The Trouble With Character
David Brooks was very high on Barack Obama for a while. Then he got very upset at Obama for a while, slamming him as “Fast Eddie Obama.” Now he’s back to mostly praise:
He doesn’t have F.D.R.’s joyful nature or Reagan’s happy outlook, but he is analytical. That’s why this William Ayers business doesn’t stick. He may be liberal, but he is never wild. His family is bourgeois. His instinct is to flee the revolutionary gesture in favor of the six-point plan.
This was not evident back in the “fierce urgency of now” days, but it is now. And it is easy to sketch out a scenario in which he could be a great president. He would be untroubled by self-destructive demons or indiscipline. With that cool manner, he would see reality unfiltered. He could gather — already has gathered — some of the smartest minds in public policy, and, untroubled by intellectual insecurity, he could give them free rein. Though he is young, it is easy to imagine him at the cabinet table, leading a subtle discussion of some long-term problem.
I just wonder about this approach to thinking about politicians. Suppose Obama really is “Fast Eddie” and the main difference between now and when Brooks didn’t like him is that he’s gotten better at lying? After all, Brooks says that key elements of Obama’s character were “not evident back in the ‘fierce urgency of now’ days” but now they are. But maybe “Fast Eddie” is just turning it on and off to suit his schemes. I feel pretty confident as a well-informed, skeptical person with Google at my finger tips that I can figure out when politicians are lying to me about policy or about their records. But a lot of this genre of punditry seems based on the idea that journalists can discern when politicians are and aren’t misleading with their presentation of self. But I have no reason to believe I’m especially good at this, and plenty of reason to believe that big-time politicians are unusually good at misleading about this sort of thing. There’s something to be said for just analyzing politics as a rigid ideologue and not trying to wade into these waters at all.
50 Responses to “The Trouble With Character”
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October 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
‘Cause, hey, why think when you can simply always be right? Counterfactuals are hard, and fraught with potential for bias and error, so we shouldn’t bother with them. Human psychology swims in self-reference and nonlinearity, so we should assume it all away rather than confront it. When the going gets tough, quit.
You’re a strange thinker, Matt. You don’t believe in the preceding paragraph, but you nonetheless celebrate it regularly. I can certainly see how reading David Brooks seriously could lead you there, though.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
“I feel pretty confident as a well-informed, skeptical person with Google at my finger tips that I can figure out when politicians are lying to me about policy or about their records.”
But, of course, the issue is about trying to figure out if a politician is lying or telling the truth about their future plans.
And that does come down to character.
Given that a President is granted a huge amount of non-revokable power, these things actually do kinda matter.
And Obama’s political character seems incredibly weak to me. Given how he’s behaved to date, I don’t expect him to stand up for progressivism once in office. That may be fine for David Brooks and Matthew Yglesias, but it’s less ducky for the rest of us.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I think this can be asked better about McPalin. A lot of journalists are still riding the tire swing, yet McPalin has been exposed as a fraud and full of crap.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I am not sure whether David Brooks ever writes about anything other than David Brooks. The man seems to live in his own private universe. Any similarities to the real one are purely coincidental and may change in a few minutes.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
But I have no reason to believe I’m especially good at this
Inasmuch as you’re treating Brooks’s change of heart as sincere and motivated by new information about Obama rather than new information about how the electorate feels about Obama, I’d say that’s a surprisingly good self-description.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
What NS said. Brooks is a blithering idiot.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
it is hard enough to know the character of people we are familiar with and interact with every day. it is impossible to know the character of political figures whom we don’t interact with every day.
even if we could, the notion that “character” is a perfect guide to future behavior is, of course, disproven by all of recorded human history.
and worst of all, the notion that “character” can be judged by “how often the politician in question says things i would say were i in that position” is beyond silly.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Brad Berenson, Harvard Law class of ‘91:
(My bolding.)
That’s character, and that’s what we’re going to be dealing with going forward.
Obama is essentially invulnerable to complaints from the left, and while past performance is no guarantee of future results, we should expect that when the concerns of progressivism conflict with the concerns of Obama’s personal political fortunes, that Obama will side with his own interests over the Democratic Party’s interests.
We’ve put in office someone less invested in our common goals than any Democratic President of the past 80 years other than Jimmy Carter.
Character may not matter to Matthew, but it really ought to matter to the rest of us.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Re Matthew’s comment ” I feel pretty confident as a well-informed, skeptical person with Google at my finger tips that I can figure out when politicians are lying to me about policy or about their records ”
———–
hee hee.
[snicker]
ha ha ha ha ha ha [cough..choke..gasp] ha ha ..
stop! my sides are hurting ..ha ha ha ha
October 18th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
we should expect that when the concerns of progressivism conflict with the concerns of Obama’s personal political fortunes, that Obama will side with his own interests over the Democratic Party’s interests.
This description is useful for
1) every politician, but particularly
2) Bill Clinton.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Re Petey’s comment “Obama is essentially invulnerable to complaints from the left, and while past performance is no guarantee of future results, we should expect that when the concerns of progressivism conflict with the concerns of Obama’s personal political fortunes, that Obama will side with his own interests over the Democratic Party’s interests.”
—————
Actually, it seems to me that the Democratic Party itself has never allowed the “concerns of progressivism” to “conflict with their personal political fortunes”.
Going back to ..oh, Woodrow Wilson throwing Eugene Debs in prison simply for noting that the Rich would get richer off WWI –and the poor would die. A pretty good prediction, as I recall.
Of course, ole Woodrow was sensitive because he had won reelection promising to “keep us out of the war”.
We probably need to define “Democratic Party”. Is it the hundred or so billionaires who –as the NY Times admitted — view the Party as their own private club?
Or is it professional politicans whose disagreement with the Republicans is not over policies of “fuck the common citizen” but rather over whose in charge?
Or is it the naive grassroots, who hilariously think they are better informed because they read the NY Times instead of watching Fox News?
October 18th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Petey: The fact that you read that quote and think it’s a bad thing says a lot more about you than about Obama. Since you obviously buy the analogy between the Law Review and the country, you are proudly admitting that you want a Democratic president to “curry favor” and “score political points” rather than do what’s in the best interest of the country. I appreciate your honesty, I suppose, but it’s somewhat horrifying. You’re right about one thing, however: “That’s character.”
October 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Re Petey’s comment “Character may not matter to Matthew, but it really ought to matter to the rest of us.”
————
I kinda agree, but it is humorous hearing this from a strong partisan of a multi-millionaire Trial Lawyer who claimed to be an advocate for the poor.
Especially Given that said Trial Lawyer’s concealed penchant for playing “Hide the Salami” would have dragged the party over the cliff if we had been fool enough to nominate him.
Edwards strikes me more as a potential suicide bomber than a leader.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Petey –
I take comfort in the fact that Obama doesn’t see the world as divided into progressive and not. Just because this current brand of Conservative is not truly conservative, does not mean that our country has not benefited from true conservative thought and policy. I would not want Obama to ignore the responsible conservative viewpoint when setting policy. It seems to me progressives want to turn our country into Sweden, but Sweden has its own set of problems not easily overcome by progressive policy. And lets not forget that the social conformity and control that might accompany a true socialization of our country will not work the same as is has in Sweden — small country dynamics are vastly different from super-power dynamics. We need our conservatives, regardless of what many progressives dismissively think.
While I think we do have a long way to go towards true social democracy, I do have confidence that Obama has those goals in mind, and some of the progressive policy he has rejected in order to get elected will reenter the dialog once he is elected. Frankly, that is what has the right so freaked out. But just remember that you are never going to get exactly the country you want, and perhaps that is a good thing.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
petey, that is armchair psychologizing of the most naive stripe: who is brad berenson and why are we supposed to value his insight?
there are plenty of perfectly sound reasons to be concerned about obama’s centrism as policy matters: there is nothing to be gained by pretending that we understand his “character.”
October 18th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Berenson very obviously meant it as a compliment. Obama is not going to bend over backwards for the left on everything, because not everything the left wants is good or practical. Petey acts like a modern-day Republican by spinning that into a negative thing.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
It’s striking that his infatuation/disenchantment with McCain has apparently not left Brooks feeling humbled about his method of assessing politicians.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
It told me that he valued the success of his own presidency of the Review above scoring political points of currying favor with his political supporters</b.
Petey, why do you think this is a bad thing? A politician who values success rather than scoring points or currying favor? What is wrong with that?
October 18th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
We need to stop calling these “character” issues. David Brooks has it right…they are “symbolic issues“. And symbolism is often in the eye of the beholder.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Ever notice politician’s assertions of strengths that are actually reflections of their weaknesses? Not only is what you see is not what you get in politics, but there actually seems to be a negative correlation– what you do not see is what you will get.
This is what worries me about Obama– I hope he will be the exception to the rule, but it’s hope rather than confidence.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
The only reasonable explanation I could come up with for Brooks’ uniquely meandering and yammering piece on Friday was that he fell sound asleep for three solid days, and woke up a half hour before his deadline. His submission was created out of sentences cut from his character yammers from earlier in the year.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Presumably, “the success of his own presidency of the Review” is founded on advancing the interests of the Law Review. How selfish!
October 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Also, Petey is using someone else’s interpretation of Obama’s actions to make judgments about Obama’s character. That’s “character” twice removed…also known as gossip.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Look, David Brooks is a man who has one job everyday: to wake up and write a column in which he supports everything the Republicans stand for, but seems to do it after “nuanced, thoughtful reflection.” Of course the reflection is just a ruse: he’s sided with the Republicans 99% of the time.
Man, when it comes to understanding how conservatives work. liberals are sometimes so dumb! If a conservative puts on glasses or a bow-tie (e.g. Brooks, or George Will), or acts a little dull (e.g. the Chevron-supported Jim Lehrer News Hour, darling of the American Enterprise Institute), people think that they’re more “nuanced: and “independent” than the usual conservatives.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Excellent example. Brooks suffers from the error you describe to an astounding degree. Consider this sentence “With that cool manner, he would see reality unfiltered.” Now a manner is a way of presenting oneself to the world a form of showing, yet Brooks just states that it is a way of seeing reality.
YOu claim that Brooks mistakes appearances for essences, manner for character. You are typically blunt even harsh, but he is much blunter. He says that a “manner” helps one “see”. This is almost insane.
How did Brooks get into that sentence ? I think a serious part of the problem is going horse race. Often pundits shift from talking about who they think should be President to who they think will win. If the aim is to handicap the horse race it doesn’t matter if a “presentation of self” which convinces people one is of good character really is correlated with good character. Whether it is or not it is equally useful to a candidate.
Now the strange thing is that the focus on who will win is based on a desire to be positive not normative and talk about facts not opinions. However, it often leads to the exact opposite. Even in cases in which the facts can be demonstrated (e.g. what fraction of US federal spending goes to foreign aid) a political handicapper cares more about the median opinion (10%) than the fact (1%). If my aim is to predict who will win the election, I care about voters’ opinions, including voters opinions on matters of fact where the opinions are demonstrably false.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Obama isn’t young. He’s 47. Older than Shakespeare was when he wrote the greatest work in literature. Older than Napoleon when he became Emperor. 3 times as old as Alexander was when he became regent. Older than JFK ever got. Etc.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Matt,
Manifesting a coherent political persona persuasively is hard. Regardless of the degree to which a candidate switches among such roles for political advantage, her capacity to invest them with relevant policy proposals and ideological narratives and to deploy on their behalf biography, current headlines, and a resonant, attuned communication style does say something important about the degree to which a politician can be trusted to respond to complex, unforeseen policy dilemmas with similar coherence.
Admittedly, no one can guarantee that an officeholder’s actual policy agenda will be fair, or wise, or congruent with campaign promises or prior philosophic commitments. That’s why the separation of powers, an independent press, and politically active civil society institutions are important counterweights. But demanding politicians with competence, including the emotional and interpersonal competence Brooks describes, avoids the specter of Bush–style governance, in which what seem (based on abundant evidence of the president’s leadership style) to have been attempts to manage insecurity wreak massive human suffering, quite aside from the related but distinct questions of philosophical and policy judgment.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Some people are good at spotting phonies. I’m beginning to think a large fraction of Republicans are especially bad at it.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Interesting sidenote: David “The Applebees Never Falls Far from the Salad Bar” Brooks now shares a Random House editor with Bernard Henri Levy, Ken Pollock, and Joe Biden (!).
(I know the editor, and he’s a pretty decent fellow.)
Again, no broader connection implied. Just bar trivia.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Petey’s character witness against Obama:
Brad Berenson, Harvard Law class of ‘91:
Matt’s right, Google is a wonderful thing:
BRADFORD A. BERENSON is a litigator in the Washington, D.C., office whose practice focuses on the defense of white collar criminal cases, investigations by government agencies and congressional committees, litigation in U.S. courts with significant international dimensions, and other civil or constitutional matters that present unusual legal, public relations, or political risks. He has defended criminal cases at every stage of development, from internal investigations and grand jury proceedings through trials, sentencings, and appeals. Mr. Berenson’s practice has included criminal matters in the fraud, environmental, health care, pharmaceutical, and public corruption areas. In addition, Mr. Berenson served as a consultant to Independent Counsel David M. Barrett in the prosecution of former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.
In the field of international litigation, Mr. Berenson has handled both civil and criminal matters in U.S. courts involving parties, evidence, or parallel legal proceedings in foreign jurisdictions including France, England, the People’s Republic of China, Cyprus, Turkey, the Isle of Man, Monaco, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria. These matters have included civil frauds, criminal and civil securities litigation, enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, litigation involving both jurisdictional and execution immunities under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and business torts committed abroad.
From January 2001 through January 2003, Mr. Berenson served as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States. In the White House, he worked on a wide variety of legal, legislative and policy issues associated with the Bush Administration’s relations with Congress, its justice and domestic policy initiatives, and the war on terrorism. These included judicial selection, responses to congressional oversight and investigations, the USA Patriot Act, the Military Order authorizing the use of military commissions, detainee and anti-terrorism litigation, presidential action against terrorist financing, and the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security.
Memberships
* Chairman, Federalist Society, Criminal Law & Procedure practice group
* Adjunct fellow, American Enterprise Institute
* Member, Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court
http://www.sidley.com/ourpeople/detail.aspx?FullBio=true&attorney=971
October 18th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Obama isn’t young. He’s 47.
Coincidentally, I happened to be reading something by a 47-year-old who failed in his bid to become a Senator for Illinois:
“he who molds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions”
October 18th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Just in case anyone was wondering what those little three elipses in Petey’s post contained, it wasn’t just repetitive words or unrelated content. It was this:
It’s not that he was out of sympathy with their views, but his first and foremost goal, it always seemed to me, was to put out a first-rate publication.
Petey, of course, thinks it shows poor character to be more concerned with doing a good job than “scoring points.”
October 18th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
But I have no reason to believe I’m especially good at [evaluating character], and plenty of reason to believe that big-time politicians are unusually good at misleading about this sort of thing. There’s something to be said for just analyzing politics as a rigid ideologue and not trying to wade into these waters at all.
Wow – I’m not good at it, therefore its a waste of time. That captures my attitude towards golf, I suppose but really – who wants to argue that Bill Clinton’s character was not a major part of his Presidency? Reagan’s? Truman’s? FDR’s? Lincoln’s?
Or go abroad – was Winston Churchill’s character an important part of his story, or was it all about his policy proposals? How about Stalin and Hitler – all about the policy ideas? Really?
October 18th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I don’t know–I think viewing this election as a contest between Fast Eddie and Crazy Eddie is a pretty useful prism.
If I were a pundit, I could run with that, regardless of ideology (and of course, pundits, being Big Personalities themselves, don’t believe in ideology–they’re too busy grokking with the zeitgeist/Joe-the-plumber/real America, and yadda yadda–so you must be some kind of pointy-headed trust-fund scumbag…).
October 18th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Oddly, it’s been a commonplace of political analysis that the best politicians are the best liars. Those politicians who tell a lie so well that even THEY believe it as they’re telling it, are the ones who go far.
Obama will tell his share of lies. But mostly he’s careful to rely on the truth, and frame that truth fairly artfully. These are unusual times. Politics as usual may not be so reliable. So Obama may not be quite the liar Shrub has been. Shrub is truly remarkable. He appears to be a borderline sociopath who believes every single lie that comes out of his mouth at the moment he tells that lie.
It would not be surprising if history records Shrub’s extraordinary ability to lie so effectively as nearly unique among American presidents..
October 19th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I don’t know–I think viewing this election as a contest between Fast Eddie and Crazy Eddie is a pretty useful prism.
LOL. I’m ordering a t-shirt – “I’m With Crazy”. It’ a great feeling.
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