So, I’m sharing a bottle of cheap Merlot with an old friend last night, all each of us can afford in this bad economy. Truly. It is the first summer night in the Virginias. The air is warm and there flirts a gentle breeze. The stars are bright in the summer sky, but it is the lightening bugs that illuminate the night. In the background a bull frog croaks, and I do too…on my favorite subject, President Obama.

Hortense (not her real name but I’ll use it to protect her innocence) is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, whatever that means. Single, she admits for too long, she is unabashedly unashamed to say that she has fallen hook, line and sinker in love with the new American President.

“C’mon,” Hortense says, “admit it. He has something. You know what I mean. You can’t possibly be completely impervious to his charm. Whenever I listen to him speak, I feel as if I’ve been mind-fu**ed. And that smile, he can turn the world on with his smile, tra, la, la. This Hortense says to me as the aforementioned bullfrog was having his way with Mrs. Bullfrog not four feet away from me in my pond…as Obama has had his way with a thousand Hortenses worldwide.

Trying to ignore the love scene occurring on the lily pad and the one being told to me by my old friend Hortense, I wonder. Hortense is a smart, creative, beautiful woman. She teaches history classes in the local high school. She is incredibly well-educated and reads incessantly drinking up knowledge with the same fervor that one can down a cheap bottle of wine during a summer evening’s conversation.

Over the years we’ve had a lot of summer fun sparring over politics. In the past Hortense has shown herself to be more informed than most and really, quite reasonable in her assessment of the issues.

But now, here she is, all reason lost to her passion for Barack. We discuss Israel, North Korea, health care and more. Hortense proves herself to be uncommonly uninformed, regurgitating Obama’s rhetoric but unable to answer my questions when I ask her to back up her opinions with facts.

She continues to spit Obama speak, quoting Obama talking points nearly word for word. I soon realize that Hortense, my intelligent, used-to-be informed friend has become like too many others who have completely fallen for the lines of the charming president. She has become an Obama evangelist. In her next sentence Hortense tells me that she thinks that Obama is the Second Coming. No kidding, that’s what she said.

I tell Hortense, as I tell all my besotted friends who think Obama is the Second Coming, that it’s easy to create the Second Coming with the media as your apostles.

Hortense laughs at my clever line, I fear missing my point as much as she does when she falls for The One’s clever lines. As if to punctuate my thought, the frog lets out with one hell of a “Rivet, rivet.”

“Hortense,” I say, “You’ve bought the Kool-Aid. You’ve been mesmerized. Obama isn’t Christ. He is nothing more than a brilliant publicist’s creation. There’s a formula they’ve found that works, and the media has gone along with it. If Obama acts like G-d, and the media treats him like G-d than he is G-d. And like G-d, Obama is everything to all people. Have you read his speeches?”

“Oh, come on,” Hortense says. “By your account the press has made some tacit agreement with the President of the United States to propagate his positions.”

“No, genuflect would be the better word for the actions of Obama’s apostles. They’ve become his followers, his devotees, his proselytes. Think NBC’s Brian Williams literally bowing to Obama at the end of an interview. Consider ABC hosting a Town Hall Meeting with the President of the United States from the White House and allowing no commercials from the opposing camp. And think of the consequences of a press who makes deals with the Office of the President more to boost their ratings than deliver, as is their job, just the facts, Ma’am.”

“Ribbit, ” the frog croaks translated: "Amen."

Hortense says, “He is the President of the United States.”

I say, “Yes, he isn’t G-d.”

“He’s the leader of the free world.”

“But only if we have a free press.”

Whence forth I hear a croak from the lily pad, “Pluck your magic twanger froggy,” I am sure I heard Mrs. Froggy say.

I look at Hortense and realize that our conversation is useless. Like Mrs. Froggy, my friend Hortense has been kissed by her frog Prince. Her prince has come. I only hope he doesn’t turn into her Prince of Darkness.

Ribbit.