H/t reader Melody. Forget "what has he done for me lately?" How about: "what has he ever done?" Columbia professor and Obama fan Jeffrey Sachs was effectively stumped when Joe Scarborough put that question to him on today's Morning Joe. Sachs is author of Common Wealth, a title that should send shivers down the spine in these days of redistributionism in the air.
It was towards the end of Sachs's appearance during the 6 AM EDT hour that Joe hit him with the "extra credit" question.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Jeffrey Sachs --
JEFFREY SACHS: This is your extra-credit question. Name the most significant thing Barack Obama has done --
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: There you go.
SCARBOROUGH: -- on the national stage. Just name one. Big one. Big thing.
SACHS: What he's done is bring the country together on a new direction.
SCARBOROUGH: No, no, no, no. That's mish-mash.
SACHS: That's the most important--that's not mish-mash. That is not mish-mash.
SCARBOROUGH: Legislatively.
SACHS: The most important thing for a senator who's been in for a few years is define a direction out of this mess, and that's what he's done. that's why he's going to win the election.
SCARBOROUGH: Not a specific, I can't get a specific. I love your hair. I can't get a specific out of him.
SACHS: The specific is that he's defined a way to achieve energy and new approaches for this country.
SCARBOROUGH: Where do I find that in the Congressional Record?
Rim shot.
A bit later, Joe traced the way Obama's career has been all about . . . Obama's career.
SCARBOROUGH: The thing is, I wonder if between now and election day, people won't wake up in the middle of the night, as I do occasionally, when I think, oh, Obama might win, it won't be the end of the world. I wonder if people are going to wake up and say what's he done other than run for president from the day he graduated from Harvard Law School?He became a community organizer because he knew that would help him become a state legislator; it would give him street cred in Chicago. The second he became a state legislator everybody said he was ready to run for Congress. When he failed at Congress everybody said—I'm talking about his Democratic allies. What has this guy done other than running for president from the day he left law school?
SACHS: He has defined a way out of this mess.
