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Academic

: Essentially Contested America

The Idealist Trap: "Dr. Barack & Fast Eddie Obama"

By Robert Justin Lipkin

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If you're an idealistic. don't run for political office. Why? Because you will inevitably be required to engage in smarmy, non-idealist behavior. Just listen to His Holiness, Lubavitcher Rebbe, David Brooks: "God, Republicans are saps. They think that they're running against some academic liberal who wouldn't wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn't proud of America and who went to some liberationist church db:

where the pastor damned his own country. They think they're running against some naive university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson. . . . But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there's Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who'd throw you under the truck for votes. . . . This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He's the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he's too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside." Click here for the entire piece.

The problem is that if we take the idealist trap seriously, only sleaze will run for office. (Well, that's pretty much the way it is.) But when an idealist comes along he or she will need to get down dirty in the mud, or feo:

loose. So what's an idealist public to do? Here's the answer: When an idealist has the courage to come forth, urge him or her not to capitulate, while at the same time understand that capitulation is the name of the political game and accept it. Don't make the idealist choose between idealism and winning the election. That's a fool's game that guarantees failure. Barack Obama is an idealist, but he is no fool. Moreover, he exhibits a healthy pragmatist streak that gives him a chance of actually winning. Of course, his idealist supporters need to keep him focused. Say a ([n] idealist) prayer for him. "God, grant Barack the serenity to accept the sleeze he cannot change, courage to idealistically change the sleaze he can, and wisdom to know the difference." Judging from his entire piece even Lubavitcher Rebbe, David Brooks might agree with this sentiment. But if so, he needs to reconceive the predominantly negative tone, and praise Obama, not bury him.

Update 6:45 PM: On the NewsHour tonight, David Brooks condemned Obama for capitulalting on a core principle in his campaign for the presidency, to wit: reform. Here's another example of the "idealist trap." If a political system needs reform, that is, if the most realistic ways of winning involve capitulation, then no reform candidate can ever hope to win because winning requires jettisoning an absolute commitment to the principle of reform. So if you live up to your reform principles, you will be a perennial loser. Some system of politics that is, one that condemns the reform candidate from doing what is necessary to win. There needs to be a middle-way steering between the Scylla of certain defeat and the Charybdis of complete corruption. Perhaps, the idealist prayer above should be taken seriously.

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Full post as published by Essentially Contested America on June 20, 2008 (boomark / email).