Whew! That’s a relief…
So, says David Brooks.
But he does say this:
God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.
But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.
This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.
[….]
All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.
I can’t say I disagree with this. He proved this when he op-ed out of the campaign finance. So, in short, he’s just another slick Liberal. Oh sure, he’ll get elected, go to the White House and not do a damn thing that he promised. Just that simple.
Others: The Moderate Voice, Matthew Yglesias, The New Republic, The Daily Dish, Fact Checker, The Corner, Gateway Pundit, The Carpetbagger Report, Ben Smith’s Blogs, The American Scene, No More Mister Nice Blog, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, Weekly Standard Blog, Patterico’s Pontifications, The American Mind, No Left Turns, PoliGazette, Althouse, Macsmind, Connecting.the.Dots, American Spectator, Balloon Juice, Shakesville, neo-neocon, Firedoglake, Marc Ambinder and Wonkette