The prominent conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks gave Barrack Obama his talking points for a presidential run on Oct. 16, 2006 in his column titled Run Barrack Run. And Obama has followed Brooks’ suggestions to the letter.
Brooks was followed up by libertarian Andrew Sullivan’s column in the Dec. 2007 issue of the Atlantic, the anti-feminist online magazine. Sullivan came close to plagiarizing the earlier Brooks column in his worshipful support of Obama.
Not to be outdone, in his first column for Newsweek, Karl Rove offered tips to Obama in his opinion piece titled How to Beat Hillary (Next) November.
The beat goes on. In today’s NY Times, Brooks throws his support to Obama again by suggesting that although Clinton has been the better senator, Obama would be the better president.
December 18, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
The Obama-Clinton Issue
By David Brooks
Hillary Clinton has been a much better senator than Barack Obama. She has been a serious, substantive lawmaker who has worked effectively across party lines. Obama has some accomplishments under his belt, but many of his colleagues believe that he has not bothered to master the intricacies of legislation or the maze of Senate rules. He talks about independence, but he has never quite bucked liberal orthodoxy or party discipline.
If Clinton were running against Obama for Senate, it would be easy to choose between them.
But they are running for president, and the presidency requires a different set of qualities. Presidents are buffeted by sycophancy, criticism and betrayal. They must improvise amid a thousand fluid crises. They’re isolated and also exposed, puffed up on the outside and hollowed out within. With the presidency, character and self-knowledge matter more than even experience. There are reasons to think that, among Democrats, Obama is better prepared for this madness. Read More:
What are thoughtful Democrats to make of this heady conservative support for Barrack Obama?
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