By Their Fruits, Not Their Packaging, Ye Shall Know Them

A recent Slate article by Paul Krugman (Progressives, To Arms! Forget about Bush—And The Middle Ground) contains this paragragh:

"A year ago, Michael Tomasky wrote a perceptive piece titled 'Obama the anti-Bush,' in which he described Barack Obama's appeal: After the bitter partisanship of the Bush years, Tomasky argued, voters are attracted to 'someone who speaks of his frustration with our polarized politics and his fervent desire to transcend the red-blue divide.'"

I think its time to recall another candidate who packaged himself exactly that way, as the longed-for antidote to political polarization: George Bush.

Have you forgotten “the uniter not a divider” of the 2000 elections? And the packaging worked. The hapless, aggressively ignorant, illiterate, muti-arrested Bush managed to persuade (some of) the country that that was all surface, concealing a shining core of moral certainty, unwavering rectitude and deep desire to bring us all together. “Fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.” Let us hope so.

Obama is not another Bush. But Obama is now a package, and the packaging is the same one Bush successfully used: The Outsider/Newcomer as yet unspoiled by Washington’s divisive ways. Bush was not the package, and neither is Obama. What he is remains to be seen.

I republish from an old post these quotations; half are Bush and half Obama. Can you tell the difference?

“I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect.”

“You can disagree without being disagreeable, and you can find consensus without compromising your beliefs.”

“I know America wants reconciliation and unity. I know Americans want progress. And we must seize this moment and deliver.”

“Washington’s become a place where keeping score of who’s up and who’s down is more important than who’s working on behalf of the American people.”

“Washington can be a place where people come together to get the people's business done.”

“… if we do not fundamentally change the way Washington works – then the problems we’ve been talking about for the last generation will be the same ones that haunt us for generations to come.”

“Our nation must rise above a house divided. Americans share hopes and goals and values far more important than any political disagreements.”

“… the American people are hungry for a different kind of politics – the kind of politics based on the ideals this country was founded upon. The idea that we are all connected as one people.”

“The president of the United States is the president of every single American, of every race and every background.”

“Divided, we are bound to fail.”


The quotes alternate, starting with Bush.

It may “feel like something new” to Oprah, but it looks like an old familiar song to me. That doesn’t mean Obama is the next national nightmare waiting to happen, it means we don’t know who we are electing when we focus on the package. “By their fruits ye shall know them” seems like a solid guiding principle for accessing candidates. And by this measure none of them, and certainly not Barack Obama, look like anything new.