Over the last few months, as he pushed the Afghanistan war and let Netanyahu have his way with settlements, I’ve gotten a dubious look whenever Obama comes on the TV at dinner time. Then I look over at my wife and try and recruit her in my disfavor and she says, "I love him. I don’t care what you say, I love him."
Well now she might be falling out of love. She is reading the bestseller about the 2008 campaign, Game Change
, and is revising her character judgments on the basis of its reporting. The Clintons have a really f’d-up relationship in the book, but there’s something to be said for Hillary, she actually cares about some political values. McCain and Biden are both very chippy–thinskinned–but they both come off as both appealing. And Obama? "He’s someone whose entire thing is keeping cool. And he’s cool, but maybe he’s a little bit veneer-thin. Maybe the fact that McCain and Biden are chippy and dirty and fightery shows that they care. The telling scene is, Obama was already completely sick of the Senate inside of a year, the rules, the engagement. And famously Harry Reid says, ‘You don’t like it here, why don’t you run for President?’ And then he doesn’t like Biden and Biden chafes under him, with his logorrhea and his gaffes, but you feel like Biden’s an honest human being, but Obama– I feel like, ‘Who are you?’ And Bill Clinton sort of hates Obama. And how can you not love McCain…"
"But you love Obama," I reminded her.
"I know. I’m having complete cognitive dissonance. And I think everyone’s turning against Obama now. Everyone at that party is turning against him."
We had gone to a party of left-liberals the other night. We talked it over a little more, and agreed that Obama probably got help writing his soulful first book, and that this book has the Clintons’ fingerprints on it. And repeating something else from Game Change she said that FDR and Abe Lincoln had bad first years, and she said that Obama could help himself with her by actually trying to be more folksy, risking more, showing emotion.
