OBAMARAMA
KARL ROVE ON BARACK OBAMA

From GQ courtesy of my old pal Matt, Bush's (former) Brain opines on Obama:

And second of all—and he said this most passionately in the Wisconsin victory speech: "There are big issues facing the country, and it requires leadership and energy to solve them." Well, the two best counters to those are Hillary saying, "I've actually worked with Republicans and Democrats to get things done." Or McCain saying, even more pointedly, "On all the big issues where Republicans and Democrats have come together, I've been in the middle of bringing them together, and you've been way out there on the fringe. When we pulled together the Gang of Fourteen, you were out on the fringe. When we pulled together abipartisan answer on the terrorist-surveillance program, you were way out there on the fringe. When Democrats and Republicans, regardless of where they were on the war, came together to give our troops everything they needed while they were in combat, you were way out there on the fringe." Now, she can do some of that, because she's actually tried to work with Republicans over the years. He has not since he got there. He's been coolly detached and sitting on the side. His fingerprints are on, at most, a couple of small items.

And

There are Democrats, particularly blue-collar Democrats, who defect to McCain because they see McCain as a patriotic figure and they see Obama as an elitist who's looking down his nose at 'em. Which he is. That comment where he said, you know, "After 9/11, I didn't wear a flag lapel pin because true patriotism consists of speaking out on the issues, not wearing a flag lapel pin"? Well, to a lot of ordinary people, putting that flag lapel pin on is true patriotism. It's a statement of their patriotic love of the country. And for him to sit there and dismiss it as he did. . .Now, you got one candidate who's got an appeal to the blue-collar Democrats: Clinton. I call them the beer drinkers. And then you got the white-wine crowd, which Obama appeals to. . .Take a look at the footage. Turn the sound off and look at it. You can tell that he is arrogant, and you can tell that he's a little bit angry, and you can tell he's very dismissive. He takes his hands and he sort of, you know, waves his hand like, "I'm dismissing something." That was the moment to say, you know, "Look, I know what my opponents are saying, but you know what? I'm focused on one thing and one thing only, which is to help bring Republicans and Democrats and independents together to move America forward." Instead of "Hey, lemme just remind you, I'm winning! I'm beatin' her!"

Click here for the rest.

My buddy Matt sent me the link to this interview with this statement:

Very insightful about the campaign. The shine is coming off Obama a bit for me. I react very negatively to condescension from candidates.

Reversing the roles of our recent debates, I came to Obama's defense:

Interesting interview; Turd Blossom may be evil, but he is something of a genius when it comes to gaming politics, which is why I'm dismissive of his assertion that Obama comes off as arrogant. That is, and it may be a bias which makes me a bit blind to a big part of the whole political game, my take is that these public personas, as compared to the actual people themselves, are very carefully constructed by political and media consultants, and therefore only have a slight relation to reality--as you know, I'm far more concerned with what candidates have to say about issues than the armchair psychology masquerading as media debate. Don't get me wrong. This stuff counts in politics these days. I mean, it's just awful, but it counts. But I don't really know that Obama is arrogant, just as I don't really know that Hillary is any more calculating than any other candidate, just as I don't know that McCain is a hot head, or a maverick, or a "straight shooter," or a liar. It's all constructed, either by the campaigns, their rivals, or the media. Actually, it's most likely, in the end, a combination of all three of these constructors. At any rate, Obama may very well be coming off as arrogant, but that in no way necessarily makes him arrogant.

On the other hand, Rove's comments about Obama's bipartisanship struck me as more interesting. From my point of view, Obama cannot offer the change he's promising because he just doesn't have enough public backing on the issues with which he's most concerned. From Rove's point of view, Obama doesn't have the record of reaching across the aisle that Hillary has. To reconcile Rove's and my points of view,Hillary is able to be more bipartisan because she's much closer to the GOP in ideology, much more a player with the wealthy elite who own and run our country. When she reaches across the aisle, it's to some close cousins; Obama is reaching out to near complete strangers with whom he has little in common. In short, he will have to fight these people, rather than work with them, to get what he's promising, and he can't win such a fight without some real public support on actual issues.

On a more optimistic note, I think Obama, if he wanted, stands a good chance of drumming up such public support, but he's going to have to talk about issues, defining and framing them in ways he's not been willing to do so far--the public knows things are really fucked up, but for the most part is inarticulate as to what, exactly, is fucked up, or how to fix it. He could really go to town on, say, just three or four issues, but he's got to hit them hard and intelligently in order to sharpen the edge of this dull knife of a change-o-rama he's got going now.

Now, I must point out, just because I'm defending Obama here doesn't mean that I'm supporting him, nor do I think that his ability to force some real political change actually means that I think he's going to do it. But it is nice, from a high school debate perspective, to jump to the other side in the middle of an argument. Kind of like the way Gielgud and Olivier would trade off playing Mercutio and Romeo on alternating nights, just because they could, you know, showing off.

Nothing like a civilized argument for fun!

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