the debt, and that’s pretty scary. These are huge numbers. We’re going to have a debt by the end of the first term that’s equal to our entire economy. Think about that. That has to be paid off . (with) tremendous costs to the taxpayer. . It’s scary.”

The long quote is helpful to illustrate that Matthews fully appreciates – intellectually – the danger to America’s solvency that Obama’s policies represent. Despite that, he added this non sequitur: “I love my country, and he talks about my country . in a way that inspires me, and he thrilled me. I’m very proud of that. . I mean it. . I hope it continues.”

So Matthews is scared that Obama is spending the country he says he loves into bankruptcy but hopes he keeps talking in a way that inspires him. Can this be explained rationally?

Of course not. But that’s the point. Cultish attraction destroys logic, reason and sound judgment.

Nor can rational thought explain the serial applauses from Obama’s American Medical Association audience as he told them he is going to place the square peg of socialized medicine into the round hole of improving quality and decreasing costs – all without diminishing patient choice or physician authority.

Then consider the American Jewish community, which still overwhelmingly supports Obama despite his egregious displays of disrespect toward Israel, its history, its moral position and its fundamental right to national defense. And there are large segments of the Christian community – Catholic and evangelical – that either lie to themselves about Obama’s depraved, militant position in supporting even partial-birth abortion or compartmentalize it into artificial irrelevance.

And how about rank-and-file Democrats who consider themselves fiscally conservative? Partisan loyalties notwithstanding, how can they sit by idly as they watch Obama’s spending horror show unfold? How can they delude themselves into believing this obscene and insane spending – guaranteed to financially, and maybe politically, enslave our children – can ever be justified?

At some point, the spell will dissipate. The question is whether that will happen in time to prevent irreversible damage to this nation.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.