The Content of His Character

By Miss Kubelik

We cats drove down to Fredericksburg last weekend and visited one of our favorite haunts, a used-book store. (Being a college town, Fredericksburg is home to many of those.)

There, we must confess, we picked up at a bargain price Politics, a collection of essays by one of our faves, Hendrik Hertzberg. Although we served in the same Administration as Rick Hertzberg, we cats can only hope to write as tenth as well as he does. (If we did, The New Yorker would hire us, too — but so far, no dice, we're sorry to say.)

One of the first offerings we turned to was Hertzberg's 1995 essay on his former boss, Jimmy Carter. Suffice it to say we agreed with what he said: That Jimmy Carter conducted himself according to a moral, not a political, code — and that by doing so, got himself in a heap of trouble in Washington (and beyond).

We also noticed a very interesting, and potentially relevant, observation: That Carter did not have a fixed political ideology.

"Jimmy Carter did not have the advantage of dogma. In this respect he was like all other presidents of recent times — all except Reagan, who was the only leader of the militant wing of one of the two parties to come to power since World War II. All the other postwar presidents — Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush and Clinton — have been drawn from the pragmatic center. (No leader of the left or liberal wing of the Democratic Party has ever become president — which is one reason that the conventional assumption that liberalism has been tried and found wanting is a little unfair. Unlike unalloyed conservatism, unalloyed liberalism has not been tried.)"

We cats suspect that 16 years later, this essay is still true — although one could argue that George W. Bush was perhaps the most purely conservative President ever. (On the other hand, since he spent so profligately — on two wars and on Medicare Part D — perhaps he wasn't.) Bush aside, we think that this "pragmatic center" label could also be affixed to Barack Obama — despite what the teabaggers and the Koch brothers would have you think.

Which means, we cats believe, that Barack Obama's behavior in office might not be predictable — or even understandable. On the other hand, 30 years ago, a scholar from Duke hit it big with his theory that Presidential character determines performance in office. While we cats consider Professor Barber's models probably outdated, it seems reasonable to us that a President's world view and personality can help determine what he will do as Chief Executive.

Which begs the question: Will President Obama continue to insist that he can work with Republicans on the problems that face the nation? Or will he say "screw you," go long and throw down the gauntlet?

We cats bet on the former. But if there's anything we know from Rick Hertzberg, it's that the actions of complex and sensitive thinkers are usually hard to predict. (And you know what? They're usually the kind of people you like to have in charge.)

We cats PURR.

UPDATE, the morning after: Bipartisanship, or gauntlet throwing? The President did both! Goodness gracious, did he fake us cats out.

We cats PURR, again.