“God, Republicans are saps,†columnist David Brooks wrote. “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 naive 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.â€
Brooks cited several “Fast Eddie†examples, including not voting on controversial issues while an Illinois lawmaker and a U.S. senator, and his decision this week to opt out of public financing of his campaign.
“All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo,†Brooks wrote. “Republicans keep calling him naive. But naive 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.â€
