Tim Burke has a really good piece up this morning about what’s at stake in the presidential election. Here’s a sample:

Everything that works about institutional life rests on the habitus of professionals, bureaucrats, experts, on whether they are stewards or parasites, whether they recognize the fragile possibility of a better world or are just looting the till, whether they are humble in the face of wider and more distributed experience and knowledge or whether they are contemptuous of anything besides their own immediate power. We all know it: this is Arendt’s banality of evil. We do not need to fear the person at the top, but instead the mass force of institutional action.

Tim seems to argue, as I believe, that the last eight years have uniquely politicized governance. I would only add that part of the reason the last eight years have undermined the ability of the liberal state to govern disinterestedly in this country is that the reins of the state have been in the hands of ideologues who believe neither in disinterestedness nor in governance. One commentator on Tim’s blog argues that the administration previous to the last eight years was similar, in that “The Clintons specialized in . . . the politicization of government activity” as well. Only too true, but the Clinton administration still retained some respect for the liberal state.

Tim references a 60 Minutes piece, broadcast this past Sunday “on the case of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, who very much appears to have been the target of a Karl Rove operation,” and a Harper’s essay, by Scott Horton, summarizing and commenting on it. I missed 60 Minutes on Sunday, and was glad to see the Horton essay. However, I watched a piece on Missouri public television that I think everybody who believes that the quest for racial equality is completed in this country ought to watch. It’s called “Banished,” part of the Independent Lens series on PBS. Here’s a trailer.

Read Tim’s piece, entitled “We’re Americans First,” here.

Here’s the United States flag pin that Barack Obama declined to wear after he became a presidential candidate (or one very similar to it). By doing this, he has earned the disapprobation of superpatriots and other wise folk such as the smiling yet serious William Kristol. How in the world this is a news story is mystery to me, and how in the world it deserves the column inches The New York Times gave it yesterday I can only refer to the sagacity of those editors who chose to run the really serious story about John McCain and Vicki Iseman.

And here’s the AP photo of B. Hussein Obama, Islamofascist candidate for the democratic nomination, dressed up in his native costume, as circulated via the Drudge Report. I guess this level of sleaze does credit to a country of fans that tuned in nightly for the latest Clinton/Lewinsky update and are still perhaps titillated by the machinations of Paula Jones, and Gennifer Flowers (added Tuesday morning).

Drudge has claimed that the Clinton campaign circulated the photo, hoping (one supposes) to score some points with the redneck contingent in Texas and Ohio. The Clinton campaign has denied any complicity. Plouffe has posted a stern rant. Obama has stayed cool (more or less).

What the hell — it’s Monday!

Of course, we’ve always had sleaze going back to the early days of the republic. Think about the careers of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. Sleaze is the underside of democracy. To hate it is perhaps to embrace an elitism that makes against the very empathy my guy is trying his best to stir up amongst us. So I won’t hate it. I won’t . . .

The swift boating of the Obamas has begun in earnest now. CNN reports that “Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama defended himself and his wife Sunday against suggestions that they are insufficiently patriotic.”

Asked during a town hall meeting in Lorain, Ohio, about “an attempt by conservatives and Republicans to paint you as unpatriotic,” a questioner cited the fact that Obama once failed to put his hand over his heart while singing the national anthem.

The questioner also noted that the Illinois senator does not wear an American flag lapel pin, has met with former members of the radical anti-Vietnam War group, Weather Underground, and his wife was quoted recently as saying she never felt really proud of the United States until recently.

Of course, Obama is being baited and his challenge is to defend himself (and Michelle) without taking the bait. The attack on Michelle Obama is particularly offensive, since it is covertly racist.

Meanwhile, Senator Clinton seems to have had a bad day in Texas last Friday. Here’s the story of her Oak Cliff Rally that almost didn’t happen, courtesy of my Texas friend.

Clinton backers chill out during outdoor rally

The contrast with Obama’s Reunion Arena rally is pretty stark. I wonder if Clinton can’t afford to pay for venues like Reunion now. A couple of recent New York Times stories paint a pretty somber picture of her campaign finances.

Donors Worried by Clinton Campaign Spending
Small Vendors Feel Pinch of Clinton’s Money Troubles

Patrick Healy reports today in The New York Times that the Clinton campaign is falling apart and that morale is low as Clinton “soldiers on.”

There is a widespread feeling among donors and some advisers . . . that a comeback . . . may be improbable. Her advisers said internal polls showed a very tough race to win the Texas primary — a contest that no less than Mr. Clinton has said is a “must win.” And while advisers are drawing some hope from Mrs. Clinton’s indefatigable nature, some are burning out.

Morale is low. After 13 months of dawn-to-dark seven-day weeks, the staff is exhausted. Some have taken to going home early — 9 p.m. — turning off their BlackBerrys, and polishing off bottles of wine, several senior staff members said.

Some advisers have been heard yelling at close friends and colleagues. In a much-reported incident, Mr. Penn and the campaign advertising chief, Mandy Grunwald, had a screaming match over strategy recently that prompted another senior aide, Guy Cecil, to leave the room. “I have work to do — you’re acting like kids,” Mr. Cecil said, according to three people in the room.

Others have taken several days off, despite it being crunch time.

Today Clinton has attacked Obama for a couple of mailings about her health care proposal and her support for NAFTA, calling the mailings “false and discredited,” and challenging Obama to meet her and debate them — more obvious baiting.

Obama has denied Clinton’s assertions that the mailings were false.

“There’s nothing in that mailing that is inaccurate,” he said, adding that he was puzzled by the sudden scrutiny since the mailers had been around for days, if not weeks.

“We have been subject to constant attack from the Clinton campaign, except for when we were down 20 points. And that was true in Iowa. It was true in South Carolina. It was true in Wisconsin, and it is true now,” Obama said.

He described Clinton’s anger as “tactical” and defended his campaign.

“The notion that somehow we’re engaging in nefarious tactics I think is pretty hard to swallow.”

Here’s Clinton soldiering on today in Ohio.

A friend from Texas has sent me a couple of stories about last night’s Obama rally in Dallas:

Obama’s Dallas crowd not short on passion
Barack Obama fires up thousands at Dallas rally

“The bandwagon does seem to be rolling,” as my fiend said. One story estimates the size of the Dallas crowd at around 17,000. That and the crowd’s makeup suggest to me that the Dallas rally was very much like the one in St. Louis I wrote about a while back. There’s an interesting video attached to the first story, with lots of interviews with young people. It breaks up quite a bit, but if you stick with it you get a sense of the issues that younger voters are responding to, many of them concerned about the Iraq war and proud of Obama’s opposition to it.

The second story documents some of the attractiveness of Obama to older voters. “Beverly Love, 51, a Garland nurse, had never been to a political rally.”

“It was fantastic. I don’t want to leave,” she said 10 minutes after Mr. Obama had departed. “He speaks from the heart, with so much passion.”

The first story quotes one young person who thought Obama’s speech ended too soon. (I’m remembering that I thought the St. Louis speech was a little long, perhaps because I was standing and I’m old; but the young people I met on the train afterwards thought the speech was wonderful). Anyway, the young woman quoted in the first story above laments, “Why didn’t he do, ‘Yes we can’?” . . . as if a concert had ended, the biggest hit not performed.”

If you look around for what various detractors are saying about Obama, most are echoing themes of the Clinton and McCain campaigns as they attempt to turn Obama’s success against him. Obama is an empty windbag, riding a wave of mere celebrity. To the extent that he has proposed anything in the way of policy, his proposals are either ridiculous or naïve, especially where foreign affairs are concerned. He’s dangerous in the way that other charismatic leaders have been dangerous–I’ve heard Jim Jones mentioned, etc., etc. But Obama seems to go from strength to strength (someone will surely accuse me of plagiarising from Tennyson).

I’m thinking that the content of Obama’s campaign is pretty obvious in spite of his detractors’ claims to the contrary. He’s trying to create a movement because he’s trying to create a new majority that can be mobilized behind a list of policies and programs that can be found laid out on his website. But right now he needs to keep the movement going. I’m impressed–and not just because I’m a kneejerk liberal.

I’m impressed because Obama’s success has been a triumph of organization and skill at communication. He’s taken on not just the Clintons but the Democratic Party establishment and run rings around them. When he’s made mistakes he’s recovered quickly. It’s the most impressive political campaign I’ve seen since, well, since the earlier Bill Clinton. And Obama has succeeded so far substantially without the sort of ad hominem attacks that the Clinton’s are known for. To the charge that he is inexperienced and potentially ineffectual he seems to say, “Watch me run this campaign,” or maybe– “Eat my dust!”