Stillman Brown’s blood pressure is peaking.
This week’s Talk of the Town is by George Packer, who is consistently one of the finest reporters working today, and he writes about Obama’s need to re-define his message on Iraq to match changing conditions on the ground. It’s a fine comment, but I took immediate and violent umbrage to this bit:
Obama, whatever the idealistic yearnings of his admirers, has turned out to be a cold-eyed, shrewd politician. The same pragmatism that prompted him last month to forgo public financing of his campaign will surely lead him, if he becomes President, to recalibrate his stance on Iraq.
Actually, just this:
…whatever the idealistic yearnings of his admirers…
The use of “yearn” adds a condescending twist to “idealistic,” as if to say Obama supporters are overwrought with emotion, like tweenies at a Miley Cyrus concert (and, by extension, that we’re realpolitik lightweights). It’s downright odious, and all the more jarring because Packer routinely pens writing of great empathy and clarity – he’s not the type to parrot the stupid right-wing, MSM idea that passionate Obama supporters are somehow deluded.
This meme’s backbone is the infantalization of Obama fans, and liberals in general. Witness: a sample comment from Hugh Hewitt’s cesspit of a blog:
Can lefties get the stars and pixie dust out of their eyes to see these issues when the “great one” gives his prepared speeches, his dismissive answers to questions and his playing up to the tin-foil hat/hate-America-first brigades?
The power of personality, even this dangerous one, is very strong. But we are beginning to see the cracks.
No one I know supports Obama because we think he’s Peter Pan, or some messianic bringer of the Great Progressive Century. This is not a cult of personality and we are not six-year-olds; we are pissed-off Americans and we need a President that won’t lie his way into useless wars, or be controlled by a small cabal of psychopaths, or systematically tear down the Constitution. This year, Barack Obama is our man and goddamn it –
We want him to win.
Ideally, he’ll become President. In fact, I yearn for him to thrash John McCain in November.
Like most of my friends and family, I sense his fundamental decency, wisdom, and intelligence. But we’re giving him money (in those much-touted $50 increments) because, unlike John Kerry, who had the political charisma of an expired sea slug, we know he can get the job done.
I’m not forking over my hard-earned dough because I want Obama to play nice (can you hear the Lewis Black-like sneer in my voice?); I fully fucking expect him to be a “cold-eyed, shrewd politician,” and I hope he’s calling his plays straight from Machiavelli’s play book.
Idealism in principle and toughness in practice are not incompatible, and I fully support Obama’s decision to forgo public financing because it will help him win. Similarly, if he changes his Iraq policy I’m confident that his circle of policy advisers (and NOT political cronies) will steer him in the right direction.
I can ignore the squawking from the far right, but someone like George Packer owes us a little more credit.
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