www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opinion/20brooks.html
DAVID BROOKS Published: June 20, 2008 God, Republicans are saps. They think that they're running against some academic liberal who wouldn't wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn't proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they're running against some nave university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.
All Conversations But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there's Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who'd throw you under the truck for votes. This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He's the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he's too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside. But he's been giving us an education, for anybody who cares to pay attention. Just try to imagine Mister Rogers playing the agent Ari in "Entourage" and it all falls into place. Barack could have taken positions on politically uncomfortable issues. From time to time, he threw his voting power under the truck. Wright escalated and Fast Eddie Obama threw Wright under the truck. But primary candidates don't do tough votes, so Fast Eddie Obama threw the workhorse duties under the truck. Barack could have changed the way presidential campaigning works. John McCain offered to have a series of extended town-hall meetings around the country. But favored candidates don't go in for unscripted free-range conversations. Fast Eddie Obama threw the new-politics mantra under the truck. And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He's spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system. But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama's got more money now. And Fast Eddie Obama didn't just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding. He claimed that private donations are really public financing. He made a cut-throat political calculation seem like Mother Teresa's final steps to sainthood. The media and the activists won't care (they were only interested in campaign-finance reform only when the Republicans had more money). He's got an army of small donors and a phalanx of big money bundlers, including, according to The Washington Post, Kenneth Griffin of the Citadel Investment Group; On the one hand, Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for a tiny political advantage. If we're going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside. All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. But nave is the last word I'd use to describe Barack Obama. He's the most effectively political creature we've seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn't smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.
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