Why Obama's Not a Lock
By Joe Klein
TIME
The most telling moment in Barack Obama's 60 Minutes interview came when Steve Kroft asked for his reaction after he saw the photo of Osama bin Laden, shot in the head. "It was him," the President said. And that was all he said. Now, this was a classic TV how-did-you-feel question, and Obama had a range of possible options. He could have gone all political, "I thought of the families who had lost loved ones ..." Or graphic, "Well, it was pretty ugly, but ..." Or excited, "Oh. My. God." Or religious, "Thank God." Or triumphal, "My first thought, actually, Steve, was 'Hasta la vista, baby.' " But, of course, this is Barack Obama, more Gregory Peck than John Wayne. And the same taciturn, hyperdisciplined quality that is so frustrating when he seems unable to connect with the economic anguish of the American people came across as just right, perfectly Midwestern — Kansas, not Hawaii, much less Kenya.
A few days earlier, five of the Republican candidates for President gathered in South Carolina for their first official debate. It was a weird show, newsworthy only because Congressman Ron Paul came out in favor of legalizing heroin, cocaine and prostitution. Many of the more serious (Mitt Romney, Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich) and less serious (Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich) Republican candidates weren't there — and so it would be unfair to compare the Republican punytude with the massive presidentiality of Obama during his strongest week. (See pictures from inside Obama's Situation Room.)
Three relevant observations can be made, however. First, Paul's willingness to go off the libertarian deep end, without a blink, says something about the ideological extremism that has overwhelmed the Republicans in recent years. Paul is certainly further out than most, but all sorts of loony notions have become accepted wisdom in the Republican Party — about taxation, about the science of climate change, about the utter perfection of markets. Which leads to the second observation: even the serious Republican candidates aren't very. Romney refuses to take credit for his greatest accomplishment as governor of Massachusetts — a universal health care plan that works. There are grounds to hope that Indiana's Governor Daniels and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman will not make fools of themselves, but it is hard to imagine either of them prospering by challenging the conventional Limbaugh wisdom of the party, and Daniels has already gotten into trouble by proposing that there should be a truce on "social issues" like abortion and homosexuality. (See TIME's photo-essay "President Obama Visits Ground Zero.")
(More here.)
TIME
The most telling moment in Barack Obama's 60 Minutes interview came when Steve Kroft asked for his reaction after he saw the photo of Osama bin Laden, shot in the head. "It was him," the President said. And that was all he said. Now, this was a classic TV how-did-you-feel question, and Obama had a range of possible options. He could have gone all political, "I thought of the families who had lost loved ones ..." Or graphic, "Well, it was pretty ugly, but ..." Or excited, "Oh. My. God." Or religious, "Thank God." Or triumphal, "My first thought, actually, Steve, was 'Hasta la vista, baby.' " But, of course, this is Barack Obama, more Gregory Peck than John Wayne. And the same taciturn, hyperdisciplined quality that is so frustrating when he seems unable to connect with the economic anguish of the American people came across as just right, perfectly Midwestern — Kansas, not Hawaii, much less Kenya.
A few days earlier, five of the Republican candidates for President gathered in South Carolina for their first official debate. It was a weird show, newsworthy only because Congressman Ron Paul came out in favor of legalizing heroin, cocaine and prostitution. Many of the more serious (Mitt Romney, Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich) and less serious (Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich) Republican candidates weren't there — and so it would be unfair to compare the Republican punytude with the massive presidentiality of Obama during his strongest week. (See pictures from inside Obama's Situation Room.)
Three relevant observations can be made, however. First, Paul's willingness to go off the libertarian deep end, without a blink, says something about the ideological extremism that has overwhelmed the Republicans in recent years. Paul is certainly further out than most, but all sorts of loony notions have become accepted wisdom in the Republican Party — about taxation, about the science of climate change, about the utter perfection of markets. Which leads to the second observation: even the serious Republican candidates aren't very. Romney refuses to take credit for his greatest accomplishment as governor of Massachusetts — a universal health care plan that works. There are grounds to hope that Indiana's Governor Daniels and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman will not make fools of themselves, but it is hard to imagine either of them prospering by challenging the conventional Limbaugh wisdom of the party, and Daniels has already gotten into trouble by proposing that there should be a truce on "social issues" like abortion and homosexuality. (See TIME's photo-essay "President Obama Visits Ground Zero.")
(More here.)
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