Russert v. Obama

Was that Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" yesterday? Instead of the usual offering of gotcha questions and decades-old quotes, all designed to put the interviewer’s prey into a meltdown, Russert asked thoughtful, persistent questions of Sen. Barack Obama and even gave him sufficient time to answer. It is a shame that most Americans were not watching because some of Obama’s answers got at the heart of the choices facing the electorate. On the gas tax holiday, he cast the narrow issue of the efficacy of the proposal into the larger and more important issue of how politics has been practiced in Washington for the past several decades. In the event, Obama was right that it matters more to politicians to score electoral advantage than it does to actually solve one of the nation’s problems. It is anyone’s guess whether the persuasive phenom would be able to change the ways of Washington if elected. It is beyond guesswork that the person who most effectively runs against Washington, who casts him- or herself as the anti-politician, is the person most likely to win the next election. Obama’s finest moment came in response to Russert’s questions about Iraq and Iran. Whatever you think about Obama, there is no denying the sharp learning curve of his political skills. One year ago, his answers to foreign policy questions were halting and often disjointed. Yesterday, he was fluent and fluid in his replies. More than style points, he diagnosed the original and ongoing strategic problem of the Iraq War – there was no way it was not going to strengthen Iran. And, in contrast to the open-ended commitment that Sen. McCain has proposed, Obama suggested that if the Iraqis could not learn to put their house in order in seven years, why should we think they would be able to heal their religious and ethnic divisions in fourteen or twenty-eight or fifty-six years? He did not go all the way and endorse Sen. Joe Biden’s proposal to divide Iraq into three distinct groups, but it is difficult to see how he could make a withdrawal work without such a separation of warring populations. There is something histrionic about some of Obama’s more sweeping claims, his ambition to enlist average Americans and their voices in a campaign that will achieve large goals like universal health insurance, a goal that has eluded every Democratic president since Harry S. Truman. There is a great deal of self-confidence in his belief that he can change the political culture within the beltway, maybe a little hubris even. And, Lord knows, all Americans are well advised to be suspicious of such claims when we remember that George W. Bush promised he would be "a uniter, not a divider." Still, there is still something authentic and real in this man’s smile, and he clearly believes in the largeness of his promises in part because they are large. One of the ways to avoid being tagged as histrionic is by being genuinely historic. It is hard to believe Obama can deliver on the hopes he has raised and Americans have fallen in love with politicians before only to be disappointed. But, it is difficult to foretell what effect the election of the first black president would have on the nation’s psyche, let alone that of the rest of the world. It was not so much Barack’s performance on "Meet the Press" that suggested how profound those effects could be, it was Russert’s. He was thoughtful in ways he is not always thoughtful, he listened in ways he does not usually listen. Whatever else he has done in this campaign, Barack Obama has elevated the political discourse in America, even for Tim Russert. Maybe we should dare ourselves to hope again. Michael Sean Winters