Obama gets critical

The Boston Globe highlights what I think many people had a feeling was inevitable: Obama is getting a little more critical of Hillary. The question: how does this play, given his claim to be embracing a new kind of political discourse, more enlightened, less confrontational?

Obama's appeal to voters to "declare independence" from a toxic political culture was suffused with its own fresh toxicity: his strongest indictment yet of Hillary Clinton as a practitioner of the vicious warfare that Republicans have long waged against her.

It's a difficult question, but I am not too worried about it. Barack Obama has set himself high standards for how he engages politics. But he has not set himself impossible standards. I think he knows his own limitations.

"I don't mind this kind of silly-season politics," Obama said in Harrisburg on Saturday. "Politics ain't beanbag, that's what they say in Chicago. We know how to throw some elbows. I'm skinny but I'm tough."

I've heard some people complain about "St. Obama," as if he was the new messiah. I've never thot that about him. Some of his more enthusiastic supporters have, I think, painted a too-rosy picture. But I think this is a picture that they have painted for themselves, if they have at all. Both Barack and Michelle have gone to some lengths to remind people that he is, after all, just a man. He has his flaws. He is not perfect. And he is, as he has to be if he is human, aware of that. And we forget that our favorite politicians of the past were not as wholesome as we remember them. We know that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and that Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address; what we don't know is how they dealt with their own anger and frustrations. We've all heard Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech - we don't have videos on YouTube of him venting about the obstacles he faced fighting for civil rights.

Obama is critical, but he has not, at least for me, crossed the line that Hillary has, and that is into the territory of the vicious, the mendacious, and outright dishonesty. I think it's perfectly fair to criticize your opponent's policies and even their tactics, as long as that is relevant to the campaign. What I find problematic is Hillary's willingness to throw mud and bring up garbage like the William Ayers connection. And Obama is willing to accept responsibility for his mistakes, as he did after the "bitter" comment. Hillary pretty much had to have a gun put to her head to admit her Bosnia sniper-fire claim was a lie, and even then she tried to fudge it.

What's appealing for me about Obama is that he is willing to listen to his opponents, and he is willing to challenge his supporters. That, I think, is a qualitative difference in his leadership. He treats everyone with respect. That does not mean that he has to treat them with deference.