Eric Alterman is recommending as "brilliant" David Brooks's NYT op-ed "Where's the Landslide"...

[DeepModem Mom]

even though Brooks writes from the conservative side of the political fence:

Where’s the Landslide?
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: August 5, 2008

Why isn’t Barack Obama doing better? Why, after all that has happened, does he have only a slim two- or three-point lead over John McCain, according to an average of the recent polls? Why is he basically tied with his opponent when his party is so far ahead?

His age probably has something to do with it. So does his race. But the polls and focus groups suggest that people aren’t dismissive of Obama or hostile to him. Instead, they’re wary and uncertain....There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart. He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged. As a result, voters have trouble placing him in his context, understanding the roots and values in which he is ineluctably embedded.

Last week Jodi Kantor of The Times described Obama’s 12 years at the University of Chicago Law School. “The young law professor stood apart in too many ways to count,” Kantor wrote....He was in the law school, but not of it.

This has been a consistent pattern throughout his odyssey....

***

And so it goes. He is a liberal, but not fully liberal. He has sometimes opposed the Chicago political establishment, but is also part of it. He spoke at a rally against the Iraq war, while distancing himself from many antiwar activists.

This ability to stand apart accounts for his fantastic powers of observation, and his skills as a writer and thinker. It means that people on almost all sides of any issue can see parts of themselves reflected in Obama’s eyes. But it does make him hard to place....

***

If you grew up in the 1950s, you were inclined to regard your identity as something you were born with. If you grew up in the 1970s, you were more likely to regard your identity as something you created. If Obama is fully a member of any club — and perhaps he isn’t — it is the club of smart post-boomer meritocrats. We now have a cohort of rising leaders, Obama’s age and younger, who climbed quickly through elite schools and now ascend from job to job. They are conscientious and idealistic while also being coldly clever and self-aware. It’s not clear what the rest of America makes of them....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/opinion/05brooks.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Phredicles]

1. I'm confident that, the more people hear and see of him,

the more impressed they'll be. November is still a way off.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. what happened to Eric Alterman?

he used to be able to differentiate between wheat and chaff

most of what Brooks writes here is meaningless drivel, like the following:

''And so it goes. He is a liberal, but not fully liberal. He has sometimes opposed the Chicago political establishment, but is also part of it. He spoke at a rally against the Iraq war, while distancing himself from many antiwar activists.''

what politician on earth doesn't behave in the above manner....part of an 'establishment' to which he's tied (McCain,anyone?). against the war, but distancing himself from activists. hmmmm....is McCain for the Iraq war, but has he distanced himself from pro-war activists, like, oh, say, Bush?

this is typical of the BS Brooks writes and mouths every day he breathes

btw, I saw him on CSPAN today, speaking before the YAF convention, which was kept afloat by CIA funding.

really disappointing support for such hackneyed, low grade sophistry

[Name removed]

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[The_Casual_Observer]

4. I'm starting to see mccain bumper stickers around here. It's going to be

a bloody mess right to the end. I don't get it.

[Name removed]

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[Hekate]

9. David Brooks is getting pathetic. How much longer can he hang on at PBS...

... where they put a certain value on fact-based objectivity?

Hekate

[anonymous171]

10. Interesting. People identify with him but are wary of him at the same time.

The pluses and minuses of being a moderate.

[Gabi Hayes]

11. are you talking about Brooks, or Obama, being a moderate?

EDIT, cause I just realized I might've misread your post: surely you jest, if it's Brooks...if it's Obama, I just wasted all the info on this post.

he just makes stuff up, all the time, like the salad bar at Applebee's (which doesn't exist), and his BS about Obama not reaching poor whites, etc.:

In introducing Brooks, Harwood stated: "David, you have argued in your column that Barack Obama at the beginning of the year was leading a movement that was shaking up American politics, but that over time he's become more and more of a conventional politician. Why do you say that, and what do you mean?" Brooks responded that "the movement hit some natural parameters among highly educated, affluent people, people who live in places like Portland, Oregon," then claimed that "the magic is not felt by a lot of people. It's not felt, obviously, by a lot of less educated people, downscale people. They just look at Obama, and they don't see anything."

After claiming that Obama "doesn't seem like the kind of guy who could go into an Applebee's salad bar, and people think he fits in naturally there," Brooks added: "And so he's had to change to try to be more like that Applebee's guy, and as he's done that, he's become much more transactional, much more, 'I'm going to deliver this, and this, and this for you' on policy."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200806030004

and Obama's not connecting among the "less educated, downscale" people, right? does that include white people who don't make much money? god forbid you pay attention to the polls, or anything like that, which might give you a FACTUAL BASIS for your droolings, mr. Brooks:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/03/AR2008080301969.html?hpid=topnews


HARDEST HIT Low-Wage Workers: Obama Leads, Pessimism Reigns Among Key Group

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama holds a 2 to 1 edge over Republican Sen. John McCain among the nation's low-wage workers, but many are unconvinced that either presidential candidate would be better than the other at fixing the ailing economy or improving the health-care system, according to a new national poll.


Obama's advantage is attributable largely to overwhelming support from two traditional Democratic constituencies: African Americans and Hispanics. But even among white workers -- a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November -- Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.