I should get off the Obama subject, but this bit from Joe Klein is worth pointing out:
Later, though, [Obama] allowed himself into drift into a criticism of "a theme out there in the mainstream media" that he emphasized rhetoric at the expense of policy specifics. He said there were plenty of specifics in his books and his Iraq plan, "The substance is out there," he said, "but that's not what's been reported.
I think that's what concerns me. I, like Obama, believe he's put plenty of substance out there. I just don't think it's very good. In The Audacity of Hope, he spends a lot of time musing about health care -- and his musings are really very good. He gives a clear diagnosis of what ails our health care system ("The market alone can't solve our health care woes -- in part because the market has proven incapable of creating large enough insurance pools to keep costs to individuals affordable, in part because health care is not like other products or services. When your child gets sick, you don't go shopping for the best bargain.") and wrestles with the underlying issues thoughtfully. But when it comes time to propose solutions, he elides the troubling areas, and offers a very soft plan for reform. One that sounds good to most everybody, and offends almost nobody. His plan is created by a non-partisan agency, offered by private insurers, and paid for through administrative efficiencies eked out by technological improvements. My god, why didn't we think of that before?
So Obama's absolutely right: The substance is there. His book is full of it. And that's where my concerns come from. The question is not whether Obama is too vague, it's whether he's too cautious. And while folks keep assuring me he's just getting started, his quote above clearly suggests that he believes his recently released book offers a useable guide to his policy instincts, and even his political style. And in that, The Audacity of Hope is quite revealing. The book's general format is to smartly and thoughtfully discuss an issue, then back off from the discussion's premises to offer a "solution" that's broadly supportable, blandly appealing, and unlikely to actually fix the problem -- which is much how his campaign speeches have gone. That's not to say his solutions aren't better than the status quo, but the left should demand more than that from its standard bearers, and particularly from Obama, who is intellectually, ideologically, and politically capable of so much more.
