Neville Chamberlain, too, was eager for direct negotiations, and drew huge
crowds at home and abroad roaring their approval of his devotion to peace in
his time, aka appeasement. Š In September of 1938, Britain's Queen Mary wept
with relief when the prime minister told Commons that he would be going to
Germany for a third time to conciliate Herr Hitler, this time to Munich for
an international conference that would resolve the crisis. Czechoslovakia's
Jan Masaryk, who understood what the announcement meant for his little
country, just wept. Come to think, only the Israelis were less than wildly
enthusiastic when the Obamaplane touched down in the Holy Land on its royal
progress.
But there's no denying Barack Obama's shining appeal, his way with words,
and how good he looks tieless in a white, unbuttoned shirt fielding
questions with a cat-like grace. He can shift positions so completely yet
smoothly you scarcely notice. Even more impressive, he makes anyone who
points it out sound petty.
If only the right side of the American political spectrum had a comparable
presidential nominee and slender young matinee idol to make its views
irresistible. But there's hope: If Senator Obama will just continue his
political evolution now that his party's primaries are over and he's back in
the real world, he may yet prove the conservative candidate in this race.
He's already pivoted on Iraq, campaign financing, gun control, FISA, and who
knows what's next. More to come, no doubt.
Every time you look around, the Democratic candidate is ooching over to
starboard. Soon he'll be passing John McCain on the right though he did
switch the other way on school vouchers, which he's now against, at least
when he talks to a teachers' union. Barack Obama is the candidate of
Change, all right - at least when it comes to his own stands. He makes
poor, literally old John McCain look like the fuddy-duddy he is for sticking
to his same old positions on victory in Iraq, the Second Amendment,
education reform, public financing for presidential campaigns. He's so
unhip he's still against punishing the phone companies for cooperating with
the government right after 9/11. But who remembers 9/11 any more? Another
date that was going to live in infamy hasn't.
The chief effect of a renewed sense of security at home and the sight of
victory abroad has been to encourage not gratitude on the part of the
American electorate but amnesia. Result: George W. Bush is set to leave
the White House as the most unpopular president since HST. It's the
hallmark of American democracy, ingratitude, and has been at least since
John Adams, that dull old puritan, got into his carriage and hustled out of
Washington without even attending the inauguration of his glamorous
successor, T. Jefferson, who represented La Nouvelle Vague in 1800 the way
B. Obama does in 2008. The American desire for change never changes.
Tune in again tomorrow. Till then, this is your devoted correspondent
signing off for Jergen's with lotions of love.