Skeptical Of Obama

Leon Wieseltier:

Change: fine. A new generation: fine. A new politics: fine. It is all fine, and it is all contentless. Inspiration without content is a prelude to alienation. Newness is the oldest pitch in American politics. And I am a little sick of hope. ("I do not believe in miracles," says Herodias in Wilde's play. "I have seen too many.") Also I have a queasy recollection of 1975 and the electrifying emergence of Jimmy Carter out of nowhere, in all his progressive pristinity, in a country made torpid by a war and an era of low politics. Why not the best? Skepticism is bad form in a bandwagoning moment. Yet I have a few doubts.

This kind of skepticism is entirely a good thing, I'd say. The one unfair critique is that Obama lacks policy substance. His campaign is laden with policy substance. Oodles of it. More, I wager, than Leon's interest would ever bear.