Sherrod Brown, the Funeral, the GOP, and the Civility of the President

A tranche of the chattering class is scandalized this morning that the Senate Republicans were so piggy as to interfere with Sherrod Brown's mother's funeral (details here). Okay, granted: even if you believe that it is hard to be shocked at anything any more, this particular bit of bad manners comes pretty close.

But I think those with raised eyebrows are missing an important point. That is: if the party of home, family and apple pie undertakes an instance of calculated and absolutely unnecessary rudeness, it must be because they like it that way. Mitch McConnell didn't just fall from heaven on his head: if he undertakes to be a major-league toad, we can safely infer that he has decided that his masters (the voice of the people, aka Kentucky Republicans) will cheer him on. Call it pandering to the base if you like, but recognize that his job is pandering to the base, and he wouldn't be where he is if he didn't do it awfully well.

This, I think, highlights the problem Barack Obama has with his agenda of civil outreach. It's not that he sits down to dine with Republicans; I'm willing to accept that that is probably a good idea, all things considered. The trouble is not that he did it, but that he expected it to accomplish something. He didn't seem to grasp that his efforts at conciliation would be rewarded so swiftly with so much contempt (HA Ha!).

Which uncovers, I think, a larger problem with Obama--a problem of which, so far as I can tell, nobody else has spoken. That is: he's actually a rather sheltered child. Say what you like about the exotic marginality of his past, the fact is that he has spent most of his life among people who loved him and who wanted to give him space--growing up, as Dierdre McCloskey would put it, in the atmosphere of benign Christian socialism that we call the American family. When people say he is "inexperienced," they recognize that he is well schooled, that he has lived a lot of places and met a lot of people. It is that he has been coccooned away from real trouble, has never needed to understand just how nasty a business politics can be.

I am not, repeat not, asking Obama to morph into Nelson Muntz, to return rude for rude. But I'm not quite asking him to turn the other cheek, either. I think Machiavelli would say (probably did say) that it is important to feign civility, but to keep your claws sharpened under your wraps.

Recall the old saying: there is a name for the creature that neither fights nor flees, and the name for that creatute is "lunch." Remember that these are Republicans you are fighting, Mr. President. Don't be lunch.