The New ODS

No, not Obama Derangement Syndrome, though that too is in bloom. I'm referring to Obama Delusional Syndrome, a condition in which the Obama-worshiper is completely unable to see the absurdity of their own claims that Obama is (fill in the blank), despite copious contrary evidence.

Witness, Brit journalist Martin Wolf's latest column in the Financial Times, entitled "Obama’s conservatism may not prove good enough." (Link requires free registration)

I'll skip getting into detail, and just point the interested at Professor Bainbridge's cogent snap rebuttal.

But either Wolf is sincere, in which case he's suffering from Obama Delusional Syndrome, or he's knowingly reclassifying the nanny-state Euro-socialist authoritarian impulse as conservatism. Call that latter Obama Orwellian Syndrome, or OOS. Pronounced "ooze." Or Liberal Orwellian Syndrome, LOS. (Yep, Ooze or Lose...)

It would take more examples to say that this is the same impulse as the Left's claiming that Bush was a far-right-wing uber-conservative, when he demonstrably wasn't. Or maybe "conservative" now means "not as completely left-radical as can potentially be imagined."