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Brooks states Obama mistook 2008 landslide as American readiness for a new New Deal, rather than a referendum on GWBush. Americans are reacting against "government over-reaching." He sees 2 alternatives (among 4 available): Harsh&Arrogant (pass health reform by reconciliation) vs. Weak&Feckless (switch to incremental changes). Brooks favors the latter as less likely to bring a political rebellion that will "decimate policy-making for a generation." (He thinks the actual current "alternative" being pursued is "Incoherent & Internecine."

Brooks suggests Obama should get out on the road, as a "saner" version of Perot, with charts & graphs, to educate Americans on how dysfunctional American government has become, and to ask for the political support needed to change things. If Obama doesn't do this, someone else will come along and do it.

Brooks admiringly describes how well Obama & Biden get along, & how tranquilly the White House staff operates despite all the recent setbacks. "Some would say the administration is underreacting to the incredible shift in the public mood. Some would say they need more voices from the great unwashed. But no one could accuse them of panicking, or of scrambling about incoherently. In their first winter of discontent, they are offering continuity and comity. Whatever their relations with the country might be, inside they seem unruffled. The bonds of association, from the top down, seem healthy - especially for a bunch of Democrats."

Brooks commends Obama as a thoughtful, disciplined pragmatist, not an ideologue. Nevertheless, he sees Obama's gargantuan appetite for reform in many sectors as an "over-stepping" that provokes American anti-government suspicions. He advises one year of demonstrating how government is a humble servant, rather than an imperious leviathan.

Liberalism should be popular, but isn't, because people don't perceive that government is honest or helps them. Liberals haven't worked on cleaning house.

The passage of health care reform is the end of the century-long welfare project and the beginning of the task of saving the country from fiscal ruin. [FS: I completely disagree with Brooks's conclusions.]