Here’s the thing: A few decades ago, I think she would have had a point. From what I gather, inculcating a sense in young kids that the president is a fine, fair, and friendly individual used to be an inoffensive adjunct of basic civics. When and why that changed is unclear — I would assume after Watergate, although O’Donnell says she remembers sending jelly beans to Reagan — but it has. Consider it another casualty of the hyper-partisan age. I do think that some of the conservative irritation towards Obamamania is a reaction to the left’s insane demagoguery towards Bush. Carrying protest signs comparing The One to a Nazi, as so many liberals did to Dubya, is one manifestation (although it’s the LaRouche-ians who are most guilty of that, needless to say). The outrage over the crooning children is another: Knowing that the left would have wet straight through its pants at the thought of some “Bushjugend” singing hymns of exaltation about a crypto-fascist warmongering Christian Taliban Rethuglikkkan leaves few of us on the right in the mood to take the high road. Toss in Team Barry’s own creepy nurturing of a cult of personality around Obama, replete with aggressive recruitment of artists for propagandizing on his behalf, and you have all the ingredients you need for some righteous conservative anger. Click the image to watch.