David Brooks on Barack Obama when Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner:
I’ve been poring over press clippings
from Obama’s past, looking for inconsistencies and flip-flops. There
are virtually none.... Obama does not ratchet up hostilities; he restrains them. He does not
lash out at perceived enemies, but is aloof from them. In the course of
this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the
strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther
King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. -- "The Obama-Clinton Issue," December 18, 2007
Barack Obama has won the Iowa caucuses. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel moved by this.... This is a huge moment. It’s one of those times when a movement that
seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political
substance.... Obama has achieved something remarkable.... Obama is changing the tone of American liberalism, and maybe American politics, too.-- "The Two Earthquakes," January 4, 2008
Both [Barack Obama and John McCain] offer a politics that is grand and inspiring.... The key word in any Obama speech is “you.” Other politicians talk about
what they will do if elected. Obama talks about what you can do if you
join together. Like a community organizer on a national scale, he is
trying to move people beyond their cynicism, make them believe in
themselves, mobilize their common energies. -- "McCain and Obama," January 8, 2008
And then Monday, something equally astonishing happened. A throng of
Kennedys came to the Bender Arena at American University in Washington
to endorse Obama. Caroline Kennedy evoked her father. Senator Edward
Kennedy’s slightly hunched form carried with it the recent history of
the Democratic Party.... The Kennedys and Obama hit the same contrasts again and again in their
speeches: the high road versus the low road; inspiration versus
calculation; future versus the past; and most of all, service versus
selfishness.-- "The Kennedy Mystique," January 29, 2008
Brooks on Obama now that Obama is the frontrunner:
Barack Obama vowed to abide by the public finance campaign-spending
rules in the general election if his opponent did. But now he’s
waffling on his promise. Why does he need to check with his campaign
staff members when deciding whether to keep his word? Obama
says he is practicing a new kind of politics, but why has his PAC
sloshed $698,000 to the campaigns of the superdelegates, according to
the Center for Responsive Politics? Is giving Robert Byrd’s campaign
$10,000 the kind of change we can believe in? If he values
independent thinking, why is his the most predictable liberal vote in
the Senate? A People for the American Way computer program would cast
the same votes for cheaper. And should we be worried about Obama’s mountainous self-confidence? -- "When the Magic Fades," February 19, 2008
--Christopher Orr