David Brooks writing in the New York Times highlights the rise and fall of Barack Obama. Once an almost untouchable icon of the "new politics," Obama has been exposed as a "conventional politician and orthodox liberal:"He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla airport, though his campaign was all over it. Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment. Obama also made a pair of grand and cynical promises that are the sign of someone who is thinking more about campaigning than governing. He made a sweeping read-my-lips pledge never to raise...(Read Full Post)