Tag: Barack Obama

Obama’s bankrupt opponents

In recent days I’ve been struck by the overwhelming nature of the problems that face us, and the utterly bankrupt nature of the conservative response. Because the more mindless of those responses drives me crazy, I will instead present the rational but wrong David Brooks, who writes today:

Readers of this column know that I am a great admirer of Barack Obama and those around him. And yet the gap between my epistemological modesty and their liberal worldviews has been evident over the past few weeks. The people in the administration are surrounded by a galaxy of unknowns, and yet they see this economic crisis as an opportunity to expand their reach, to take bigger risks and, as Obama said on Saturday, to tackle every major problem at once.

I think Brooks is fundamentally mistaken in his assessment of what the Obama administration would like to do. Everything we know about President Obama tells us that he is an exceedingly cautious politician — a mainstream liberal, not a creature of the far left, who, given his choice, would have liked to proceed deliberately.

He can’t. Not with the economy falling apart, the auto industry careening toward bankruptcy, the financial system in meltdown and housing as dead as it’s been in decades. (Let’s not forget, too, he’s also dealing with war and terrorism on multiple fronts.) Finally, as Obama argued during the campaign, a lot of what ails us economically can’t be fixed without finally doing something about health care.

In the midst of all this, it is striking that the Republicans have nothing to say. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who will deliver the Republican response to Obama’s address to Congress tonight, is getting a weird amount of attention for rejecting about $90 million in federal unemployment assistance — while eagerly grabbing $4 billion in stimulus money.

I don’t know if you caught Jindal on “Meet the Press” Sunday, but he came across as Sarah Palin with better syntax: plenty of pre-rehearsed soundbites, but little or no ability to answer moderator David Gregory’s simple questions.

It’s no wonder that Obama’s job-approval rating is so much higher than that of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at a similar early stage of their presidencies.

Conservative wistfulness over Obama

At Human Events, D.R. Tucker posts a thoughtful reaction to my Guardian commentary on conservatives who are willing to give President Obama a chance.

Tucker detects wistfulness on the part of conservatives who wonder how things might have turned out differently if the Republican Party hadn’t spent two generations driving away African-American voters. He writes:

Obama and other post-civil-rights-movement black leaders came of age in a time when they were told, in ways direct and subtle, that the GOP wasn’t really interested in them. Perhaps if the GOP had attempted to attract black support in those days, charismatic and gifted figures like Obama would have become conservative Republicans instead of liberal Democrats.

There’s a missing ingredient here. The Republican flight from empiricism, embodied in such divisive figures as Sarah Palin and George W. Bush himself, has at least as much to do as race when it comes to the GOP’s failure to attract people who like their politics reality-based.

But there’s no doubt that the Republicans have finally shrunk their tent to such an extent that it can no longer hold a majority — at least not as presently constituted.

Obama for sale

The newspaper business may be hurting, but Barack Obama — whether he realizes it or not — is doing what he can to help.

The latest paper to cash in on Obama’s popularity is the Boston Herald. According to a newsroom source, the paper has published an ad-free, 32-page color magazine called “Boston Celebrates President Obama,” which will cost $2.99 when it hits newsstands tomorrow. Overseen by city editor Jennifer Miller, the magazine will include contributions by everyone from Keith Lockhart to Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the hosts of NPR’s “Car Talk.”

The Boston Globe, meanwhile, printed 65,000 copies of an eight-page extra on Tuesday afternoon, following Obama’s swearing-in. The Los Angeles Times and several other papers did the same, and those that didn’t printed more copies of today’s paper than usual.

The New York Times is being unusually aggressive. I managed to scarf a couple of copies on Election Day, visions of eventual eBay riches dancing in my head. Yet the Times is still selling copies of that day’s paper, and has now added today’s edition, along with a lapel pin and a photo. So much for the three copies I scored in Danvers Square at 5:30 this morning.

Maybe I should invest in those Obama coins that Montel Williams is pushing? Uh, I think not.

Obama and the right

In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that President Obama’s inaugural address succeeded in separating serious conservatives like David Brooks and Peggy Noonan from right-wing loons like Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin. It’s not really about getting conservative support so much as it is expanding the field on which he needs to govern.

Obama shouldn’t have waited

Barack Obama’s transition is of considerably more importance to the nation than U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

So if it’s true that the Obama team has found nothing improper in Rahm Emanuel’s contacts with Blago, then it should have released the news last week rather than giving in to Fitzgerald’s request for a delay.

Fake Rahm Emanuel has his say.