Stickybuffalo.com

if you’re not just a little bitter about the way things have been going in this country, you haven’t been paying attention.

if you don’t detect just a whiff of bitterness in the fact that 81% of us think ‘things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,’ you fundamentally misunderstand the political mood of 2008.

and if you think pointing out something that’s obvious to anyone with a modicum of honesty and the ability to read a poll means Barack Obama is “out of touch,” guess what? you may be suffering from Irony-Cognitive Deficiency Disorder (ICDD), a serious disease afflicting thousands of american pundits and political figures, in which the victim’s ability to maintain a coherent self-image that accords meaningfully with external reality is drastically diminished, to frequently tragicomic effect.

in severe cases, the victim’s contextual self-awareness withers away to the point where it becomes possible to make statements so outrageous as to be construable as self-parody, if not for the utterly deadpan affect with which they are delivered. in one well-documented recent case, an ICDD sufferer known for the voting irregularities surrounding his contested electoral victory in a state governed by his own brother, betrayed no trace of irony in demanding “free and fair elections” in cuba, “not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy.”

other symptoms may include:

if someone you know — especially someone with otherwise formidable political and policymaking skills who would make a fine president if not for the fact that she seems hellbent on destroying all hope for her party’s future and that of american participatory democracy in general — urge them to seek immediate treatment. help is available.