The News From Iowa

Now, pundits are more likely than not to make asses of themselves when pontificating about the results of an event immediately after the fact, but David Brooks in the Times, in his own dweebish way, outdoes himself.

Writing about Barack Obama's win in Iowa, Brooks writes:

Barack Obama has won the Iowa caucuses. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel moved by this. An African-American man wins a closely fought campaign in a pivotal state. He beats two strong opponents, including the mighty Clinton machine. He does it in a system that favors rural voters. He does it by getting young voters to come out to the caucuses.

This is a huge moment. It’s one of those times when a movement that seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political substance.

Iowa won’t settle the race, but the rest of the primary season is going to be colored by the glow of this result. Whatever their political affiliations, Americans are going to feel good about the Obama victory, which is a story of youth, possibility and unity through diversity — the primordial themes of the American experience.

Personally, I think you'd have to have a heart of stone not to wade through this dreck without having the urge to purge. It sounds as if he's trying to channel Peggy Noonan at her worst. "The primordial themes of the American experience"? Not even Ken Burns would get this sappy.

He’s made Hillary Clinton, with her wonkish, pragmatic approach to politics, seem uninspired. He’s made John Edwards, with his angry cries that “corporate greed is killing your children’s future,” seem old-fashioned. Edwards’s political career is probably over.

Obama is changing the tone of American liberalism, and maybe American politics, too.

Is he kidding? Obama won the Iowa Caucuses, for which he should be congratulated. He got young, first-time caucus goers to come out in large numbers, which I didn't think was possible. But to extrapolate from that that he's going to go all the way, and that John Edwards should just pack it in, is just ludicrous.

Does he know how many times the winner in Iowa has lost in New Hampshire? Or how few times the winner in Iowa has even gotten the nomination, much less made it to the White House?

Give me a break. I'm glad that Barack Obama won in Iowa, even if I thought that Edwards would, and I'm even more glad that Edwards managed to finish second ahead of Hillary Clinton.

But let's not make this a coronation. Not yet anyway. Not before New Hampshire. These guys, and this woman, have a long way to go before a nominee is decided. Not when they have roughly the same number of delegates to the convention, give or take a delegate or two.

Edwards is not dead. Hillary is not defeated. It's still a race. Let's stop pretending that it isn't. And let's see how all three of them do tonight in the nationally televised debate in New Hampshire.

Tom Moran