140 Comments

1. NahnCee:

His description of his spiritual transformation into something “boring” and disciplined in New York sounds very like what friends and families of jihadists tell us happens to them shortly before they don their dynamite belt and disappear to join the fight against American hegemony.

Sep 13, 2008 - 4:22 pm 2. Nomenklatura:

What this actually confirms is Obama’s lifelong, apparently irresistible attraction to a succession of losers, radicals and criminals. Sometimes as father figures, sometimes not. He has always rejected the successful and well-adjusted people around him in favor of others like this.

We should not forget how strange this is, especially in a politician. He is anodyne on the outside and very odd on the inside.

The person he still seems to be searching for through all this is his father. When we consider how utterly irresponsible, self-destructive and disastrous for all those around him his father turned out to be, this should give us pause. I for one hope Obama never locates his father’s spirit while he has control over a local community action project, let alone the armed forces of the United States.

Sep 13, 2008 - 5:23 pm 3. wretchard:

Part of a public figure will always remain a mystery, perhaps even to himself. The relevant question voters must ask themselves is whether they know enough about the essential candidate to understand his core. The advent of the Internet has raised the bar; nobody knew JFK by today’s standards. His public persona was largely contrivance. He was sold on his packaging. What was inside the box was only gradually and posthumously revealed.

To a large extent the public’s knowledge of a candidate largely relies on “social proof”. The fact that he has risen through the system, is the nominee of a major party, and is acceptable to other authority figures are proxies for actual acquaintance. Obama and McCain are “friends of friends”. But like anyone who has bought a used car at a lot, some of the public like to take samples. Flip open the gas cover. Kick the tires. Look at the chassis. A random inspection reveals as much as reaching into an urn of colored balls for a sample. A hairline crack, too many balls of the wrong color, evidence of a re-weld don’t mean much in themselves but they do raise questions. Questions which can only be answered by taking more samples.

Who is Barack Obama? By this stage a lot of the electorate has reached a conclusion. And more are still kicking the tires.

Sep 13, 2008 - 5:38 pm 4. 11B40:

Greetings:

Back in my Psychology studying days, I had a professor who used to say that our personality is what we are not. His point, in an Ego, Id, Superego way, was that the Ego was the way the three parts resolved themselves.

What most disturbs me about Senator Obama is what we factually know; that he was abandoned by his Kenyan father at an early age and then, years later on, sent away by his American mother.

These are significant traumas to be experienced by any child. And yet, we hear nothing from the Senator about how he resolved these twin traumas. My concern is that he is vying for one of the most pressure-filled jobs in the world and his kettle has to be, at the least, on a low boil. The Presidency of the United States, in this day and age, is no place to try to work out your personal psychology.

Sep 13, 2008 - 6:33 pm 5. Lifeofthemind:

Why hasn’t McCain come out with a full bore response to the Technology ad?

Scene, the cockpit of an A4 attack jet, shifts to images of a busy Committee hearing and various high tech innovations, ending with FDR’s chair.

McCain: This used to be my office. Now I’m in the Senate where for 6 years I chaired the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. These days I serve on several subcommittees including the sub-committee on Science, Technology and Innovation. I serve on the Committee on Indian Affairs. Also I serve on the Armed Services Committee as the senior Republican I serve on all the sub committees. Obviously we deal with highly sophisticated and sensitive emerging technologies to ensure that only the best is found and developed to strengthen our nation. These Committees are all pretty busy and we try to get good work done in a bi-partisan manner. I should note that my opponent Mr. Obama also is chair of a sub-committee, responsible for overseeing our relations with an important part of the world but under his watch they have held no hearings at all.

It is true however that I do not spend a lot of time surfing the internet or typing on a keyboard. That need not be of concern I would think since the President, as a matter of security, does not use personal email or surf the internet. We hire people to do that for the President. More important is that I do not like to use a keyboard since I was tortured while a prisoner of war. I did not see before why it should be an issue any more than it was an issue when Franklin Roosevelt was President while confined to a wheel chair.

Sep 13, 2008 - 6:40 pm 6. Dr.T:

LOTM,
I like that a lot.
The ad is so puerile.

Sep 13, 2008 - 7:03 pm 7. Martin McPhillips:

I haven’t read Obama’s memoir, so I’m only going to comment on the excerpt at Najam’s blog.

Having lived in Manhattan, during the 1980s and onward, there’s no question that the place is overwhelming. Only people born and raised there or who become Masters of the Universe there can easily stand outside of it or above it. So the specific shock of the place is unique in America, probably in the world.

But you get used to it, and Obama no doubt absorbed it and found his place in the flow. It remains overwhelming, but you can ride it like a wave, and most people do.

What I find most telling is that after his time in this very American city (and, granted, the corrosive effects of Harvard Law) that he would find his place in Chicago in the pews of Jeremiah Wright’s black power church.

That suggests to me two things: Obama needed practice being alienated from American capitalist society in New York (my point being that he was both honing and testing an already nascent Marxist faith), and then chose Chicago as his proving ground and made his political bones with the combination of hard (and racist) identity politics and the Marxism in the mask of traditional religion that he found in James Cone’s black liberation theology at Wright’s Church.

His Marxist commitment is obvious yet hidden in plain sight. It’s as if Alger Hiss was walking around as a naked Communist and it was decided, somewhere, that it would be inappropriate to bring attention to the glaringly obvious.

Obama is not a mystery. He’s the latest Marxist gimmick. Yes, of course, the Cold War is over, blah, blah. But it was not a conflict between the U.S. and the Soviets. It was a death match between the sacred individual ordained by God and the sacred collective ordained by men. By the time the Soviets imploded, the Soviet ghost had long roamed the halls of the American university. Obama, with early training from his CPUSA friend in Hawaii, climbed the ladder at Columbia and Harvard, took his internship with Alinsky’s crowd in Chicago, and then moved into the most cranked-up, radical, mad outfit in Chicago: the “God damn America” squad.

And he’s gotten away with it, to this point, with the whole Democratic Party behind him.

Sep 13, 2008 - 7:13 pm 8. E. Nigma:

At about the same age, McCain was a real partier and woman chaser, while he was at Annapolis and after when he was taking flight training (see “The Nightinggale’s Song”).

At about the same age, George W. Bush was a young man taking flight training for the ANG and also something of a lady’s man.

At about the same age, Bill Clinton was already politically active, while getting a law degree. And also chasing women.

At about the same age, George H.W. Bush was a combat pilot in the US Navy during WWII, and came home to marry his sweetheart, Barbara.

At about the same age, Ronald Reagan had graduated from Eureka College and was a sportscaster on the radio.

Obama strikes me as an aesthetic, who would be just as happy with little material goods in life and interested in intellectual pursuits. He has become what he is now, in pursuit of political power to realize his ideals. He is a strange mixture of idealism and hard-eyed political pragmatism, who isn’t afraid to play hard ball in politics to achieve his political end, however noble and idealistic they may be (in his mind).
In his own mind, he feels justified in letting his campaign and surrogates do all manner of things, to achieve his ends.

The ends justify the means? Where have we heard this before?

Sep 13, 2008 - 7:19 pm 9. Charles:

Saturday Night
The Coasters –Yakety Yak

Sep 13, 2008 - 7:43 pm 10. novanglus:

My four years as an undergrad at Columbia in the early/mid ’80’s overlapped Obama’s two years by just one – he was a senior when I was a freshman. Perhaps the distinction between a “full” student and a transfer are significant enough to account for the differences, but his account (or lack thereof) of that time sounds contrived to me. Yes, NYC was a den of iniquity at that time – Mayor Koch had a laissez-faire attitude about enforcement and there were many seamy areas around Morningside Heights. We avoided Morningside Park day or night. Nightly, we looked out the windows of East Campus to watch the fires burn into the Harlem sky, hearing the voices from the park shout things like “walk away or I’ll cut you, man”.

Obama was living off campus – but where? In Harlem? The WSJ says that they contacted 400 of his classmates and none of them remember him. At that time, he would have been in a class of about 800 college plus 250 engineering students. I checked the 1997 alumni directory in my den, Barack Hussein Obama CC ‘83 – only his grandparents address. No personal information. That tells me there was no one in his class that he wanted to connect with at that time. He didn’t want to share information about his success in Harvard Law School or his work as an associate in Chicago with his classmates. Odd.

As a working class kid from the MA suburbs, I had been raised a near socialist, liberal Democrat – there was no other way. The combination of what I saw on the streets of NYC in 1982-86 and the lessons I learned from the Columbia Core Curriculum changed all that. I entered the campus a passionate liberal, but walked out of there a more rational conservative. I’m entirely sure that is exactly the opposite of what my professors intended. So, what did Obama study while at Columbia? Will we ever get a glimpse of his transcript? I don’t doubt that he received excellent grades. After all, being admitted as a transfer student is no mean feat! And we know his grades must have been quite good to find himself eventually admitted to Harvard Law.

All we know is that Obama graduated without honors with a degree in Political Science. What classes did he take? Is that what he is hiding? Was he immersed in Middle Eastern studies? Electoral Politics? I took two such courses during my years and they only convinced me that choosing engineering was the best path. The first was on American Electoral Politics, which was a full semester of Reagan bashing in the fall of 1983. The second was a Peoples of the Middle East class, which was a Palestinian propaganda vehicle. Is this the kind of curriculum that Obama immersed himself in during his two years at Columbia? Is that what he is hiding by refusing to release his transcripts?

Sep 13, 2008 - 8:03 pm 11. Wadeusaf:

I don’t know, E. Nigma. The fellows you mention in comparison didn’t write a memoir featuring that particular time in their life. Of course at the age when he wrote it I suppose he thought it really did mean something. It doesn’t. It is the stuff of life and the foolishness of youth. How he rebounded from being and acting so young, that is the real measure of the man… I think “Sadik” may have gotten it right, about “OH” becoming a bore that is.

Sep 13, 2008 - 8:55 pm 12. Steve Skubinna:

Funny that your first reaction to “Barack, I corrected” was The Virginian.

What came to my mind was “They call me MISTER Tibbs!”

Sep 13, 2008 - 9:04 pm 13. JMH:

Good writing and painting always leave something to the imagination so that each visit allows the visitor to complete the work of art in a new way.

But isn’t this the heart of the Obama campaign? Leaving most of the details to be filled in by the audience? He is for “hope” and “change” and other vague concepts, but when asked what specific sort of change he’s proposing, “we are the change we’ve been waiting for” is about as specific as he wants to get. Like an author, he sketches a nebulous framework and lets the audience project their own dreams onto it. He’s for whatever they are for. He’s pretty good at inducing projection among his followers.

But part of his recent breakdown is that you can’t keep up the vague sketches forever. Eventually, the author has to fill in his own details if he keeps mining the same vein. Once you fill in the details, some of the audience does like what it’s reading.

Sep 13, 2008 - 9:07 pm 14. Steve Skubinna:

I think we should take this excert precisely as Obama undoubtedly intends, as the story of a young man coming to grips with adult life. But what happens afterwards, as Martin mentions above, is much more significant. His entry into Chicago politics, with membership in Rev. Wright’s church and early connections with Ayres and Dohrn to provide bona fides and entree, is as cynical a tale of self invention as ever was written. Barry became Barack in NYC, but he then reinvented himself climbing the greasy pole of Chicago politics, and then reinvented himself again to appear on the national stage.

We don’t really know the “real” Obama, but this glimpse from Columbia might be as close as we’re ever going to see.

Sep 13, 2008 - 9:15 pm 15. Mark:

“Barack,” I corrected, dropping my bags on the floor. . . . Tell me, Barack. What brings you to our fair city?”

I tried to explain. I had spent the summer brooding over a misspent youth, I said-the state of the world and the state of my soul. “I want to make amends,” I said. “Make myself of some use.”

Hmmmm. The writing of the memoir is formulaic. (Sorry, Benj). That can be the result of bad writing. Or it can be the result of bad material that the writer just can’t make good, no matter what the shade of lipstick.

“Misspent youth”? Cringe. This from a, what, 20 year old? Misspending your youth is what most 20 year olds are really after.

Poverty? No help from grandparents?

What’s with the fast on Sundays? Health reasons? Religious? Doesn’t seem likely to be the latter since Sundays are not a traditional day of fasting in Islam or Christianity. I don’t think Oxy was big on fasting, nor Columbia.

I’m not likely to read the entire memoir, let alone do a full literary analysis. But at any page, when I open it, the narrative seems contrived, not corresponding to my sense of the time, nor to the sense of others who lived at that time and in those places.

Sep 13, 2008 - 9:20 pm 16. Charles:

I still have notebooks in some back closet of the years that I spent in NYC. Once or twice I have cracked them open and looked inside. The writing is all bad. Crazy sometimes, disjointed others; usually confused & chaotic. My foolery during those years grieves me still when I think about it.

Obama’s reaction to NYC was correct. The chaos instilled fear in him. His correct behavior was reinforced by the close proximity of chaos. One false move and you have no idea who you are. Not the place to soak in the scenery.

But all it says is that Obama is a survivor. I was that too in the end. But survivor is someone very different than a leader.

Oh and Melville was right about New York. There is some kind of wierd back bite one receives by leaving.

Sep 13, 2008 - 9:39 pm 17. Dave:

MIRACLE ALERT! MIRACLE ALERT!

Check out the latest Chesler Chronicles on pjm.
The one about Charlie Gibson and his less-than-sterling interview techniques. In the comments section there is an anti-Palin female troll “debra”. She is eloquently, passionately, rationally and articulately rebutted by our very own c4.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Sep 13, 2008 - 9:48 pm 18. Fred:

E.nigma and McPhillips make good points. Obama’s big problem is that he doesn’t really know what America is. He’s an outsider from the truth and reality of American culture and history. He’s a strange unfinished mixture of pan-globalism, marxism, and multi-culti black victimhood, and he doesn’t have a single long-term true friend in the whole world. Not one.

Notice that in his speeches, he never emphasizes freedom, liberty, independence and self-reliance. He never honors the individual person who achieves, through independent self-reliance, the freedom and liberty and prosperity that everyone in the world wants.

That is why he must not be elected president of America. He is a cultural outsider – he does not understand what makes America great. He does not see that crucial fact: that when he takes away our freedom to fail as well as succeed – and when he takes away our self-reliance by expanding the welfare state – he is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

His stated policies will throw America and the whole world into a deep economic depression. His policies will make us all equally poor. And that is a future that I do not want to see.

He may be the nicest guy I’ve never met; but he is an extremely poor choice for the top job running any country, much less America.

Sep 13, 2008 - 10:29 pm 19. Iconoclast:

We still don’t know enough about what he was doing at the Cooper Union. I suspect that is why the details on the Columbia time are so sparse.

Sep 13, 2008 - 10:30 pm 20. Amit Green:

The best articles description have read on Barack Obama is:

“He is a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans, in but not of the American system. ” – http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JI03Aa02.html

His mother, Ann Dunham, was an Anthropologist also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham

Barack Obama, in what Wretchard quoted, and throughout his life is on a journey of discovery: To discover himself & also to discover what America is.

And he approaches this analytically, like an Anthropologist.

This, as in many other things, is why he is the mirror image of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin, instead of analyzing American life, simply lives the American life.

November 4, 2008, will present America with a fascinating choice.

Sep 13, 2008 - 10:53 pm 21. Elroy Jetson:

He stopped getting high. He ran 3 miles a day. He fasted on Sundays.
His first book should have been, “The Barack Wellness Bible”

Sep 13, 2008 - 11:05 pm 22. Benj:

Who is Barack O? Why don’t you guys check out Obama’s and Mac’s record over the last year in Congress – We all know they’ve both been running hard but…I think the record will tell you something about O’s public commitments. (Note the bills/amendments re military families, vets – The Congo – steady concern for fiduciary responsibilities.) Look at Mac’s record – and remember this is a guy with serious seniority…Who seems to have a record that corresponds to his stated politics? Whose record seems more…serious?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_09/014705.php#more

One pundit pointed out recently the public stances that O has taken ever since his Havard Law days have been strikingly consistent. And there’s not much of a break between his displays of liberal-mindedness and his own empathetic (and ballsy) personal life as per the blog entry that Wretch directs us to…”the recollections of Siddiqi and other friends and acquaintances from Obama’s college years paint a portrait of the candidate as a young man. They remember a good student with a sharp mind and unshakable integrity, a young man who already had a passion for the underprivileged. Some described the young Obama’s personality as confident to the point of arrogance, a criticism that would emerge decades later, during the campaign.”

Glad to hear Wretch allows the Obama has done some “good” writing and produced a “fascinating” self-portrait. Hope that concession will move other Clubbers who assume Obama is a putz to think again. But what I’m really hoping is that Wretch will get around to reading “Dreams” for himself. If he does it will be a bit harder to pretend that O’s core is empty. (And it will also clear the there that’s there didn’t derive from some ex-CPer in exile on the beach.) As “Dreams” makes clear – O’s self was born again when his (large) ego got seriously shamed. I’ve posted about this before but (as O describes his ephiphany) it involves a Good Sister busting him for narcissism and then a friend unwittingly underscoring that ugly truth by recalling (right in front of that Sister) a moment when he and O had made life miserable for a latina cleaning woman…O sees himself through the eyes of the Sister and Latina AND the women in his life who made him (his Mom and Grandmother)…O and Mac both know something about shame. Though Mas seems to be forgetting it all lately…

E-Nigma – O as Aesthete? There’s some truth there. And Nothing Wrong with that (as per Seinfelt!). But, just so you don’t worry re his manliness, O seems to have been a bit of a pussy hound as a teen back on the beach – and his Pakistani buddy allows that befor O went Monkish on him, they did some competing over women (with S. losing out).

RE – “Ends justify the means?” Have you been watching Mac’s ads lately? Did you see the one from last week which claims… O’s “one accomplishment” was a bill promoting sex education to children before they could read – Fact: O signed on to a bill promoting efforts to alert kids to the dangers of sexual predators. The ONLY point of the (lying) ad was to pump up O.’s negatives among folks who are worried his race matters. (You know the deal – black man – sex – scary!!!)

Novanglus – The notion there’s something strange about O not sending in notes to the Alumni mag is pretty mindboggling to me. I’ve never known a person of genunine accomplishment who’s bothered to do that. (And given that O was only there for two years…)…Lived in the Columbia area since 79 myself – Your version of Colum v. Harlem in the 80s seems slightly over the top. My bro worked in the Harlem P.O. so my fam was never THAT scared of crosing 110th st. (or 116th). Just so everyone is clear re the faux-worldliness of that neighborhood back in that day. Around the time O was hanging tight with a few Pakistanis, me and my buds were friendly with a group of white South AFrican draft resistors and ANC types, a crew of Eritreans (who circled around the Ethiopians in the same hood). My girlfriends were (respectively – nah – let’s make that respectfully) Georgian (via Iran), Haitian and Guyanese. I wasn’t a particulary worldly person – but you could get a whiff of the world – and it’s conflicts – on the Upper West Side in the early 80’s. Less true now – more gentrified. Lotsa Euros, less refugees…

Sep 13, 2008 - 11:10 pm 23. trangbang68:

He sounds like a hipster who turned into a political huckster. It’s not the kind of life that truly inspires ,makes men want to march into hell for a heavenly cause. Obama in the narrative sounds like an anti-hero in a Jay McInerney novel; a hollow aloof city boy with out any real values.
“I rise when the sun goes down
Cover every game in town”
-Fagan/Becker

Sep 13, 2008 - 11:17 pm 24. wretchard:

Glad to hear Wretch allows the Obama has done some “good” writing and produced a “fascinating” self-portrait. Hope that concession will move other Clubbers who assume Obama is a putz to think again.

Obama’s writing reads like fiction, and some of it admittedly is less than fact, with several characters being composites of real people or given alias, like Sadik. The “self-portrait” is how Obama wishes to be seen.

Sep 13, 2008 - 11:18 pm 25. bobal:

I haven’t read Obama’s books and doubt I will. Anything in them about his thinking of joining the Army?

Sep 13, 2008 - 11:49 pm 26. Mike Force:

What a life-changing event! Shamed by a Good Sister for busting on a latina woman. My God, he actually hurt someone’s feelings! And another minority at that! Absolutely the worst mortal sin in the Progressive canon! And yet He faced His shame, had His dark night of the soul and emerged as the buddha-like figure we now know and love.

Only someone who grew up on the upper west side and whose toughest life experience was cramming for finals can buy this shit.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:21 am 27. Rob:

Not so sure about the comment on Obama’s grades. Anything above a C average from an African-American from Columbia and a decent LSAT could have gotten him into Harvard, especially since he had years in between to accumulate the type of experience that college admissions officers value. Then again, I don’t think college grades matter much; it’s more how he did when he decided on his path.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:22 am 28. Mick:

That opening, where Obama throws open the panoramic window for us, so we can see NYC with the wide-eyed wonder he saw it with — “New York. Just like I pictured it.” — is just the way the wide-eyed kid at the beginning of Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the city” greets NYC. An intended literary reference, or the forgotten soundtrack that Obama sought to evoke for a moment that OUGHT to have occurred ? I’m really not sure myself, and this is still more of the chiaroscuro of this man’s self-portrait. I didn’t actually read the book, but I wonder how many of these references there are to pop music. Perhaps this is some sort of BS-revealing code that whoever ghosted this thing wove into the narrative?

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:41 am 29. novanglus:

Benj – I assure you that my recollection is clear. 110th to 120th was fine between the river and Morningside Drive/Amsterdam Ave. I lived in university housing, one year at 122nd St. & Amsterdam. I had occassion to walk to the PO in Harlem to pick up packages at 125th & 7th Ave. During the day, that was fine – mostly families out and about, or some guys thinking that I was looking to score some drugs (think Velvet Underground, ‘Waiting for My Man’). At night, not so nice. The neighbors weren’t so favorably disposed toward the privileged white Ivy Leaguers in their midst, perhaps a hangover from the university policies of prior years. Of course, I didn’t hang much with the outsiders you did, so our experiences were obviously different. I got a whiff of the world there – the thing I loved about Manhattan and still do. You’re a subway ride away from a microcosm of Seoul, Hong Kong, Cairo, Delhi, if you know where to wander. Today, it is totally gentrified. I know women who bike from Morningside Heights to Washington Heights (168th) to work – not such a good idea 25 years ago.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:43 am 30. Benj:

Wretch – “The ’self-portrait’ is how Obama wishes to be seen.” Yup. Still indefensible for you to keep sponsoring doubts about the guy’s core w/o having read his own case statement..

Consider this – when you do your own auto-biographical posts, you generally offer up a pretty romantic “I” – It’s how you want your readers to see you and it tells us quite a bit about your political bent. Most of the time your persona is that of the solitary – the soulful hard man on the margins who dares to come into the nearness of distance. (Your way-of-being-in-print probably shares quite a bit with other “post-colonial” writers, though I doubt you’d want to see your literary self in such a context.) Solidarity isn’t your thing – as I’m sure you’d allow. Don’t recall you posting about any version of (what Rastas call) “social living” (cept from outside looking in). I’m reminded of your knee-jerk response to the idealism of that priest-doctor (I invoked a few months back) who has devoted his life to saving Haitian children. Knowing nada about him, you immediately equated him with a “bwana.” Fr. Frechette (in your mind) couldn’t be a hero of our time. Had to be another liberal weeny-ninny. As it happens, you (and other Clubbers) can make amends now. Try the website of Our Little Brothers and Sisters and read Frechette’s latest communication about conditions in Gonaives – you might even want to donate….http://www.nph.org/

Obama’s “Dreams” tells me that he would NEVER have made the mistake you made when it came to Fr. Frechette. It also tells me that he was well aware that good intentions are not nearly enough. And that human solidarity is HARD to sustain. But he’s keeping the faith.

Sep 14, 2008 - 1:19 am 31. James Kielland:

I found an interesting story, including an audio of an interview, on NPR on US actions in the Pakistan border areas. Most regulars here will find it interesting:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94591136

“NPR has learned that the raid by helicopter-borne U.S. Special Operations forces in Pakistan last week was not an isolated incident but part of a three-phase plan, approved by President Bush, to strike at Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaida leadership.”

Sep 14, 2008 - 1:58 am 32. Bob Murphy:

Good grief, Benj. You are both self-righteous and tedious beyond belief.
Wretchard floats ideas and looks at some issues which is a good starting point for many an interesting thread.
He has never shown any tendency to big note himself at all.
There’s no me, me, me evident here except for you.
And the more you talk the more you sound like an instable, emotive kook.
But you’re a man on a mission and I guess we won’t be rid of you until after the presidential election.
If this were a party, I would physically throw you out for being boring and lowering the tenor of many conversations.

Sep 14, 2008 - 2:02 am 33. RattlerGator:

I’m with you, Bob Murphy. Not only that, but am I the only one sick of this Benj character engaging in juvenile verbal warfare (e.g., “wretch”) with our host???

Clown.

I’ll tell you who Barack Obama is — he’s a damn liar. Plain and simple; he isn’t nearly as eloquent as the world believes, and will be remembered not for his words or governing accomplishments. No. History will marvel how this obvious sham, just as obviously cherry-picked by far-left activists very similar to Benj, somehow managed to get as far as he did. It does not speak well of the Democrats.

Sep 14, 2008 - 3:02 am 34. ridgerunner:

I’m with you both. RattlerGator pegs the Obama “phenomenon.”

Sep 14, 2008 - 3:52 am 35. Wadeusaf:

Actually Benj, I was thinking that four more years in the Senate, working across the aisle for President McCain’s vision of change and reform, would give “OH” the sort of track record to allow us to ignore the feeble collection of youthisms he has to fall back on today. It is stuff Governor Palin has more of as Mayor than “OH” since moving out of Sadik’s flat.

Of course, you risk the chance that “OH” will begin looking and sounding more and more like Senator Biden than he already does. But I will give you that they are both consistent.

Sep 14, 2008 - 4:20 am 36. E. Nigma:

@ Wadeusaf:
Regarding comparisons made between Obama and the other men, I think the thing they had in common is that they were ‘young’, which we all were at one time, and how, perhaps ‘less than important’ it all was. McCain in particular was quite the rake at that age

For all the men involved, more important things happened later. But that is all part of the public record.But was Obama’s academic record at Columbia? Were his grades mediocre? Blank out

Just what has Obama done since Columbia?
Community Organizer? Ditched that for Law School.
Law School? Records? Grades? Harvard Law Review editor, but did he write anything?

20 years in South Chicago at Trinity United Church of Christ. Then he bails on Rev. Wright.
Years of association with Bill Ayers, but he’s just a ‘guy in the neighborhood’. Nothing to see here, move along.

A phalanx of reporters can descend on the history of the number two on the Republican ticket, and find minutia about Sarah Palin, but what we know about Obama seems to be only what he tells us. The media seems incurious about who the Man Who Would Be President . actually is like. And it’s not even as interesting as Hemingway’s “Adventures of a Young Man”. If he’s going to novelize his life, he could at least make it more interesting.

Two biographical tomes at the age of 46? “Dreams of My Father” and the “Audacity of Hope”. An aesthetic and a narcissist. If you take away his charisma and charm, Michael Dukakis is more interesting.

Sep 14, 2008 - 4:56 am 37. Bill R:

Obama’s writing reads like fiction The detail means that he either kept a really intricate journal, he has a phenomenal memory, or that he “painted” in the white space, much like you would a coloring book.

Sep 14, 2008 - 5:04 am 38. Wadeusaf:

E. Nigma, yup, nothing to see here, no argument at all, no record at all, no past at all, like he was the ever voting present “invisible man”.

Gives a whole nuther twist to Mr. Ellisons work.

Sep 14, 2008 - 5:30 am 39. Mr_S:

Obama’s writing reads like fiction It’s almost cinematic, with his opening panorama shot, the woman in her underwear, and the plonking down of the bags to emphasize the “Barack” correction.

This is a man who prides himself in his humility. To me he comes off as a narcissit, painting such a vivid altruistic picture of himself.

I trust him even less, now.

Sep 14, 2008 - 5:39 am 40. jdwill:

I’m considering the possibility Obama is a true empath. The portrayals as professor, teacher, analyst, even cynical politician don’t really satisfy me about him. When he turns each social question on two sides repeatedly, what may be in operation is a need to be inside all parties to the question. I think what really what seems to set him apart is empathy for the other. Not phony like Clinton, but internally driven. His inability to address a mistake flows from this as well, you just didn’t hear him as he morphed to absorb the error and convert it.

His childhood as an outsider, the sense of not having his father, of missing some connection others have – I know a little bit about this. He may have very sensitive radar essentially forces him to see the other point of view and try to somehow integrate it into a reconciliation. A need to attach, to knit together.

This may not be the best profile for a CinC.

Paul Starobin, in National Journal, contrasts McCain where honor may be a blinder with Obama where empathy may be a blinder. An intriguing read.

Another thing to consider about empathy, from Wickipedia:

Empathy is the capacity to recognize or understand another’s state of mind or emotion. It is often characterized as the ability to “put oneself into another’s shoes”, or to in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself.
It is important to note empathy does not necessarily imply compassion. Empathy can be ‘used’ for compassionate or cruel behavior.

Sep 14, 2008 - 6:18 am 41. E. Nigma:

More insights into narcissism. Sadly, some of this fits Barack Obama to a tee.

http://samvak.tripod.com/faq45.html

Sep 14, 2008 - 6:26 am 42. Doug:

It’s all about altruism, S, service to others, and CHANGE!
—
What Makes Obama Run?
Lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author Barack Obama doesn’t need another career. But he’s entering politics to get back to his true passion–community organization.
—
“Now all of this may be good political advice,” Obama said, “but it’s all so superficial. I am surprised at how many elected officials–even the good ones–spend so much time talking about the mechanics of politics and not matters of substance. They have this poker chip mentality, this overriding interest in retaining their seats or in moving their careers forward, and the business and game of politics, the political horse race, is all they talk about. Even those who are on the same page as me on the issues never seem to want to talk about them. Politics is regarded as little more than a career.”

Obama doesn’t need another career. As a civil rights lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author, he already has no trouble working 12-hour days. He says he is drawn to politics, despite its superficialities, as a means to advance his real passion and calling: community organization.

Obama thinks elected officials could do much to overcome the political paralysis of the nation’s black communities. He thinks they could lead their communities out of twin culs-de-sac: the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation–which helps a few upwardly mobile blacks to “move up, get rich, and move out”–and the equally impractical politics of black rage and black nationalism–which exhorts but does not organize ordinary folks or create realistic agendas for change.

Sep 14, 2008 - 6:29 am 43. Doug:

Back in ‘95, my guess is the “philanthropist” label was earned w/other people’s money!

Sep 14, 2008 - 6:31 am 44. Doug:

Dave’s MIRACLE ALERT!

Sep 14, 2008 - 6:51 am 45. Ben Franklen:

Just a point of clarification, but at what age did Obama start writing his memoirs? We all think we are the center of the universe when we are young but we grow out of it. He doesn’t seem to have turned that corner yet.

It is not comforting that he thought anyone would be interested in his life when he had accomplished basically nothing to that point. In fact, he had accomplished so much nothing that he ended up writing a second volume. That he has attained such a high position and has done nothing with it and done nothing to justify it leaves us with little to go upon as to what he intends to accomplish other than making the US into his image… nothing.

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:07 am 46. 3Case:

I keep being grateful for Rev. Wright’s key to Obama:

“He’s a politician. Ho do what politicians do.”

I hope that I have recalled the Rev.’s words correctly.

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:17 am 47. 3Case:

Should be “He”.

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:18 am 48. 3Case:

Was being overly proud about typing w/o looking at the keys.

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:19 am 49. programmer:

Warning: What follows is personal opinion.

As I read and listen and watch the ebb and flow of political discourse, it becomes more and more MY OPINION is that the biggest difference between the left and right is the ability to deal with reality. What I mean by that is that to the left, brilliance is the ability to analyze text, feelings, speech and draw conclusions resulting in more text, speech, and feelings. None of these things affect the flow of “real” things. Leftists see a fire. They feel that the fire should be put out. They decide to address the issue with others to see if they agree. Whose fault is it that there is a fire. Everyone get together and vote for the fire to stop. Pass legislation, the fire is getting bigger. Make it illegal for fire to burn. Oh wait, too late. The house is gone. Oh well, at least we are sad that happened. Let’s put on a play on this and we have made fires illegal, so we have that going for us.

Rightists(?) analyze events by looking at what is occurring (a fire), identifying concrete goals (put out the fire), looking for ways to put out the fire (get a bucket of water), and then throwing the bucket of water on the fire. Create a company to make fire extinguishers for everybody to purchase to fight future fires and retire on the profits.

I know I’m not stating this in an elegant fashion, but the chasm between right and left is bothering me more and more. I truly believe that left(?) to their own devices, the left will die out, but unfortuately they will cause a lot of pain and sorrow as they go.

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:22 am 50. jdwill:

Ho do what politicians do

Transposed Freudian slip?

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:37 am 51. E. Nigma:

“I know I’m not stating this in an elegant fashion, but the chasm between right and left is bothering me more and more. I truly believe that left(?) to their own devices, the left will die out, but unfortuately they will cause a lot of pain and sorrow as they go.” -programmer

Less than replacement birthrates in most of Western Europe, arguably more ‘progressive’ and ’socialist’ than the US. Ditto Russia.

QED

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:57 am 52. slade:

From book review of <i?Radical Son by David Horowitz [hat tip Doug]:

It would be easy to conclude that Horowitz went from A to Z this way because he’s superficial and unstable. Instead, as this moving, intellectual autobiography shows, his second thoughts about leftism emerged gradually as he experienced various aspects of the “Movement.” The catalytic episode came when he discovered that the Panthers had murdered a friend of his, but even then Horowitz was slow to convert, primarily because he was heavily enmeshed in what he now views as the quintessential leftist habit of judging politics by its intentions, not its acts.

I did not read the book – didn’t need to since I made my own journey and I’m not “there” anymore. Thought, unlike mathematics, can only be proven false by empirical evidence of implementation (which is why some ideas never die – the implementation always being at fault, explaining the persistence of collective themes). After the failures of the last century, it should not be surprising that the writing is positively weird, in the mind-numbing sense, as (some of) the modern radical chic insist on pursuing the theme that an inscrutable narrative is the proper starting point for any and all intellectual inquiry. It’s what’s in the interstitial spaces, it’s what we don’t see, it’s what’s not there – that we don’t understand because the particulate can never explain the organic whole. That’s a little off from intentions versus acts but not much – the Idea of it all as it translates into food on the table.

I have maintained for most of my adult life that possibly some ideas, such as nuclear disarming, may find a fruitful context in a chastened species several centuries down the road, but not in this world, not in my lifetime. I do not think that a socialist-inspired organizational or institutional structure will ever be one of those ideas unless mankind evolves into something different from what he is.

Sep 14, 2008 - 8:23 am 53. slade:

Shouldn’t be that hard to add a Preview button, should it?

Sep 14, 2008 - 8:26 am 54. cjm:

the left should be forcibly expelled. they are a purely parasitical class, their leaving will not damage Aerica in the least. talking about the hard left here, the true believers.

Sep 14, 2008 - 8:29 am 55. Jay:

He has some resemblance to a young Austrian from Linz who was a failed artist and wannabe architect. Adoph tried some “community organizing” in Vienna before WW1. Then he managed the bureaucratic problems to become a citizen of the Reich. He could never keep a job and his initial political career after the War was sponsored by a secret Reichwehr unit commanded by Major Meyer (who later was killed by the Nazis).
Adolph was abused by his father and protected by his mother. But he was not abandoned as the One was.
Adolph when in power lived a spartan life as compared with Goering and other party leaders.
Historical revisionists of various sorts paint the German people as robot followers. The reality was much more complicated. There was a LOT of local democratic politics in Kaiser’s Germany.
It is amazingly scary that a low class Austrian Catholic from Linz ended up as the Chancellor of Germany. It is amazing that a strange man from Honolulu may become the President of the US.

Sep 14, 2008 - 8:38 am 56. buddy larsen:

Man alive –that link –doug’s a lttle ways up –lists side x side Charlie Gibson’s questions in his Obama interview, and in his Palin interview.

Good lord a mighty. OK that’s it for me and ABC. Screw ‘em, and the horse they rode in on too.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:01 am 57. novanglus:

@Ben 7:07am
It is not comforting that he thought anyone would be interested in his life when he had accomplished basically nothing to that point. In fact, he had accomplished so much nothing that he ended up writing a second volume. That he has attained such a high position and has done nothing with it and done nothing to justify it leaves us with little to go upon as to what he intends to accomplish other than making the US into his image… nothing.

Which is why I raise the question of why, if he was so interested in ’selling’ his life story, why would be not update the alumni directory entry? I looked through for some names to see who was keeping current. Everyone that I knew had advanced beyond their home, pre-Columbian home address.

Is the Columbia connection just another discarded means to achieve his ends? We know he lived with the Pakistanis who were not students. Didn’t he have any friends among the student body? Classes are small, especially in the Liberal Arts – often as small as 10-15 pupils. For a natural politician, it would seem odd that he doesn’t retain any friendships or acquaintances from that time, at least none that we know of.

I still contend that it isn’t his grades that he is hiding, it is likely the Marxist, Franz Fanon inspired curriculum he studied. Pure conjecture – but we will only know if he releases his records.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:05 am 58. M. Simon:

So where is his empathy for Clinton? McCain? Palin? Republicans? Economists?

He has empathy for those who like him and believe in what he does.

Compare with Palin on the abortion question re: Charlie Gibson interview. The looking for common ground to get something done.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:26 am 59. slade:

Just to footnote, the most deadly words in the English language:

“Well-Intentioned”

Not to mention the most juvenile and puerile excuse to ever masquerade as reason.

The problem, and it’s a large one, is the in-your-face arrogance and hubris in the eye of the current financial services meltdown. Timing is everything.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:31 am 60. Ken:

the left should be forcibly expelled. they are a purely parasitical class, their leaving will not damage Aerica in the least. talking about the hard left here, the true believers.

I’m reminded of Sherman’s statement that there were 300,000 Southerners who needed to die, because they were useless troublemakers (I paraphrase). Incidentally, he wasn’t talking about “rednecks,” who live to this day. He was talking about some planters–not all planters, just the most extreme group, the ones who believed they had a right to have other people do their work for them and who believed they had a right to kill anyone, black or white, who felt otherwise.

Look at the present situation: it’s similar. The Left believes that they should be philosopher kings, just like the planters Sherman was talking about. (John Calhoun used Plato’s ideas about Rule of the Wise to justify slavery).

They live in areas that largely are ruled by their own warped ideas, yet it isn’t enough for them; they want to put the whole nation under their own political stasis. (Note that when visualizing the future, they never have any really cool ideas, like settling space or enriching mankind through atomic transformation. They just want “affordable health care.” Sounds like something out of Aldous Huxley).

They view themselves as sexually gifted, as did the planters and, before them, the British Cavaliers. All these groups were reactionaries who were fighting truly liberal ideas, yet they viewed their alleged sexual superiority to the Puritans/fundamentalists as being far more important than their desire to suppress far more important freedoms than sex.

Honestly, I believe that, like it or not, we’re going to be forced into a Shermanesque solution to our Leftist problem.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:38 am 61. ridgerunner:

Due to refinery closures in Texas, and to panic buying, gasoline is practically unavailable in Florida’s capital city Sunday morning. The local blog comments are running about four to one in favor of blaming the Republicans, the (this is a quote) “billionaires who own the oil companies,” and the price-gouging station owners. Little understanding of supply/demand economics exists among those posters. When peak oil becomes manifest in 2010, there could be little worse than having Obama in power to mobilize this army of ignoramuses. Weimar revisited? Perilous times indeed.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:53 am 62. jdwill:

The 1995 Chicago Reader article Doug linked @6:29AM is a little gold mine. RTWT.

“Slow down now. You’re going too fast now,” says Obama. “I want to break this down. We talk ‘they, they, they’ but don’t take the time to break it down. We don’t analyze. Our thinking is sloppy. And to the degree it is, we’re not going to be able to have the impact we could have. We can’t afford to go out there blind, hollering and acting the fool, and get to the table and don’t know who it is we’re talking to…

He uses empathy to analyse the opposition. Don’t confuse it with sympathy.

The quote Doug focussed on would seem to indicate there is no ‘there’ there. Obama rejects both assimilation and black nationalism. But, …proposes a third alternative … his proposal calls for organizing ordinary citizens into bottom-up democracies create their own strategies, programs, and campaigns and forge alliances with other disaffected Americans.

Not sure how this would work, but it points to an empathetic person who visualizes a union of disparate polities.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:58 am 63. Benj:

Ben Franklen – Obama was approached by a publisher to write something when there were a flurry of national news stories after he became the first Afro-Am editor of the Harvard Law Review. He was going to write something wonky – re the future of reform politics etc – but eventually ended up taking things in a more personal direction (w/ the pub’s blessing).

Wade – “No past,” “Youthisms” – Contempt doesn’t become you or anyone. Think back on O’s options as a brother with a Columbia degree – LOT of money to be made in a (Reaganite) cultural context that was saying YES YOU CAN…So what’s he do – well you read the book so gotta clue – Yet you’re (now) all disdain, all the time for his work pushing those ladies to talk back to the bureaucrats or that assist to that lost Sister with the blue contact lens. Youthisms, huh? Did you do a lot MORE for folks in the hood when you were in your 20s? And – hey – scratching my head here – When did becoming the first AA editor of the Harvard Law Review become an insignificant deal. Not big on Firsts myself -and O doesn’t talk it up but…Then the guy goes back to Chi-town and gets his ass into politics – TEACHING himself how to inspire what will become his base, not one-on-one but BigTime – and teaching them how buying all the way in to an America (that’s disdained them) is the way forward. Not content with being just another smart SOB, he makes himself someone who can help us all realize the Dream. And this is someone YOU are contemptuous of…Sheesh, You must have some sterling moral & intellectual credentials to look down on Barrack. But You Are Not Alone.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:59 am 64. tipper:

Wretchard, you raise a few points in your article, so I think this article might be of interest.

Sep 14, 2008 - 10:01 am 65. Josh:

Are we supposed to believe that the person who wrote the words cited above, is the same who is now playing around with “lipstick on a pig”? Memoirs look ghost-written to me, “lipstick” remarks are apparently plagiarized. And there you have it: Obama.

Sep 14, 2008 - 10:27 am 66. Jerry:

Mick at 12:41 AM writes, with reference to Obama’s memoir, “whoever ghosted the thing,” as if it has been assumed all along that his first memoir (and possibly both) is not his own work. If he is passing off either book as his own work when it isn’t, shouldn’t this be an issue? I don’t see anyone else’s name listed as co-author in the Amazon listings, as there is for McCain’s books.

When I read the excerpts that Wretchard quoted I was struck by the disconnect between the literary quality of the latter and the difficulty that Obama has in coping with even the spoken word. If there is a large enough sample of authentic writing by Obama, there are statistical methods of textual analysis that can determine whether he is the author of the books that have been published with him represented as their sole author. If Biden’s presidential candidacy was ended in 1988 by the expropriation of material from Neil Kennock that he misrepresented as his own, why should Obama get a pass for something which, if he did it, seems much worse? Am I being naive?

Sep 14, 2008 - 10:27 am 67. programmer:

In an earlier thread, wasn’t there a mention of Mr. Obama going off to some far away place to finish writing his book because he had writer’s block or some such. Did someone help him while he was so far away? Inquiring minds want to know.

Sep 14, 2008 - 10:54 am 68. NahnCee:

“I truly believe that left(?) to their own devices, the left will die out …”

Left to their own devices, Nature would eat them and they’d all be dead. In a Darwinian survival of the fittest sort of way, do we think that Obama, his lady and the supporters they attract could survive in the wilderness of nature on their own?

The fact that there are so many “progressive liberals” feeding off the teets of big government, academia and the entertainment/news business must mean that there’s something wrong with Western civilization and our way of life, since they bring absolutely *nothing* to propagating or enhancing the species nor to the concept of survival.

The trouble being that the other models of human civilization like communism, Hinduism and Islam are even worse when it comes to nudging the species forward.

But I do think that in creating the “liberal” model, Nature tried the same sort of experiment as it did when the different branches of homo erectus were first getting started. It’s a failure as a model, but what do we do about getting rid of it now, given that civilization provides such a good protective cloak.

Sep 14, 2008 - 11:07 am 69. cjm:

ok, if no one else will say it, i will; obama was supplementing his income in nyc by selling drugs.

Sep 14, 2008 - 11:18 am 70. RattlerGator:

programmer: he had an extended stay in Bali, did he not?

No politician in American history has been so involved in Islamic countries nor steadfastly refused to discuss the people he associated with while there.

How do you make it through a Democratic primary and not have a full discussion about all of that?

Sep 14, 2008 - 11:42 am 71. Doc99:

Pontius Pilate voted “Present.”

Sep 14, 2008 - 11:44 am 72. NahnCee:

Couldn’t the various memoirs be what the CIA would refer to as a history? A cover? If he was recruited and/or bought as a very young man, then his handlers would want something in place to refer to if questions were asked further down the line.

It just makes no sense to write an autobiography when you’re first starting out, when you don’t have a lot of experience to chronicle, and when you really can’t predict that you’ll end up running for President in 20 years. It’s an effort to draw a line in the sand to define yourself so that no one will ever be able to pull back the curtain to look at the real Mighty Oz.

And why would you feel the need for a definition at a very young age unless there was something to hide, like the possibility that you’re an extraordinarily well-funded plant leading a double-life designed to put you into the higher echelons of the US government.

I’m increasingly wondering how and when he met Michelle and what *her* background is — if she had a similar sudden leap into existance as a fully-grown character worthy of an autobiography in her early 20’s.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:02 pm 73. cjm:

that theory would work great, but why would they pick such a bumbler as their “plant”?

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:20 pm 74. Pascal:

RattlerGator: Careful. The island of Bali is predominantly Hindu albeit in a Muslim country that is more tolerant outside of Java and Sumatra.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:24 pm 75. Sam Wilson:

NahnCee-12.02 pm
It is called a “legend”.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:25 pm 76. Peter Boston:

19 months in and I am still amazed, astounded, apprehensive and befuddled how a person as shallow, self-serving and potentially destructive of our traditional value system as Obama could be President. And perhaps more so how a “free press” could en masse be so eager to perpetuate the deception and serve-up the American middle class to collectivism.

For the first time ever I am questioning the wisdom of democracy as the best possible system of governance in a technologically advanced society. What is the 24 hour news cycle bringing us other than more opportunity for obfuscation? I would almost rather see the culture war fought to conclusion in the streets than see so many sheepishly fasten the noose to their own necks.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:29 pm 77. cjm:

why not wait until obama actually wins, before throwing in the towel on democracy? carter begat Regan, and should our fellow Americans vote obama in, he will begat Palin. if America can’t survive the great bumbler, what is really being lost?

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:33 pm 78. programmer:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/us/politics/18memoirs.html?pagewanted=1

Warning: long article, but there is an interesting observation I have clipped below:

His half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said he eventually retreated to Bali for several months with his wife, Michelle, “to find a peaceful sanctuary where there were no phones.” He showed drafts to a few close relatives including his grandmother, of whom Ms. Soetoro-Ng said, “It probably made her a little nervous, having the family written about, just because you don’t do that in Kansas.”

In the introduction, Mr. Obama acknowledged his use of pseudonyms, composite characters, approximated dialogue and events out of chronological order. He was writing at a time well before a recent series of publishing scandals involving fabrication in memoirs. “He was trying to be careful of people’s feelings,” said Deborah Baker, the editor on the first paperback edition of the book. “The fact is, it all had a sort of larger truth going on that you couldn’t make up.”

Sound familiar?

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:37 pm 79. programmer:

RattlerGator:

Thanks for the Bali tip.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:40 pm 80. NahnCee:

“It is called a “legend”.”

Yeah, that. What you said.

But I got “photon torpedo” right.

cjm – what makes you think he’s the only one?

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:42 pm 81. Eggplant:

Peter Boston said:

“For the first time ever I am questioning the wisdom of democracy as the best possible system of governance in a technologically advanced society.”

cjm responded:

“why not wait until obama actually wins, before throwing in the towel on democracy?”

The Messiah is now behind in the polls and in the Electoral count. He’s slightly ahead in the “No Toss Up States” Electoral count, refer to:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Democracy seems to be functioning. However, where I would agree with Peter Boston is the MSM has seriously malfunctioned. The MSM malfunctioned with its treatment of the Iraq War, Global Warming, President Bush, the Annointed One and Sarah Palin. That malfunction is weakening our Democracy.

The marketplace is an important part of our democracy. I’m hoping the marketplace will correct the MSM’s malfunction before serious harm is done to our democracy.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:44 pm 82. RattlerGator:

Pascal: duly noted, including probable sarcasm. I don’t care if it’s mostly Hindu — there are many rich Islamic Indonesians from Jakarta and elsewhere who hang out there and basically control the place. It is, after all, one of their primary playgrounds. I am deeply suspicious of his time in Bali and Pakistan.

Barack has a foreign patron. Absolutely no doubt in my mind about that.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:44 pm 83. NahnCee:

Bali has enough Muslims that they managed a pretty big explosion to kill off Australias and Americans – although they mainly bagged Aussies, their goal was to off as many Americans as possible, too.

Bali also has enough Muslims that the government and prosecutors then allowed to walk several of the perps so that they were free to follow their predilections further. If it’s mainly Hindu, then why would they allow Islamic terrorists to go free?

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:45 pm 84. Sam Spade:

E Nigma said something that is both interesting and important. Obama eschews material things. Such a person is willing to distroy the wealth of others because wealth has no meaning to them. Hitler and Lenin were not particularly materialistic. There is something to be said for a corupt politcian. You know what he wants and what he will do and what he will not do. Caesar was right. Yon Casisius has a lean and hungry look. Keep about me men who are fat.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:55 pm 85. Pascal:

RG: No sarcasm intended. I also neglected to mention northern part of Sulawesi (near Philipines) among the less tolerant parts of Indonesia. I was just saying that Bali is the least likely of places to find radicals in all of the islands of Indonesia. Perhaps it thus provides a better cover for radicals who wish to move abroad? Yes, but it’s way too speculative.

NC: Why let would Balinese let Islamic perps go free? Perhaps the cost of “tolerance” as I am sure you know what I mean.

Sep 14, 2008 - 12:58 pm 86. JBean:

jdwill –

I’m considering the possibility Obama is a true empath. The portrayals as professor, teacher, analyst, even cynical politician don’t really satisfy me about him. When he turns each social question on two sides repeatedly, what may be in operation is a need to be inside all parties to the question. I think what really what seems to set him apart is empathy for the other. Not phony like Clinton, but internally driven. His inability to address a mistake flows from this as well, you just didn’t hear him as he morphed to absorb the error and convert it.

Oh, my, you really have the essence of Obama turned on its head. Far from being an empath, he is, as Spengler correctly pegged him, a sociopath — one who “seeks the empathy of all around him while sympathizing with no one.”  He can make people believe that he agrees with them, no matter what their beliefs are — while possessing no empathy whatsoever. Are you perhaps so young that you’ve never met someone like this personally?  A charming someone who you come away from saying “Wow! They totally understood me and my feelings.” But a month later, after having gotten your vote or some other payoff, and thus have no more need of you, don’t even recognize you when you meet again?

It might be argued that all politicians have sociopathic tendencies, but a true sociopath such as Obama is hampered by a sense of entitlement and  thus unable to transfer his appeal to those who are innately skeptical of this personality type — mainstream America. And therein lies his problem.

Sep 14, 2008 - 1:21 pm 87. Mike Sylwester:

The blogger TexasDarlin is developing the idea that Obama became associated with Bill Ayers while Obama was studying at Columbia University in Manhattan during 1981-83. During that same period Ayers, who had dropped out of the Weather Underground in 1980, was studying at Bank Street College of Education, also in Manhattan. Ayers earned a Master’s Degree from that school in 1984 and then a Doctorate from Columbia in 1987. After 1987, Obama and Ayers both were living in Chicago, which is where their known associations begin.

http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/obamas-ties-to-ayers-back-to-high-school/#more-2964

Sep 14, 2008 - 1:28 pm 88. Mike Sylwester:

Following are excerpts from another claim that the association between Obama and Ayers began while Obama studied at Columbia during 1981-83.

http://www.contrariancommentary.com/community/Home/tabid/36/mid/363/newsid363/262/Default.aspx

…. why would Black Panther party revolutionary Khalid Al-Mansour start soliciting money for Obama’s legal education? The answer: Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, were close associates of the Black Panther Party and even unleashed a terrorist attack on a New York judge who heard a Panther case.

In the 1980’s, the Ayers/Dohrn revolutionary terror network was still working through individuals such as Al-Mansour, who had sufficiently laundered his radical past to assume respectability as a front for a Saudi Prince. …. Ayers vouched for Obama to Al-Mansour, who then began a law school fund-raising campaign among prominent African-Americans. ….

Why did Obama get hired as a “summer associate” in 1989 at the law firm which had hired Ayers’ wife, and where Ayers’ father was a prominent friend of the managing partner at Sidley & Austin? The answer is obvious. Ayers was grooming Obama as his future “front.” ….

Sep 14, 2008 - 1:41 pm 89. Mike Sylwester:

And here is another explanation about Percy Sutton, Dr Khalid al Mansour and Barack Obama.

http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/khalid-al-mansourdonald-warden-obama-money-man-in-nigeria/

Sep 14, 2008 - 1:51 pm 90. Eggplant:

NewsBusters provides an interesting analysis of how ABC News edited out crucial portions of the Charles Gibson interveiw with Sarah Palin, refer to:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/09/13/abc-news-edited-out-key-parts-sarah-palin-interview

The following shows the complete unedited interview transcript:

http://marklevinshow.com/gibson-interview/

The obvious conclusion from this: McCain and Palin should always have their own cameraman making a separate recording when doing MSM interviews. If the MSM interviewer opts to be unethical, McCain simply has a true copy broadcast by a competitor (I wonder where Mark Levin got his copy?).

Sep 14, 2008 - 2:08 pm 91. Peter Boston:

Even if Obama is defeated his candidacy is evidence that the democratic process has been grievously wounded. The DNC sent 30-40 people to Alaska to investigate Palin’s past. Why has the RNC failed to as vigorously pursue Obama’s past in NYC and Chicago?

Kurtz’s investigation of Obama’s Annenberg Foundation connection with Ayers and the distribution of $100 million to who knows whom in Chicago isn’t even page 30 in the NYT. Why is that? Is Kurtz an incompetent nut or is something else going on?

Governot Palin represents a refreshing authenticity we haven’t seen since Reagan. The DNC and MSM are cooperating in an attempt to destroy her as a person and not just a politician. Who are the US Senators, Members, Governors and other national figures who are standing up to say that a wrong is being done? That our democracy is being harmed? The silence is deafening.

Sep 14, 2008 - 2:15 pm 92. Charles:

oh my bad. obama wrote his stuff on Columbia after he left NYC. So we don’t really know what he thought when he was there.

I agree with some of the posters. Columbia was relatively safe between 110th & 125 and RSD & Morningside Ave in the 70’s & 80’s when I lived there. Outside of those areas the neighbohoods turned dicy. Gentrification on the west side started in the 80’s. I regret that the old Thalia theatre on 96th st & Bway was torn down. But one of the first new big high rises went up there.

The afrocentric politics of obamas church in Chicago pretty much represent the PC politics of columbia in the 70’s & 80’s. And too, judging by the very different way in which Columbia treated Iran President and the president of the minutemen–columbia politics remain the same.

It was nice having McCain advocate bringing back the ROTC to Columbia. I’m sure that gave Bolinger fits. But who knows the ROTC might improve columbia’s football team. Columbia has the longest football losing streak of any team in America. It made me conclude that morals and morale are closely related not just in terms of spelling but of meaning.

The difference between what the TV networks on 59th St and B way were producing in the 1980’s and the actual experience of NYC were just profoundly different.

I agree with the posters who say that in the 1970’s-80’s in the columbia area you were just cheek by jowel with people from all over the world.

My politics changed starting about 1986 when I started seeing large groups of Mexicans congregated on the corners 96 st. This was something wholly different because old world migrations have very meanings in the USA than New World Migrations. Nobody else in that area –that I knew — however, saw things the way I did.

Sep 14, 2008 - 2:15 pm 93. cedarford:

Wretchard – Good writing and painting always leave something to the imagination so that each visit allows the visitor to complete the work of art in a new way.

Agree. And I strongly agree with Wretchard that Obama is a gifted writer. Criticize him for his quals or beliefs, but give him dibs on writing a wonderful 1st book.

Jerry – You may hate Obama, but people who have looked into his book-writing have said it was all Obama, with a good editor. Not ghost-written, certainly not plagarizing another writer.

=======================
Ridgerunner – Due to refinery closures in Texas, and to panic buying, gasoline is practically unavailable in Florida’s capital city Sunday morning. The local blog comments are running about four to one in favor of blaming the Republicans, the (this is a quote) “billionaires who own the oil companies,” and the price-gouging station owners. Little understanding of supply/demand economics exists among those posters.

Sorry, but people will not put up with that supply-demand crap as capitalists try to exploit natural disaster and desperate need to extort huge, undue profit from others.

It sounds like the profiteering and price-gouging in Florida is being allowed to happen by Republican authorities whereas in other States, prices on existing inventories bought cheaply (at 3.38-3.69 per gallon regular) pre-hurricane are limited to regular markup until the more expensive gas starts coming in post-Ike, from wholesalers.

In Florida, the slimy pigs who own certain retail outlets are trying to extort double the price they got from distributors. Hopefully they will be arrested soon.

In other countries, in more desperate times, people such as those Florida rip-off artists would be dragged off to rot in a hole for years, even shot. To mass public approval.

Texas local DAs and the Attorney General tore such profiteers a new asshole when they tried selling gas during Rita at 6 bucks a gallon and selling water bottles and bags of ice costing them 8 and 20 cents respectively for 5 bucks and 20 bucks each to stranded, dehydrated motorists trapped on the highway for up to 40 hours. Several opportunistic gad station owners were driven into backruptcy, one convenience store chain was hit with jail sentences to 3 executives.

I may be a Republican, but I detest such exploitation. And people furious at being charged between 4.50 and 7 bucks for gas the dealer bought for 3.40 have an excellent place to start complaining with the Republican Administration of Charlie Crist. Florida has begun issuing subpoenas..dealers and owners can face fines up to 25,000 a day for each day they price-gouge. Consumers in Kentucky (another state where profiteering started) have triggered state emergency statutes and have told consumers overcharged to hang on to their reciepts because the owner-predators will…pay…them back.

Sep 14, 2008 - 2:27 pm 94. NahnCee:

“E Nigma said something that is both interesting and important. Obama eschews material things. Such a person is willing to distroy the wealth of others because wealth has no meaning to them.”

I think the other thing he’s not particularly interested in is his children and making the world a better place for them. Witness his taking them to listen to Rev. Wright for all of their short lives. Would a father who wants the best for his children and for them to grow up and be well-rounded adults do that? Or come to that, would a mother, either?

Sep 14, 2008 - 2:29 pm 95. buddy larsen:

@ Ken 9:38 a.m. –good post –but hafta correct that extra zero –Sherman said 30,000 diehard firebrands needed killing. Oddly enough, once he made it clear he meant to follow his own advice, most of that 30,000 began seeing the light.

The general population –USA total –is now about ten times what it was in the Civil War. So straight arithmetic would add the zero back and place the current diehard firebrand number at the 300,000.

Sep 14, 2008 - 2:35 pm 96. jdwill:

JBean -

I am not a trained professional, but I don’t think, given my understanding of the terms, that I have it backwards. I have had experience with a stepchild who was narcissistic to the point of bordering on sociopathy.

If Obama were a sociopath, he could be charming, but would not be able to get inside the heads of others to understand their points of view as well as he has. This would be a blank spot for him.

For example, if you read his entire ‘clinging’ remark, which politically backfired, you see someone who is empathizing. I don’t think a sociopath would spend the effort he has trying to put together a world view that encompasses so many other viewpoints. You can certainly gig him on this remark for a poor analysis, for being tone deaf, but he is really trying to feel their anger.

Do not confuse empathy which is a form of sight into the other, with sympathy, which is an emotion. Politicians can use empathy to their advantage, whether they have sympathy for the people or not.

My original point about Obama is that his empathy may be a hindrance to him, because he doesn’t have a stong center and tries to be all things to all people, which is what many are calling a lack of guts, or not being willing to fight.

If you have time, check out the section Empathy as a Blinder in this long National Journal Magazine article by Paul Starobin. The article address honor and John McCain, as well, though I think Starobin misses much in this part.

Sep 14, 2008 - 2:55 pm 97. wretchard:

One of the problems with autobiography is the ever-present conflict of interest between the author and the subject. There are several solutions to this dilemma. One is to leave yourself, as much as possible, out of the frame. Winston Churchill’s “With the Malakand Field Force”, “River War” and “From London to Ladysmith” deal with dramatic, even heroic events from which Winston largely airbrushes himself, except when absolutely necessary. The other approach, adopted by Paul Hasluck, is to deal with pre-public life, so that the content can be personal without being political. Yet another approach is to make the account entirely personal so there is no pretense of objectivity to it. But in any event, autobiography remains suspect, not due to malice, but the difficulty of separating the narrator from the subject.

One way to improve an autobiography is to have others examine the same period in one’s life from an outsider’s vantage. An honest author would welcome it. The ultimate accolade is when an independent biographer and the autobiographer reach the same narrative. I think Obama’s account of himself would be improved by independent confirmation. The truer it is, the more he should welcome it.

Sep 14, 2008 - 3:15 pm 98. TonyB:

Apro pro of nothing (I am afraid that I have been drinking, sadly not in the Elephant bar) I just wanted to lob up a few links to counter the anti-Brit element here.

First this link about the battle of Towton:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/destinations/england/article4572704.ece

Half a million amour piercing arrows in ten minutes!

And I am an actual Yorkshireman, so this speaks to me.

But what better has any country ever had written about it than this:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,—
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Sep 14, 2008 - 3:36 pm 99. wretchard:

No one can hide the facts in an autobiography better than a good writer. TE Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom come to mind. It is great writing. Winston Churchill called it “immortal”; far better than anything Obama wrote. It is long, descriptive and beautiful. And yet in the end Lawrence remains a mystery within his own account. Was he gay? Perverted in some other way? Did the events in Turkey really happen? Where did his loyalties lie?

The very greatness of the Seven Pillars has made it the stuff of myth. And maybe that’s what it is.

Sep 14, 2008 - 3:37 pm 100. Mike Sylwester:

There is some speculation that Obama used an Indonesian passport, issued to the name Barry Soetoro, when he was a student at Columbia University and traveled to Pakistan in 1981.

Here is an excerpt from
http://dailymusings.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!EBAB74DA8F94C559!5351.entry
——–
… In 1981 — the year Obama transferred from Occidental College to Columbia University — Obama visited his mother and sister Maya in Indonesia. After that visit, Obama traveled to Pakistan with a friend from college whose family was from there. The Obama campaign says Obama was in Pakistan for about three weeks, staying with his friend’s family in Karachi and also visiting Hyderabad in Southern India.

NOW, It all sounds very innocent, “a college trip to Pakistan”.
Pakistan was in turmoil in 1981 and ruled of martial law. Millions of Afghan refugees were living in Pakistan, while the Afghan Mujahedeen operated from bases inside Pakistan in their war with the Soviets. ….

Pakistan was on the banned travel list for US Citizens at the time and all non-Muslim visitors were not welcome unless sponsored by their embassy for official business. …. Pakistan was not a tourist stop nor the place to hang out with someone’s family in 1981.

Sep 14, 2008 - 4:04 pm 101. NahnCee:

The Manchurian Candidate, except this time the brainwashed spy *is* the Candidate.

Sep 14, 2008 - 4:56 pm 102. Mike Sylwester:

Here is another piece of the puzzle:

http://www.pak-times.com/2008/07/10/obamas-larkana-cnnection/

United State’s Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has a connection with Larkana, city of Bhuttos of Pakistan. In 1981 Obama as a student visited Larkana for a partridge hunting session. His host was one Hasan Chandio. City of Larkana was renamed. Its original name before the raj was Chandka. Chandios are still considered be the biggest landlords of Sindh.

During his visit to Pakistan he stayed in Hasan Chandio’s residence and later he traveled to interior Sindh for partridge hunting. In Sindh partridge hunting is considered as a symbol of good hospitality.

Hasan Chandio is Obama’s Pakistani friend who lives in Westchester County of New York. Obama also made friends with another Sindhi currently Chairman of Senate Muhammadmian Soomro who hails from Shikarpur hardly one hour’s drive from Larkana. He lived at Muhammad Ali Society residence of Ahmad Mian Soomro father of Chairman Senate Muhammadmian Soomro. ….

Sep 14, 2008 - 4:57 pm 103. Wadeusaf:

No, I don’t have sterling academic or professional creds, but I don’t either claim nor pretend them either.

Not saying I’m unimpressed by his resume it is very impressive. However I am not impressed by his claimed accomplishments as they have not accomplished much but cost much, they have not helped much but (so far) they have not harmed much either. I do not anticipate any of the programs he has proposed to help much, and I do anticipate his economic policy to harm a great many, and not the rich. the fact that he cannot see the damage his direction would cause gives me pause about his judgment. The notion that he does not understand why his programs will cause so much harm gives me pause about his intellect. His past experience, from what we I have learned from the Annenberg files and “OH” work with the CAC, gives me reason to pause and await more about his honesty of purpose and honesty of companions. I do not want him to turn out to be a crook, I do not wish him to be seen in a negative light, I just want an honest portrait of the man. That portrait has been too hard to obtain. I am going to ask why?

Sep 14, 2008 - 5:10 pm 104. ridgerunner:

Cedarford,
Maybe you’re one who doesn’t understand supply and demand. Gasoline retailers make little or no money on gas sales; their profit comes from selling overpriced snacks and soft drinks. Within a city, retailers receive deliveries at different times and therefore at different prices. If one retailer receives a delivery priced high (as was the case yesterday for some retailers supplied from the Bainbridge, GA, depot), then he can lawfully mark up from that price. But another retailer with “older” and therefore cheaper gas cannot. So if this second retailer holds his price in the legal range, motorists from all over town quickly buy out his supply, filling up in a hurry and skipping the snacks, so he loses money and is out of gas for his regular customers, who are the ones that keep him in business. His only other alternative is to bag the hoses and not sell any gas. A rational system would allow repricing of all gasoline to the most recent delivery price. Then gas would at least be available. You found it more satisfying to claim price gouging and fling epithets than to think through the consequences of human behavior.

Sep 14, 2008 - 5:14 pm 105. Ken:

Buddy Larsen:

You also have to correct for the fact that Blue States make up a higher proportion of the US population than did the slave states. The actual corrected figure would probably be closer to 500,000.

Sep 14, 2008 - 5:34 pm 106. Ken:

Of course, the Confederates were probably the toughest SOB’s we’ve ever fought, even including the Germans, Japanese, and Redcoats. The moonbats are cowards who sucker punch vets from behind, and who attack old women and little girls. This one would be pretty easy if the GOP would just grow a pair.

Sep 14, 2008 - 5:36 pm 107. ridgerunner:

The possibility that Obama may have been influenced early in the 80’s by Ayers is very disturbing. A further possibility is that Frank Davis was actually his father, not just his mentor.

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/09/obamas-true-parentage-is-barack-obama.html

Scrutinizing facial features for family resemblance doesn’t allow me to form an opinion on the probability of a Davis paternity. However, judging from his photos, Barry Obama’s skin pigmentation seems closer to the northern European end of the Von Luschan scale than one would expect for the offspring of parents who are homozygous (at the three melanin-producing genetic loci), respectively, for northern European and Kenyan alleles. Frank Davis, like most African-Americans, had lighter pigmentation than that of ancestral Africans. I believe the estimate is that the average Caucasian genetic heritage of African-Americans is about 25%. So a Davis paternity could explain low melanin concentration.

Would it be more worrisome for Obama’s psychology if Frank Davis were his father? Would it be more or less worrisome if Obama were unaware of this? This man is a can of worms.

Sep 14, 2008 - 5:55 pm 108. mark:

wretchard writes:

“No one can hide the facts in an autobiography better than a good writer. TE Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom come [sic] to mind . . . .
The very greatness of the Seven Pillars has made it the stuff of myth. And maybe that’s what it is.”

My favorite example of autobiography as fraudulent metaphysical adventure is “Bushmen of the Kalahari” by Laurens van der Post. The author and the book were the favorites of Prince Charles. No surprise there, since Charles has always hungers for authenticity.

Van der Post wrote beautifully, inspirationally, mythically. And he was a fabulist. As you read the book, you can’t help but say to yourself, “This just can’t be true (e.g., spirits of the Kalahari jamming his film equipment). Of course it wasn’t true, but no one could say it wasn’t true until his effects became public after his death.

Who is Barack Obama?

I don’t know. But I’m quite sure that if he looked just like his mother, and his name were Barry Dunham, he’d have no street cred at all. Hé’d just be another Dick Durbin, and his angst would be soley pitiful rather than pitifully attractive.

Sep 14, 2008 - 6:27 pm 109. cjm:

I am thinking more “Midnight Express” than “Manchurian Candidate”.

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:23 pm 110. JFSanders:

I wish those of you crying about price gouging would start a retail business and try to replace your inventory with the pricing structure you espouse.

Good lord almighty. You have to charge more than your replacement cost or you will go broke!

Jim

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:47 pm 111. cjm:

how do you “gouge” someone if the purchase is voluntary? you people decrying “gouging” realize that the alternative is for the providers to run out quickly? and that is fairer how? ever hear of hoarding? black markets? collectivists? jesus.

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:52 pm 112. Benj:

Wade said – “No, I don’t have sterling academic or professional creds, but I don’t either claim nor pretend them either. [But who's pretending - Not O. In fact he doesn't talk up his academic (or literary) achievements. Cept he has been known to note that he writes his own books unlike some other candidates.]

Wade said – “Not saying I’m unimpressed by his resume it is very impressive. However I am not impressed by his claimed accomplishments as they have not accomplished much….”

This is the prose of someone who is trying to bullshit himself. Hell man – you owe your best self an apology…

Back a few months you wrote feelingly about the need to nurture self-esteem in the Hood, the need for fathers to provide examples of discipline, to exercise what my pop once called “the saving right to reprove.” Given that you have read “Dreams “- and O’s speech on Fatherhood? – wondering how the hell you can display contempt for him given HIS clarity about all that. Jesse wants to cut his nuts off – How about you? (Are you down with other Clubbers earlier in this thread who look forward to the coming massacre of the pointy-headed leftists?) – What a fugging world!…Ripe for the rise of Ms. Palin. The campaign the pubs are running has officially become a war against Mind in America. As you know, since you’re read my apology for FIRST, I’ve protested against those who turned “smart” into America’s highest praise-word. (Preferred “soulful” myself – w/ all it’s complications.)- but we’re in the Way-Back machine now. Fools on the left will do their Menckenest to piss on the booboisee, while your side will defend somebody who when asked for an “insight” into foreign policy offers up the fact that she can see the land mass of Russia from Alaska…And? ….No mas….that’s all she’s got. (PS I’m not going to go back and find the cat who was wowed by Palin’s empathetic line on abortion – But check around son – you’ll see she lifted that talking point almost word for word from Obama.)

Sep 14, 2008 - 8:16 pm 113. Nine-of-Diamonds:

“The campaign the pubs are running has officially become a war against Mind in America.”

I see the Obamessiah must’ve broken out his old hash stash and shared it with his alcolytes. Or the primo Colombian “powdered sugar”… Whatever it is, maybe I can have some too if I ask nicely.

Whenever someone refers to “Obama” and “achievements” in the same sentence I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

And I wish the leftists would quit running their mouths about Obama’s fatherhood speeches to black men – nothing more than a pathetic sop to his elite white base to assure them that he’s one of the “good” black guys. Coming from a black man like Colin Powell or John McWhorter I’d accept it – with Obama it is a lot of self-serving trash.

I understand that O lies about his past to the point where you can’t tell up from down, but even I was stunned by some of the stuff I read recently. Sweetness & Light has comments from an Obama SUPPORTER who worked with him in the mid 1980’s. Seems like O’s been telling quite the tall tale about his employment as an “financial consultant”:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/did-obama-turn-down-a-wall-street-career

Keep your eyes peeled for the comment from another coworker, who describes O’s reaction when she tried to explain simple economic concepts to him. Rest assured, though, that it’s SP who’s the idiot. Benj told us so.

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:38 pm 114. Mike Sylwester:

I assume that Obama moved from Los Angeles to New York during the summer of 1981, between the two school years. If he spent three weeks in Pakistan and perhaps even more visiting his mother in Indonesia, then I figure he spent the entire summer traveling around the world. I assume he traveled from Los Angeles through Hawaii to Indonesia and then through Pakistan to New York.

Wahid Hamid and Hasan Chandoo refused reporters’ requests to answer questions in interviews, and Obama wrote nothing about his three-week trip to Pakistan and India in either of his two books.

The trip to India obviously was to visit the home of Vinai Thummalapally, who had been Obama’s room-mate in Los Angeles. Thummalapally was interviewed by the journalists and did not mention this trip either, so he apparently did not travel with Obama during that summer.

I don’t know why Obama decided to move from Los Angeles to New York, but he apparently decided that the change would enable him to make a new start in his life. In particular, he wanted to stop using drugs.

It seems that he wanted to live alone in an apartment in Spanish Harlem. When the heat was turned off in that apartment, however, Obama was compelled by circumstances to live with Sohale Hal Siddiqi, who was a cocaine addict. By that time, however, Obama had developed his strong resolve to stay off drugs.

It’s strange that Obama wrote so frankly about his involvement with drugs and with a drug addict, but wrote nothing at all about this three-week visit to Pakistan and India. After all, he even went partridge hunting in Pakistan. How could he not write about that?

Sep 14, 2008 - 9:45 pm 115. Mike Sylwester:

When I think about this some more, it does not make sense to me that Obama moved out of his Spanish Harlem apartment into another apartment with Siddiqi because there was no heat in his Spanish Harlem apartment.

Sep 14, 2008 - 10:07 pm 116. peterike:

@Benj: This is the prose of someone who is trying to bullshit himself. Hell man – you owe your best self an apology…

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Sep 14, 2008 - 10:17 pm 117. Belmont Club » Beer in the mail room:

[...] recent post, Columbia Days, noticed that Barack Obama’s own account of his arrival in New York so perfectly juxtaposed [...]

Sep 14, 2008 - 10:36 pm 118. Paul:

Several posts have put out some interesting theories.

However, several have said BO is not materialistic. Hmmm. Why would a person not interested in material things arrange a $200,000 raise for his wife for a kickback earmark? Why would that someone ask shady Tony Resko to help him to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars to buy his house? Why would he risk being paid $8,000 a month from Robert Blackwell in exchange for some legislative favors? These are pretty brazen corrupt acts that were not to difficult to discover.

What we do know is:

He had a very disturbing childhood with very little caring or love from either of his parents. Enough to thoroughly traumatize most kids.

He can be very ruthless. He is ambitious. He thinks so highly of himself that he encourages adoration. He does not like to reveal himself. He encourages false impressions and false hopes of what he thinks. He lies shamelessly and can distort the facts on a whim with a straight face. At times, he seems to enjoy cruelly ridiculing his opponents.

Yet he can be charming. He is a gifted speaker. And to some he appears to have empathy for his opponents.

Children experiencing the severe lack of love and caring of a parent often perfect a con artist’s capabilities of charm and disarming wit, just to survive. Could that be Barack?

That he appears at times to care for the poor perhaps can be explained by the brainwashing he received from his commie mother, father, step father and mentors. He seems to consistently seek the approval of the surrogate fathers and mothers of the hard marxist and the wacko Islamist left without regard to the rest of America. The left is the audience he instinctually speaks to.

However, It apparently didn’t bother him that Resko exploited the poor in the projects BHO helped on. Nor has Obama ever risked his personal political capital to genuinely help the Poor. and downtrodden.

Obama is a dangerous enigma. It’s pretty obvious he lusts for power and fame. He may not be a dangerous sociopath, but he is pretty close to one.

Sep 14, 2008 - 11:36 pm 119. 2x4:

Paul, what you describe is a sociopath. It he shoe fits…

Sep 15, 2008 - 12:39 am 120. RattlerGator:

Based on our last screed from Benj — sans any mention of “wretch” (thank you, Benj) — the reality is setting in. Palin has been an exquisitely successful check move on the chessboard and may be a checkmate.

Howl all you want Benj about fools on the left and us over here (your example naturally has you, I presume, in your very own mumbling middle), but criticizing Sarah Palin for a response in the kind of TV interview BLT Barry has never encountered is some weak-ass coffee.

Bring a stronger brew next time, son. So far, it doesn’t appear that y’all have been able to cook up the strong stuff. I do wonder why?

Sep 15, 2008 - 2:37 am 121. Mike Sylwester:

If Obama traveled around the world in 1981 and then arrived in New York City with enough money to rent an apartment by himself, then where did he get the money?

Obama arranged to move into an apartment by himself in Spanish Harlem, but after a while, the landlord turned off the heat. Instead of taking some measures to compel the landlord to turn the heat back on, Obama mekely moved out of that apartment, indicating to me that Obama had stopped paying the rent or else was being evicted.

Then Obama moved in with his Pakistani friend Sadik, and for a while they have lots of money to visit bars, pick up women and generally party. Then Obama moved out and lived like a monk by himself, and Sadik descended disasterously into drug addiction.

I wonder if Obama barely saved himself from a heroin addiction or had a scare from some really bad guys. Maybe he spent much of the following time in a 12-step anonymous group, which is why none of his associates from that period, except Sadik, can be identified. These circumstances might also explain his conversion to Christianity. He might have converted to Islam, but maybe he needed to stay away from former associates who were Moslems.

Who knows, maybe Obama met Ayers in a 12-step program near Columbia University.

This is just my reckless speculation, and I might be totally wrong. Obama has admitted he had a drug problem for a while. I am speculating only that his problem lasted longer, into his Columbia University period, and was much more serious.

Anybody who turns his life around and rises from an addiction has my admiration, especially if he succeeds to an extraordinary extent, as Obama has succeeded.

Sep 15, 2008 - 5:29 am 122. Wadeusaf:

It is “OH” and folks who have rushed him into the position that need to ask about the kids in the hood, I and others far more knowledgeable in that academic arena, have warned you against it. Have stated both gently and loutishly that the emperor has no clothes, and needs to be examined with a more critical eye. Your response has consistently been more “gush”.

Given his clarity? Given his clarity? Given his clarity why the hell would he continue to pull out the kind of pageantry that exudes such nonsense, such hubris, such royal crap. We fought a war to become independent of a king, and another to retain that independence. Why should we give it all up for a notion of what? Psudo psyco marxist prattle? You do everyone a disfavor by keeping “OH” in such esteem.

Sep 15, 2008 - 6:23 am 123. Wadeusaf:

BTW, the significance of being able to see Russia from Alaska’s shore, of fishing in the same waters as Russian fishermen, does somehow escape you. But then that isn’t the first time you chose to overlook the obvious. Or did you merely fail to account for that rather obvious dimension. Try this on Benj, you can see America from Manhattan too?

Sep 15, 2008 - 6:29 am 124. Benj:

Wade – The significance of the tight connectin between Russia and Alaska didn’t escape me – moored though I may be on the island of Manhattan…The point is that Palin did not provide ANY add-on. She just left it there. When pressed by Gibson for SOMETHING more – he asked how her state’s locale offered her unique insights into the Georgia/Russia conflict – she managed to offer up the thought that it’s a small world…And that we have to hang tight with our neighbors and “allies” ? i.e. Russia? Given her earlier line on Russian aggression, this seemed less than consecutive. But there was NO train of thought in the interview – She wasn’t thinking – she was just trying to avoid making a MISTAKE. DAvid Gergen – Mr. No-Speak-Ill-Of-Anyone-Who-May-One-day-Be-in-POWER defended her FP interview. But his first response to the second interview was telling. He was flummoxed. Palin on the economy was “incoherent.” He dialed it WAY back the next time around but…

For the record – I bet Palin is “smart” as per Kilkenny (hope you noticed that the poster who claimed Fact Check has debunked K’s letter was mistaken). But she’s not someone who’s thought hard about national policy matters and she is deeply provincial. Given Mac’s health, picking her was supremely reckless – Country First?

Check Rich Lowry in the Post today beating up on the generals – Casey , PAce et al – after reading the Woodward book. I think he’s too hard on them though he busts Rummy too – Hard to think – at this point – that there was a seamless learning curve re Iraq. And hard too, to lay it all on the State Dept. The idea of Bush passing calmatives through Keane to Petraeus – Then, having Mr. P. respond “I wish he’d tell it to the Chief(s)!!” …Pretty killing to anyone who wants to pretend W. is going look real good down the line…

Sep 15, 2008 - 7:28 am 125. Nine-of-Diamonds:

Incorrect. She elaborated on her quote about Russia. But then again, that’s one of the things your boy Gibson edited out. All in the interest of fairness, of course. Compare this mutilated “interview” to the tongue bath Gibby gave the Magic Negro not too long ago. “How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?”

And it’s hilarious hearing you ramble on about “reckless” decisions and lack of experience considering who is leading your ticket. The greatest Harvard Affirmative Action case never to publish anything as Chief Editor of the law review.

Of course you think proposals like “cutting wasteful spending” are “incoherent”. Economic failure is a FEATURE of leftist politics, not a bug. How else to breed the dependency that the Obamas and Ayers and Rev. Goddam Americas of this world need to keep their base of power?

Sep 15, 2008 - 4:13 pm 126. Wadeusaf:

I don’t see it as a reckless pick. In fact, I believe it will soon be all too telling just how informed the decision and the Governor are. there is a great deal of sublimating, call it what you will of suppression, or even submission of ones own agenda as a VP candidate to the Presidential and even to the party agenda. That much is certain, but how much of grasp Governor Palin has on International issues after standing up to multinational corporations and negotiating with Canada a treaty about the NG pipeline. These are the stuff of a lot of nuts and bolts that plays in Georgia every bit as much as in the Bering sea. The hands on learning which accompanied that experience is something of consequence, something “OH” has not a similar claim to.
I would say that any mayor who has the kind of approval rating after multiple terms, is not someone to be tripped up by the disgruntled. Although I am sure it would have been tried no matter who the nominees were, as that is Biden and the Democrat style (a la Bork and Thomas). It is an excellent sign that such examination has rendered no TKO. The lady is solid.

As to the Post’s remark I have not read Lowery’s article, but I am finding less fresh air than I anticipated, in Bing West’s book.(I am a slow and deliberate reader, what can I say) Comprehension is greater that way I am told, but now a days so is the tendancy to drool on the pages of some of the dryer materials. West gives an excellent vision of the frustrations from the front lines, but his portrait of how Washington worked is more irritaiting for its lack of detail, as opposed to Fieth’s book which was long on detail and short on problem definition and resolution (I can say CYA). I stand by the notions I have developed over time, that the armed forces were not ready for the conflict we had to engage in. No matter how many boots, we would have had to fight an insurgency, no matter how many boots “read targets” or boots “read supply” or boots read “trigger pullers” the nature of and complications of past policy in Iraq meant we were/are going to be there for a while. No other way as far as I can determine.

Sep 15, 2008 - 5:37 pm 127. Wadeusaf:

Nine o Diamonds statement about the editing of the interview is correct. Although it is hard to judge inflection from transcripts, and flow of thought without knowing where the pause and stammerers fell in. (I think that maybe the edit job could be called Palin-wood. But that would be a bit of a stretch).
From the aired pieces the statements are not complete. The inflection hacked and halting. It is not even how she sounded when introduced as the VP pick, or how she extended the title of “King of the Crabs” or whatever to that Aussie(?) talk show host.

Sep 15, 2008 - 9:38 pm 128. Benj:

Nine 0 Diamond’s claim is false – Hope you notice how often this has been happening lately Wade? – See the full transcript below – It’s my understanding the Q&A following Palin’s first answer was edited out of the video interview. (And ABC did Palin a favor there.) She did not “elaborate” on her answer until she was pressed – and then added nothing of substance. Tina Fay had her dead to rights. Please do take a look at the follow-up answer and ask yourself if that incoherent melange avec “Small World”, assurance that there’s no Cold War coming, and those floating “allies” (which seem to reference a neighborly Russia she’d invoked earlier in the interview and then morphs back into, I guess, NATO buds who will be pressuring the Bear?) During the first FP interview, Palin was NOT thinking on her feet – she was trying to find the p.c. (and I use that term advisedly) phrases to get her through…

“GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I’m giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.”

BTW – You are certainly right that Palin sounded better when she was first introducing herself. (Though for me the key was how uncomfortable Mac looked on that stage…) I saw a C-Span interview (as I mentioned recently) from a few months back, in which she came off easy and confident and winning. But she wasn’t being asked for opinions on Pakistan or the M.E. or the National economy or gays…

As I was looking over the transcript, I came across quite a few sentences that reminded me of the prose-bomb you dropped when I questioned your claim (earlier in this thread) that O was an empty suit w/ no significant achievements in his past…You knew you’d gone over the top there. While it was fine to complain re O’s “rush” to Presidential candidacy, way wrong to discount entirely his academic and literary accomplishments which, as you acknowledged (second time around), were “impressive.”

So here’s one of her sentences re her global warming flip-flop that jumped out at me. By the way – I’m a bit of a global warming skeptic myself!!! Not all that bothered by her positions (then – “I’m not a doom and gloom environmentalist like Al Gore blaming the changes in our climate on human activity.” – or now). Just noticed how BADLY/baldly she tried to finesse the deal…

“That is why I’m attributing some of man’s activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate right now…”

Can you hear the sound of sinning?

Here’s the whole exchange:

GIBSON: Yes, but isn’t it critical as to whether or not it’s man-made, because what you do about it depends on whether its man-made.
PALIN: That is why I’m attributing some of man’s activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate right now.
GIBSON: But I, color me a cynic, but I hear a little bit of change in your policy there. When you say, yes, now you’re beginning to say it is man-made. It sounds to me like you’re adapting your position to Sen. McCain’s.
PALIN: I think you are a cynic because show me where I have ever said that there’s absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any affect, or no affect, on climate change.

- Hang with the twists in that last “answer” – Again this is the response of someone who is bullshitting – “show me where I have ever said that there’s absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any affect, or no affect, on climate change.” Show me…Wha’? Alaska – under Ms. Palin – seems to be something other than the show-me state…

Wade – When YOU CYA-ed your way around O’s actual accomplishments your prose indicated you don’t lie easily! – A sign of character!!. You’re a straight shooter. And you’re no Palin…See the latest re the Troopergate thingy – She’s now gone back on her stated willingness to talk to the investigators. Why? Because (she claims) the Obama campaign is the orchestrating the effort to get her to talk. Though, of course, the investigation (in question) pre-dated her Nomination. Did you see the (fired) head of the Alaska State Police – and former chief of Police in Anchorage – on the tube last night – Good witness. Course he should be – he’s a cop-for-life. Still he seemed quietly confident that there were others in the SP hierarchy who would confirm his story. We’ll see, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. (And when Obama turns the White House into the Black House and/or introduces Sharia Law in the States, Wretch can say he warned me!)

One last point re “my boy” Gibson as per Nine(ty-nine and a half-truth won’t do). Gibson is only slightly more than a hack. You may recall that he and Stephanopolous presided over the debate in which O was asked repeatedly re the Flag Pin, the pledge, The Star Spangled Banner, Ayers etc. – Then Hillary piled on. I’m not a fan of Gibson’s head or manner – and never have been. Gibson screwed up bigtime w/ Palin on the God’s plan quote – and he should be held accountable for it…He should also be credited with asking questions that revealed Ms. Palin is a pretty provincial person. Her unworldliness underscores one of O’s virtues. He knows much more about the dailiness of life outside the USA – in Indonesia, Pakistan, Kenya etc. than either of his opponents. But he’s running for Pres of the USA – not head-of-the U.N.? Sure. But – for good (and sometimes ill) – we’re the indispensable nation and (or but!) the world impinges on us more everyday. Important to have have a Pres who understands how it all ties together…

Re Iraq – I hear you re skepticism about “boots on the ground” arg at the top. But probably important to figure the Iraqis into the timing thingy. My guess is that Mac isn’t as attuned as he needs to be to internal Iraqi politics. (Which is how his position on the timeline came to undermined by Maliki.) That Kurd – deputy pm – Barham Salih may be a key here – By the way – saw there’s a new book out now just focused on PEtraeus and the Surge year(s). Not sure if I’ll get to it. You’re a better man than moi if you pushed through the Feith. Like to claim I knew better than to try, but not true – Time is Tight.

Sep 16, 2008 - 11:52 am 129. peterike:

This is late to the thread, but…

Benj, you obnoxiously stick out your jaw and say “THIS is what Palin said about Russia” and then leave more than half her comments unlisted.

You’re a phony and a fraud, just like your boy Obama.

Sep 18, 2008 - 12:45 am 130. Bob Murphy:

And Benj is verbose as well, Peterike.

Sep 18, 2008 - 2:59 am 131. Wadeusaf:

Benj, no I stated his resume appears impressive. There is this disconnect between appearance and actual verifiable proof of accomplishment.

I’m not going to jump up and down every time a new rumor appears to contradict what is and what is not known. It is a criminal investigation underway (and an ethics probe) that unfortunately tend to get trampled in a rush to pass judgment. Pressure is no doubt being applied to serve justice independently of the pressure applied by the press to meet deadlines and politicos drop dead line.

Confidence projected is not necessarily confidence. Provincialism, how quaint. Sounds like a smear word like “progressive” used to be, lol.

I think the high minded appearance of the press, in the face of incomplete, incomprehensible and inconsistent data and flawed science implied in a rush to judgment about man and global warming is similar to the rush to judgment in the SP investigation. The facts not being known and the data not all in, it is premature and full of gas to indicate guilt on anyone’s part.

Appearances would have damned a whole lot of good marines, and a whole lot of other folks too. But that one accomplishment we know for a fact that “OH” attached his name to and helped to guide through the Illinois legislature. It isn’t by mere chance that the press is bumbling through the church hall and RFD listings for anyone with a passing grudge about anyone who might have been the Mayor.

You give “OH” way too much credit for too much on less real information than you would have us turn on Governor Palin over. I think the learning curve of managing a town to managing a State and all the negotiations in between speaks well of the Governors ability to analyze and assimilate data quickly and come to the right conclusions and make the best decisions. It is a judgment thing. “OH” history doesn’t speak to judgment but feelings. His history doesn’t talk the talk of accomplished leadership, but of glamor magazine.

I suppose that is why all of the “reports” on “OH” tend to be gossipy too. He’s like the invisible man (not Ellison’s), no history but what has been made up to satisfy an audience.

Sep 18, 2008 - 4:50 am 132. Benj:

Peterike – When Nine claimed foul re the editing of Palin, I went back to check if ABC had cut her statement down. Doubted that but if someone calls you…The transcript confirmed what I recalled. There was no editing of her first short and blank response to Gibson’s ask for “insight.” She left that line about being able to SEE Russia out there hanging. Gibson had to follow up. And her second shot wasn’t much better (as I detailed in my post above). I suppose you could argue the editing underscored the lameness of Palin’s repsonse – rather than thinking (as I suggested) that Gib did P a favor. But her line was not clipped unfairly – You got (and I gave) the Full Monty. It stuck out to anyone unenthralled by her persona/celebrity. (Tina Fay obviously noticed.) So…

How the hell can you tell yourself I’m a “fraud/phony”? Facts are facts. AClubbers tend to reach for the invective when you got no bullets. As I mentioned above – this is getting ridiculous. A couple threads back, somebody assured WADE – after I invoked the Kilkenny letter (avec caveats) – that Fact Check had debunked that letter. So I check Fack Check. Turns out they say explicity they had NOT debunked Kilkenny’s claims.

WADE – I go right and left in search of info. Maybe you should too. Andrew Sullivan just slammed O (rightly) for two less than truthful ads. But, man, just check Sully’s fact-checking on Palin’s expert howlers – Dig that one on Alaska producing 20% of America’s energy? She be BULLshitting on the regular!! Even AFTER her lies are exposed.

Here’s a column by a conservative columnist in Alaska re the investigation – mebbe there’s back-story here (guy could be a Stevens partisan or somebody with personal ax to grind) but Palin’s serial explanations for the firing of the State Policer does not inspire confidence…

http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/528420.html

Re – Global warming – you seem to be avoiding MY point there. I pointed to here anything-but-straight talk on the subject – Could you evenk make out what she was trying to say? Another sign of an impulse to prevaricate, no?

Re O’s resume – Glad you invoked that bill re taping confessoins that (you and me both would) agree was a more significant achievement than graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School. Still – that last one isn’t NOTHING (along with the little add-on of being the Editor of the Law Review). Here’s some passages from an old National Review piece by Dean Barrett. Bit of a twit – Big Mitt man – and not much of a prophet – wondered in the same piece why O was getting no traction in the Dem primaries…But his reporting here is to the point, especially since some fools here have been pretending that O’s H-years were all about Affirmative Action (If so, his achievements make a STRONG case for race-based preferences!!!) Here’s Barrett from last year in the NR:

“The only reason I bring this barely relevant history up is to show what a stud of a law student Barack Obama was. He graduated Harvard magna cum laude. This was one honor you unquestionably had to earn. It’s a very impressive feat. Back in Obama’s days at Harvard, more than 50 percent of the class graduated cum laude, a fact that made graduating “with honors” a meaningless accomplishment. But graduating magna was a different kettle of fish. Barack Obama graduated right near the top of his law school class.

That fact, along with his presidency of the Law Review, makes his uniform popularity all the more impressive. Law schools are intensely competitive places. People who thrive to an unseemly extent, as Obama did, are usually subject to an array of resentments. After all, the lawyers of tomorrow populate law schools; pettiness and insecurity reign supreme.

The people that Obama so thoroughly charmed generally weren’t the charm-prone types. I say the following as a well known Republican partisan–the fact that his classmates so universally held him in the highest regard suggests that Barack Obama may truly be a special person.”

MURPH the SURF – I’m a leg man too!

Sep 18, 2008 - 11:41 am 133. Wadeusaf:

“Dig that one on Alaska producing 20% of America’s energy? She be BULLshitting on the regular!! Even AFTER her lies are exposed.”

Alaska accounted for on average 20% of the nations Energy Production in the 80′ and in the 90’s. The figures, modified recently (within the last seven months) to reflect the rising demand and consumption of foreign energy in the early years of the new century are slightly less than 15%. We have every confidence that Alaska can produce a lot more than 20%, an that is no BULL. No shit. Pretty good stat for promoting production, not a lie but certainly nothing to get all unhinged about.

Do you really want to go on the record supporting the claims of a (reported) child abuser and (reported) spouse beater. Isn’t “OH” in enough trouble already on that sort of stuff, get a grip man.

“OH” may be a truly special person, but not special enough to be President. Maybe he’ll figure out what he can do, and what he wants to do someday. You’ve run through the list of real accomplishment. Three is the number I think, nothing against school but academic environments make for a poor and narrow perspective. Applying what was learned is the real test, the real deal. It is the conspicuous lack of originality, and the dearth of deed that gives me pause in slack jawed amazement that so much could be entrusted with someone who has demonstrated so little. That by comparison Governor Palin has more real world experience is not contestable. That Governor Palin, as a business owner has a real feel for the struggles of average Americans is nothing to short change. That Governor Palin has a real verifiable track record of bringing about positive change and promoting beneficial policies is undeniable. That Governor Palin has really taken on corruption within and without the GOP in Alaska, cannot be denied. What comparable feat has “OH” to display? He gives a nice speech and pressed a bill through a state legislature, a bill whose time had come.

I remain less impressed by intellect and more impressed by the application of ideas especially those supported by ideals. I am impressed with General Petreaus not because of his intellect but like Governor Palin, because of the application of knowledge in a way that helps others to be successful. As a community organizer there ought to be dozens of stories about “OH” success stories. Acorn? The failures of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

What totally makes me blush for you “OH” guys is that he doesn’t stack up to the GOP VP candidate. When compared to the Presidential one…I have to ask, what were the Democrats thinking? What were the Democrats thinking,

Sep 18, 2008 - 4:54 pm 134. Benj:

Wade – I cut and pasted the Fact Check account of Palin’s (out of time) line on energy production – “Energetically Wrong.” – at the end of Wretch’s last thread…

Noticed you don’t really speak to the points I made re her bs on Climate change or her laughable reponse to Gibson’s first (and second) ask for “insight”…

But. Let’s cut to the chase. We’re not going to see “experience/qualifications” the same way…- Lot of that has to do with fam/background I suspect. Look – my (passed) pop has willed a nice little chunk of change which I’ll probably use to help pay for my kid’s college. ‘Preciate his financial management/acuity that enabled his contrib…He also wrote a half-dozen books and more than a few essays that my boy might read (with profit) when he grows up. Which gift do you think I value more? It ain’t the $. O’s two books matter bigtime in my estimation. I read them as a personal and then a wonkish attempt to revive a moribund political philosophy and way of being in the world – Call it (as I have) liberal-mindedness. That philosophy is not yours. But if you put yourself in my shoes (as O often manages to put himself in the shoes of folks who don’t agree w/ him), maybe you’ll see why his intellectual “achievements” seem to me to be, sorry, infinitely more signficant than Ms. Palin’s experience running a biz or a small town or small state awash in oil revenues. O’s achievements also dwarf Mac’s. Mac doesn’t write his own stuff. And he’s not a deep thinker about American politics or culture…

Mind matters. Especially when the guy with an exceptional one has spent years figuring out how to put himself in a position where where he can jump the shadow that so often fall between the idea and the act.

PS Where the bodies are counts too. I don’t think Rezko is a killer, but I wanted to take a bath after I read those Globe stories about O’s connections with those sceevy developers in Chi-town. If I were you, I’d be feeling dirtied right about now re troopergate. C’mon man – It isn’t about the bad apple you cite. It’s Palin’s (reported) firing of that (ex-marine) Monahan!! (whom she first claimed NOT to have fired and now says she ditched because he was egregiously insubordinate). I’d agree the facts in the case have yet to be determined but consider P’s new-found determination to avoid the very accountability that she was “welcoming” two months back. It stinks…

Sep 19, 2008 - 8:51 pm 135. Wadeusaf:

The more I learn about the probe, the more I agree with Palin’s current stance. the Dem party is attempting to hijack the hearing, willing to sacrifice to their political goals the safety of the citizens of the State of Alaska. The partisan is really blooming this time of year, I hear. It should make a good fore-ground to that panoramic view of Russia.
BTW: Your stats speak not to production but use. There is a huge difference, sorry if your stats and (not mine but State of Alaska) stats don’t agree. I think I will stand by the State of Alaska though.

Charlie’s questions re the Doctrine, were not very in depth nor well defined. Not even given Charlies take of what the Doc was (which he gave after the third take) My own sense of the Bush Doctrine is something else entirely, BTW. The answer wasn’t great, but given the question…better than Charles performance. So what is Biden’s take on it, as his is the more important view of those two, isn’t it? Cough, cough.

Mac is no slouch. I’m not a fan of his legislative efforts while in cahoots with Dems, I am not about to question his input and his stamp on speeches, statements, legislation and (as Science and Technology Chair) even e mail. A navy pilot doesn’t get to fly muliti billion dollar birds being technologically incompetent.

I get what you are saying re your son’s grandpa. I get too, what your dad had over “OH”. His writing was proven over time, Honed by more outward observation and realized as prose after internalization. “OH” has nice prose, but as he was writing about himself there is nothing there to internalize. The resulting suggestions for change are not tested, or the results not properly collected, quantified or defined. Policy should not be based on what is wished for, but on what is. Leading opinion back to a solid grounded and substantive position may require nodding to the gods of Carbon foot prints, but I would never kneel nor swear obeisance. And that is exactly what I think Governor Palin has stated on climate change.

So you really think defending abusive behavior is okay?

Sep 19, 2008 - 10:00 pm 136. Benj:

A writer I’ve mentioned here before named George Trow LOVED Ike. He made a nice case for Ike’s (now forgotten) memoirs. Cited a couple passages showing how Ike’s “eye traveled,” how he was alive to history as it was being made…Reminds me of passages in “Audacity” – I’m thinking of O’s account of the walk you take from the bowels of the building into the Senate chambers. Or his take on meeting Bush (and sharing a laugh about competing against Alan Keyes). Or his “full” fifteen minutes with Robert Byrd (who tiptoes around his own legacy as he looks at the Afro-Am who’s overcome it). The intelligence on display in those passges is palpable. It was all the way live in the race speech (and in others as well)…What can I say Wade – DENNIS!!!!??? When you could have truly fine mind on the mountaintop, seems sad to settle…

PS re Palin – again – You’re slipping the subject. The issue is Palin vs. Monahan. Doubt it was M.’s place to come down on one side (or another) AFTER one of his troopers got in (and OUT!) of a nasty divorce. Do you regularly try to force your co-workers to get involved in your family matters and then fire them if they choose to steer clear? Doesn’t sound like a sound conservative postion to me! And of course you do know that since her VP selection, Palin’s defense has been organized by legal pro engaged by/in Mac’s campaign…

Sep 20, 2008 - 8:45 pm 137. Wadeusaf:

You are spending way too much time figuring out issues when I am waiting for my first issue in my mail box.

Your claims on both the energy issue and the “trooper gate” are trumped up. A specialty of your man’s man, Senator JB.

Use the mind to accomplish something, then we can applaud the intellect. Otherwise it is good for Jeopardy, and not much else.

Sep 21, 2008 - 3:58 am 138. Wadeusaf:

Besides, Walt was an at will employee, sort of like the staff of the white house travel agency. What was questioned was Palin’s motivation, what is at issue now is partisanship and the threat of “October Surprises” with or without evidence, which if the statement is to be believed is being withheld pending the improperly most politically advantageous moment to release er leak such stuff to the press.

Right now I wouldn’t believe anything the dem guy in Alaska reported anyway. His statements made his effort all the more unreliable.

I would unwelcome that kind of stuff too, kind of a disinvitation.

Sep 21, 2008 - 4:33 am 139. Benj:

Now I’m shamed Dennis – Sent you back issues at least, no? If not – I’ll get em in the mail now. The book has screwed everything up – spose to get a review that would help but kinda hanging there…- One of my two co-editors has also been buried in a landlord tenant case – Got to make sure he’s not on the street. VERY dicey situation – so FIRST-ing has been complicated. BTW – think that FIRSTer is probably voting for MAC!! So that’s been a tender subject for us – But he checked in to Club when I told him re Ken! He disputed my line that Ken was a kook. Nope, he said, he’s a “oaf.” Fine distinctions. I took his point (and his word)!! Let me know if you haven’t got issues!!

Sep 21, 2008 - 9:11 pm 140. Wadeusaf:

I’d prefer being referred to by screen name, otherwise, no issues, er either.

Sep 21, 2008 - 11:35 pm

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