OBAMARAMA

Bill Bradley is a hero of mine — pick up a copy of his memoir Time Present, Time Past and you’ll quickly see why — so it was a real treat to read his praise for Sen. Obama in the New York Times Magazine this weekend.

Here’s what he had to say in his interview with the Times:

Which Democratic candidate do you find the most impressive? Right now, I suppose Obama is extremely impressive to me. He is in a cultural skyrocket, a vertical ascent.

But doesn’t that contradict your argument? Couldn’t he be seen as coasting on charisma? It’s not just charisma, because he has touched something very deep that had been waiting to be touched for a long time — returning idealism to a central focus of our politics. I tried to touch it in 2000 and didn’t make it.

Bradley goes on to discuss US energy independence, explaining that he drives an Impala because it has more legroom than an SUV and noting that “If we simply had the same gas-mileage average as Europe does, about 43 miles per gallon, we would import no oil from OPEC. Zero.”

He also has kind words for his old adversary, Al Gore, saying that “I wish Gore had been president. It could have saved us a lot of heartache. Iraq is the worst foreign-policy mistake in my lifetime. It dwarfs Vietnam.”

There shouldn’t be any doubt that America would look a lot better under a Bradley administration, too. And better still under an Obama/Bradley administration…