1 Boring Old Man

I just watched This Week with George Stephanopoulos and Barack Obama. George was nice enough, but there was one unanswerable question after another – all of which reduce down to "How can you possibly clean up this mess you’re walking into?" As always, Obama answered only the part of the questions he could answer. There were several points that deserve mentioning.

Many of his answers had the form, "here are the things I’ve asked my team to look at." It was a little jarring in a way because it’s so unfamiliar given our recent history. Obama is a "structuralist" as well as a "pragmatist."  It was clear that he still sees himself as the community organizer – creating an executive with teams of expert advisors in key areas. When he was asked an unanswerable question, he would respond by saying what he had charged his "team" to look into – and in the process reframed the unanswerables into specifics. As jarring as that is after living in an oligarchy for eight years, I think it bodes well for our future. In this regard, I was reminded of Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee being interviewed yesterday about leadership. Woodward says Bush had no structure to stay on top of things – and no patience."

A second point was one he also made yesterday. When Stephanopoulos brought up criticisms of his Stimulus Plan. Obama told what he thought about it, but then said that he had no investment in authorship. He said he welcomed input and engagement. It’s almost hard to believe him after Bush and Cheney. They never had a word to say that wasn’t already chiseled in stone and part of a campaign. Some may interpret Obama’s willingness to listen as weakness or wishy-washy-ness, maybe even indecisiveness. Well, we better get used to it because it’s what community organization is all about. The way you build a working community is around input and shared decision making. It brings people together and insists on involvement and shared responsibility. It’s the "we thing," and Lord knows, we need the "we thing."

Finally, there was an answer to questions that basically focused on "Are you going to prosecute the Bush Administration?" He said three things, First he said that his instinct was to look forward, not backwards, but that obvious crime had to be investigated – no specifics. He next gave a reason – that we need people [C.I.A.] doing their jobs, not looking over their shoulders. But I thought his most important comment was in response to a question like, "Will you direct the Attorney General to appoint a Special Prosecutor to…?" Obama said he saw the Attorney General as "America’s Lawyer." And he affirmed that the only thing he had in mind for the Attorney General was that he uphold our Laws. Obama’s not going to be directing him to do anything. That is the right answer. Again, we’re so used to the alternative that it’s jarring.