Friday, June 20, 2008

Required Reading

I'm not thrilled about Obama's dumping of the public-financing thing, either, although I for sure understand it. But David Brooks is beside himself.
And Fast Eddie Obama didn’t just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding. Obama blamed the (so far marginal) Republican 527s. He claimed that private donations are really public financing. He made a cut-throat political calculation seem like Mother Teresa’s final steps to sainthood.

2 comments:

Simon said...

David Brooks is a pompous ass.

Wow. I've wanted to say that for years, since that Bobos in Paradise nonsense I actually bought in an airport.

The funny thing to me is the fundraising system Obama's built is basically doing what public financing was supposed to do but never really did - collecting large sums of money in small quantities from a very large group of people.

I'm vastly more comfortable with what he's put together - average donation $100 - than I've ever been with anything previous Democrats or any Republicans have managed.

And I'm sure Brooks can't be bothered to mention McCain's creative use of public financing to support his primary loans when he was in desperate need but then hey, you know, he didn't really mean it, can't be bound by that, look at this guy Obama.

Oh well. At least Brooks is smarter than William Kristol...

KAZ said...

Smarter, and a better writer. As with Buckley, I often wish he were on my side. I agree with you about Obama's Internet fundraising being in the spirit of public financing. I wish I thought the spin would go his way on this.