Palin Digs Herself Out

For all the talk about McCain's zigging and zagging the past two weeks, there's been less focus on Obama's style. Joe Klein gives props in Time:

"We journalists have an extensive vocabulary for cataloging the failures of politicians and a skimpy one for celebrating their successes. It's safer to be skeptical: no one will ever accuse you of being in the tank. And so we've heard lots, in a negative way, about Obama's coolness and intellectuality. And at times in this campaign -- during Hillary Clinton's populist transformation, after Sarah Palin's convention speech -- Obama's demeanor has seemed problematic. He was too remote, too cerebral and nuanced in his answers, it was said; he had to get warmer, learn to love junk food, practice his bowling. But Obama stubbornly remained himself through the tough times; his preternatural calm has proved reassuring in both the economic crisis and the first debate . . .

"Part of Obama's steadiness is born of necessity: An angry, or flashy, black man isn't going to be elected President. But I've also gotten the sense, in the times I've interviewed and chatted with him, that calm is Obama's natural default position. He is friendly, informal, accessible . . . and a mystery, hard to get to know. He doesn't give away much, doesn't -- unlike Bill Clinton -- have that desperate need to make you like him . . .

"This guy is the furthest thing imaginable from an extremist; McCain, by his own admission, is the bomb-thrower in this race."

Marc Ambinder also assesses the demeanor question:

"If there's one thing that worries Republican strategists more than the polls today, even more than the listlessness of the Republican Party, it is that Sen. McCain seems flustered, angry, inconsistent-in-tone, and his campaign seems angry and off-kilter. His refusal to look at Obama during last week's debate was evident in just about every clip.

"The press is starting to pick up the theme, and the stock response to this is: he has every right to be angry when the media is cheering for Obama and the Bush administration messed everything up. That's true -- and inadequate. It's not working for the campaign. They had a basic strategy: make the race about Obama. Well, the race is now about the economy. And, as predicted, there's more curiosity about Sarah Palin than about Obama. Compare this to Democratic strategists who worried that Obama wasn't fighting back hard enough. Turns out that Obama didn't need to -- events took care of the problem."

Columnists, it turns out, have long memories. Three years ago, Paul Krugman says now, he wrote that the air was hissing out of the housing bubble, prompting "this delightful screed from Power Line, which says that I was just looking for something to complain about amidst the Bush Boom."

At the time, Power Line's John Hinderaker proclaimed:

"It must be depressing to be Paul Krugman. No matter how well the economy performs, Krugman's bitter vendetta against the Bush administration requires him to hunt for the black lining in a sky full of silvery clouds."

Hinderaker's response: "If I was wrong -- that is, if the current decline in house prices constitutes a 'catastrophic collapse' -- then I had a lot of company: Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, the managers of Lehman Brothers, AIG and Bear Stearns, and countless others. It's quite flattering that out of this distinguished company, Krugman singled me out as the one person who was wrong in disagreeing with his prediction of 'catastrophic collapse.' "

That's the kind of honor we could all do without.