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Questions For Garry Wills

The Historian Talks about President Obama's Need To Please

Q: As a presidential historian and emeritus professor at Northwestern, you’re well aware that the Democrats are facing the likelihood of an electoral setback this Tuesday (Nov. 2nd). Yet President Obama continues to be the object of scathing criticism among Democrats, including yourself. Why won’t you give him credit for getting things done?

A: He gets things done in a very crippled way. The health care plan and the finance plan — he made so many bargains along the way.

Q: You’ve accused him of excessive ingratiation, or “omnidirectional placation,” as you wrote in a blog post for The New York Review of Books.

A: As a black man with an odd name, he often had to ingratiate himself in the companies that he kept, and he does. Beyond that, I think he may have a principle of trying to compromise, but that has proved to be a big mistake.


Click Here For Complete New York Times Sunday Magazine Interview by Deborah Solomon