David Brooks on Obama

David Brooks annoys me just as much as the next Democrat - I especially dislike his oversimplifications of neuroscience - but he has a great column today on Barack Obama. Since it's behind the wall of Times $elect, I'll quote liberally:

Barack Obama should run for president.

He should run first for the good of his party. It would demoralize the Democrats to go through a long primary season with the most exciting figure in the party looming off in the distance like some unapproachable dream. The next Democratic nominee should either be Barack Obama or should have the stature that would come from defeating Barack Obama.

Second, he should run because of his age. Obama's inexperience is his most obvious shortcoming. Over the next four years, the world could face a genocidal civil war in Iraq, a wave of nuclear proliferation, more Islamic extremism and a demagogues' revolt against globalization. Do we really want a forty-something in the White House?

And yet in his new book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama makes a strong counterargument. He notes that it's time to move beyond the political style of the baby boom generation. This is a style, he said in an interview late Tuesday, that is highly moralistic and personal, dividing people between who is good and who is bad.

Obama himself has a mentality formed by globalization, not the S.D.S. With his multiethnic family and his globe-spanning childhood, there is a little piece of everything in Obama. He is perpetually engaged in an internal discussion between different pieces of his hybrid self -- Kenya with Harvard, Kansas with the South Side of Chicago -- and he takes that conversation outward into the world.

"Politics, like science, depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality," he writes in his book. He distrusts righteous anger and zeal. He does not demonize his opponents and tells audiences that he does not think George Bush is a bad man.

Of course, despite all of Obama's potential, one significant hurdle remains: he hasn't done anything yet. He remains a first term senator who has yet to introduce a significant piece of legislation, or take an unpopular stand. And yet I don't care. For one thing, this Congress has been distinguished by its lack of achievement: no senator has done anything noteworthy. Secondly, when Obama has spoken out - like on lobbyist reform, where he tussled with McCain - he's been consistently on the right side of things. Finally, Obama is a hell of a writer. After eight years of incoherent Bushisms, wouldn't it be refreshing to have a president who was actually eloquent?

Update: Over at Open University, Cass Sunnstein reviews Obama's book. While I generally avoid buying this sort of political memoir - they are usually just gussied up stump speeches - this book sounds smart enough to actually read. After too many years of Rove's cynical polarizations, in which the electorate was intentionally divided, we need this kind of reasonable, pragmatic politician:

I've just finished reading Barack Obama's new book, The Audacity of Hope. An immediate reaction is that whenever possible, Obama likes to propose solutions that do not reject the defining principles of those with whom he disagrees--and if he finds it necessary to reject those commitments, he does so in a way that shows unfailing respect for them, and that puts their beliefs and (perhaps above all) their motivations in the most favorable light. This is true on questions involving the economy, national security, immigration, the role of religion, abortion, affirmative action, and much more.

To say the least, the idea of political minimalism raises hard questions. What is clear is that Obama's approach, as reflected in his book, is entirely different from that taken, at crucial times, by the Bush administration--and now being taken by certain segments of the Democratic Party.

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I've said it before elsewhere and I'll say it here. Obama would be an ok president if the time comes. However, Obama would be FAR more effective as a Senate Majority Leader if/when the Dems take it back, and give him some committee chairmanships on the way to that role to build him up for it.

Besides, nobody since JFK has been a president without being either a state governor or a VP first. Presidents have all been executives first.

By Joe Shelby (not verified) on 19 Oct 2006 #permalink

David Brooks is the sleaziest Republican apologists to be given a prominent soapbox in the last few years. It is no surprise that his op-eds are continual source of fisking by the liberal blogosphere. This op-ed included.

Here is a good letter to the editor in today's paper, responding to this Brooks editorial:

For those unfamiliar with the meaning of the term "concern troll" here is the definition from Wikipedia: A concern troll (the term is derived from the concept of an Internet troll) posts to an Internet forum or newsgroup, claiming to share its goals but actively working against those goals.

Typically, the concern troll expresses "concern" about group goals or plans for productive activity, urging members instead to attempt some activity that would damage the group's credibility, or alternatively to give up on group projects entirely.

New York Times columnist David Brooks, a neocon Bush cultist, "helpfully" suggested on The N&O's Oct. 20 Op-ed page that the Democrats nominate Barack Obama, an inexperienced first-term senator, as the presidential candidate in 2008.

Obama has promise, and one day might make an excellent candidate, but to nominate him prematurely would likely destroy Democratic chances in 2008 as well as severely damage Obama's chances in the future. Double helpful to the GOP, but for Democrats, not so much.

In exactly the same spirit of "helpfulness," I suggest the GOP nominate Florida Rep. Katherine Harris as the Republican presidential candidate in 2008. Based on her current run for the Senate (Recent Quinnipiac poll: Bill Nelson 61 percent, Harris 33 percent), I'm sure she will be terrific, especially if she gets to count the ballots.

Alex Shishkoff

Raleigh