Brooks Assesses Obama

As a Hillary Clinton presidency starts to look more and more evitable, David Brooks imagines Obama suffering the slings and arrows of the White House gig and decides he'd hold up well because, in that job "character and self-knowledge matter more than even experience".

Pundits like Brooks are always inclined to view campaign rhetoric through the lens of utilitarian politicking but Brooks' ultimate judgment is that Obama's talk of consensus and attention to nuance emanates from the core of his character, not an advisor's playbook. Thanks Dave. Every time a pundit says "I don't believe in better politics," there is an idealistic candidate somewhere that falls down dead.