Required Reading: Obama the Evader

From the New York Times, "Showdown at Saddleback" by William Kristol

From Real Clear Politics, "McCain Shines at Saddleback Forum" by Michael Gerson

From Commentary, "McCain Tonight" by John Podhoretz

I didn't see the Obama-McCain semi-showdown live on Saturday night. Instead, I was out catching Woody Allen's excellent new movie. (There's a phrase I never expected to utter or type - "Woody Allen's excellent new movie.") When I returned home, my inbox was stuffed and the right wing blogosphere aglow with praise for what even longtime McCain critics considered a big night for the Maverick. Please note, I didn't watch the replay of the forum with a clean slate. Weigh that data point as you will as I offer my general concurrence. McCain did extremely well. Obama performed mostly adequately, but he made a major gaffe that will leave a mark.

The gaffe I'm referring to is of course Obama's "above my pay grade" remark. Here's the transcript:

Rick Warren: "Now, let's deal with abortion. 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. You know, as a pastor, I have to deal with this all of the time. All of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. 40 million abortions. At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?

Obama: Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade. But let me just speak more generally about the issue of abortion because this is something obviously the country wrestles with.

One thing even the least astute Obama observers have discovered by now is that the Senator doesn't do humble very well. In a way, this is to be predicted. You would expect the men (and occasional woman) who seek to rule 300 million people to have lofty opinions of themselves. But this dynamic is particularly acute when it comes to Obama. Even his most ardent acolytes accuse him of hubris from time to time. Obama can't manage so much as a momentary pose of humility - thus the awkward and flippant turn of phrase, "Above my pay grade." In trying to feign humility, he instead came across as imperious. Rick Warren wanted to talk about when Obama thought life began. Obama crudely dismissed the question as irrelevant, instead saying, "Let me just speak more generally about the issue of abortion."

This little exchange will leave a mark because it says much about Obama and shines a lantern on many of his problems as a candidate. Tennessee's Democratic governor Phil Bredesen made headlines this weekend by observing of Obama, "Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart." Bredesen's surprising candor didn't just highlight the hollowness of Obama's lofty rhetoric, but also intimated a harsher truth - Obama simply will not answer a straight-forward question if it happens to be a difficult or inconvenient one.

Obama is an inveterate straddler. Fearful of offending voters, he tries to get on both sides of hot-button issues. His every instinct is to avoid staking out a muscular and clearly expressed position. A brief example: When Russia began its invasion of Georgia, Obama initially called for restraint from both sides and lamented the violence. These comments were so pathetic and so brazenly avoided the real issue, even Obama supporter Zbignew Brzezinski said, "The first comments (by Obama) were perhaps too general and didn't perhaps address sharply enough the moral and strategic dimensions of the problem." Over the course of the campaign, we've discovered why Obama hews almost exclusively to his preferred Homeric themes of hope, change and getting rid of the old style of politics - he is unwilling to say anything more substantive. Everyone loves hope and change; actual policies and positions are a different matter.

Obama also has the misfortune in the general election of running against John McCain, the creator of the Straight Talk Express himself. One thing you have to say about McCain - he doesn't fear telling people things they don't want to hear or staking out unpopular positions. Indeed, a lot of conservatives might argue that McCain has elevated those things to an art form over the past decade.