This weekend finds us with another dose of stories which have recently made me despair of covering politics this year. Just to set the baseline here, I opposed Hillary Clinton’s bids for both our Senate seat here in New York and her presidential run. Also, I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. (Nor did I vote for John McCain.) But after his decisive victory in November I was somewhat heartened when some of the Right leaning bloggers I follow indicated that the level of political discourse might be elevated a bit this year. The “loyal opposition” would be back with a purpose. They would recognize President Obama as the legitimate winner and support America, but would stand ready to criticize the President, his administration and his policies when they felt that he was taking the nation in the wrong direction.

Unfortunately, one of the most common questions we hear – seemingly on a daily basis – is, “Can you imagine what would happen if Bush did….?” This has led to a never ending parade of stories like this one. It seems that, during her trip to Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stopped by a well known Christian Basilica and was unfamiliar with one of their religious relics.

During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.

Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy.

Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”

This, of course, has the usual list of suspects up in arms with their daily dose of fauxrage. I did a quick check with a couple of the other bloggers in this area so see exactly how ubiquitous knowledge of this icon really is and found that I was hardly alone in stating that I’d never heard of the thing either. I suppose if I lived in Mexico I would have, but neither does Hillary. The sadly predictable response to this, of course, is nicely demonstrated by another member of the dimmer bulb crew at babalu, in a short, sniper attack hilariously named “Dumb and Dumberer.”

The fact is that “the smartest woman in America” should have been briefed about what the Virgin of Guadalupe represents to her devotees before injecting her into this situation.

Indeed, sir! She should have been briefed! This complaint ties in to the flood of memes running around the Right wing attempting to portray Obama and his cabinet as inept amateurs, fumbling their way through “on the job training.” Unfortunately, this group of genius level critics seem to have failed to read the very first sentence of the article they are all quoting. To wit:

During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Did you manage to catch the key phrase that time? So Clinton briefly broke away from the schedule to stop off at a popular tourist destination and her staff didn’t instantly have every last detail of its history ready at hand. I’m surprised none of them caught the real story from the trip when Hillary stopped off for quick bite of lunch on the last day at a local cantina and didn’t know the name of the shop owner! I’m shocked we’re not at war with Mexico already.

Babalu also repeats the endlessly droned hypothetical, “Imagine if George W. Bush had done this.” It’s a rather sad statement that none of these critics can see exactly what they are saying about themselves. The obvious implication is that if Bush had done this, the lefties would be up in arms with fauxrage and talking about how “dumb” he was. So then, when a Democrat does something similar, you turn around and do exactly the same thing. Way to raise the level of discourse, folks.

There are plenty of things to criticize the Obama administration over, particularly if you count yourself among the deficit hawks and fiscal conservatives. But these endless “amateur bumbler dummy” stories make you look like the sullen children on the playground who lose ten consecutive games of T-ball and can then think of nothing more productive to do than follow the winners around shooting spitballs at them. Obama won the election, folks, and you’re going to have to find a way to quiet your own demons for at least the next four years or run the risk of choking on your own bile. Stories like this make me far less inclined to take you (or your candidates) very seriously.