By what sorcery?

"By what sorcery could a man, starting with nothing, in the space of a mere ten years totally vanquish seemingly insurmountable obstacles blocking his ascent to power, and how could such a man capture the confidence of millions of people: the unemployed, the workers, the middle class, the intellectuals?" -- Quoted in Maria Hsia Chang, "Perfect Possession," New Oxford Review (May 2009), p. 23.

He was a comely, personable fellow, caring, compassionate, a veritable Freund der Kinder. It wouldn't be funny, as one reader writes, if there weren't some truth to it, even if unprecedented in the U.S. (see the "PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities" recommended by the U.S. Dept. of Education in response to the President's September 8, 2009 "Address to Students Across America," or these California "Children singing praises of their leader" before his recent election, which isn't a huge jump to this).

It may no longer be so funny, however, when one sees such phenomena erupting within a social milieu so enraptured with the virtues of "tolerance" and "diversity" that it welcomes the airing, by the national network, CBS, of the "'Most vile, Obscene' Attack on Catholic Church 'Ever Aired'" (LifeSiteNews, Sept. 2, 2009), in which Penn & Teller blame Catholicism for all evil (The entire program, "Penn & Teller: Bullsh't" [WARNING: HIGHLY OFFENSIVE AND FOUL LANGUAGE], is posted by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights on its website).

[Hat tip to T.K.]