Michael Lind – first winner in the Obama hagiography watch

Michael Lind has made an early and bold bid to grasp the brass ring, to climb to the rarified air, to officially become an Obama hagiographer.

What the hell kind of purple prose is this? (His, not my lead-in to the link to him.):

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency may signal more than the end of an era of Republican presidential dominance and conservative ideology. It may mark the beginning of a Fourth Republic of the United States.

What next? Obama walking on the Potomac? Obama feeding the masses at the Lincoln Memorial with loaves and fishes?

Obama hagiography, like Punxsutawney Phil, raised its head briefly during the end of the Democratic primary campaign, saw its shadow under the bright sun of the summer doldrums, and went back underground for about four or five months.

Well, it’s apparently safe for it to come out again in post-election fall.

Now, to be halfway fair, I should note that Lind defines his three previous American Republics:

The First Republic of the United States, assembled following the American Revolution, lasted from 1788 to 1860. The Second Republic, assembled following the Civil War and Reconstruction (that is, the Second American Revolution) lasted from 1860 to 1932. And the Third American Republic, assembled during the New Deal and the civil rights eras (the Third American Revolution), lasted from 1932 until 2004.

Fair in citing his definition for the purpose of demolishing it.

The second and third 72-year divisions are arbitrary, though the first one certainly isn’t. The second one is the most arbitrary. There is no overriding philosophy running through it, unlike the “America of the Founders” for the first one, and, just perhaps, the “New Deal and its aftermath” for the third.

Plus the third segment is artificial in that Lind arbitrarily makes it 72 years instead of 76.

He does that to prop up a weird and weak claim that each “republic” can be subdivided into 36-year halves. He protests he’s not about astrology, which I’m not claiming.

He does seem to be about numerology, though.

And, on the second page, Lind further undercuts himself by saying the 2004 election was a fluke.

What if Kerry had been a marginally better candidate? And won?

Don’t tell me, Michael Lind, you’d be honoring John Kerry for starting the Fourth Republic.

Michael, there's not enough bat guano in all the South Pacific for you to fertilize the idea that you'd have written this same story about Kerry.

This is about Obama hagiography first, history second. (Or pseudohistory in the service of Obama hagiography.)