Kevin Drum has officially had his brain co-opted by Obama

Many Democratic partisans rightly attacked Bush on Iraq. And, they fought back against wingnut bloggers who said, "You can't question the president in a time of war!"

But, Kevin Drum, now of Mother Jones and formerly of Washington Monthly, and a neoliberal to some degree of long standing, is now close to that same territory with Obama.

Here's the nut graf (courtesy Glenn Greenwald):

So what should I think about [the war in Libya]? If it had been my call, I wouldn't have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he's smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted.

(Italics added in quote.)

Drum has a follow-up post in response to Greenwald, where he shifts the goalposts a bit:

I think pretty highly of Barack Obama's judgment. But what does it mean to say that? Just this: that I think highly of his judgment even when I disagree with him. How could it be otherwise, after all? If, when you say that you trust somebody's judgment, what you really mean is that you trust their judgment only to the extent that they agree with you, that's hardly any trust at all. Just the opposite, in fact.

To make this more concrete, I also think highly of Glenn Greenwald's judgment on issues of civil liberties and the national security state. This means that when he takes a different position than mine, it makes me stop and think. ... This doesn't mean that I've outsourced my brain to Glenn, but it does mean that he influences my judgment, and that's especially true on issues that I'm unsure of.

Ditto for Obama.

OK, Mr. Drummeister, nice try but a fail.

In the follow-up, you didn't say you'd literally trust Greenwald's judgment better than your own in case of disagreement, unlike what you said with Obama.

A reminder. Kevin, in the original post you said:

I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own.

Earth to Kevin: Your brain has been co-opted.

And, so much for the "reality based community," eh? It's kind of Orwellian to put that type of trust in a leader. In his original post, Greenwald juxtaposed your comment with one by John Hindraker about Bush. Yeah, Hindlicker was more slobberingly effusive than you, but ... he's not an alleged member of the reality based community.

Beyond that, your first graf in the follow-up has a straw man, of the particular type I call "false polarities." I don't know about you, Drum, but here's how I operate on partitioning and sharing trust. I can disagree with someone on one issue yet trust their judgment on that issue, but I can also disagree with someone on an issue, even if I respect that person overall, yet NOT trust their judgment on that particular issue.

And, "Democrats right or wrong" bloggers like you are yet another reason I don't vote Democratic.

Beyond this, it's not a political issue, but one of integrity. If Drum made a statement like this about anybody, I'd question, if not his integrity, his self-actualization or something similar. To say you'd "literally" (and not mean that in a scare-quotes way) trust someone else's judgment over yours on an issue on which you disagree sounds like a psychological problem.