Maureen Dowd's romantic Obama

As if Barack Obama were not already "celebrity" enough, now Maureen Dowd of the New York Times compares him to Fitzwilliam Darcy, the romantic protagonist of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Pride and Prejudice. Get it? Groan:

In this political version of "Pride and Prejudice," the prejudice is racial, with only 31 percent of white voters telling The New York Times in a survey that they had a favorable opinion of Obama, compared with 83 percent of blacks.

As if this were prima facie proof of white "prejudice" against Obama, you see? Only because of his race do white voters hold him in low esteem, Miss Dowd suggests, as if there were no other reason to doubt the presidential aptitude of a man who, until 2005, had never exercised any public office beyond the Illinois state legislature.

A presidential election is not a romance novel, nor should it be a personal popularity contest. Now, like many other liberals, Miss Dowd wants to turn the election into a referendum on race, so that Obama's election would be the triumph of MLK's "dream," while Obama's defeat would symbolically ratify what liberals have always believed: Americans are a bunch of dimwitted reactionary bigots.

What Miss Dowd and other liberals should ask themselves is whether the much-noted "resistance" to Obama -- his inability to break open a major lead in the polls, no matter how many tongue-baths he receives from fawning enthusiasts in the media -- might actually be voters' reluctance to playing along with this game.

Ordinary Americans are smart enough to perceive that the elites are demanding that they vote for Obama to prove they're not racists. But the voters don't feel they have to prove any such thing, and they resent like hell the suggestion that they do have to prove it.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers, and thanks for the link, Professor.

UPDATE II: Also linked by Burke to Kirk, who is happy to discover "a simple solution to my complex problem," and by Rick, who declares: "I Am An Ordinary American." Say it loud, say it proud!

UPDATE III: "Ordinary American" T-shirts:

UPDATE IV: "Eggheads for Obama"! Also, law professor Ann Althouse asks why MoDo sees "the black man's pursuit of political office as a sexual exploit?" Let's face it, Professor Althouse, MoDo sees everything as a sexual exploit.

UPDATE V: When Fausta Wertz looks at Obama, she doesn't see Mr. Darcy, she sees . . . Urkel.

UPDATE VI: I've been Farked.