Almost Getting It

Mark Halperin and John F. Harris write in the Nyok Times:

Mr. Obama’s narrow victory came from a powerful combination of two constituencies. The first was white, highly educated, reform-minded Democratic elites. It’s easy to forget how skeptical this bloc historically has been toward the Clintons, whom they view as slick and scandal-stained opportunists. They rooted for the improbable Paul Tsongas in 1992, and for Bill Bradley over Al Gore in 2000.

Almost, I'd say. A person who happens to be "white, highly educated and reform-minded" is no more apt to have smelled Ms. Clinton's wooden insincerity than anyone else. Anyone old enough to have been conned out of his milk money has developed the instinct by which juries are able to recognize perjury and news audiences could smell the phoniness of the "tearful pleas" of Susan Smith back in 1994.

I suppose that Mr. Bush fils has so alienated traditional conservatives, that they'll refuse to give his nominated successor a chance to resuscitate the quaint old notion of America, allowing Mr. Obama to win in November. (Time, of course, may make a monkey out of me for saying that, but so I think.) Still, worse things could have happened. After twenty solid years of Presidents to whom English seemed a second or possibly third language, Mr. Obama will come as rare and refreshing fruit.