Robert: Tom Friedman has a great column out in Sunday’s Times that identifies Obama’s main problem so far as his failure to construct a unifying patriotic narrative out of all the policies and positions he has put forth so far.

Friedman is onto something. It was inevitable, I suppose, that Obama would crash at some point and come down to earth like the rest of us. And I don’t think he’s totally lost the magic. But something has been lost since the summer and the uproar over health care reform, and death panels and all of that.

Obama and his advisers are sly like foxes, so it may be that in the long term he will be positioned just right. But right now, something is missing, wouldn’t you agree? It looks like Congress will pass some form of health care reform, giving coverage to more people, but it’s been a messy and ugly and drawn-out process.

I don’t think Americans really like drawn-out, messy debates on legislation. For all our talk about democracy, seeing Congress at work is something a lot of people seem profoundly uncomfortable with. The long Congressional debate (the public sausage-making as it were) also punctures the illusion of the president as the universal omnipotent leader who can single-handedly change a nation’s destiny.

What do you think? Maybe it’s not quite time for Democrats to panic, but I’m feeling quite uneasy and a little scared.

  Paula: I have to say that I agree with you here. For quite a while I was holding on to the notion that people had unrealistic expectations about Obama and that it was their problem, not his. But lately, like you, I’ve begun to grow uneasy.

I am dismayed on two fronts: health care, where I do feel that a more forceful line is required, and Afghanistan, where I begin to worry that points made during the campaign have taken on a life of their own. In order to make the point that Bush had attacked the wrong target, he made Afghanistan the antidote to Iraq and simply got himself into a new quagmire. This, in a sense, is what happened to Bush, as much as I hate to draw a comparison. He started by supporting a position for a variety of reasons and then the position hardened because, well, he was now associated with it.

In a sense, I wish Obama’s approach to health care and to Afghanistan could be reversed: that he were more hard-line about health care and more flexible about Afghanistan — or perhaps, I’m simply wishing that he could still exude the sort of sagacity that I associated with him during the campaign.

Finally, I have to say that even his speechifying has begun to worry me — there is a repetitive sing-song aspect to it that has begun to grate; it suggests he isn’t able to emphasize and subordinate, only to sermonize. I know I am being extremely hard on him here — and perhaps it’s a function of the degree to which I was enamoured of him before. In the end, I wonder if my Hillary-supporting friends were right — is he too young and untried?

As for Hillary — she seems to be doing an unusually good job. I was never a big fan of hers, but I have to say that she seems to have managed just the right balance of talking tough and wearing a powder blue head scarf.

Robert: He is young and untested. But he is at once extremely confident and yet humble enough to encourage and follow honest counsel by his advisers. And most remarkable, he doesn’t seem to have an ounce of pettiness in him. I think this will help him in the long run. And he’s got to avoid escalating in Afghanistan!

Paula: I am curious to have your take on the recent incident in which Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor of African-American Studies, was arrested by the Cambridge police as he tried to push open the door of his home, which was stuck, after returning from a business trip. I am unsure as to whether he was arrested because he was suspected of breaking into the home or whether he became disorderly when he thought he was being accused of doing this.

Whatever actually happened, the police officer involved clearly pushed Gates’s buttons. I wonder, though, what his response would have been if his home were actually being broken into by two black men and the police failed to respond with alacrity. Would the police then have been accused of racism for assuming that the perpetrators, because they were black, were friends of Gates? I’m still confused as to what constitutes prejudice and how we know it.

In any case, it seems to me that this is a fascinating event from a media standpoint: the most prominent black intellectual in this country, who also happens to have a reputation for writing superbly about himself and has a platform (The New Yorker and most recently PBS) for doing so, gets arrested for breaking into his own home. One couldn’t put this in a novel; it would defy credibility. I notice that the Philadelphia Inquirer had a picture of Gates in handcuffs (the NY Times did not). Where, I wonder, did that photo come from? I foresee an article by Gates about the incident very soon in The New Yorker. My sense is that every black man in America understands what set Gates off, but I wonder whether you think there is ambiguity in the situation as well.

 
  Robert: This could be a good moment or a wasted moment as far as discussions of race relations go. I saw Gates quoted in a recent story saying the issue really isn’t about him and his treatment, it’s about poor blacks who don’t have the resources he has.

I can understand why Gates would have been furious and why he might have berated the officer. Once the officer knew Gates was indeed the homeowner, why didn’t he have the discipline to back off?

The officer apparently has taught classes to other officers on the dangers of racial profiling. So he most likely is aware of the particular stigma and taint an arrest carries for black people. Obviously, I don’t have all the details, but Gates walks with a cane. I don’t see how the arresting officer could have felt so threatened that he had to arrest him. The arrest just seems to be the most petty and capricious use of his authority. Why didn’t the officer apologize to Gates? Not as in apologize for profiling him, but apologize for making him show ID in his own home?

I am perfectly willing to not think the officer was a “racist,” whatever that means. But he is an idiot if he thinks that a black professional is not going to be enraged about showing his ID in his own home. I mean, any police officer working in a diverse population with black people should know this or submit his badge. To use an analogy, women don’t exactly take well to being patted down and searched by male officers. The officer in this case should have apologized and been mindful of his authority, the authority of the badge, the gun, and the criminal justice system.

There is another aspect of this that troubles me. Who exactly put in the call to the police? Now, Henry Louis Gates is many things, but shy and unfriendly is not one of them. The man is hyper-gregarious. So I cannot understand how any of his neighbors could have mistaken him for a burglar. That’s an aspect of this entire affair that troubles me. Part of me wondered if someone called as a prank to just mess with Gates. And in this case the results were disastrous.

Paula: I’m not buying your last point. It sounds a bit paranoid — but maybe this incident triggers that in people. I find it odd, for example, that Obama made a statement like yours at his press conference. For someone so deliberate and politically astute, it seemed like an uncharacteristic move — after all, he doesn’t have all the facts and the last thing a black president would want, it seems to me, is to alienate white law and order people based on hearsay. But it seems to me that Obama’s reaction was much like Gates’s (and yours regarding the neighbor?) — the issue pressed his buttons, aroused his anger and suspicion, and despite his admirable self-control in most instances, he spoke where he should probably have given no comment.

Robert: Obama has backed off of his criticism of the Cambridge police. But I don’t think my suspicion of the caller who reported Gates is any more bizarre or paranoid than the arrest of Gates at his own home. I assume Obama had his law-abiding black man’s rage stoked in the same way that Gates had his rage stoked. Didn’t we discuss rage about a year ago — in that case the rage of some Hillary Clinton supporters. Cops in big cities should know about black people’s rage and paranoia by now, and they should be able to easily work around it. I’m hopeful they will do so more often after all the discussion of this incident.

Paula: We’ve talked about how the election of Barack Obama has changed the temper of race relations in this country. You’ve said you felt it. So have I. Obviously, the iconic value of the presidency means a lot. But I also think that much of our capacity to incorporate change in this country comes from our devotion to movies, which have taught us to see life in terms of simple dramatic narratives of change.

The dramatic narrative of Obama’s election is in the tradition of a Hollywood movie. On one level, we tend to see Hollywood movies as cliches, contrived narratives with little relation to reality. Yet we’ve been conditioned by them on some deep level: We’ve soaked them up; they structure our consciousness. When a real-life narrative resembles a Hollywood film, it takes control of our imagination. It’s a case of art conditioning the way we see life. In this sense, Obama’s election is not just a symbolic or a singular event, it is a guiding narrative that individuals can latch onto and make real on the level of their own lives.

 
 Robert: I hadn’t thought about the connection between Obama’s dramatic rise and Hollywood movies. But I see your point. Obama didn’t “wait his turn.” He had been in the Senate only two years when he began his run for president. He challenged the mighty Clinton machine.

What I find so interesting is that Obama ran for president before most black people thought there could be a black president. He was ahead of the crowd. Many white Americans, I sense, might have said, “We’re ready to elect a black president.” But I’m not sure they meant now!

Yet once he threw his hat in the ring, people got caught up. Is it possible they said to themselves, “This is a GOOD story. Let’s push it!”?

Paula: Isn’t that the definition of a Hollywood story? — it’s a good story. It may not be realistic or practical, but it’s good, which is why it holds attention and makes money at the box office. I’m not saying that Obama’s story is only a Hollywood story; there are lots of other facets to it. But part of what makes it good is that he didn’t wait his turn, as you mentioned Hilary wanted him to; he jumped the line. As we know from all those gangster movies where characters grabbed what they wanted when they saw it, that makes a good story.

Robert: I have to say, Paula, the public outcry over the ridiculous bonuses to AIG executives strikes me as long, long overdue. I think Americans have reacted to brutal business practices sort of the way some women react to abusive men: They can’t help it. It goes with the territory.

In my judgment, it has taken way too long for Americans to express some anger at the outsized salaries and bonuses of business executives at a time when worker salaries stagnated.

President Obama (God I love writing that) needs to figure out a way of constructively channeling that anger, without recklessly stoking it or dismissing it. Here’s my anger. This financial crisis has taught me that huge swaths of the American business community has been filled with complete and utter bullshitters who had not one clue about what they were doing. And yet because these folks were wealthy, Americans foolishly and self-destructively looked up to them, “respected” them. It’s time we end the presumption that people making tens of millions of dollars are doing something good or constructive. Some are. Some aren’t. We need to recalibrate our views of business.

What do you think?

  Paula: I felt the same fury you describe, but it was calmed somewhat after I read the piece by Andrew Ross Sorkin on the front page of the Times Business section today. He argues that 1) our entire society is based on the idea of honoring contracts. If we violate this trust we risk chaos; and 2) the so-called talent that is receiving these bonuses, as much as they are responsible for getting us into this mess, also may be the only ones capable of getting us out. If they leave AIG, we risk their going elsewhere and bringing down the company.

The idea that they could get other jobs may seem unlikely on the surface, but according to Sorkin, these financial types will always be able to find jobs. This may be a sorry indictment of what passes for necessary expertise these days, but this doesn’t prevent it from being true. Didn’t the US hire all these German scientists after WWII? I would also add that if the government controls the voiding of contracts, then it is as good as acknowledging that it has taken over AIG. Obviously, it doesn’t want to go there yet.

I don’t pretend to understand any of this, but I know enough to see that knee-jerk outrage is generally not a good way to frame policy. It’s interesting that when people get angry, the administration seems to respond — but should it buckle or rather try to explain what is involved. I have to say that I have a lurking distrust of Andrew Cuomo’s tendency to get on the populist bandwagon whenever there’s a dramatic issue that stokes public outrage. I’d like to see Obama give one of his measured speeches in which he explains the pros and cons on each side and then presents his decision for a course of action.

Robert: Yes, Obama needs to step forward, but there is something healthy about the anger, in my view, and he needs to channel it in the right direction. Anger properly focused can unleash a lot of energy and creativity. Someone needs to attack the self-absorbed, foolish financial folks with all the fury and anger that people have when they attack welfare recipients. These financial idiots (sorry, I need to call names to capture the anger) have brought the world to the brink of financial catastrophe and they still can show a little humility. Welfare recipients never brought the world to the brink of catastrophe.

Paula: I agree that anger can be constructive, but often it is not. I distrust it and prefer the rule of reason. But it’s an interesting question. Is anger good in the current situation? I hope some readers may respond.

Paula: I want to discuss the quality of student writing. Since both of us have taught for a long time, it seems to me something we can address. I have to say that I’m confused when I hear people as diverse as merchants in the stores I frequent and women at the gym I go to gripe about how badly kids write nowadays. I happen to think that they write better, in certain respects at least, than they ever have before. Yes, they don’t always understand comma usage, but they do seem capable of writing, when they want to, with fluency and verve. You’ve taught your share of writing courses, Robert — what do you think?

 
Robert: The gripes you mention are definitely a pet peeve of mine. I think society is ignorant about the nature of writing and what it means to write well. There is a widespread belief that good writing is all about knowing where to place a comma, knowing the various parts of a sentence. This misconception comes on top of a recurrent and strange tendency each generation has of insisting that the writing of the successive generation has deteriorated.

I remember talking with my optometrist a while back (he’s just one of many examples), and he asked me what I did for a living. I said I teach freshman writing in college, at Drexel. “Oh, that must be a really difficult job.” I may have laughed nervously or something, but I wanted to say, “Not for the reasons you think, buddy.” The reason my job is hard is because grading papers (I teach four courses a term) is exhausting. It’s not hard because student writing “is bad.”

Part of the problem is the belief that writing concerns commas, semicolons, subordinate clauses and spelling. But those aspects are arguably only the most obvious parts of writing, not the most important ones. There are other parts that are at least as important: original thinking, clear thinking, conviction, persuasiveness, clarity. There has been discussion at Drexel about the supposedly poor quality of student writing. The people kvetching are not the writing teachers but rather faculty members in other classes. The complaining faculty members get a paper from a student that they think is not good. The problem (and this is the ignorance) is that they tend to think that the student who submitted the weak paper “doesn’t know how to write.”

But that begs the question: what is good writing and what leads to good writing? My answer is that any writing requires that students invest themselves in the assignment. If a student doesn’t really care about the assignment, can’t see a way into it, the writing will suffer. It’s nearly impossible to write well if you have no conviction about what you’re writing. Second, students have to put in the time. Most of the freshman writing teachers require students to submit drafts and to revise them based on comments from the teacher and from other students. If a student writes a paper (even sometimes a short one) overnight, there’s just a very high chance the paper will not be any good. The problem isn’t that they can’t write; it’s that they haven’t taken the time to write or they haven’t found a way into the assignment.

Paula: I think you’ve hit on something important. It may be that there once was a time when students wrote well (i.e. correctly) even when they didn’t care about what they were writing. This may be what the critics out there are really bemoaning. They want the old-time student who would write a technically correct paper regardless of how inane the assigment. Students today won’t do that. They have to care — and when they do, they write something a lot better than those technically correct papers of yesteryear. This leads me to conclude that we may be talking less about writing than about a larger issue: a paradigm shift in which young people need to be more invested in what they do well. They are less willing to simply go through the motions.

Robert: One subject not much talked about in these days of Presidential transition is the role of Michelle Obama. She was one of the reasons for Obama’s strong appeal to black people. Black women really like her and the idea of her. They love that Barack “did not marry white,” and “did not marry light.”

I’m hoping that the black community, with all of our family problems, draws some inspiration from Michelle and Barack Obama and their children. There are kids in tough city neighborhoods who basically don’t know anyone who has a father, particularly a married father, living at home with his wife and children. Symbolism cannot overcome entrenched social trends and problems, but I’m hoping black people find a way to build upon the fact that we have some black “Cleavers” in the white house. (I’m also hoping that Obama’s tenure will help black people feel more OK about being self-critical. One of the worst aspects of having an administration in power that seems hostile is that it leads people to be so defensive. I’m also hoping that Obama’s election leads to people recalibrating expectations, such that they aspire for more, for higher positions, better positions in the work place and in public office.)

   Paula: I agree that the Obamas represent a seemingly exemplary model of family life, not just for black people but for all people. The relationship of the parents (so well matched and mutually respectful), the feisty but essentially obedient children, the sense of a loving, supportive, structured home — all this appears to be there and is what we, who have families, aspire to. But I have to admit to occasionally feeling that the Obamas look too good to be true — like the Cosbys or, going back in time, like the Cleavers. That’s ostensibly a good thing. I think The Cosby Show probably did a lot of good in modeling a kind of grounded, middle class family for black people — and all people (all people because at the time of that show, only a minority family could get away with so much perfection — a mainstream white family would have to be dysfunctional or people wouldn’t believe it, or wouldn’t suspend their disbelief as readily). In the case of the Obamas, I am dazzled by the family, but some part of me is also skeptical. Perhaps because I myself am so deeply neurotic and flawed as a parent (and, at the same time, know myself to be far from the worst of parents), I wonder about the Obamas. I find it hard to believe that any family can be so uninflectedly healthy and happy.

Part of me thinks that family life is by definition riddled with difficulty and hidden or erupting dysfunction. I wonder if the Obamas are presenting an unrealistic image of family life to the world that may frustrate onlookers or whether there are difficulties that we don’t see. I don’t think this is a superficial or irrelevant speculation. More than even his policies, Obama embodies an idea: of level-headedness, tolerance, intelligence, and family values. If indeed he is the sort of father he appears to be, and if his family is as exemplary as it looks, we need to learn more about how he achieved this. Fix families, as I see it, and you fix the nation and the world.

Robert: You sell yourself short. If you were running for office, your family life would look quite ideal. Now my life, that’s another story. But I think I see your point: what we don’t see is how hard the Obamas have struggled to get to this present point. Michelle was not excited about him running for office as I understand it and was initially skeptical about him running for president. They had marriage conflicts early on that have been written about. He was away from home a lot, campaigning and all (before the presidential campaign). Michelle did not appreciate his absences. I think it took a while for them to reach the place where they are now. It might be helpful for the country if some of that struggle could be seen.

There was an interview on NPR yesterday with a photographer with Time who has gotten close access to the Obamas. She’s the one who took the photos of Barack and Michelle sending off the children to the first day of school in the new city. Anyway, the photographer said that Barack is so aware that he could not have run for president without the support of Michelle and the children. She said he was very aware of that and extremely thankful. She said this in a way that sounded real. It wasn’t like politicians giving the rote thank you to the wife, etc. I guess there’s a huge difference between expecting your family to make sacrifices for your career ambitions and being really thankful that your family has made sacrifices.

Paula: Yes, I see all that. I’m just saying I’m not entirely buying — or maybe I’m just jealous of — the ability to not have resentment or strain in such circumstances. I want more of the flawed, human dimension to show itself, though I realize that if any flaws were to show, the media would pounce on them. We distrust perfection, then we insist on it, and then vilify if it turns out not to be entirely true. A very American sort of mix of naïveté, idealism, and hypocrisy.

Paula: All this fuss over this Governor of Illinois’s corruption. Just indict the guy and be done with it; it’s not the first time we’ve seen some corruption in high places and won’t be the last. What really gets me is how in the same breath we’re told respectfully that Caroline Kennedy has thrown in her hat for Hillary Clinton’s seat and will probably get it. Now there’s a level of entitlement, given she has no political experience and doesn’t even think she should need to run, that I find pretty unsettling.

  Robert: I did not have a negative reaction to Caroline Kennedy wanting to be Senator. I figure a certain amount of celebrity and royalty is par for the course. I may be one of those folks simply dazzled by the celebrity, but the fact is that I “like” her. I have the sense that a person like her is the type of person who could make a great senator. She’ll use her celebrity for good causes.

To continue in the same line — the governor of the State of New Jersey spent $60 million of his own money to run for Senate and won. Does that bother me? No. Why? Because I think Corzine is a good guy. If I thought he were sleazy, then I wouldn’t have liked it. But I support his views and so I do. That’s essentially what goes into the way we tend to feel about these people. If we support their views and like them, we overlook the context; if we don’t, we decry it.

Paula: But that’s what appalls me. The hypocrisy — you’re admitting to it outright. I hate the way in which certain sorts of cool-appearing people get away with things. The Kennedys get a free pass, while poor shleppers, without the glitz and the entitlement, get slammed around mercilessly. It’s why I like to defend Nixon — I feel that, as guilty as he was, he was treated far worse than a Kennedy or that ilk would have been in the same position. There’s a kind of high-handed hypocrisy operating here on the part of the “liberal elite” that reflects what I think rightly infuriates the other side. All my being cries out against it. I know I’m party to unfair preferences all the time unknowingly, but I won’t lend my support to it knowingly.

 
Robert: Paula, this has clearly touched a nerve in you. I still don’t get it. And before you throw off charges of “hypocrisy,” how about a little more persuading? I fail to see the hypocrisy you speak of. And I have no idea what this has to do with liberals. In any event, you’re wrong: I do not criticize conservative candidates who spend a lot of their own money to win office. I did not find anything wrong with Arnold Schwarzenegger running for governor of California. Schwarzenegger had to submit himself before the voters. And in that sense, he earned his way into office. Same with Corzine. Caroline Kennedy, assuming she gets appointed, will have to face the voters very soon, and she’ll have to work her behind off traveling around the state, visiting all the small towns in upstate New York, kissing babies, talking to working-class guys in factories, going to bowling alleys, etc.

You’re completely missing the boat here: politics is always about selecting a candidate you like as well as a candidate you think voters will like. The Republicans rallied around Ronald Reagan in the 1970′s because he was handsome, telegenic, had years of experience communicating with voters on the radio — because they thought he was a good sell to voters. He wasn’t the person who had “earned” the job, whatever that means. In fact, that means nothing in elected politics. There’s no such thing as “earning” or being “more deserving” of high office.

You think Obama earned his election as presidency based on “deserving” his position? He won because voters saw something in him. Part of what they saw in him — and what I saw in him — was that he could reach other voters! Call it starpower, call it popularity, call it celebrity — it’s part and parcel of politics. Richard Durbin, the senior Senator from Illinois, certainly put in more years and labor than Obama, but so did almost any national Democrat on the scene. But so what? No one, save for Hillary Clinton, was able to capture the imagination of voters like Obama.

Paula: My first inclination would be to say that spending one’s own money is not the same as simply banking on a family name. But of course, the money could be inherited and therefore we’re back to the same sort of thing. Which is why I would favor limits on campaign spending. I just find hypocrisy operating, more with liberals in this particular case, because of their persistent argument for fairness and equality. I don’t deny that Reagan banked on the power of image (though he did have experience with labor negotiations and as a public spokesman for GE even before he was governor). But regardless, I expect more from the Democrats, given their platform — their candidates should be chosen based on merit and not on star power or some kind of knee-jerk political correctness. I know that we make decisions all the time based on appearance and likability, but I think the party of fairness ought to make every effort to oppose such tendencies — to teach through example.

Robert: Paula, I’ve been afraid to write anything about the election and about the transition for fear that I would be disappointed or made a fool of for praising Barack’s achievements. But I’ll take the leap and say that I think he has handled the process marvelously. I mean, he has picked people who all seem to be really smart and really practical. He’s selected problem solvers — smart people who have “practical creativity,” as David Brooks put it in the Times.

I think the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff was an amazingly smart choice. Emanuel is one of the most energetic and practical people in Washington. Emanuel will be able to help Barack forge great relations with the Congress. He’ll know how to guide Barack through the back and forth over legislation. Emanuel is famously abrasive, but Obama is likely to smooth his edges. And some abrasiveness seems called for in a chief of staff, who has to play the bad cop to the president’s good cop. But what about that other, controversial appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State? It’s a brilliant choice, in my opinion. What do you think?

   Paula: I agree with you about Obama’s impressive transition. His judgment and presentation have been so impeccable that one almost feels that he’s bound for a fall. Overachievers tend to take this sort of view — that when things are going well that means that soon they won’t go well. I wonder if Obama is worrying about this.

I know that a lot of people seem to think Emanuel is a great choice. Certainly he pleases the Clinton constituency. But then the choice of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State takes care of that.

As for her appointment, I feel good about seeing these two former foes join forces. I’ll go even further and say that I sense a powerful positive energy between them. On Dec. 2, the Times ran a front page article about the appointment with a photo of Obama and Clinton clasping hands and looking intesnely at each other. It looked to me like he was about to give her a passionate kiss.

My theory is that this was not an accident of the camera or the result of loony projection; there is an attraction between them. I account for this in two ways. First, the antagonism that existed during the primary was such that easing that strain would logically produce a rush of goodwill and more — a feeling of exuberance that might well border on the erotic.

Second, despite the age difference, Obama and Clinton are two people who would logically be attracted to each other. Their primary campaign reads like a Jane Austen novel or a Tracy-Hepburn movie: two well-matched adversaries who resolve their differences in a reconciling embrace. I should add that I wholly support the attraction, if not its consummation (which might be messy for the country, though it would offer Hillary and her advocates a proper revenge on Bill). The feeling that I postulate they have for each other will energize them and make more urgent their work together. Do you think I’m spinning away from reality here?

Paula: Now that the election is over and Obama has won, I wonder how much of his success can be owed to the influence of Jewish grandchildren on their grandparents. You’ve probably seen Sarah Silverman’s famed YouTube piece, The Great Schlep. The fact is, there was plenty of arm-twisting going on — I know because my daughter and her friends were very involved with getting their grandparents to vote for Obama. And he did end up winning Florida.

 
  Robert: The idea that these grandchildren were successful in persuading the older folks to vote for Obama is startling to me. Among African Americans, there is not a sense that young people can or are supposed to persuade older folks of anything. There is a lot of faux praise of the wisdom of the elderly among African Americans. I’m not sure all this respect is “real,” but it is real to the extent that it discourages young black folks from playing this type of role with their parents. Young black folks would just do their thing in opposition to the older folks. But they wouldn’t be invited to an opportunity to sit and persuade.

Do you think there was anything awkward about the Obama campaign turning to the Jewish kids to help them get their grandparents’ support?

Paula: I do think that there is a tendency in Jewish families to give a great deal of power to the younger generation. In this respect, perhaps the culture is unique. In its worst manifestation, you get the Jewish prince and Jewish princess — spoiled kids who think they can boss their elders around and get whatever they want. On the good side is the sense that kids have that they will be listened to and that they can persuade their elders to understand their position, to give up old biases and old ways.

The susceptibility of Jewish grandparents to their grandchildren is impossible to overstate. A Jewish grandchild who plays her cards right can have her way with her grandma or grandpa. And I think the notion that these kids can persuade the old codgers to be more idealistic and hopeful, to see the best of the future because the future is reflected in their grandchildren whom they think the world of — is a really great thing.

I also think that it’s the Jewish grandchildren working for Obama who came up with the idea of making this part of the campaign, and I don’t think there was anything really awkward about that. It trades on ethnic identity in the best sense by deploying it for nonsectarian, idealistic ends. It is built on a paradox. It implies that the kid is hugely entitled in having so much influence within the family while suggesting that the kid wants to use that enormous power to better the world and be fairer to everyone.

Robert: I have to tell you this aspect of Jewish culture seems utterly enthralling to me. Damn, I am envious. I think one of the best things parents and elders can do for their children is to give them responsibility, real responsibility. (Yes, it has to be within limits, etc.)

Strange as it might seem, my dad gave me an incredible gift when in the past few years (as his Parkinson’s worsened), he allowed me to direct his health care. My father was a man of frugality and discipline and responsibility, and for him to pass on major responsibility to me has been a gift. It may be one aspect of my life I’m most proud of: the way I’ve directed my father’s medical care. He pretty much follows my guidance, and this is new and empowering.

Paula: On the front page of the New York Times Week in Review yesterday (Sunday, Oct. 19), there’s an article about conservatives who are deserting McCain and endorsing or at least leaning toward Obama. 
The article mentions Charles Krauthammer, who criticized McCain for “frenetic improvisation” and praised Obama for his “first-class intellect and a first-class temperament.”

Also mentioned is George Will, who said in a column that McCain is acting like a “flustered rookie playing in a league too high.” And there is the endorsement of Obama by Christopher Buckley, son of the late uber-conservative William F. Buckley, he of the most intellectually effete and unruffleable manner. It seems to me that what these men are objecting to in McCain and responding to in Obama is style. McCain is not acting like a conservative in the stereotypical mold: measured, elegant, intellectually rigorous — these were the leadership characteristics that conservatives valued as the qualities needed to oppose the potential hysteria of the riff-raff. Think of that original of all conservatives, Edmund Burke, opposing the chaos and upheaval of the French Revolution. Well, now it’s Obama who projects these qualities. His views don’t necessarily appeal to conservatives, of course, but his manner does, and I think that some conservatives find this more important than his views, since style, ultimately, can affect thinking.

The fact that Obama seems like he would deliberate and maintain a level of civility, even in uncivil times, might suggest to these highly educated (elite?) conservatives that Obama might come around to their viewpoint. In this sense, Obama is probably seen by these people as more of a centrist than his views and voting record would indicate.

 
Robert: I was astounded when I read the George Will column on Obama and McCain a few weeks ago and then the Krauthammer column. (By the way, I once read that those two actually meet for a weekly lunch or breakfast and discuss politics. So I wonder if this came out of one of their conversations.) Will said something to the effect that experience can be acquired (Obama’s inexperience can be overcome), but that a poor temperament (John McCain’s) was not something likely to change over time. The key word here is “temperament.” This is one of those words, almost old-fashioned, used by conservatives like Will, and I never took to it over the years. Yet I think Krauthammer and Will are onto something.

It’s easy to think the problem with George W. Bush was his inexperience and his being totally over his head in the White House. But actually, I think it was Bush’s temperament (defensive, incurious, impatient, intolerant of ambiguity) that was the biggest problem. His temperament, as much as anything else, is why Republicans in Congress dislike him almost as much (if not more) than Democrats. He didn’t treat them any better or any more respectfully (by negotiating in good faith, sharing important information, looking out after their interests) than he treated the Democrats.

The funny thing is that when Bush ran for office in 2000, he campaigned as a friendly open-minded compromising “different-type-of” conservative. Then he gets into office and it’s all stubborn defensiveness. Someone less defensive than Bush would have corrected course on Iraq years earlier than Bush did.

Barack is quite measured and cool. I read a New Yorker article where a writer compared Obama to General David Petraeus, the guy who turned around the war in Iraq. Barack and Petraeus, according to the writer, are people who become more calm under stress. It’s quite possible that a lot of folks are burnt out on the emotionality of the Bush years. Given how saturated we are in media coverage these days, maybe Barack’s measured temperament wears well over time.