One step forward, two steps back.
Brooks gets all milquetoasty on Obama again.
I don't think I could ever be a regular reader of his column*; it seems for every decent column he gets out, he backtracks or "covers his bases" so to speak, on the next three...
I'm afraid what skills Brooks sees as strengths in an American president, most thinking folk would consider fine in a lifelong community organizer (committed to a project for the long run), but lacking when the country is crying out for a strong leader:
The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer**. Every time he tries to articulate a grand philosophy — from his book “The Audacity of Hope” to his joint-session health care speech last September — he always describes a moderately activist government restrained by a sense of trade-offs. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market.
Trouble is, what looks good promised on paper often just doesn't work out in reality, because of a plethora of overlooked contributing factors. And though some might be uncomfortable admitting it, that makes the failed promiser look weak.
Better to promise small, and deliver big. And be in it for the long haul, once the publicized short-term gains are gone.
I mean even Israel, beneficiary of our greenbacks and goodwill, is slapping America in the face again. Twice now, when we send diplomats and pols to help with the "peace process", it coincidentally leaks that their further sectarian expansion plans (financed in these tight times by whom?) are contrary to America's defined interests in the region.
Obama's (missing) leadership is making it seem America is being schooled in our role over there, all right: "Thank you sir! May I have another?"
Somehow, I'm sure Brooks will spin that as some ultimate master plan too. After taking time to analyze, summarize and articulate the positions on all sides, it somehow becomes wisest to move forward unilaterally, ramming through the preferred plan of one "side"; the exact opposite of the "building consensus" promises of the community organizer cum president.
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* That's the problem with these "professional" journalists I think.
On some level, they begin caring more about playing nice, so they can be likeable in the elite circles in which they run. They're closer to the power than to the people, and they can't risk losing access by speaking hard truths.
Or maybe, that kind of environment just seduces you: like the poppies in Oz or the lotus flowers Odysseus' men consumed, you just forget about working for the people back home -- eventually coming to learn most of what you know about the Real America (non-elite) out here from secondary sources.
Give me Mike Royko's kind of regular-Joe elbow rubbing and blunt assessments, rude as they may initially seem,
He wrote during troubled times, but before the "professionals" took over the news business, and truth be told? His work, that from the ground up perspective, was better. More conducive to truth finding, I think, because rarely does the truth tell itself -- typed up and delivered clean and double spaced -- at news conferences, professional dinner parties, or other elite gatherings where it might seem honored and fun to be.
** Um, promised reform sure, but what actual reform is Mr. Brooks speaking of? Giving out those prizes for potential before they're earned again...
*** Can you imagine an evaluation of the Obama administration, crisply researched and written in the style of Boss? Now Obama is no (J.) Daley, and his administration no Machine, but an honest assessment from the ground up -- particularly had it been written before the election -- might have given us a clearer daily picture of how the man operates in power.
And if it turns out -- in reality -- he is better a promiser than a deliverer, at least the public and voters would have known that going in...
So much for fanboy journalism.
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