Monday, June 23, 2008

BARACK OBAMA

Jim Webb Looks Like a What?

Two lines of note in this week's Economist, in an article on potential Obama running mate Jim Webb.

Webb is an indifferent campaigner. His speeches are awkward, he clearly dislikes all the flesh-pressing and he looks like an angry potato.

That's [stifled chuckle] not funny. Not funny... [holding back laughter] at all. Senator Webb does not look at all like [biting inside of cheek to control guffaws] an "angry potato."

But forbidden laughs aside, this line is a quietly devastating indictment:

The main worry about Mr Webb, however, is that he is a genuine fire-breathing economic populist. He appears actually to believe the sort of stuff that Mr Obama only says during Democratic primaries.

The idea that vast swaths of Obama's rhetoric on economic issues were "just words" and not to be taken seriously took root awfully quickly, didn't it?

06/23 06:40 PMShare