A careful and close reading of Obama, his books, his campaign, and now his transition, suggests that he is a true believer in his own message. He takes seriously the need to bridge the divide between parties, races, ideologies, and people. And this means working in good faith with all the “Others” of American society and politics. This also means that for liberal Democrats hungry for pay back, an ideological purge of the political culture, the next four (or eight) years will be more frustrating than the last eight. With Bush, there was no reason to check hostility; it’s far more difficult to unleash on the captain of your own team.

Does this mean that Obama is a moderate? Or, if he is a liberal or progressive at heart, might he also be a de-facto centrist, a liberal so habituated to compromise and conciliation that he lacks either the imagination or the courage to advance an aggressive agenda that reflects his values?

No.

My hope—and my faith, from the perspective of this early date—is that we are on the cusp of a bold and dramatic redirection of American politics and policy. And what some are reading as a moderation in the new president is really more a matter of method. Not tactics, per se, but a perticular way of thinking about change that impacts both the way change is

In "The Visionary Minimalist," published early in 2008, Cass Sunstein offered a useful way to think about Obama by casting him as a paradoxical hybrid combining two, otherwise antithetical, dispositions. For Sunstein, Obama is both a pig picture visionary and a methodological minimalist. He explains:

Not unlike the great conservative Edmund Burke, minimalists are fearful of those who are gripped by

Obama, of course, is no baby boomer, and so his connection to Kennedy’s unique brand of idealism is not a matter of generational nostalgia. But, it’s rather clear that the Kennedy connection is explicit for him, that it is a value he has inherited more or less directly from Kennedy himself. The link is his parents, both father and mother. In his memoir, Dreams from My Father, he describes his mother as a very real person, an eighteen year old Kennedy-style idealist who was attracted to his father in part by her own political romanticism. In several telling and poignant passages he makes it clear that her idealism was childlike in its innocence yet remained a potent force in her life until she died—driving her to live and work with the poor of Indonesia. Correspondingly, he presents his father as a larger than life, mythological figure—a stature he achieves in part because he genuinely had a charismatic personality and in part because he was absent, and thus owned a fictional persona unchallenged by its contrast with the more prosaic identity never came into conflict with its mythic counterpart. But more important still was the content of that myth. In his own estimation—and the estimation of others as well—he was a living embodiment of the same ideals Obama’s mother had fallen in love with. He was a bright, young, endlessly energetic African student who came to America not only because it was a place where he might realize his own promise of excellence, but because it was the fountainhead of promise itself. When he returned to Kenya he went back preaching the American gospel of a meritocratic society. He was eager to transform his homeland along the lines of the ideal America he believed in—to make it a place where a thirst for progress and a faith in the power of excellence could break the shackles of tribal cronyism and corruption. Barak Obama Sr. was a Kenyan Horatio Alger.

Though Obama only met his father once, the book makes clear that the myth of his father was a constant companion. It was kept alive, in part, by his mother. In Obama’s nomination acceptance speech he recounts a time while they were living in Indonesia that she decided Barak “was an American, and had better learn what that meant.” In that speech, out of context, it sounds like a throw away line—something might say to burnish his patriotic credentials, especially if they were being challenged by some jingoistic opponent. It’s a deeply unfortunate interpretation. In context we see exactly what his mother meant. It comes at a moment when she sees her son being corrupted by the necessities of raw power, a jungle law unmediated by American ideals, American hope, and American faith in the ability to envision a better world—and the human potential to make it.

This is the Kennedy legacy.

And this is Obama’s obsession with “excellence.”

But Will also goes after other conservatives as well (“faux conservatism”), singling out, for example, Dick Cheney’s attempt to write in a fourth branch of government all for himself. Will is surely on to something here.

A particularly irritating example of constitutional stupidity came last week when an NPR interview of Obama dating back to 2001 surfaced in which he laments the way Civil Rights movement over emphasized the capacity of the judiciary to bring about social (i.e., economic) justice.

As Jake Tapper reports the interview:

Obama in that interview said, "If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples, so that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order, and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be OK."

"But," Obama said, "The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as it's been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted in the same way that, generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted."

Obama added, "one of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement, was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways, we still stuffer from that."

Once the conservative echo chamber got a hold of the interview, Obama’s words were promptly taken out of context, distorted, and out right misread to mean things that were the very opposite of what he actually said. (So much for “original intent” and textualism.). McCain, Palin, and an army of official and unofficial surrogates claimed that Obama had wished that the courts had been more willing to bend the constitution to achieve some sort of redistribution of wealth—when, in fact, he argued that the movement should have been more focused on the possibilities for social change offered by community and legislative action.

But no matter. Such distortions may demonstrate illiteracy or dishonesty—but not necessarily a fundamental ignorance of basic principles of American constitutionalism.

What really shocked me, however, was another line of attack. When disgraced former majority leader Tom Delay appeared on Hardball a few days ago to rant about Obama’s comments, he made a point of emphasizing, in sneering tones accusatory tones, Obama’s description of the Bill of Rights as “negative.” In Delay’s rendition, just describing the contents of that document as negative was apparently evidence of Obama’s disrespect for our fundamental liberties. In the day or so leading up to Delay’s appearance I had heard something of the same out of both McCain and Palin, though it seemed that they had been a little less obvious or forceful.

Well, here’s the deal: As any constitutional law student will tell you—indeed, as most Poly Sci undergrads will tell you—referring to basic constitutionally protected liberties such as freedom of press, speech, religion, and all the others as “negative” is nothing controversial. The usage simply draws attention to the fact that our rights are expressed in terms of things the government may not do to us. Alternatively, positive liberties are understood as things the government must provide us—or, as we typically call them, “entitlements.”

Now, being the kind, forgiving sort of person I am, I’m happy to give them the benefit of the doubt. But the truth is, I have no idea whether McCain, Palin, or Delay understand the distinction. So I really don’t know what giving them the benefit of the doubt means. What’s worse? Assuming that they know more than they pretend and, in fact, are only trying to demagogue an issue of constitutional principle—or that they are fundamentally ignorant about the constitution of the nation they hope to lead?

The central thesis of the book—or perhaps its conceit—is that his father, a “mythological character” he hardly knew, was the epitome of the American dream. As the book implicitly acknowledges, the “idea” of American has from the outset been a foreign idea. It began as a vision and a promise to/by Europeans that their lives could be better in a newer world—a place where the bondage of old world prejudices and old world social and economic constraints could be broken. A world where a people could fashion for themselves a new identity out of nothing but the whole cloth of their own humanity.

Obama’s book is an elegant presentation of how that distinctly political and spiritual American myth became, for him, deeply personal and psychological—part of his own quest for personal identity, and the political template for his negotiation with the demands of racial identity.

In short, the book is one of the most elegant and compelling narrative arguments for “Americanism” I have ever read from a politician. Indeed, from anyone.

It’s in this light that I read (and watched) a headline grabbing political hack challenge Obama and other liberal Democrats on the issue of their “anti-americanism.” Such bullshit shouldn’t shock me—but it does.

As reported in Politico:

Early in the “Hardball” interview, Bachmann said she was “very concerned” that Barack Obama “may have anti-American views.”

When Matthews pressed her about the connections between liberalism and anti-Americanism, Bachmann continued to blow on the coals: “Well, the liberals that are Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, they are over-the-top anti-American, and that’s the questions that Americans have.” She grouped into this Michelle Obama’s comments that “she’s only recently proud of her country.”

Matthews kept pressing.

“I guess when I heard the word ‘anti-American’ [applied] to Barack, I wanted to see how ready she was to apply it,” Matthews told Politico on Monday. “And she was ready to apply it pretty broadly.”

Matthews asked Bachmann how many of her colleagues were “anti-American.”

“What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look,” Bachmann responded. “I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would be — would love to see an exposé like that.”

I'm not in the business of tossing about charges of anti-americanism--but only because I think such claims are themselves out of keeping with the American spirit of tolerance and democratic debate. But it is more than a little astonishing that a brash young African student whose impressions of American were established before he ever set foot on these shores--and was only here a few short years--knew more about the deep spiritual meaning of American identity than one of our own "representitives."

Yes, and the connection is a bit too close for comfort.

As FDR ramped up his New Deal reforms in 1934 a group of radical, laissez-faire writers, politicians, and business leaders formed the American Liberty League. For a short time it became the intellectual brain trust of the Republican opposition in congress. As summarized by a sympathetic historian, David Pietrusza (cribbing from “liberal” historian George Wolfskill), the league advanced,

a remarkably coherent libertarian position. They believed, he said, that the New Deal was a threat to the Constitution and represented a danger of tyranny via centralization; that it was based on coercion, deceit, and false economic principles: that recovery was in fact retarded by government intervention; that government agricultural controls were “a cure worse than the disease”; that the New Deal combined aspects of socialist and fascist economic systems; that private enterprise was being damaged; that deficit financing and high spending threatened the nation with inflation; and that the banking community was now under the political control of the federal government.

Statements by American Liberty League spokesmen were of a solid anti-statist cast. Howard Pew lashed into planned economies, charging that they lead to “lower living standards, national decay and the sacrifice of liberty... whether the dictator is a usurper by force or is elected under the forms of popular government.” Journalist Neil Carothers charged: “The materials for a disastrous inflation have been built up, and no one knows when these inflammable materials will be set ablaze. Our currency measures have disorganized foreign trade, cruelly embarrassed the gold standard countries of Europe, deepened the misery of China, and retarded recovery the world over.”

So, what ever happened to the American Liberty League? Though they disbanded after a short life, they still became the intellectual grandfather of and prototype for the business sponsored conservative think tank, the most notable current example of which is The American Enterprise Institute. The brain stust of the class of Reagan Republicans who today brought the world economy close to the brink of collapse.

Reaganism was, from the outset, a political and cultural reaction to the New Deal. When the banks failed in 1933, at the start of FDR’s first term, and Congress pushed for a depositor insurance plan to rescue troubled institutions, it’s worth noting that the president himself was deeply skeptical. His fear was that insurance would essentially protect irresponsible bankers. Well, perhaps it did—but it did so by directly addressing the needs and interests of individual citizens. It also pulled the rug from under laissez-faire orthodoxy that had rationalized wild and destructive boom-bust swings in the American economy since the Civil War, replacing it with a comfort for sensible economic regulation that lasted until the Reagan years. Then, of course, the mindless mantra became ‘government is not the solution to the problem—it IS the problem.’

Anti-government Reaganism has been a two-headed hydra, with both economic and pop culture strains. Though related, however, each has had something of a life—and perhaps death—of its own. When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they campaigned on an anti-government economic platform, the “Contract With America”. But the political energy behind its success was considerably more emotional, more pop-culturish. Anti-government sentiment was palpable and virulent, expressed in everything from hostility to the postal service to subterranean sympathy for a host of militant crackpot religious sects. Bill Clinton capitalized on that energy (or co-opted it) when he announced in his 1996 State of the Union message that “the era of big government is over.” He won reelection ten months later. But in retrospect, he probably didn’t need to: what was really over was the anti-government pop culture. It had reached it’s zenith the previous year, on April 19th, to be exact: The day Timothy McVeigh pushed anti government ideology into the psychotic stratosphere and blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. For the first time in a generation the government had human faces—and human babies. Principled skepticism of unbridled government power did not become less philosophically defensible, but visceral and reflexive hatred of government did. Postal service jokes just weren’t quite as funny anymore.

But the other hydra head, the Laissez-Faire economics of Reaganism, has continued to limp along. Years after the Oklahoma bombing, deregulation-lite in the Clinton Administration and the more toxic variety practiced by the Bush crowd has proceeded unchecked by any countervailing economic wisdom with political or cultural muscle. Now, of course, things have come full circle: As Wall Street comes with its tin cup to Congress it does so with the implicit—and sometimes explicit—admission that it needs regulation after all.

I imagine that a bailout of some description is the right thing to do. But I’m also glad—or at least hopeful—that something of Franklin Roosevelt’s skeptical spirit is still alive in his party. As the NY Times reports on the negotiations thus far:

The Senate Democrats’ proposals includes two bold provisions. One would grant the Treasury "contingent shares" of stock in any financial institution that wants to sell bad debt to the government; the other would grant bankruptcy judges the authority to modify the terms of primary mortgages, a step aimed at helping homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

The bankruptcy provision is staunchly opposed by the banking, lending and securities industries and by many Republicans in Congress, but Democrats insist that it is one of the few mechanisms to provide direct assistance to homeowners caught in the foreclosure crisis.
The contingent shares would give taxpayers an equity stake in companies seeking help through the rescue program, potentially allowing the government not only to recoup however much of the $700 billion it spends on bad debt, but also to profit should the financial firms prosper in years ahead. The legislation would require the value of the contingent shares to equal the value of the assets purchased by the government.

The 44-page Senate proposal, pulled together by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and the chairman of the banking committee, would require the Treasury to run the rescue plan through a new "Office of Financial Stability" to be headed by an assistant treasury secretary. It would also establish an "Emergency Oversight Board" to monitor the bailout effort, made up of the Fed Chairman; the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and two non-government employees with "financial expertise" in the public and private sectors, one each appointed by the majority and minority leadership in Congress.

Bold indeed. Nothing like it since the New Deal.

Why does McCain insist on running such a mendacious campaign? There is plenty an honest conservative might say in opposition to Obama: He's wrong about Iraq. He's wrong about Iran. He's wrong about offshore oil drilling. He wants to raise taxes. He favors abortion on demand. He would appoint liberal judges. He would impede school reform.

But McCain has concluded that a fact-based case about Obama isn't enough to prevail in November. So he has chosen to smear his opponent with ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible enough to believe.

He has charged repeatedly that his opponent is willing to lose a war to win an election. What's McCain willing to lose to become president? Nothing so consequential as a war. Just his soul.

I cannot think of another time in presidential election history when the fabrications of a major party nominee were so egregeous that they drew nearly unanamous condemnation from all quarters of the press, irrespective of ideological investment. In fact, the press reaction has itself become a sidebar story. Now, increasingly, the story has moved from "whether" to "why," as chapman's comment illustrate. Answers range from desperation, as Chapman formulates it, to shrewd but cynical calculation (see Edsall, for example) to Andrew Sullivan’s notion that the man has simply “lost it.” That last idea may be attractive for some because of the paradoxical subtext of this debate—the vaunted and also universally accepted notion of McCain’s “high honor.” We’d expect this of Nixon, or the Clintons, the line runs—but not war hero John McCain!

Well, let me propose another interpretation, one both consistent with McCain’s take on honor and, at the same time, more disconcerting than other explanations. I’ll call it the “Strongman McCain Narrative.”

One of the more curious things about McCain’s behavior is not that he’s lying, but that he is so brazenly indifferent to being caught. Days after the Palin “bridge to nowhere” canard had been exposed, he continued to repeat it himself (and license his running mate to do the same), and days after his feigned umbrage over Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment was ridiculed for being baseless and trivial, he defended it on The View. Though I’m sure McCain would be quite happy to have these and other lies believed by a large section of the voting public, it also seems that he’s not terribly concerned if they don’t. There’s not the push back one might expect—just newer, outrageous, lies. In most formulations, such conduct is evidence of a character defect. But for the strongman—and those who long for him—brazen and audacious lying is an instrumental virtue. It’s proof that he has the cold, steely nerve to do and say whatever is necessary to achieve power. Indeed, it’s evidence that his resolve cannot be weakened by conscience.

The strongman narrative, even the softer, American version, is one that presents it’s central character as one constitutionally incapable of loosing. He will crush anybody in a bar fight because he is willing to bleed to death in the attempt. He presents himself as the man who has the will and tenacity to beat Romney’s millions and Obama’s crowds. Likewise, it seems to say, he is the man who has the balls to pound Putin into submission.

Indeed, he too sees a soul when he looks into Putin’s eyes. It’s one he recognizes very well.

About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla A suburban Anchorage homemaker and activist — who once did battle with the Alaska governor when Palin was mayor — recounts what she knows of Palin's history.

By Anne Kilkenny

Editor's note: The writer is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska. Late last week, Anne Kilkenny penned an e-mail for her friends about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom she personally knows, that has since circulated across comment forums and blogs nationwide. Here is her e-mail in its entirety, posted with her permission.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Gov. Sarah Palin since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first-name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99 percent of the residents of the city.

The speech’s centerpiece, of course, was his POW story. It is in all candor an extremely powerful story, one that I find very moving. It is an exquisite illustration of personal strength and both moral and physical courage. And it testifies (albeit incompletely) to the man’s depth of character and patriotism—things that are wholly appropriate to consider in weighing someone’s fitness for office. But—and here’s the point—personal fitness for office cannot be the only argument one makes for their candidacy. The people should (and generally do) cast their vote based on policy or political ideology. To be relevant, meaningful, and, indeed, effective, personal stories must also connect organically to a candidate’s public vision. McCain’s story didn’t. And the fact that it didn’t is either a rhetorical or a political problem—or both.

Here's the key section of the speech:

When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn't know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me. Through taps on a wall he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for our country and for the men I had the honor to serve with. Because every day they fought for me.

Now, this is the perfect pivot point. He could either have turned the story outward, making it about more than himself, making it about politics and policy. Or he could have turned it back inward, making it about himself. To make it about politics and policy, he might have said something like:

Now, my fellow Americans, those brave men who held me up did not do so because they were commanded to by military edict. They didn’t save my life because there was some tax advantage in it. And they didn’t do it because we all worked for the same American government. They did, pure and simple, because they were Americans and that’s what Americans do. An enemy government may have bound us, but it was our love of country, of freedom, of each other that brought us together. I learned that day that no government can blah blah blah. And that real Americans who love their country and each other can blah blah blah. Today, I’m calling for a new spirit of Volunteerism blah blah blah).

Well, he could have said that. But he actually said:

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's.

That is, it's all about me.

Troopergate:
I agree with most other reasonable voices that the Troopergate scandal is the most serious challenge to her personal ethics (as opposed to those that might reflect on McCain). And, more important than the gravity of the substance, is what it says about her overarching governing temprement. I'll sum it up with a quhttp://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/211769.phpote from Josh Marshall:

We rely on elected officials not to use the power of their office to pursue personal agendas or vendettas. It's called an abuse of power. There is ample evidence that Palin used her power as governor to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. When his boss refused to fire him, she fired his boss. She first denied Monegan's claims of pressure to fire Wooten and then had to amend her story when evidence proved otherwise. The available evidence now suggests that she 1) tried to have an ex-relative fired from his job for personal reasons, something that was clearly inappropriate, and perhaps illegal, though possibly understandable in human terms, 2) fired a state official for not himself acting inappropriately by firing the relative, 3) lied to the public about what happened and 4) continues to lie about what happened.

These are, to put it mildly, not the traits or temperament you want in someone who could hold the executive power of the federal government.

Experience:
Both the challenge to Obama's experience and the corresponding claim that Palin IS experienced missed the point entirely: Experience is a wonderful thing for a candidate; if you have it, it makes good sense to tout it. But experience does not predict success in office, and the lack of it does not predict failure. James Buchannan, 15th president, had lots of it but still brought us to the brink of civil war; his successor, Abraham Lincoln, had almost none, yet skillfully led us through that civil war.

Experience is essentially one of several possible credentals one may offer to demonstrate readiness to serve. Its absence is a red flag to voters that they need to look further (or elsewhere) to verify a candidate's claim that she/he is prepared for office. Those who raised questions eighteen months ago about Obama's personal abilities to govern were right to do so. Likewise, those same people are justified in saying that his performance over the last year and a half satisfies their concerns. (A marathon run for the presidency is a a graduate level education in the office--with exams taken daily and in public, administered by media-proctors who want you to slip up.) Over the coourse of the campaign he's grown into the role. Just as importantly, we've had that time to study him.

Sarah Palin might be ready--or might be able to mature into readiness. But we don't know and we won't know. And nothing we do know gives me any confidence.

Vetting I:
The most troubling thing about the Palin choice is that she was not seriously vetted. And that, of course, is a disturbing comment on McCain. It confirms the worst fears about him--that he's a hip-shooting risktaker who lacks the temprement to be president. Presidents must be decisive, but not impulsive, bold, but not reckless. So much of McCain's career (going back to his fighter pilot days) is marked by his "by-the-gut" penchant for high stakes gambling.

Vetting II:
If I were a Republican I'd be damned pissed. Regardless of what you think of the (mounting number) of disclosures and accusations about Palin, the recognition that Palin has not been seriously vetted is nothing if not red meat to the press. When a candidate has been properly vetted it tells the media that the bad stuff is already out; you can nose around if you want, but if there was anything to be found we would have already have found it, told you about it, and put a spin on it before the other guys can. But the news that Palin has not been seriously vetted tells the media something else: there might be gold in them thar hills. McCain has triggered a media feeding frenzy that will, at the very least, raise even more questions about Palin and derail their attempt to define her as a good government type. At the most, it may put on solid ground the perception that she is a rank amature.

But over the last year, as his behavior during Hillary's campaign became more and more offensive and unignorable, I began to feel something akin to what wives must feel after they discover their husbands of twenty years have been cheating on them from day one.

Or:

Maybe it's the disconcerting embarrassment parents feel when, for whatever reason, they suddenly see their own charmingly precocious kid as an irritating, self absorbed, obnoxious blowhard. (No personal experience there, really.) This image fits, I think, because what makes Bill work is that he has always been a child-man: selfish and relentlessly self-justifying, passionate and agressively innocent--all finely tuned by an exquisite and powerful adult intelligence. The best of Bill has always enabled the worst.

But last night made me love him again--now that the little shit is behaving himself.

Be careful about what you wish for.

As many have observed before, one of the more unsettling consequences of a meritocracy may be greater inequality--once assumed to be the antithesis of democracy. As Mickey Kaus told it in his book of the early ninties, The End of Equality, as the smarter among us rise to the top they will increasingly monopolize the means to wealth (i.e., the best jobs), leaving the intellectually challenged to fight for what little is left. William Deresiewicz inverts the point--arguing that there is a certain intellectual impoverishment entailed in educational elitism:

When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up. But what of the opportunities it shuts down? An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed. We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?

Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.

It seems our intellectuals don't quite know what to do with themselves--just as we don't know what to do with them either. This is a point I made (perhaps more seriously) in an essay on
"The 'Decline' of Public Intellectuals."

Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view.

As a result, conservatives' views on this issue are much more in line with the views of moderates and liberals than was previously the case. Similarly, the sharp divisions between Republicans and Democrats that previously existed on this issue have disappeared.

This is a little troubling, I think, because it suggests that for Christians the criterion for engaging in public discourse or not is winning. Not, in other words, "participation." This development reinforces many of the problematics I noted in a long essay I originally posted last year: Wicked Paradox

TPM, by contrast, makes it both front page news (link to story itself)and worthy of several "sidebar" links (including a large photo of Rumsfeld). TPM is not unusual, either. Most other sites have showcased the story, while some have significant analysis. Check out Balkinization's coverage.

Clearly the story has a partisan resonance, but the quality of the coverage, I think, suggests that this is not just another pin-drop in the left Wing echo chamber. In it's ability to pound an important story home, the blogosphere really does at times like these prove itself as the instrument by which information is being democratized.

Fair enough—but who cares?

I know I don’t. In fact, it only underscores the point that David Gergen made a few nights ago that, given the Clintons’ virtual sponsorship of Richardson’s career, the endorsement required a bit of courage. So, we have conflicting narratives. And in the contest between “Richardson the Judas” and “Richardson the Courageous,” the only thing that surprises me is that Carville would think that John Q. Public would be moved by the narrative of betrayal. Sure, betray your country and you hang. Betray your people and you’re shamed into exile. Betray an idea and you’re stigmatized as a, well, a politician. But, betray your benefactor over a matter of conscience and they write sonnets for you.

Unless, of course, the “they” are the insiders you’ve betrayed. And that’s the point. The problem with the Judas analogy is not (as I suppose some hand-wringers fret) that the remark was distasteful, or beyond the pale. (Carville certainly knew it wasn’t.) Moreover, I certainly wouldn’t begrudge them the right to feel hurt and abused. (Lordy, who wouldn’t?) No, the real problem is that they shared their feelings with us, made it public, because they thought we would care. And in so thinking, the remark illustrates perfectly the extent to which the Clintons confuse and conflate their own careers with the public interest. They seem to assume that to betray them is to betray us all. Precisely the kind of ego-driven, self-interested, insider politics that Obama stands in opposition to.