Something happened, but what?
The Times has two entirely contradictory pieces this week about the nature of the Obama victory and the New Yorker a third. Adam Nossiter reports in the Times, reflecting what seems to be the line from the Democratic National Committee, that the Obama election officially marginalizes the once politically all-powerful South.
The south, or what Nossiter terms the Appalachian belt, hereby revealed by its disinclination to vote for Obama to be "rural and isolated," and "less exposed to the diversity, educational achievement and economic progress experienced by more-prosperous areas," was swamped by the new generation of multicultural sophisticates.
John Harwood, on the other hand, writes in the Times, picking up on sour grapes from staffers in the 2004 Kerry campaign, that, in fact, Obama added scant new support, and won because Republicans, in a funk over Bush and McCain, stayed home.
Ryan Lizza's victory analysis in the New Yorker merely reflects the self-congratulations of the Obama people who declare that they won it because of rare cleverness, perspicacity, insight, and incredible heart and imagination.
What this contradictory and vapid Monday-morning stuff means is that not only is the zeitgeist elusive, but that political people are the last people you should count on tell you what's going on.
The political class knows as much about the sense and sensibility of the country as traders know about the economy. While many people would like the Obama victory to mean that we are vastly transformed, its true meaning is still a secret.
