Yesterday a socialist ...

As you may recall from the distant past, Barack Obama was denounced by his political opponents this campaign season as 1) the most liberal Senator in Congress (a classic tax-and-spender); and 2) a literal socialist, perhaps one with violent-revolutionary tendencies (or at least "associations").

The post-election talking point? As Amanda Terkel notes and documents, the spreading meme on the right late last night and today is that Obama ran on "center right" policies and values -- and so the public's embrace of him largely affirms conservatism. Quite a 180.

(Tom Brokaw has been hitting the "center-right" point hard, too, but since he never made the "socialist" charge -- and, in fact, pressed John McCain hard on that issue in an interview -- he doesn't expose himself to the charge of hypocrisy, whatever you make of his we're-a-center-right-nation thesis.)