LAME DUCK WATCH: WAPO COOS OVER ‘SLY’ AND ‘SELF-AWARE’ OBAMA, ‘OUR FIRST COMEDIAN-IN-CHIEF:’

One obvious sign liberal journalists are already missing Obama? Celebrating him as a comedian. Washington Post gossip Emily Heil is a big fan of his comedic stylings, as the headlines proved:

• “For presidential humor, Obama will be a hard act to follow” (Style section)
• “HE’S A REAL STAND-UP GUY: As he prepares for his final White House correspondents dinner, Obama has already demonstrated his knack for edgy, self-aware humor.” (Cover of the Express, the free Post commuter tabloid)
• “Our first comedian-in-chief: Sly and self-aware, Obama raises the bar for presidential humor.” (Express story inside)
• “Barack Obama, the first alt-comedy president” (online headline)

So thanks to his joke writers, as Heil eventually admits, Obama is the presidential equivalent of Jon Stewart, the nation’s Troll In Chief. The Post can’t say it wasn’t warned; back in June of 2008, Karl Rove was quoted as saying, “Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”

Naturally, during the summer of the Styrofoam columns, the Huffington Post blew its dog whistle at Rove’s comment.

And yet once again, as Mark Steyn wrote in March of 2009 after Christopher Buckley, David Brooks and the Economist all were forced to admit how badly they misread Obama (read: mislead potential voters), “The nuancey boys were wrong on Obama, and the knuckledragging morons were right.”

So right that Obama went from being “standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God” as then-Newsweek editor Evan Thomas orgiastically described him and “the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar,” as Rocco Landesman, Obama’s then-NEA president gushed, to being reduced to “Our first comedian-in-chief” – which apparently is meant to be a compliment.