See that title up there?
David Brooks wrote that about Obama. Talk about projection...
Writing on Obama's education platform, Mr. Brooks strikes a pose you will become more familiar with as any Republican or Conservative that dares promote McCain and the Republican agenda must strike: McCain saying nothing is better than all those confusing policy options Obama is considering.
Obama endorses many good ideas and is more specific than the McCain campaign, which hasn’t even reported for duty on education. But his education remarks give the impression of a candidate who wants to be for big change without actually incurring the political costs inherent in that enterprise.
Now even Brooks has to admit there's a basic agreement on the importance of fixing public education among liberals and progressives. He just has to spin it as badly as he can. For instance:
The reformists also support after-school and pre-K initiatives. But they insist school reform alone can make a big difference, so they emphasize things the status quo camp doesn’t: rigorous accountability and changing the fundamental structure of school systems.
They are not saying "school reform" alone is all that need be done.
The status quo camp issued a statement organized by the Economic Policy Institute. This report argues that poverty and broad social factors drive high dropout rates and other bad outcomes. Schools alone can’t combat that, so more money should go to health care programs, anti-poverty initiatives and after-school and pre-K programs. When it comes to improving schools, the essential message is that we need to spend more on what we’re already doing: smaller class sizes, better instruction, better teacher training.
Smaller class sizes, better instruction, better teacher training is NOT what we are doing now. And the social issues are issues in and of themselves that impact education.
Now me, I think the pre-K initiatives are child care programs more than education programs. Given that I think both types of programs are good ideas, it's cool in a way. I would like to keep the issues straight though.
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Brooks et al. have long
Brooks et al. have long since converted Obama into a magic Negro. I know, for example, that Obama and I are not on the same side regarding several policy matters and no amount of spin on his part, assuming that he is employing any spin, will convince me that we agree. Brooks wants folks to believe that Obama has the ability to support positions that he does not while convincing people that he does. In other words, a he is a trickster, a con man, a shape shifter. A Rinehart lifted from the pages of fiction and plopped down in the middle of a presidential race.
Brooks and his friends are declaring that they see through the facade. Obama can't fool them. They know that he is an empty suit. If their powers of observation are that keen, I wonder why they have never been able to see through George Bush or now John McCain?
Why - Perhaps their eyes are
Why - Perhaps their eyes are blind to what their minds cannot see. Or better yet, Brooks is simply earning his Republican salary.
There seems to be this profound effort to build up, or carry John McCain to make it seem that he has retained some of the substance that he might have once had; but there is nothing there now. He is no longer the independent thinker that he may have been long ago. Once he got the nod from the Republican establishment to be their nominee, he took the party line.
Just for my own sanity, do
Just for my own sanity, do people ever level these kinda of "empty suit" charges against white politicians, male or female?
Yeah they do. You don't
Yeah they do. You don't normally get it on the presidential level because you've 'paid your dues.' But if I recall correctly, Bill Clinton was called inexperienced too.
Not just "inexperienced." I
Not just "inexperienced." I mean are others criticized as being "empty suit" con-man on which everyone can project onto them whatever they want, nothing but "speeches."
I can't recall if the GOP
I can't recall if the GOP ever called Br. Bill an empty suit. He had, after all, been a governor even if it was a backwater state. I think that some of Sr. Hillary's folks implied or came close to calling Obama an empty suit. Sr. Hillary said, in fact, that Obama only had a speech that he gave in 2004, which is tantamount to calling him an empty suit.
When I heard her say this about him I recalled that she had not been able to pass the D.C. bar exam and was so ashamed that she hid that fact from friends for years. The D.C. bar exam, by the way, is a sort of "give me exam." I think that if you pass the New York bar exam, D.C. bar officials will grant you the right to practice law in the District. I don't think Sr. Hillary is licensed to practice law in D.C. or New York State although she is licensed in Arkansas. Br. Bill, of course, was disbarred for lying to a grand jury about having sex with an intern.