Ezra Klein is right that Brooks on Obama was a great read, but I think he gets Brooks (and thus the paradox of Obama) wrong. Klein takes Brooks' point to be that Obama has a tendency to "meta" campaign-- campaign by talking about campaigning-- in a way that obscures his actual policy prescriptions. Klein is "baffled" by the constant invoking of Reinhold Niebuhr and deems Obama's rhetoric "banal":

[Obama's understanding of Niebuhr] consists of banalities like "there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction."

Here's where I think Klein misses Brook's point: rather than just being "banal," Brooks argues that Obama is "either profound or vacuous, depending on your point of view." Filling out the paradox by considering why Obama's words can be considered profound might clarify some of Klein's confusion.

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Mark Schmitt makes The Case for Bureaucracy.

While we collect your submissions for today's little contest, it's worth remembering that this isn't the first Administration to question the patriotism of its critics. This morning at TPMCafe Todd Gitlin unintentionally anticipated Perino, pulling a quote from the late great David Halberstam writing in 2004 of the sad resonance between today's patriotism debate and the attacks he experienced as a result of his skeptical reporting on Vietnam. Check it out.

Bill McKibben sits down at TPMCafe's Table for One.

Here’s how it works.  Nearly a year before the first vote is cast, write a story about how a candidate has a complicated relationship with one of his most obvious bases of support based on soft early polling and anecdotal chatter from self-appointed spokespeople.  Meme propagates.  Then, two months later, still 10 months before the first vote is to be cast, write a story about how – “surprise!” – that invented meme may have actual been premature and idle speculation and, you know, we’ll see.

To make a long story short: it turns out black people probably do like Barack Obama after all.  For now. 

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