Losing faith in Barack Obama's cult of personality

Conservatives and libertarians were quick to ridicule President Obama's photobombing of the Kennedy assassination anniversary Friday -- they've gotten used to noticing how his cult of personality overshadows everything else, even the brilliance which still reflects from Camelot 50 years later.

But the president's attempt to ride on John F. Kennedy's popularity may have been a last gasp. There are signs that even the most die-hard of Obama cultists have gotten tired of the endless, fawning hagiography.

Take the Washington media establishment, which over the past five years has seemed to contain more than its share of Kool-Aid drinkers. On Thursday, National Journal's Ron Fournier -- a veteran White House correspondent -- put the issue in the center of social media discussions with a piece headlined: "Obama's image Machine: Monopolistic Propaganda Funded by You," in which he argued:

"Journalists understand that the president's family and national security events must be off-limits at times. Journalists also don't object to the White House using social media; those are platforms as legitimate as televisions and print. The problem is that the Obama White House is simultaneously restricting access of independent media while flooding the public with state-run media.

"Again, this is propaganda — utterly lacking a skeptical eye. The irony is that Obama is using technology that democratized and flattened the media to centralize and strengthen the powers an institution, the presidency."

The dismantling of the Obama cult has even reached across the Atlantic, with this week's cover of The Economist showing him mired in the water instead of walking on it.

But perhaps the most telling sign of the disintegration came Sunday, when GQ released its list of the least influential celebrities of 2013. Obama was No. 17, because "nothing gets done."


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