waiting on the world to change
david brooks is not a political friend of mine, but he is an incisive commenter and has been curious about obama from the beginning of the campaign. his column today is definitely worth a read. here's a taste:Some candidates are motivated by something they lack. For L.B.J., it was respect. For Bill Clinton, it was adoration. These politicians are motivated to fill that void. Their challenge once in office is self-regulation. How will they control the demons, insecurities and longings that fired their ambitions?
But other candidates are propelled by what some psychologists call self-efficacy, the placid assumption that they can handle whatever the future throws at them. Candidates in this mold, most heroically F.D.R. and Ronald Reagan, are driven upward by a desire to realize some capacity in their nature. They rise with an unshakable serenity that is inexplicable to their critics and infuriating to their foes.
Obama has the biography of the first group but the personality of the second. He grew up with an absent father and a peripatetic mother. “I learned long ago to distrust my childhood,” he wrote in “Dreams From My Father.” This is supposed to produce a politician with gaping personal needs and hidden wounds.
But over the past two years, Obama has never shown evidence of that. Instead, he has shown the same untroubled self-confidence day after day.
There has never been a moment when, at least in public, he seems gripped by inner turmoil. It’s not willpower or self-discipline he shows as much as an organized unconscious. Through some deep, bottom-up process, he has developed strategies for equanimity, and now he’s become a homeostasis machine.
it seems obama has won the intellectual right. i continue to be amazed at the strange ranks that O is able to bring together. i have written here that i think the "bi partisanship" meme is a meaningless chimera, what's important is sharing some basic goals, acting in good faith, and feeling the imperative of necessity nipping at your heals. these times provide that sense of necessity and good leadership encourages a culture in which people act in good faith both within and between parties, ideologies, and interests. that's the way obama leads and though there are still 18 days between now and decision day -- the outcome of which is not, despite what anyone claims, foretold -- we are beginning to see what his principled, pragmatic, steadfastness has already wrought.
i raise my glass to you and your ilk mr. brooks. we will certainly disagree in the future, but i will also remember that you know know a good thing for america when you see it. that's deeply reassuring in these uncertain and challenging times.
But other candidates are propelled by what some psychologists call self-efficacy, the placid assumption that they can handle whatever the future throws at them. Candidates in this mold, most heroically F.D.R. and Ronald Reagan, are driven upward by a desire to realize some capacity in their nature. They rise with an unshakable serenity that is inexplicable to their critics and infuriating to their foes.
Obama has the biography of the first group but the personality of the second. He grew up with an absent father and a peripatetic mother. “I learned long ago to distrust my childhood,” he wrote in “Dreams From My Father.” This is supposed to produce a politician with gaping personal needs and hidden wounds.
But over the past two years, Obama has never shown evidence of that. Instead, he has shown the same untroubled self-confidence day after day.
There has never been a moment when, at least in public, he seems gripped by inner turmoil. It’s not willpower or self-discipline he shows as much as an organized unconscious. Through some deep, bottom-up process, he has developed strategies for equanimity, and now he’s become a homeostasis machine.
it seems obama has won the intellectual right. i continue to be amazed at the strange ranks that O is able to bring together. i have written here that i think the "bi partisanship" meme is a meaningless chimera, what's important is sharing some basic goals, acting in good faith, and feeling the imperative of necessity nipping at your heals. these times provide that sense of necessity and good leadership encourages a culture in which people act in good faith both within and between parties, ideologies, and interests. that's the way obama leads and though there are still 18 days between now and decision day -- the outcome of which is not, despite what anyone claims, foretold -- we are beginning to see what his principled, pragmatic, steadfastness has already wrought.
i raise my glass to you and your ilk mr. brooks. we will certainly disagree in the future, but i will also remember that you know know a good thing for america when you see it. that's deeply reassuring in these uncertain and challenging times.