Brooks, NYT OpEd: Kennedy Mystique (has Brooks lost his mind??) Whoa..

The Kennedy Mystique
By DAVID BROOKS

Something fundamental has shifted in the Democratic Party.

Last week there was the widespread revulsion at the Clintons’ toxic attempts to ghettoize Barack Obama. In private and occasionally in public, leading Democrats lost patience with the hyperpartisan style of politics — the distortion of facts, the demonizing of foes, the secret admiration for brass-knuckle brawling and the ever-present assumption that it’s necessary to pollute the public sphere to win. All the suppressed suspicions of Clintonian narcissism came back to the fore. Are these people really serving the larger cause of the Democratic Party, or are they using the party as a vehicle for themselves?

And then Monday, something equally astonishing happened. A throng of Kennedys came to the Bender Arena at American University in Washington to endorse Obama. Caroline Kennedy evoked her father. Senator Edward Kennedy’s slightly hunched form carried with it the recent history of the Democratic Party.

The Kennedy endorsements will help among working-class Democrats, Catholics and the millions of Americans who have followed Caroline’s path to maturity. Furthermore, here was Senator Kennedy, the consummate legislative craftsman, vouching for the fact that Obama is ready to be president on Day One.

But the event was striking for another reason, having to do with the confluence of themes and generations. The Kennedys and Obama hit the same contrasts again and again in their speeches: the high road versus the low road; inspiration versus calculation; future versus the past; and most of all, service versus selfishness.

“With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion,” Senator Kennedy declared. “With Barack Obama, there is a new national leader who has given America a different kind of campaign — a campaign not just about himself, but about all of us,” he said.

The Clintons started this fight, and in his grand and graceful way, Kennedy returned the volley with added speed.

Kennedy went on to talk about the 1960s. But he didn’t talk much about the late-60s, when Bill and Hillary came to political activism. He talked about the early-60s, and the idealism of the generation that had seen World War II, the idealism of the generation that marched in jacket and ties, the idealism of a generation whose activism was relatively unmarked by drug use and self-indulgence.

Then, in the speech’s most striking passage, he set Bill Clinton afloat on the receding tide of memory. “There was another time,” Kennedy said, “when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a New Frontier.” But, he continued, another former Democratic president, Harry Truman, said he should have patience. He said he lacked experience. John Kennedy replied: “The world is changing. The old ways will not do!”

The audience at American University roared. It was mostly young people, and to them, the Clintons are as old as the Trumans were in 1960. And in the students’ rapture for Kennedy’s message, you began to see the folding over of generations, the service generation of John and Robert Kennedy united with the service generation of the One Campaign. The grandparents and children united against the parents.

How could the septuagenarian Kennedy cast the younger Clintons into the past? He could do it because he evoked the New Frontier, which again seems fresh. He could do it because he himself has come to live a life of service.


Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/opinion/29brooks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print



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Normally, I pass on Brooks. Cynically, this morning I allowed myself a bowl of raisin bran and a read of his column. Nothing to lose but fiber, eh?
I was surprised. And he did pose interesting ideas.
He actually sorta praised Ted Kennedy (something I haven't heard on the Right for ... ever?)
Surprised. Surprised.

...to the Clinton years ~ pushing the party forward and out of danger, like an uncle helping a kid ride a bike.

Uh ... is that really how you want people to view Barack Obama?

--p!

That's what Kennedy's involvement is about ~ doesn't have as much to do with Obama as it does with saving the party from another fall with Bill Clinton.

I always thought the idea was that Obama was better rather than Clinton was worse. (Besides, Bill isn't running.)

The big blunder Obama was making was portraying himself as defenseless against Hillary. He stopped that as of Sunday, and hopefully won't return to it. And I deeply hope the discussion can soon turn to talk of policy and proposals soon, instead of handshakes and hallucinatory parsing of extemporaneous statements.

--p!

The impeachment was a fall for the party ~ if not for that, Gore would have been easily elected. An out-of-control Bill Clinton looked like more trouble. I'm glad Kennedy stepped in to push the bike or steady the ship, making sure the party moves forward ~ but I feel bad for Hillary.

He said he was really moved by the Kennedy/Obama event at American University. And he actually seemed like he was still affected by the powerful emotions the event inspired. Very Interesting.

And do nothing but pimp Obama.

Even referring to conservative "analysts," I'd prefer to keep the high road and not banter with the word "pimp."
I realize its meaning has been stretched, but to some of us older member, might be offensive.

I found Brooks' OpEd to be more about Kennedy than Obama.

:headbang:

he knows the clintons will not

the Democratic Party today--the future is about service, about personal civic responsibilities. And it's about time the Clinton camp step up and behave like we're in the 21st century in a supreme struggle against arch-conservative policies that are destroying the Constitution and democratic ideals. With respect to this, the Democratic goals and policies of the last quarter century have been disastrous, and offering more of the same exhibits sheer stupidity to repeat, and complete contempt for the American Public.

NoFederales

Brooks reliably spouts what the Republican strategists tell him to spout, and this is an election year, so the current offering is all sunny smiles and unity

and we would be foolish to nominate another charisma impaired candidate.