Laughing It Off

As David Brooks blogs that "issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall," Gail Collins, bless her, provides the best tonic for the general dismay about last night's debate.

In her New York Times column, she writes:

"I know it’s been a hard couple of weeks, people. You were all excited about this election and now you feel like someone who got all dressed up for a great event and wound up at a B-list party with a cash bar. You never want to hear the words 'bitter' or 'Bosnia' again. And the only political story that you’ve really enjoyed lately is the one about Cindy McCain’s list of favorite recipes being cribbed from The Food Network...

"The problem with primaries is that without real policy disagreements, if you want to prove you’re better than your opponent it has to get personal. Barack and Hillary are dying to take on John McCain. They can’t wait to fight with somebody who thinks Iraq is a good idea.

"In a great debate breakthrough, Hillary said she thought that while she was the best candidate, Barack could beat the Republicans, too: 'Yes, yes, yes.' This is definitely a new conclusion on the part of the Clinton campaign, arrived at under extreme duress and the presence of network TV cameras, but the Democrats can use all the amity they can get.

"Five more days and then it’s on to the next primary. Let’s try not to say anything insulting about Guam."

And stay away from networks that treat a presidential campaign as a grade-school food fight.

The Bickersons Turn Into a Ticket

From the moment Barack Obama held out Hillary Clinton's chair as they sat down to debate to the near-hug as he patted her shoulder when they stood up, the Democratic candidates put their party back on the road to the White House tonight.

Gone was last week's Palmetto rancor to be replaced by enough Hollywood feel-good to make Wolf Blitzer's final question about their forming a Dream Ticket plausible. In turning away from attacking each other to aim their fire at George Bush and John McCain, both Clinton and Obama showed voters their best selves.

The former First Lady softened her wonkiness with what came across as genuine caring, while Obama leavened his earnestness with cocky jokes like the one about Mitt Romney's shortcomings as a CEO who was not getting a good return on his campaign money.

If there was a fault line between them, it came toward the end as they discussed the 2002 Senate resolution to let Bush invade Iraq. Clinton, for some reason, continues to dodge admitting her mistake in voting for it, leaving an opening for Obama to score the point that a President needs not only experience but good judgment from Day One.

They started out by sharing satisfaction in the fact that the election of either of them would change American history, and they ended by going off toward Super Tuesday with a civility that bodes well for that future.

Et Tu, Barack?

As the campaign reaches fever pitch, the candidates are slipping toward caricatures of themselves--Huckabee's piety, Hillary Clinton's control-freakiness, John Edwards' angry man act, and now Barack Obama gives us too much audacity about hope in praising Ronald Reagan for "clarity...optimism...a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

True enough that Reagan rode to the White House on "the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s," but it was Nixon's resentful Silent Majority that propelled him there to express, behind the "Morning in America" façade, a social meanness that cut taxes for the very rich and falsified a "trickle down" effect for everyone else.

After his Iowa victory, Obama said, ""The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face...who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know."

In this campaign, there has been very little of that, but Obama has showed some signs. Tuesday night, for example, he dared to suggest that one way to cut American dependence on foreign oil is to consume less energy:

"We are going to have to make our buildings more efficient. We're going to have to make our lighting more efficient. We're going to have to make our appliances more efficient. That is actually the low-hanging fruit if we're going to deal with climate change...

"And there's no reason why, with the kind of presidential leadership that I intend to provide, that we can't make drastic cuts in the amount of energy that we consume without any drop in our standard of living."

Not exactly a call for blood, sweat and tears, but amid all the pumped-up promises of no-cost change, Obama has here and there dropped a hint that it will take more than optimism to cure the economy. It's disheartening to hear him praise the false hope of the 1980s in an attempt to "bring us together" and pick up some votes from surviving Reagan Democrats.

An Outbreak of Civility

Everybody got the memo, except Charlie Rangel who was still bashing Barack Obama yesterday afternoon, but by nightfall in Las Vegas, it was all sweetness and light at the Democratic round table (debate would be too harsh a word for what Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards did for two hours).

For this news cycle at least, the politics of personal destruction gave way to earnest discussion of how to repair the Bush damage to America at home and around the world.

Something important must have happened to Sen. Clinton when she was 25 because she kept referring to her 35 years of experience as a qualification for the Presidency, while John Edwards kept reminding us how "personal" all the issues were for him and Barack Obama spoke often about bringing people together.

Compared to the headlines of the past week, it was all touchy-feely and rather restful.

Turning to the writerless Daily Show, the new civility was evident there too as the usually cantankerous John Bolton stopped Jon Stewart in his tracks by agreeing with him about Middle East policy while plugging his new book.

It won't last, but for the time being, it's a nice (forgive the cliché) change.

Best Behavior

If they issued grades for deportment, the six Democratic Presidential candidates who took part in today's Iowa debate would all have earned A's. No bickering, backbiting or mud slinging.

The good behavior started at Reagan airport en route when Hillary Clinton apologized to Barack Obama for her now-departed New Hampshire co-chairman's snide statement on Obama's "drug use" and carried over onto the stage as the candidates, for the most part, gave crisp answers on the issues with a minimum of reaching around to pat their own backs.

If there was a transcendent moment, it came after Joe Biden's defense against charges of racist comments when Barack Obama went beyond politics to create a moment of grace.

“I’ve worked with Joe Biden, I’ve seen his leadership,” Obama said. “I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart and the commitment that he has made with respect to racial equality in this country. So I will provide some testimony, as they say in church, that Joe is on the right side of the issues and is fighting every day for a better America.”

Everyone on the stage today seemed capable of restoring sanity and good sense to the Oval Office.

Clinton-Clark vs. Giuliani-Huckabee?

It's getting to be crunch time.

After ten minutes as a food fight, the Democratic debate settled into an edgy pep rally after Hillary Clinton stopped John Edwards with the magic word, mud. The rest was more or less collegial self-puffery, not Obama's best medium--he needs more time to get on an inspirational roll.

Once again, Joe Biden made a good case for becoming Secretary of State in what's beginning to look more and more like another Clinton Administration, especially if the Republicans end up with a Giuliani-Huckabee ticket.

There are a multitude of good choices for running mate--Obama, if she dares, but more likely someone who has managerial experience, former Gen. Wesley Clark or an ex-governor like Tom Vilsack or Mark Warner, if he wants to preside over rather than become a member of the Senate.

Unless a few thousand voters in Iowa or New Hampshire say otherwise, inevitability is in the air.

Candidate Zingers We Won't Hear

No need to watch the Democratic debate from Las Vegas tonight--all the best lines are already available from observers who don't have to exercise the caution that candidates do.

A professor of political science, if you can believe it, offers a below-the-belt zinger against Hillary. Says Ross K. Baker of Rutgers: “One absolutely devastating accusation...is that she is gullible--she bought into two false story lines, one from her husband about Monica Lewinsky and one from President Bush about Iraq.” Ugh.

In her New York Times column, Gail Collins has a lighter touch in scripting John Edwards' answer on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants: "The fact that I once voted yes should not be interpreted as anything but a no. And do not call this waffling. There is only one waffler in this pack, and I don’t even like the way she dresses."

Edwards, says Collins, was "cheerfulness incarnate four years ago...Then he morphed into a sorrowful populist who thought we should vote for him because he cared the most about the poor. Now he’s running around like a rabid gerbil, telling people he should be president because he’s the angriest. Soon, he’s going to run out of adjectives to embody."

Obama, Collins says, is having trouble coming off as a "mean unifier...the new post-millennial candidate who hates petty partisanship. (So ’90s!) That makes it a little tough to go out on debate day and try to kneecap his opponent."

By comparison, the candidates themselves are going to sound boring but at least the writers strike will spare them from having to go up against the punch lines of Jon Stewart, David Letterman and Bill Maher this week.

Make-or-Break for Obama

Tonight's Democratic debate could be critical to his chances of catching up, but Barack Obama will be caught between a rock, Hillary Clinton, and a hard place, a stageful of also-rans competing for the sound bite or riposte to lift them into the top tier--not the best milieu for a candidate who rose to recognition through candor, personal charm and a thoughtful approach to public policy.

Last weekend, the New York Times led off a report on an interview: "Senator Barack Obama said he would start confronting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton more directly and forcefully." Easier said than done, and time is getting short.

After almost a year of foreplay, the nominations will be consummated three months from now on Super Tuesday, February 5th, when twenty states with over half the convention delegates hold primary elections. In the month before, Iowa and New Hampshire will provide some clues.

Against a backdrop of discouraging polls, Obama has been under great pressure from supporters to take the offensive, but is it in his nature or, at this point, even in his interest?

Criticizing Clinton so far has been like throwing rocks at a bulldozer, as John Edwards' efforts in the past weeks have shown. If Obama goes on the attack, it can't be over complex issues such as health care, Social Security or tax reform and it's too late to keep talking about his 2002 opposition to the war in Iraq.

Obama is left with only one opening--Iran. Clinton's vote for the Kyle-Lieberman resolution leaves her vulnerable to charges of being Bush-lite on dealing with the challenges of the Middle East, and Obama can point to a new Zogby poll showing that a majority of Americans are ready to confront Iran and claim that Clinton has contributed once again to public support for an unnecessary war.

But that will be a hard sell, and if Republican reactions are any guide, Obama's chances are slim. Even Dick Cheney is now making little jokes about his cousin Barack, something he would never do if Obama's chances of getting the nomination looked better.

Too-Easy Answers About Torture

Tim Russert blindsided Hillary Clinton last night, positing “a situation in which we were holding the “number three man in Al Qaeda. We know there's a bomb about to go off, and we have three days, and we know this guy knows where it is. Should there be a presidential exception to allow torture in that kind of situation? Don't we have the right and responsibility to beat it out of him? You could set up a law where the president could make a finding or could guarantee a pardon.”

When Sen. Clinton answered that “torture cannot be American policy period” and “in addition to the values that are so important for our country to exhibit is that there is very little evidence that it works,” Russert told her that the scenario was suggested by Bill Clinton last year.

“Well, he's not standing here right now,” she responded to applause.

As other Democrats more or less agreed, a whiff of sanctimony was in the air, as it always is when politicians talk about the subject.

Only a fool (pace Alberto Gonzales) would advocate torture as policy, but as with so many other issues, it’s not always that simple. One of the less obvious sad results of Bush’s black/white, good/evil view of the world is that it has infected those who oppose him.

Before answering Russert’s “scenario,” Hillary Clinton had observed that “these hypotheticals are very dangerous because they open a great big hole in what should be an attitude that our country and our president takes toward the appropriate treatment of everyone. And I think it's dangerous to go down this path.”

It certainly is. In an era when presidents talk publicly about their underwear, voters expect definite answers about everything. But important issues don’t lend themselves to sound-bite solutions.

Just as there is the yelling-fire-in-a-crowded-theater exception to free speech, there may be situations that override the prohibition against torture or, as Joe Biden suggested, offering pardons to terrorists in exchange for information that would prevent devastation.

Years ago, when he had a TV show, William F. Buckley asked a noted attorney who strongly advocated defendants’ rights what he would do to get information from a suspect who knew where a kidnapped child was buried with a limited supply of air.

The lawyer did not hesitate: “Beat it out of him.”

In failing to acknowledge that there are no doctrinaire answers to everything a la George Bush, Democrats who want to replace him are doing themselves, and us, no service. Republicans will be only too happy to characterize them as lily-livered liberals.

Bring Back the Gong Show*

If the war in Iraq and the ’08 election campaign were TV series, they would have been canceled by now. Both have been running too long and have no surprises left, as the Democratic debate tonight showed.

The only news in this latest chapter was the slippage of expectations about getting out of Iraq, now being discussed in terms of years rather than months by everybody but Richardson, Kucinich and Gravel, the bit players in the drama.

As surreal as the event at Dartmouth was what happened earlier in the day in Washington when the Senate approved a first step on the slippery slope to attacking Iran, designating its Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization by a vote of 76 to 22.

The bill had Joe Lieberman’s name on it as co-sponsor, and in an echo of 2002, Hillary Clinton was one of the majority, and ancient Robert Byrd was in the minority again.

The sense of déjà vu is so deadening that viewers may soon be doing what they usually do with reruns, tuning out. At least the Larry Craig show keeps coming up with surprises every day. Now that’s entertainment.

*In the late 1970s, the Gong Show featured awful amateur performers being gonged off the stage by a panel of pros.

Republican President? Liar Luntz Has a Plan

Talk about die-hards: The GOP’s piss-on–the-public pollster/pundit Frank Lunz unveils his strategy to keep the White House in ’08. It gets a tad twisty, of course, so follow closely:

Play the “fed up with Washington” card: “Democrats blew into Washington in 2006 as a breath of fresh air in response to Republican scandal, Republican budget mismanagement and a Republican war. But in recent weeks, that freshness has turned stale.”

Sell the voters hope: Luntz says focus groups have been saying, "Don't tell us what George W. Bush did wrong. Tell us what you will do right. Don't talk about the past. Tell us about the future."

Be authentic, even if you have to fake it: Don’t try to “recapture a mood that has long since gone by...the Republican candidate should seek to lead like Reagan, not be Reagan.”

Win Ohio: Give them “a culturally conservative message fused with government accountability and economic opportunity specifically tailored to voters in the industrial heartland.”

Luntz, whose specialty is inverting the truth (“global warming” to “climate change”), is bamboozling himself now into forgetting that he has been discredited to the point that PBS last month, after hiring him as an analyst for a Democratic debate, had to pull back under fire.

A long-time liar for Rudy Giuliani, Luntz has no official place in this campaign. But he no doubt is in a closet somewhere, churning out truthful lies to make America’s Mayor look Reaganesque but not like Reagan, devising a culturally conservative message for his cross-dressing candidate and floating pipe-dream plans for how the Republicans can hold on to the White House with even bigger lies than Bush and Cheney could invent.