Ross Douthat writes for
The New York Times, and has a wry, thoughtful
column on the opening moves of the Obama campaign. For example, he writes:
“Forward,” the Obama campaign will be declaiming to Americans, which feels like a none-too-subtle admission that a look backward at the Obama economic record might be bad news for the president’s re-election prospects.
Douthat describes Team Obama's "Life of Julia" slideshow thusly:
It offers a more sweeping vision of government’s place in society, in which the individual depends on the state at every stage of life, and no decision — personal, educational, entrepreneurial, sexual — can be contemplated without the promise that it will be somehow subsidized by Washington.
Douthat finally wonders if in today's society that view of government may not be attractive to many voters. Of the Julia trope, he concludes:
Her story is the clearest statement we’re likely to get of what Obama-era liberalism would take us “forward” toward.
