Obama was spectacular on "60 Minutes" last night, spectacular. I watched with my jaw open. Anyone who doubted this man's abilities I want to laugh at today. The command of facts and ideas, the sense of priority, the cool executive manner, and the bracing straightforwardness when he felt it necessary–bluntly stating that he would close Guantanamo and end the use of torture–this is one of the great men of our time, and maybe any time. We shall see, of course; but he continues to grow, and he understands the moment. Imagine George Bush at this moment 8 years ago.
I'm always interested in the personal, and I found the interview fascinating on those grounds. When Steve Kroft tried to probe the inner Obama, Obama deftly parried him. Kroft was asking about his mother-in-law moving in to the White House, and Obama with slight irritation and a big smile, said, These questions are more about you than me, Steve; you need tips on how to get along with your mother-in-law? Back off, man. End of discussion.
Obama was just as smooth and evasive when it came to the black question. When Kroft asked about the significance of the victory for him as a black American, Obama refused to go there, as he refused in his speech on Election Night. He put it off on someone else: his mother-in-law. He said that for a black person growing up in the 50s, it was stunning to witness election night. He deflected all that feeling on to his mother-in-law, and they showed the photograph of Obama with his mother-in-law at the Hyatt on Election Night, him holding her hand as she wept.
My wife had mentioned this photo earlier in the day. We were walking and I said, What is Obama's racial identification? She said, Black. He grew up in a white milieu and gravitated toward the black world ultimately, and felt at home there. I said, I imagine that he had as much to get over as you and I did, coming from Jewish and WASP backgrounds. She said she didn't think so; that this was the world he was comfortable in: the aristocratic/street atmosphere of the Robinson family. And it is true that in Dreams From My Father, Obama says that he loved a white girl from a wealthy background in the east, and split up with her over racial identity issues. No name provided, not even a pseudonym. Obama brings his privacy down like a cloak. We will find out who she is in 30 years.
That narrative happened a long time ago, and I think Obama is trying to become post-racial. The feeling of the interview was that he did not want to identify himself openly as black. This is a powerful form of identification; it sends a signal to all white people that this man does not look at things that way, is not imprisoned by identity politics. In the opposite way to how Clinton used identity politics: he was the first black president, the first Jewish president. In a sense, Obama is the first non-black president.
Last week's "60 Minutes" had Obama's inner circle claiming that they never thought about race, never talked about it. This is absurd; and I sense a fraud, they thought about it all the time. David Remnick showed as much in his piece on Obama and race last week where a friend of David Axelrod's gives the maxim of the campaign: "No radioactive blacks." Jeremiah Wright was tossed out two years ago and Sharpton was distanced. So I believe Obama's identity is based on many many other factors now beside his blackness; and he is using that sense of identity to tell Americans that we are better than that. And a lot of us will go there with him. We've been waiting a long time for a leader.
