Gary Wills: Obama swallowed his own Kool-Aid

This isn't the whole story. But as far as it goes, this rings true to me. From Gary Wills, After Massachusetts: His Hopes Did Him In New York Review Blog 01/20/10:

A policy of omnidirectional placation had served him well as the editor of the Harvard Law Review, as a community organizer, as a state senator. But the mild manner works only if it removes the threat from a serious purpose. In the presidency, Obama has let the mild manner become the purpose. And with the loss of the Massachusetts Senate race, that purpose—and his ability to act on it—has been put in deep doubt.

In a sense, he swallowed his own Kool-Aid. He worked on the unrealistic assumption that his really was a post-racial, post-partisan, post-red-state-blue-state America. He spent a year and endless energy in trying to please and recruit the Olympia Snowes and Charles Grassleys and Max Baucuses and Big Pharmacies. He let them dictate the pace and the terms of the health care debate, making it hostage to the virulent town hall meetings of the summer of 2009. They were never going to be his allies. He should have identified them as his foes early on, and attacked them as such. [my emphasis]

in other parts of his post, Wills seems to be writing Obama off as a failure, which I'm not nearly ready to do. But he also has some other good points, including this one: "Bush was never apologetic about playing to his base, while Obama has acted as if he were ashamed of his."

Tags: barack obama