Lost On The Playground

Peggy Noonan has some advice:

Play grown-up.

The Democrats in the White House have been doing it since January, operating with a certain decorum, a kind of assumption as to their natural stature. Obamaland is very different from the last Democratic administration, Bill Clinton’s. The cliché is true: White House staffs reflect their presidents. Mr. Clinton’s staff was human, colorful, messy, slightly mad. They had pent-up energy after 12 years of Republican rule, and they believed their own propaganda that Republicans were wicked. They were oafish: One dragooned a government helicopter to go play golf. President Obama’s staff is far less entertaining. They’re smooth, impeccable, sophisticated, like the boss. They don’t hate Republicans but think they’re missing a few chips (empathy, logic, How Things Really Work). It is true they don’t know what they don’t know, but what they do know (how to quietly seize and hold power, for instance—they now run the American auto industry), they know pretty well.

How they use that power is one thing, and should be debated, but the fact is that they do have it, and are likely to keep it for awhile. And it's not all that hard for Obama to come across like an adult when his primary opposition is this desperate.

I'd love to be able to play grown-up with the GOP again. The problem is, the way they're going, there may not be enough of them left to do so.