It isn’t very often that David Brooks and Maureen Dowd both have favorable columns on the same person. Today’s Maureen Dowd’s turn to write about Obama, but it is actually David Brooks who is more interested in seeing him run for President:
Mr. Obama’s main accomplishment so far is sending a chill through Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ dreaded eventuality. It must certainly be more fun cavorting on a cover with Eva Longoria than caucusing in the Capitol with Harry Reid. Working on legislation can be so tedious, compared with a 13-city book tour in which you are feted as the liberal hunk of the 21st century, generating buzz about your future instead of the country’s.
Mr. Obama, who fears being seen as fluffy and who has been known to mock pretty boys in his party, never seems to take off his makeup these days, as he pads from one soft perch to the next, from Oprah to Meredith to Larry. The first black president of the Harvard Law Review is spending too much time in green rooms.
He also logs a lot of time at the gym. (You never know when Anna Wintour will call.) It is the only thing this intellectually nimble, preternaturally articulate smarty-pants has in common with W.