Roger Hodge and the Liberal Attack on Obama

I would suggest that, even though the title-The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism-was something of a spoiler, that the forthcoming Roger Hodge book (Roger Hodge was last known as the editor of Harper’s magazine) is going to be really quite mean! I base that on this little bitty excerpt-essay that addresses Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, a book which, if you have read it, you’ll see there is not really that much there, and what is there is a sort of soothing traffic of gentle, blobby ideas that do not add up to very much. But yes, then, after his declaration of principles, “Our fresh-faced political pilgrim ends up sitting at the feet of Robert Rubin, the sage of Goldman Sachs and Citigroup,” is how Hodge puts it. Yes, true! Still I wonder how Hodge’s own book will hold up in light of the few actually existing (and largely still-to-be-felt) radical changes enacted on behalf of non-rich Americans in the last year.