Maureen Dowd, the grande dame of snark, knows when her man is yesterday’s news. A sample:
Obama’s Oneness has been one-upped. Why settle for a faux populist when we can have a real one? Why settle for gloomy populism when we can have sunny populism? Why settle for Ivy League cool when we can have Cosmo hot? Why settle for a professor who favors banks, pharmaceutical companies and profligate Democrats when we can have an Everyman who favors banks, pharmaceutical companies and profligate Republicans? Why settle for a 48-year-old, 6-foot-1, organic arugula when we can have a 50-year-old, 6-foot-2, double waffle with bacon?
Everyone in Washington now wants to touch the hem of President-elect Brown — known in the British press as “the former nude centrefold” — who has single-handedly revived the moribund Republican Party. It uncannily recalls the way they once jostled to piggyback on the powerful allure of One-Term Obama.
As is her habit, Dowd would rather convert this into a narrative she knows best — filled with gossipy infighting, high-schoolish rivalries, and the fickleness of public opinion. That requires that we ignore a great many facts. It was not Brown alone who brought back the GOP, of course. Two gubernatorial candidates, a tea party movement (if she missed it, David Brooks can catch her up), and Obama himself helped bestir the party that she and her colleagues assured us was going the way of the Whigs. But this is the flip side of vilifying Martha Coakley, you see. The more this is Dowd-ized (i.e., made into a set of trivial, personal soap opera vignettes), the less there is to disturb the liberal establishment and her readers.
Nevertheless, hidden in the snark is an element of truth. She hisses:
Obama is coming across as plastic and hidden, rather than warm and accessibly all-American. (Brown has even been known to do his daughter’s laundry when she gets too busy.) Whereas Obama had to force himself to nibble French fries and drink beer (instead of his organic Black Forest Berry Honest Tea) during the Pennsylvania primary, Brown truly loves diners, Pepsi, Waffle Houses and the unwashed masses.
Translation: is the public supposed to like Obama? We keep hearing that the public likes Obama but not his policies. Or not his results. Or not anything he’s done for the past year. But really, somewhere in the racial condescension on Gatesgate, the digs at ordinary Americans who opposed his health-care scheme, the robotic response to Fort Hood and the Christmas Day bombing, and the snipes at Brown’s truck, it became very clear (at least to those who hadn’t already figured this out during the campaign) that Obama is missing something — an affinity for and emotional attachment to ordinary Americans. That’s no joke. It’s a serious failing in a president, and one not easily remedied.
