Punditry: NOW WITH SPECIAL NEW PSYCHIC POWERS!

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I’ve been enjoying the spate of “how Obama will govern” pieces because, well, I’m a huge science fiction fan and most of them read like slash stories starring Obama and either William Ayers or Rahm Emmanuel. (You know which one I would rather read.)

My thoughts on these thought experiments after the jump.

There’s the (comforting to cozy media moderates) plot: “Have no fear, Obama is not a crazy liberal, he’ll be totally safe and, look, COLIN POWELL LIKES HIM.” Very Ursula K. Le Guin. We’ll have no genders or colors and, look, ponies!1!!11 And then the dystopian fantasy promulgated by the dark lords of the National Review:

Move through Obama’s career as a community organizer, his embrace of ACORN, his radical associations: the common denominator is a purpose to break down the Unum at its foundations, what he calls the “grass-roots.” For America, he plans an atom bomb. Or, to be precise, an atoms bomb: countless communities in cities and towns across the land, organized along the Marxist principles of Saul Alinsky into socialist enclaves. Each atom smothers the individual freedom and enterprise that have defined the American character, replacing them with welfare states that prize dysfunction and reward the rabble-rousers.

To be sure, there is an Unum that Obama sees. It is in his mind’s eye — clearer on the horizon now than when he began his project 23 years ago. It will arrive when the atoms reach critical mass and finally devour the hollowing carcass of our present society.

Yikes! And you thought Bob Novak was scary! Phillip K. Dick, call your office!

But the National Review types shouldn’t worry, because, obviously:

What I don’t get is how any liberals/progressives can be excited about it or think that they are voting for someone who shares their priorities. You’re either kidding yourselves or you’re hearing what you want to hear, and not what Obama’s actually saying.

So: conservative bloggers are worried he’s Communist. Progressive bloggers are worried he’s not Communist enough. Everyone agrees, everyone’s mutually clueless. Which can mean only one thing: MORE “HOW WILL OBAMA GOVERN?” PIECES ARE COMING.

Anyhow, the fun part of all this is that no one is wrong. See, we have NO IDEA how Obama will govern because, well, he hasn’t really done it much before! I mean, sure, I’m gonna pull the lever and hope for the best, but I’m not convinced by either the happy moderate scenario or the insane Bolsheviks-breeding-like-Mogwai argument.

I will say this: Of all the scenarios put forward, the one with some reporting behind it seems like the most likely. It’s the one that looks at the job he’s held the longest — candidate — for answers:

Obama, like Bush, demands an orderly shop.

….
It derives in part from something the two men have in common: natural political gifts that set them on a path to the White House that took shortcuts around much government experience. That means policy experts are needed for heavy lifting.

Obama, like Bush, relies most on a small, hard-to-penetrate inner circle. It’s been a successful formula, but can irk power players in his party and in Congress, who sometimes see Team Obama as too insular. This image was only fed by the decision to place Obama’s campaign headquarters far from Washington in Chicago and the way his campaign used the Internet and grass-roots supporters, more than party bosses, to capitalize on the Obama phenomenon.

Bush and Obama stand for very different things, says Zelizer, but Obama “runs his campaign with the same sort of methodical efficiency and closed nature of the Bush White House.”

“He’s not going to have a freewheeling White House where people are free to go out on their own and do what they want and be allowed to talk to the press,” Zelizer said.

In other words, he may not launch us into an illegal war, but he could if he wanted to! I’m glad this is an election about character.