Nation-Building >> nailing down Obama | return to front page

I've been arguing for some time that Obama, despite a compelling personal story, immaculate history of selfless public service and social work, and mastery of unifying rhetoric that does admittedly push just the right emotional buttons for a purple-politics inclined fellow like myself, still hasn't said a single practical thing in terms of policy prescriptions. When he does, his fairytale "above it all" meta-political persona is going to crudely deflate and he will be projected onto either the "wonk" or the "hack" axes like the rest of us mere mortals.

Conservative blogger Daniel Larson, whose weblog is the epitome of Purple commentary, thinks it's the Wonk's Road ahead:

By this time next year, Obama will have had to say something distinctive about substantive policy. He will have to cast votes on the war and numerous other issues that he will have to be able to defend, and this time he won’t have a cartoon opponent like Alan Keyes to overcome.

What he says is almost beside the point. Some people will agree, probably more will disagree, but at that point the dream of an Obama who will reconcile all oppositions within himself will be over. That is inevitable in political contestation, which is why the promise to “bring people together” is always such an illusory, deceitful one. Once he finally does say something, he will no longer be Barack, Font of National Good Feelings, but will become a rather conventional and boring pol who will either reveal himself to be a dreary technocrat spouting, Gore-like, minute details of legislation or the creamless cream puff I take him to be. Because of his inexperience and the superficial nature of his appeal to date, he will probably take the technocratic route to show that he “understands the issues” and he will overcompensate here. He will cease to charm, and he will try to persuade by rattling off facts and figures.

I have to agree that the Wonk persona is more likely than the Hack, perhaps because I hhave also bought into the Obama-as-Saint narrative to some degree and "hack" is such a dirty word.

Of course there is a third narrative waiting in the wings: Barack (Saddam) Hussein Osama the Defeatocrat Surrender Monkey who dresses like Iranian tyrants. I'll leave that sordid meme to RedState.com for flogging.

At any rate, in a year's time, everyone will have nailed Obama to one cross or another. The question is whether Obama will respond as has been his wont until now: by trying to please everybody? Or will he take a stand, and say I am liberal, I am for single-payer, for public campaign financing, for... (insert Big Idea of Transformative Change here). Time will tell.