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Friday, December 15, 2006

"I wonder if historians will see the era that started in the mid-'90s as The Long Freakout."

So says Peggy Noonan at the end of her meditation on what Barack Obama is all about.
First the Clinton era left more than half the country appalled--deeply appalled, and ashamed--by its series of political, financial and personal scandals. I doubt the Democratic Party will ever fully understand the damage done in those days. In reaction the Republican Party lurched in its presidential decision toward a relatively untested (five years in the governor's office, before that very little) man whom party professionals chose, essentially, because "He can win" and the base endorsed because he seemed the opposite of Bill Clinton. The 2000 election was a national trauma, and I'm not sure Republicans fully understand what it did to half the Democrats in the country to think the election was stolen, or finagled, or arranged by unseen powers. Then 9/11. Now we have had six years of high drama and deep division, and again a new savior seems to beckon, one who is so clearly Not Bush.

We'll see what Sen. Obama has, what he is, what he becomes. But right now he seems part of a pattern of lurches and swerves--the man from nowhere, of whom little is known, who will bring us out of the mess. His sudden rise and wild popularity seem more symptom than solution. And I wonder if historians will call this chapter in their future histories of the modern era not "A Decision Is Made" but "The Freakout Continues."
Somehow I doubt that historians will adopt Noonan's name for the era or even the notion that the Clinton Era and the Bush Era are the same era.

Meanwhile, speaking of Obama, I am putting you on notice about Eargate. And the main thing I'd like to say about Eargate is: somebody doesn't have a very good ear for humor on this one. Too bad they don't have a cochlear implant for that.

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