Mike Gerson is a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow, a Washington Post columnist, and was (2001-06) Bush’s chief speechwriter. He has written about how Obama will govern; an analysis with which I agree. Implicitly, Gerson makes two major points:
1. Obama is a reconciler.
Obama does not appear to view himself as a lapsed radical. He sees himself as the reconciler of opposites, the seer of merit on both sides, the transcender of stale debates. He is the racial healer who understands racial anger.
Obama is the reassuring figure who gained fame telling the 2004 Democratic convention America needs to come together. As Gerson says, Obama’s “entire manner douses inflammatory charges of extremism.”
But:
2. Pelosi, Reid and the Democratic congress have an agenda “the reconciler” won’t stop.
The least responsible, least respected, least popular political institution in America -- the Democratic-led Congress -- [will] also be the most emboldened. Democratic leaders with large majorities [will] be pushed by conviction and hubris, and pressured by Democratic constituencies, toward divisive measures that punish and alienate businesses, seek backward-looking political vengeance and impose cultural liberalism.
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