David Brooks is not my favorite columnists but I think he is right "on it" with this peroration.
Obamamania is just that, "mania." It is the historical equivalent of the economic hysteria that lead to such phenomena as the Dutch Tulip disaster or mass investment in Florida swamp land. Huey Long promised change as well. Obama promises change. What change? Tell us what change and how he will accomplish it within the boundaries of law and the constitution. His wife, a Harvard graduate, told us that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of the United States. She says she is proud because now real change is possible. Once again, what change? Single payer national health care? Mass transfer of wealth from one group to another maybe? How? Confiscatory taxation maybe? Widespread award of large federal set-aside contracts maybe? Further restriction of free speech to avoid emotional pain inflicted by "insensitive" statements or writing?
WHAT CHANGE????
Evidently a few people are beginning to sober up long enough to think of this man's presidency as something other than a global public relations stunt. Good for them.
Senator Barack Obama may well be the stuff of an historic president, someday. Right now he is running as a demagogue appealing to the childishness that lurks just below the surface in American popular "culture."
He could no more run the executive branch successfully and enact a legislative program than any other slick talking novice politician.
"The Sitting Shiva Campaign." Very good, David. I would prefer "The Drunken Irish Wake Campaign" but I share your sentiment. I surely do. pl
