Obama’s impressive maturity

Obama’s much-ballyhooed bipartisan healthcare summit was widely mocked, and probably justifiably so, considering the lack of substantial… anything it was destined to produce.

But one thing I do admire about this president is the way he seems to be at least trying to usher in a new culture of public, partisan dialogue. Over the last few decades, the trend of public debate has been increasingly theatrical, repetitive, emotional, and snippy. Short, witty, talking-points repeatedly endlessly with either great faux-outrage or faux-enthusiasm. Your average election debate, TV interview, or speech on the floor of the legislature is more useless and pointless than ever before, because there is no genuine substance backing up the words, and there’s no genuine substance because the intellectual qualities that add substance to political dialogue, such as moderate language, thoughtful tone, persuasive intent, and complex argument, are now seen as either a waste of time or a sign of weakness.

Obama may not have much to say, and he may not be a particularly innovative politician, but I do like his apparent desire to move beyond this, and actually return to an era in which politicians spoke like mature, intelligent, respectful adults to one another, deserves praise.

This exchange at the summit, between the President and John McCain, has been widely covered, because of the way it evokes the 2008 the election, which of course makes for easy newspaper headlines (“McCain and Obama stage tense rematch!”). But look at the contrasting behavior of the two men.

Compare the mechanical, awkward way McCain delivers his little laundry list of focus-grouped GOP grievances to the detached, bored air of Obama, who wants to talk about more substantial things. Obama seems like a real person, while McCain comes off as some bizarre creature of Washington.

Elitism is a problem in politics, and a problem for the Democrats. But it’s wrong to make elitism and maturity synonymous, because they’re not. The maturity Obama projects — and promotes — is a huge and important part of his appeal, but Republicans don’t seem to be interested in learning from it.