DC, despite being only six miles wide, is a city of commuters. And for those of us who commute, our ubiquitous mode of transport is DC's Metro, an over and underground rail that is so clean, so sterile that movies invariably find a filthier and more lively railway to act as its "public transport double." I spend over two hours a day on this rail, which leaves me with a lot of time to do puzzles, think dirty thoughts, and read books. Many, many books.
And the best non-fiction I've read in the past two years is absolutely without a doubt The Audacity of Hope.
Reading Audacity is easy. Barack Obama's skill with the English language is not limited to lofty speeches. His prose is lively, engaging, even engrossing. He deftly moves from high-minded discussions of the issues of the day to descriptions of events from his own life, drawing them together into a coherent whole. It's impressive, especially from a politician, a group notorious for ghost writers.
But what most impressed me about Audacity wasn't the prose. It was the mind working behind it. As I read I realized that Barack Obama is not an idealogue. He is a philosopher, thinking about issues and building upon his own education and experiences to develop responses that are not easily classified as left or right, liberal or conservative. He develops his thoughts in the context of the history of our nation, a history of war and slavery, of ideals and failures, a history he obviously adores and to which he owes his very existence.
The hard part though is realizing that he doesn't agree with me. Throughout Audacity Barack cites examples of times when he has been conflicted personally by the issues of the day, by the Iraq war and supporting our troops, by our Constitutional right to bear arms and the damage they cause our society, by the preservation of life and a woman's rights over her own body. He draws his conclusions, and many of those conclusions I simply do not agree with as a progressive partisan. But I cannot ignore the thoughtfulness, wisdom and power of his arguments. I was forced, multiply, to admit that I may not be as right as I thought I was. That perhaps my principles weren't as well founded as I had previously believed. That I was wrong.
That I was wrong in my partisanship, that perhaps Republicans, DLC Democrats, angry libertarians and all the rest may well have points. That sometimes the philosophy is wrong, but the idea is right. That there is not a single political or social group in America that's purpose is to make people's lives worse.
It was a painful lesson, and still is. But that's what the Audacity is. It's audacious in this day and age to say that the American people first and most importantly want a Government that runs well, that doesn't waste their time on fiddles while the capital burns. It's audacious to suspect that the polarization of the District (and the blogs) isn't a reflection of the hopes and dreams, or the needs, of the American people.
I'm willing to admit that I'm wrong. Barack Obama may be the first person to ever get me to admit that. His writing offered me something that I hadn't considered after being a part of the political wars of the Clinton years: a transcendent political philosophy that rejects the war room mentality. A philosophy that overrides the top-down political party structures that have entrenched our toxic polarization by inviting the American people back into the political conversation to which they've been helpless witnesses, and dupes.
Barack Obama's policies may well not match our own. But, unlike so many politicians, we can be sure that his policies will be developed thoughtfully, within the context of our society, cultural history and Constitution.
And I can believe in that.