Is Obama Aloof?

Paul Begala: “This much we know: Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan. The Gipper wasn’t aloof and detached, no siree. The fact that he called his Housing Secretary ‘Mr. Mayor’ — that showed he was engaged in what the American people cared about, not Washington arcana like the names of the people he had appointed to his Cabinet. Of course, the Gipper was also so deeply and properly engaged that he had to say he did not recall no fewer than 124 times in eight hours of testimony on the Iran-Contra affair.”

“Barack Obama is also far more aloof and disengaged than George W. Bush. Bush and his vice president, Darth Vader, were veritable paragons of engagement. That’s how their aides ended up leaking the identity of an undercover CIA operative. President Bush and Vice President Strangelove were so busy supervising the conduct of the IRS that they didn’t know what Karl Rove and Scooter Libby were up to.”