Peter Nicholas on Barack Obama: Wanting cake and to eat it, as well
Peter Nicholas of the LA Times writes about covering Barack Obama for 18 hours a day for months now, and still not feeling like he really knows him, because Obama doesn’t let his guard down. Selected excerpts:
Discipline is essential for candidates who want to drive home a consistent message, or avoid the self-sabotage that comes with a careless answer. A steely perseverance helps explain why Obama at this point stands a better than even chance of becoming the 44th president. But when you’re exposed to the guy 18 hours a day, it’s a bit maddening. You want him to loosen up.
I’ve watched Obama demonstrate a soccer kick to his daughter in Chicago; devour a cheesesteak in Philly; navigate a roller rink in Indiana; drive a bumper car; and catapult 125 feet in the air on an amusement-park ride called “Big Ben.” He’s done it all with dogged professionalism, but with little show of spontaneity. After all this time with him, I still can’t say with certainty who he is.
…
The chances to gain insights into his character were like rare mutations in the evolution of his campaign.
One day in July, I was the pool reporter at an event in Zanesville, Ohio, meaning I was responsible for writing up for the rest of the press corps Obama’s visit to a ministry that was tutoring young students. Again kept at a distance, I watched as Obama chatted with the kids. One boy approached him and held out his fist. Obama drew back. “If I start that . . .” he said. From where I stood, it looked like he was refusing a request for a fist bump — a gesture that had gotten a lot of attention after Obama fist-bumped his wife at a campaign event the month before. A Fox News host had even suggested that it was a “terrorist fist jab.” If Obama was rolling out a no-fist-bump policy, that seemed worth mentioning.
The pool report quickly got around.
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times cited the episode in her column. Obama complained to an aide that it hadn’t happened that way. He was right. A videotape of the conversation would later show the boy was merely asking Obama to autograph his hand.
…
First Clinton, then John McCain made the argument that Obama is someone we don’t really know. Obama’s supporters counter that we have his record in the U.S. and Illinois senates, two memoirs that reveal his inner thinking and a vast trove of public speaking. Ironically, those of us who were sent out to take his measure in person can’t offer much help in answering who he is, or if he is ready. The barriers set in place between us and him were just too great.
Nicholas’s thinking is interesting—I’m probably being too nice; it’s actually less like interesting and more like kinda stupid, or at least self-unaware in that way that so frequently obtains with journalists at his level—for at least a couple of reasons.
For one, as he also says, “Of course, at Obama’s level, there’s no such thing as harmless chatter.” There isn’t. You have one brain fart out loud, and suddenly people are claiming that a Constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago thinks there are 57 states in the Union. Some gaffes are newsworthy—the flusterclucks that were Sarah Palin’s interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric showed that she couldn’t even feign understanding of major policy issues well; and Obama’s “bitter” comment was a fair target, because he was talking about potential constituents, and more important, constituents whose support he needed to earn. Others aren’t, though—John McCain addressing a crowd as “my fellow prisoners” instead of “citizens” was funny, but hardly damning—and yet the proverbial mainstream media treats them the same as the newsworthy ones, as Something Worth Talking About.
So who can blame Barack Obama for not easing up on his guard? Shit, unless the polls are absolutely wrong, it’s proven to be a great strategy. And Nicholas, along with all of his colleagues who keep insisting that their job is just to report everything that happens without applying any kind of thoughtful discretion, is one part of the reason it’s been smart for Obama to adopt it. Sorry, dog, but you don’t get it both ways. Those barriers between you and him? You helped put ’em there.
The other dumb thing about Nicholas’s thought process is his assertion that Obama’s guardedness makes it hard to say who he is, or if he’s ready for the office. Here’s one thing Obama’s guardedness tells you: that he’s a smart, careful guy who understands the system well enough to work it. And I guess that’s more important to me in a president than whether he’s good at making reporters feel comfortable. George W. Bush is supposedly fantastic at joking around with the press, and that’s worked out real well.
Yeah, I think that’s the major misconception in Peter Nicholas’ thinking here: that, for some reason, it’s relevant that we don’t know what Obama is like as a person. (And, of course, we do: he’s a guy that doesn’t make a lot of jokes. That’s okay. Some guys are like that.)
“What if he secretly hates dogs?”
“What if his favorite color is purple?”
What if fuck you, Peter Nicholas? Are you his therapist? Are you going to sit down on the couch with him for a year and make a map of his psyche? I’m voting for a president, not my new best friend.
Idiot.
braak | 10:09 am on 30 October 2008
I suspect it’s because for years, campaign reporters had more access to the candidates than they have this election, and this is Nicholas’s way of saying, “It was better back then!” But he knows that’s not a serious argument, so he’s trying to conceal it under this thin veneer of “It was better because we got to know them” bullshit.
Because, again, it’s been a handful of journalists getting to know the candidates on a personal level that has consistently ensured that the electorate has the information it needs.
(If Obama secretly hated dogs, that would pretty much lock down my vote. And my cat’s vote. Although technically, she can’t vote, because she lives in the U.K.)
Moff | 10:22 am on 30 October 2008
Yeah. I think that there’s also been a tendency among journalists to focus more on profiles, rather than policy, because it’s easier. You don’t have to be as smart to write a profile, and Peter Nicholas is mad because he can’t keep writing sappy stories about Obama playing freeze tag with some nuns, or something.
“Oh, moan, boo hoo, I’m on the campaign trail, following the president, and all I have to write about is what he would do as president.”
braak | 10:33 am on 30 October 2008
Not to go crazy with further comparisons, but his contemporaries, especially those who worked with him, said the same about Lincoln.
I suggest that it is evidence of a certain sort of highly functional skill set, and something one might expect from someone who’s learned the hard way how to rely on himself.
Will Divide | 11:34 am on 30 October 2008
Lincoln was there when we needed him, too. I hope any parallels stop short of, say, civil war or something worse.
My favorite part of the Nicholas piece, actually, is this:
That just sounds to me like the sort of thing a random stranger might tell me at a party, and I can’t imagine I would be especially interested either. And I wouldn’t have the whole question of, y’know, how to win the presidential election hanging over my head at the same time.
Moff | 3:11 pm on 30 October 2008