O, Carol

Carol Marin, investigative reporting icon here, weighs in (in our other right-wing leaning daily):

... Critics will argue that Obama's declaration of presidential intent was long on inspiration but short on specifics.

And maybe that's right.

But in this country, where inspiration, like affordable health care, has been steadily slipping away, a dose of hope sure doesn't hurt.

A colleague of mine who listened to Obama's speech said he was feeling a little guilty.
Why, he wondered, did Obama's lack of government experience (eight years in the state Senate, just two in the U.S. Senate) not bother him the way George W. Bush's inexperience (eight years as governor) had?

Maybe because Obama sounds smart the way Bush never did. Maybe because down-home folksiness with a John Wayne swagger no longer flies with us, not in the wake of a war that won't end.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton managed the merger of style with substance. And though Reagan haters and Clinton bashers won't buy what I'm about to say, each man could lift the level of our national conversation.

That, too, is Obama's gift.

And Hillary Clinton's challenge.