Hitchens on Obama: Vapid, Gutless,

This is just sad:

Last week really ought to have been the end of the McCain campaign. With the whole country feeling (and its financial class acting) as if we lived in a sweltering, bankrupt banana republic, and with this misery added to the generally Belarusian atmosphere that surrounds any American trying to board a train, catch a plane, fill a prescription, or get a public servant or private practitioner on the phone, it was surely the moment for the supposedly reform candidate to assume a commanding position. And the Republican nominee virtually volunteered to assist that outcome by making an idiot of himself several times over, moving from bovine and Panglossian serenity about the state of the many, many crippled markets to sudden bursts of pointless hyperactivity such as the irrelevant demand to sack the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

And yet, and unless I am about to miss some delayed "groundswell" or mood shift, none of this has translated into any measurable advantage for the Democrat.

For the moment, let's leave aside, the fact that this whole "Why isn't Obama dominating?" is about the oldest, most hackneyed analysis available in the media-verse. The claim is demonstrably false. Like factually wrong. The rest of the column isn't any better. And this isn't the some throwaway claim, it's the central thesis of the column. The piece's very title--Is Obama Another Dukakis--is a cliche. What do we make of a first-rate writer delivering fifth-rate punditry?

I have more to say about this. But I need to calm down and think.

UPDATE: Lot of strawmanship going on below, and borderline trolling. For those who want to change the subject, let's simplify. This is the claim Hitchens makes in his lede and the one I cited in my post:

And yet, and unless I am about to miss some delayed "groundswell" or mood shift, none of this has translated into any measurable advantage for the Democrat

That claim is directly contradicted by the news of the past week. It is literally false. Now I know some of you are flat-earthers, but there needs to be some semblance of basic facts here. Either you have evidence that bolsters the claim, or you don't. Calling Obama "a typical politician" or changing the subject doesn't cut it. Show your work. A little honor among combatants, please.