With only a week to go before the donkeys kick up their heels in Denver, the powers that be at the New York Times, acting in their unofficial capacity as mouth organ for the Democratic Party, have published what amounts to the playbook for the presentation of Barack Obama at the convention. And as usual, it is in tonally perfect accord with the liberal mindset and its overall game plan. The title of the piece, “For Convention, Obama’s Image Is All-American,” gives the game away. Most people in possession of a dictionary would see the use of the word “image” as the desire to present an illusion rather than an actuality; kind of like they do in Hollywood.

And indeed, following a trend that began with Bill Clinton and his buds Harry and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason — who, not coincidentally, are producing the video that will precede Hillary’s convention address — the Dems have tapped Davis Guggenheim to create a film that seeks to address what the Times calls Obama’s “otherness.” Mr. Guggenheim, as you may remember, was the director and producer of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, so he is no stranger to the art of truth-defying imagery.

But he and the rest of the gang at the DNC have their work cut out for them. The problem, as the Times so helpfully points out in its piece, is that liberals and the rest of the country have two decidedly different ideas of what is meant by the term “all-American.” For example, a great many folks in this country take exception to the Obama campaign using what appears to be an upside down American flag on the back of their INVESCO Field tickets. A spokesman said, “”The DNCC community credentials incorporate patriotic design elements. They do not depict an actual American flag.” Perish the thought.

In their last attempt at morphing a liberal elitist into a “regular” guy, Democrat operatives sent their man to the mountains of Sun Valley before he reported for duty at the 2004 convention. As I observed at the time:

John F. Kerry descended this week from the mountaintops and pleasure palaces of Idaho, doffed his designer ski duds, boarded his private jet and resumed his quest to be elected president on the “common man” ticket…From surfing to bicycling to Camelot-like football tossing, this JFK is out to prove he’s no wonkish wimp.

This time however, they are stuck with a man who really does come off as a wonkish wimp; messianic comparisons aside. One can understand the effort to soften the image of a rich patrician like Kerry or bring a little beige into the comparatively colorless world of Al Gore. These are attempts at marketing the candidate to one segment of society or another. But why in the world would a candidate for the presidency need to be sold as an American? “Because,” the Times explains, “of his race and questions about his patriotism, values and faith that Republicans have already vigorously sought to raise and exploit.”

What a surprise, that the dastardly GOP is responsible for the shortcomings of the great Barack; as if they advised him not to reverence the National Anthem or wear a flag pin; as if they created Jeremiah Wright and told Obama to attend his church for 20 years and listen to his bizarre ramblings. But of course, to the left, the motivation behind this all comes down to race:

“I’m asking a lot of the American people, and I know that,” Mr. Obama said in an interview last month, acknowledging that his burden to win over many voters was greater because he is black. “My biography is not typical of a modern American president.”

It’s obvious that the left feels that this whole charade of packaging Obama as a black Jack Armstrong is necessitated by the ignorant prejudices of the vast majority of typical white bigots. And so, we’ll be treated to a convention of a party that will hypocritically wrap itself in the American flag for a few days in the hopes of reaching the majority of Americans who are not ashamed of that flag the rest of the year.

You’d think that their last failed attempt at making their candidate seem presidential by sending him overseas would have taught them something about the American people, but thankfully, it has not.