David Brooks in Friday's Times: "Obama’s tone was serious. But he pulled out his “this is our moment” rhetoric and offered visions of a world transformed. Obama speeches almost always have the same narrative arc. Some problem threatens. The odds are against the forces of righteousness. But then people of good faith unite and walls come tumbling down. Obama used the word “walls” 16 times in the Berlin speech, and in 11 of those cases, he was talking about walls coming down...
When I first heard this sort of radically optimistic speech in Iowa, I have to confess my American soul was stirred. It seemed like the overture for a new yet quintessentially American campaign.
But now it is more than half a year on, and the post-partisanship of Iowa has given way to the post-nationalism of Berlin, and it turns out that the vague overture is the entire symphony. The golden rhetoric impresses less, the evasion of hard choices strikes one more...
Much of the rest of the speech fed the illusion that we could solve our problems if only people mystically come together. We should help Israelis and Palestinians unite. We should unite to prevent genocide in Darfur. We should unite so the Iranians won’t develop nukes. Or as Obama put it: “The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”
The great illusion of the 1990s was that we were entering an era of global convergence in which politics and power didn’t matter. What Obama offered in Berlin flowed right out of this mind-set. This was the end of history on acid.
Since then, autocracies have arisen, the competition for resources has grown fiercer, Russia has clamped down, Iran is on the march. It will take politics and power to address these challenges, the two factors that dare not speak their name in Obama’s lofty peroration.
The odd thing is that Obama doesn’t really think this way. When he gets down to specific cases, he can be hard-headed. Last year, he spoke about his affinity for Reinhold Niebuhr, and their shared awareness that history is tragic and ironic and every political choice is tainted in some way.
But he has grown accustomed to putting on this sort of saccharine show for the rock concert masses, and in Berlin his act jumped the shark. His words drift far from reality, and not only when talking about the Senate Banking Committee. His Berlin Victory Column treacle would have made Niebuhr sick to his stomach.
Obama has benefited from a week of good images. But substantively, optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney."
Wow, so it's been six months and now Brooks has tired of optimism. That didn't take long.
I've remarked before on this blog that there are two faces of David Brooks for me: one, where he offers nuanced observations that really resonate with me, and another where he engages in partisan hackery that serves little purpose other than burnishing his conservative credentials with the red meat, red state base. In my opinion, this post falls into the latter category.
To call Obama's address in Germany "Disney" and "End of History on Acid" is trite, belittling, and disingenuous. Not everyone shares the sizzling cycnicism of the professional columnist. The bulk of the world does not get paid for reading Obama speeches every day and pouring over his every utterance, sometimes face-to-face. Just because Brooks has tired of Obama's optimistic calls to action does not mean the message is starting to get tired and stale. How many Germans heard Obama for the first time in that address? I trust they aren't feeling the same "jump the shark" boredom that Brooks reports.
First, Obama is in an election. Inspiring people is the best way to win. The nattering nabobs cry for specificity because then they can drag the candidate down into the details, where they can engage in their well-practiced ping-pong process of delegitimization. Enough with the inspiring and unimpeachable rhetoric, the pundit sighs... there's no fodder for my sarcastic quip machine to chew on.
Second, Brooks says that since the 1990s, "...autocracies have arisen, the competition for resources has grown fiercer, Russia has clamped down, Iran is on the march..." Hmmm, now who has been in charge during that stunning turn of events? Ah, Brooks' preferred leaders, who waged a war of choice and clamped down on domestic dissent in an unprecedented manner. During the Bush administration the US has abdicted much of the "soft power" of ideas and inspiration that Obama is now revitalizing, largely because Brooks (and his party) have eschewed the expression of such ideals as unrealistic and immature. Now Obama is revitalizing the America the world looked up to, and the agents of America's downfall in world standing await, ready to call it shallow.
The hard truth is that the cold realism of Niebuhr must share the stage with the inspiring rhetoric of Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and yes, Obama. Ideas have the power to inspire, and the ideas Obama spoke to in Berlin represent the best of what America has offered the world. I'm sorry if the "golden rhetoric" no longer inspires Brooks, but it is clearly inspiring America and the world, and it's the only hope (Hope) we have to put this very dark chapter of US history behind us.