Krauthammer sees an Obama presidency

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who has always reminded me slightly of the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, doesn't quite come out and say it, but his column today gives me the impression that he's mentally preparing himself, not to mention his readers, for an Obama presidency. It was oddly moving:

In the primary campaign, Obama was cool as in hip. Now Obama is cool as in collected. He has the discipline to let slow and steady carry him to victory. He has not at all distinguished himself in this economic crisis -- nor, one might add, in any other during his national career -- but detachment has served him well. He understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well.

When after the Republican convention Obama's poll numbers momentarily slipped behind McCain's, panicked Democrats urged him to get mad. He did precisely the opposite. He got calm. He repositioned himself as ordinary, becoming the earnest factory-floor, coffee-shop, union-hall candidate....

He's been moderate in policy and temper ever since. His one goal: Pass the Reagan '80 threshold. Be acceptable, be cool, be reassuring.

Part of reassurance is intellectual. Like Palin, he's a rookie, but in his 19 months on the national stage he has achieved fluency in areas in which he has no experience. In the foreign policy debate with McCain, as in his July news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama held his own -- fluid, familiar and therefore plausibly presidential.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a "second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.

A lot of us out here have a pretty good feel for what Obama believes. For the rest of America, his steadiness throughout this long campaign is increasingly being perceived as readiness for the White House.