Despite the litany of legitimate and lasting accomplishments, things look pretty grim for the once hopeful Obama presidency.
And by extrapolation, they look pretty crappy for the nation as well.
Because day and night, through hurricane or drought, through disappointment or disaster, the right wing wages a relentless assault on the very idea of an Obama America, a concept that needed -- sadly -- to be couched as "audacious"; a war waged against America itself, to kill any attempt at progress in a world where progress impedes profit.
It's a clever, casual sabotage: scoring the foundations with destructive charges, once dependable structures are brought down; villains are conveniently named; the cunning spectacle of distraction and sleight of hand keeps eyes from lighting on the scam and, of course, a tidy profit is skimmed. Their strategy for keeping the country sick, broke and scared is devilishly effective.
And with the 24 hour corporate media working in perfect synchronicity, the stage is set for the public's unquestioning acceptance of moronic memes and misnomers about socialism and death panels and illegal aliens, further reducing the already preemptively softened populace to little more than an obese claque.
But it's not just the big, glittery bits the right dangles in front of pharmaceutically dilated pupils. It's the seeds of disdain planted at the grass roots by a tirelessly subversive quasi-conservative infantry, who adore finally being given something for which they are suited, after suffering in a world where truth and decency have a liberal bias; who use talents honed by playing video games and watching Fox to genetically modify Sense to become Nonsense.
From the brazen brainlessness of re-writing history textbooks to decrying energy conservation to championing the packing of guns in churches and schools, the real agenda of the right is not in crafting legislation but in fomenting distrust and cultivating a lizard-brained, wisdom-free landscape. They supply a product for a consumer base they have created and continually exploit. They are berserkers in crew-cuts.
It may actually be too late. The division feels entrenched, the governmental gridlock is status quo. The perpetual war is not abroad, it's here. Individuals, however well meaning, can't seriously rely on government because, thanks to the successful deployment of the right's rank and file kulture killers, it's not government at all.
So, when the "elections" roll around and the machines crank and whirr, know this: there are Americidal maniacs loose. Just look to your right.