The scene is early 2005. Shortly after an exciting visit to the headquarters of Google, where Mr. Obama benefited from the insights of Larry and Sergey, "two of the richest people on earth," the freshman senator drove down to Galesburg, Illinois--as it happens the very same working-class town that he had featured in his celebrated 2004 convention speech--where a Maytag plant was due to be shut down, leaving 1,600 employees out of work, so that operations could be "shifted" to Mexico. The set piece thus introduced was a political cliché; the only question was what moral would be drawn from this parable of senatorial glad-handing.

"You'll get little argument these days," Mr. Obama writes, "from either the left or the right, with the notion that we're going through a fundamental economic transformation." Ah, yes, it's true: Like pilgrims, we are passing through a dark valley, menaced by economic forces that we can only dimly comprehend. What are these forces? "Advances." Advances, he tells us, are causing disruptions, "advances in digital technology, fiber optics, the Internet, satellites, and transportation." These "advances" have "leveled the economic barriers between countries and continents."

Notice how impersonal these advances are. Where did they come from? How did they get here? No one knows! And these advances are not alone; they are joined by "pools of capital." Where did the pools come from? Did they cause the advances or did the advances cause the pools? These pools, he said, were scouring the earth, aided and abetted by "a few keystrokes," searching for the best returns. How dreadful, how sad, that those Maytag workers down in Galesburg were suffering from the effects of those pools and advances. But take comfort, for these pools and advances, aided by keystrokes and a "flatter" world, scouring the planet for returns, are bringing "significant benefits to American consumers." Ah, benefits. Everyone loves benefits. What kind of benefits have the pools and advances brought us?

"Peaches in winter," Mr. Obama tells us, and big-screen televisions.

Yet Mr. Obama reminds us that all is not well. In addition to the tasteless winter peaches and those big flat-screen televisions, the advances and the pools have caused problems. Don't forget those unhappy soon-to-be-downsized workers in Galesburg. They are proof that the advances and pools have "greatly increased economic instability for millions of ordinary Americans." So, on the one hand, we have Larry and Sergey at Google, who know how to handle the advances and the pools, and on the other we have millions of ordinary Americans like those workers down in Galesburg, who face a "future of low-wage service work, with few benefits," but lots of winter peaches, "and the risk of financial ruin in the event of an illness, and the inability to save for either retirement or a child's college education."

What is to be done? In what follows, Mr. Obama presents a dizzying series of hands--on the one and then the other, repeatedly, like some hyper-discursive, blue-skinned Hindu deity--and contrasts the dominant faction of the Democratic Party, which embraces the new economy of advancing pools, with "a sizable chunk" of the Democratic base that resists their agenda. So it's the pools versus the chunk. The pools and their friends, the advances, point to "high-value, high-wage jobs." Meanwhile, the sizable chunk (yes, she could afford to lose a few pounds) waits an hour for the bus after she clocks out of work at the big Wal-Mart superstore on the edge of town and finally gets home around 10 p.m. to find her son eating Doritos and watching porn videos on the bedroom computer--while her daughter in the living room taps out text messages on her cell phone as she watches American Idol on the flat-screen TV. Contemplating this scene, our sizable chunk of a low-wage worker just looks at the bowl of peaches on her kitchen table and wonders if maybe she'd rather have a better job.

Senator Obama did not consider this. Instead, after presenting a potted history of America's rise as a great economic power, our fresh-faced political pilgrim ends up sitting at the feet of Robert Rubin, the sage of Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, who tells his young grasshopper that if the American people will just continue to trust in the supreme wisdom of the advances and the pools, he was "cautiously optimistic" that all will be well. And so it came to pass that Mr. Obama shifted his own job to the White House and populated his administration with Mr. Rubin's disciples, who ministered to the pools in their hour of need. As for the sizable chunk, she'll just have to be patient. If all goes well, perhaps her children can look forward to a better life.

Mr. Hodge, the former editor of Harper's Magazine, is the author of The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism, out next month, from which this essay is adapted.

The former Harper's editor came out with his book proposal just a week after being fired, as reported on Observer.com earlier this week. According to publishing industry sources, it's an attack on President Obama from the left, working from the ideas that Hodge introduced in his essay "The Mendacity of Hope" (Harper's, 2/10).

Now all that remains is for Hodge to get cracking and write the thing: He supposedly wants to have it out in time for the midterm elections.

The book is tentatively titled The Mendacity of Hope, according to publishing industry sources. It will attack President Obama from the left, expanding on an essay of the same name that Mr. Hodge wrote for the February issue of Harper’s.

Mr. Hodge’s exit from the magazine—where he started as an intern in 1996, and became editor 10 years later—started a swirl of media attention when the news broke two weeks ago. Publisher John MacArthur initially claimed that Mr. Hodge had chosen to leave, but it soon emerged that Mr. MacArthur had fired him, apparently because of lagging newsstand sales and circulation. The New York Times reported that the news had come “in a five-minute conversation as Mr. Hodge was finishing his breakfast croissant.”

Hodge was well-liked, and the move surprised not just outsiders but Harper’s staff—last week, The Observer’s John Koblin obtained a photo of one anxious employee eavesdropping at Mr. MacArthur’s door. 

“The Mendacity of Hope,” which appeared in Mr. Hodge’s second-to-last issue as editor [corrected], takes on Obama for his failure to deliver a genuine change from Bush-era policies, and Obama’s supporters for their failure to demand better.

“Obama has set a trap for himself, but because he is such a clever politician, the spring is just as likely to fall on us instead,” Mr. Hodge wrote. “Such insidious governance demands serious sustained opposition, not respectful disagreement or fanciful historical apologies or mournful lamentations about the tragedy of his presidency. Principles can be sacrificed to hopes as well as to fears.”

Mr. Hodge reportedly wants to complete the book in time for the midterm elections.

He declined to comment, and Ms. Auh did not respond to an email.

Mr. MacArthur was telling his staff that if they had a big writer, or a big manuscript they wanted to get in the magazine, they should swing by his office, have a chat and—maybe—he’d write the check.

There would have to be, he said, “fundamental changes” in order for the magazine to be successful. He said the magazine lacked “extensive collaboration between business and editorial.”

One week later, it’s fair to say that Harper’s staffers are feeling, well, a bit queasy about Mr. MacArthur’s increased visibility in their lives.

“Roger [Hodge] was very good at being the focus of editorial power and being the sole person who had a relationship with the business side,” said one staffer. “He was good about keeping Rick [MacArthur] out of our hair.”

Perhaps as an indication that the trepidation of the editorial staff is shared with the business side, last week, while Rick MacArthur was being interviewed by New York Times reporter Stephanie Clifford, staffers noticed a senior member of the business staff leaning against Mr. MacArthur’s office, with his ear pressed up against the closed door. Staffers said he was there for nearly a half-hour, and that he was quite evidently eavesdropping. A photo (above) was given to The Observer by a friend of a Harper’s staff member, and Harper’s sources confirmed that this was a photo taken of the business staffer during the Times interview. 

A spokeswoman said that Mr. MacArthur was unaware of anyone listening in on his conversation. 

It’s all made for a nerve-racking week. When Mr. Hodge was fired, Ellen Rosenbush, the managing editor at the magazine, was named the acting editor. But at this point, staffers have no confidence that Ms. Rosenbush, or anyone else, for that matter, can stand between them and Mr. MacArthur any longer. Staffers said that Mr. MacArthur has given no indication that there is a search for a new editor. A spokeswoman for the magazine said that Mr. MacArthur is “open to possibilities” of a new editor, but there was no time frame for hiring a replacement, nor is a formal search under way.

While Mr. MacArthur celebrated his love for journalistic integrity—he told them at the meeting last week that he celebrates the moments when he pisses off a politician, or when an advertiser is angry with him—staffers are concerned that Mr. MacArthur may now be in a position to exert more editorial power than ever before.

“What’s really happening here, and the thing that freaks me out the most, is we are going to be creating this magazine for an audience of one now,” said a staffer. “He’s going to be writing checks to see the magazine he wants to see.”

“That he wants spending on big-ticket items at his discretion means he makes the call on what is worthwhile literature and journalism,” said another staffer. “That is a new and significant editorial role for him to have.”

jkoblin@observer.com