Bob McCarty Writes

NewsBusters was among the first to identify the tactic being employed by top Democratic Party leaders following their party’s election victory in November:  Lowering expectations of a Barack Obama presidency.

In a piece published Dec. 14, NewsBusters’ Warner Todd Huston pointed out that an Associated Press article was, in essence, preparing the country for a “failing Obama presidency.”

One week later, the lowering-expectations tactic was described well in a Wall Street Journal article by Naftali Bendavid.  She wrote:

The expectations game is always tricky in politics. To win power, candidates promise to enact sweeping change. But once victory is in hand, they often scramble to lower those expectations so they won’t be perceived as falling short.

The next day, the Democratic spin machine continued.  Carol E. Lee at Politico reported Joe Biden was worried about the “exceedingly high expectations” the world community has for Barack Obama’s presidency.

On the same day, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reported that Obama’s aides had already begun lowering expectations on matters related to embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and a report related to the situation that the soon-to-be 44th president of the United States himself had promised to release.

As highlighted in the cartoon by My Personal Litmus, Americans should expect to see widespread use of the lowering-expectations tactic by Democrats in 2009.  After all, they don’t want to see Dick Morris’ Dec. 18 prediction — that Obama will be “radioactive” by the end of 2009 — to come true.