Well, You Can Knock Me Over With a Feather

MoDo surprises even this not-too-easily-surprised Mama:

Unlike W., Obama doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder and he doesn’t make a lot of snarky remarks. He tries to stay on a positive keel and see things from the other person’s point of view.

He’s not Richie Rich, saved time and again by Daddy’s influence and Daddy’s friends, the one who got waved into Yale and Harvard and cushy business deals, who drank too much and snickered at the intellectuals and gave them snide nicknames.

Obama is the outsider who never really knew his dad and who grew up in modest circumstances, the kid who had to work hard to charm whites and build a life with blacks and step up to the smarty-pants set. [...]

Charlie Black crassly argued in Fortune that a terrorist attack would “be a big advantage” for John McCain. And what’s scary is, Black is the smartest adviser McCain’s got.

It’s hard to believe that if Americans get attacked after all these years of getting strip-searched at the airport, they’re going to be filled with confidence at the performance of the Republicans on national security. And at least Obama wants to catch Osama and doesn’t think he’s getting his directions on war from “a higher Father.”

Rove’s mythmaking about Obama won’t fly. If he means that Obama has brains, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama is successful, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama has education and intellectual sophistication, what’s wrong with that?

Many of Obama’s traits are the traits that people in the population aspire to.

Welcome, Ms. Dowd, to the thinking corner of the public square, also known as The Enemies List. Most of us don't actually smoke, but as TRex said to Scott McClellan, "It’s going to be okay.  We have cookies!"

Comments

[Scott K]

Hmmm. I suppose MoDo can be allowed into the courtyard, but for goodness' sake, don't let her into the inner sanctum. Her brain might explode with talk of social science theory, mathematical theory, highbrow snarking, and other general topics of the intelligentsia. We do have to watch out for liabilities, after all. I'd prefer that this nifty little "Cool Kidz Clubhouse" doesn't get shut down due to a spike in spontaneous deaths from neural fulmination...

[Sir Charles]

What the hell got into her? It's even written like a sane person.

You don't suppose she's subcontracting out her work now.

Or perhaps was chastened by the Public Editor's smackdown of her from last weekend.

[Davis X. Machina]

It's an open question whether the national response to another terrorist attack would be 'You fcukers, why didn't you stop this!" instead of "Kill all the brown people!". We assume it would be #1.

If it's #2, then Charlie Black is right -- the GOP has a record of killing lots of brown people. All the Democrats have are aspirations.

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

Sir Charles' third line was my first thought.

[Jamelle]

Davis, I think you're really overestimating the American people if you think that their first response, in the event of another terrorist attack, wouldn't be "kill the bastards."