Am I crazy, or is there an anti-Obama column hidden between the words of David Brooks' anti-Palin column today, the one Adam wrote about? Here are some exceprts from Brooks. The emphasis is mine.
Experienced leaders can certainly blunder if their minds have rigidified (see: Rumsfeld, Donald), but the records of leaders without long experience and prudence is not good. As George Will pointed out, the founders used the word “experience” 91 times in the Federalist Papers. Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared. ...
The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.
Seems like that "smug condescenion" line is tailor-made to tar Obama, who, after all, does not fit the traditional "standards of experience" conservatives have promoted during this election, namely, multiple decades in Washington and having been a POW. But maybe I'm misreading this?
--Dana Goldstein
