Who's the real Obama?

Karen is exactly right. McCain and Obama are just flip-sides of the same coin. They are looking for a third-ground, but they are also beholden to the extremes of their party. McCain is no maverick when it comes to voting and policy, yet he is a maverick merely because he sometimes questions the polarization of our current politics. Obama is no maverick when it comes to voting and policy, yet he is a maverick because he seeks a third way.

If you need proof that the public doesn't listen to the MSM as much as some fear, just consider that Obama's overseas trip, hailed as triumphant by much of the MSM, appears to have backfired and reduced his popularity in the U.S.

I found the recent piece about Obama in the New Yorker (the one with the infamous cover) to be very illuminating about his political career in Chicago and Illinois. That piece convinced me that Obama is a smart politician who is probably as opportunistic as the next fella.

Personally, the more I hear about Obama 'warts and all' the more inclined I am to vote for him. It's when I hear the Obama-Messiah crap that I start thinking about writing in 'Hillary Clinton' in November.

I am also disappointed in McCain's recent attack ads. As one piece put it in Slate or Salon, McCain is right to go after Obama about his position on the surge, but when his ads blame Obama for high gas prices or implies that Obama may be "the one" as in the anti-Christ, then McCain loses a lot of credibility with me.

I don't require my politicians to be sinless or never to flip-flop, but it is nice when they are able to maintain a degree of consistency through a single election cycle.

Or is it possible, just possible, that Obama has grown more conservative with age, as so many of us do? Isn't it possible that his move toward the center – while clearly political, in part – could also be an authentic reflection of his growing maturity? After all, he's still a fairly young man, and his politics could certainly be in transition. Lots of folks lose their liberal, utopian idealism as they life unfolds and reality sets in. Maybe Barack Obama WAS an ultra-liberal back then, and IS a moderate, now. Would that really be so strange?

Vote for McCain if you want, Rod. You probably should. But don't try to sell us the "straight talk" line. The positions that John McCain took early in the Bush presidency are nearly impossible to reconcile with the 2008 candidate. John Kerry was beaten up for supposed flip-flops that don't remotely approach McCain's gymnastics this century.

As for Brooks: "Ronald Reagan was forever associated with the small-town virtues of Dixon." Oh, please. The man was a Hollywood actor who was married to two different Hollywood actresses, was the governor of California, and hadn't lived within a couple of time zones of Dixon for several decades when he ran for president. To be clear, this is a criticism of Brooks, not of Reagan. Silliness.

And what to in the bland platitude-ridden dreck of his speeaches can you point to as evidence that with age Obama has grown or changed in any way? He's says NOTHING.He says it very well, whcih we are told is really great.

Having professionally been on both sides of the fence of the criminal justice system, those Illinois bills he so heatedly supported on "racial profiling" and opposed on blended sentencing show me that the man is a callow fool, a classic bleeding heart root causes dope. Both were instances of clear, sensible adult solutions, which Obama vehemently opposed.

He voted against criminals being barred from associating with known gang members-is this guy a complete idiot or what?Those kinds of restrictions are what keeps gang and mafia crime in check.Think of Uncle Junior being reduced to meeting Tony in the doctor's office. That's the idea-interrupt their communications. How could a responsible thinking person oppose it?

I'm with the proprietor. Mccain is a known commodity, and on many things he will likely dissappoint. But that's preferable to what we can glean about Obama from pieces such as those of Brooks and Kurtz.

Well, Bugg, I tend to agree with you. And I will be voting for McCain. I was simply pointing out that while Obama COULD be an ultraliberal masquerading as a moderate, he might also be a former ultraliberal who has become a moderate. You say there's not evidence that he's changed a bit, but he must be doing SOMETHING moderate-like, or Rod would never have suggested that he's "masquerading" as a moderate.

He voted against criminals being barred from associating with known gang members-is this guy a complete idiot or what?Those kinds of restrictions are what keeps gang and mafia crime in check.Think of Uncle Junior being reduced to meeting Tony in the doctor's office. That's the idea-interrupt their communications. How could a responsible thinking person oppose it?
Posted by: Bugg | August 5, 2008 10:23 AM

A responsible thinking person could oppose it because the Constitutional protection of Freedom of Association applies to everyone, even 'bad' people.

Rod,

As with so many of the criticisms of Obama, this article could describe any modern politician, particularly the successful ones. Our systems requires that politicians learn to talk like they are centrist regardless of their true leanings.

Hmmm. Let's see if this is right:

1) Obama says one thing.
2) A few years later, he takes a different position.
3) Therefore, he is a fraud.

So, does this mean:

1) Rod supported the Iraq war.
2) Rod now says it was a mistake.
3) Rod is a fraud.

Did I do that right?

Obama's problem in 2008 is the same as Dewey's in 1948: all the atmospherics and all the trends and all the general poll preferences show that his election is inevitable. It may indeed be so, but when Dewey was faced with that, his advisers told him the same things Axelrod & Co. are now telling Senator Lightworker: Don't rock the boat. Don't say anything to antagonize anyone. Don't say anything controversial, just speak in platitudes. Cool, baby, cool.

And it will probably work, not that he'll end up with any mandate more than to continue to read glibly from the teleprompter. But it does mean that you will listen in vain for the next three months for anything to help you decide "who" the real Obama is. There will be no conclusive evidence to find or be forthcoming, Kurtz' sifting through Chicago tea leaves notwithstanding. Every word that has come out of that man's mouth since the mike check at the 2004 convention speech has been calculated with one goal in mind: making him President of the United States.

So it doesn't matter whether he is a doctrinaire liberal, or a sociopath. Richard Nixon, who knew a thing or two about complex personalities seeking the presidency, once said there are only two reasons people run for high political office: first, people who want to be elected to do important things, and second, people who want to be elected in order to be important. Obama is definitely the latter. So is McCain. So was Hillary, and Romney, and Huckabee. If a man's central program is "me behind the desk", then saying whatever it takes to get there is not sociopathic, nor a betrayal of your ideology. It is simply being true to yourself.

Thank you COL for your very straight forward letter. It was better than any I have read.

I use to be a conservative when it was real but it has sold out to become a hawkish, money grabbing theocracy. With McCain the Teocracy has been minnalised but the rest of it is still true. Who is the real Obama? I don't know but what ever he is, its still a better choice than a President that lives for war and rewards the rich at the expence of the working (or rather unemployed) American.

I agree, Reaganite. The people who started the Obama-as-Messiah or Obama-as-Savior nonsense were his supporters. That uncritical (for the most part) adulation left him open to the "Obama-as-anti-Christ" attacks.

Since I was never infatuated, I find it much easier to consider holding my nose and voting for Obama. He is a smart man and may turn out to be a better President than we think. And he is pragmatic enough to flip-flop on occasion (aka to change his mind or his positions).

Sal Mineo-what about the millions that Obama and the minions of other pro-aborts want to allow to die through the heinous act of abortion? Where these innocents should be the safest they are ripped, pulled, and have their brains sucked out.

I tend to agree with Karen, Daniel, and Heather.

[T]he thought of a president as radical as Obama in the White House with a Democratic Congress at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue is frankly unnerving.

It couldn't possibly more unnerving than a president as radical (to the Right) as Bush in the White House these last seven years with a Republican Congress at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and a Democratic minority that has meekly caved in to the Republicans' desires (read Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com) to aid and abet them, now, could it?

Look, I'm not going to defend McCain. I don't care for his temperament, I don't like his flip-flopping, and I don't like his approach to foreign policy. But I believe, with reason, that I can be reasonably sure of what I'm going to get out of a McCain administration.

This is what I don't qute get. I have great respect for Rod's positions, and I think that he lays them out well even when I disagree. However, this is puzzling. Rod, you've written at length about how you bought a bill of goods with W. and how disillusioned you've become with him, the Republicans, and the Right, which as you accurately point out, is not the same as "conservatism" properly understood. You have also noted how you fear McCain will be four more years of the same, possibly worse. I'm not saying you have to vote for Obama; but given all this, I can't see how you can possibly vote for McCain, knowing it may make things even worse. Also, given many of the troubling directions McCain has gone in his campaign of late, and given that you've admitted being taken in by W., how do you konw you can be "reasonably sure of what" you're going to get?

I have become disillusioned with both parties, frankly. Each is beholden to interests that don't coincide with mine or those of most Americans. Each has some positions I agree with and some I vehemently disagree with.As Rita Mae Brown once put it, it's like choosing between syphilis and gonorrhea. Under ordinary circumstances I don't know if I'd vote for Obama or not. However, if either party had had such a disastrous two terms and made such a total mess of pretty much everything, foreign and domestic, I think I would pretty much automatically vote for the other party. In this case, that's the Democrats, but if they'd been in charge the last seven years with similar results, I'd probably vote McCain.

As to Obama having "radical" ideas, we can't be sure at this stage, but as I said he couldn't be much more radical to the Left than W. and co. were to the Right. Things tend to balance out in the long run. And the great thing about this country is that "radical" is still a relative term, compared with other countries. Obama is not Stalin and W. is not Hitler.

Anyway, I think that if one absolutely can't stomach either side, one can always vote third party (I did that in '96 myself), or write in a candidate (as George Will once did). In a way it's "throwing away" your vote, but if one is truly caught on the horns of the dilemma, it is an honorable choice, I think. We really need a strong third-party movement in this country, anyway.

Oops IRSs + IRAs

I would infinitely have preferred having McCain in the Oval Office for the past 8 years to having Bush. But, for the next 4-8 years, not so much.

Meanwhile, what about those of us who saved while our neighbors were buying big houses and new cars, so we would have something to live on besides Social Secutity when we retired?

There have been plenty of irresponsible people who have bought "big houses and new cars" rather than saving, not to mention those who took out equity loans on their houses for more cash, only to lose their houses after the mortgage crisis. They made bad choices and are reaping the results thereof.

On the other hand, there are many who neither bought big houses and cars, nor got irresponsible equity loans, and still didn't save, because they were working too hard for too little to barely keep afloat, or because they have lost jobs (or had to work at lower-paying jobs) as the economy has slowed down.

I might note that many with IRA investments in various stocks have lost huge amounts of money from such things as fiascos with Enron and others over the last ten years. Recall that these massive failures were the result of reckless practices brought about by the loosened oversight and regulation that has been pushed for years by Republicans, whose motto seems often to be, "From most according to their ability to all who can profit from it".

Moreover, there was a story a few weeks ago that said that few Americans will be able to retire at the normal age or level of income, and suggested that most Americans need to cut their consumption by at least 25% just to be able to retire at all if current trends continue. The trends cited were the increased shift over the last 25 years from defined-benefit (traditional) retirement plans to defined-contribution plans (e.g. 401(k)'s and IRA's). These are the types of transitions that have once again been promoted by Republicans. Unfortunately they are also riskier (as I think we have all seen by now).

The point is that while we shouldn't condone irresponsible financial behavior, it is facile to imply that Obama's plan is bad while ignoring the huge part Republican policies over the last two decades have played in encouraging that very same irresponsible behavior (as Rod has often pointed out quite nicely) and in shifting retirement money to less stable forms. It is also facile and a bit insulting to imply that all people having financial trouble or difficulty in planning for retirement are spendthrifts who don't deserve a quasi-Marxist bailout. I don't think either party has a magic solution, but the solutions the Republicans have had for twenty out of the last twenty-eight years sure don't seem to have worked. Maybe we need something else on the table.

"It suggests one of two things: either today's Obama is a fraud, an ultraliberal masquerading as a moderate, or he is a man of no fixed convictions, a Zelig-like chameleon able to be whatever he wants to be for the sake of advancing his own political career."

And what are your convictions, Rod?

You decide you are superior to the Roman Catholic church, and stomp you feet and become Orthodox. You hold your nose maybe to vote for a bona fide American hero, or maybe not, because he's superior to the candidate who's even worse. You urge us to consider the moral shortcomings of a well-known candidate who's not running for office any more, because you don't commit those sins.

You're a great big bundle of "not." I don't see any positive convictions as I read your columns, just what you condemn.

Fair enough, Rod--thanks for the clarification. We may still disagree on how to vote, but at I understand where you're coming from now.

I agree with Alicia, too--I'm interested in what you think of The Dark Knight (and Hellboy II, also, if you see it--it was also pretty good, though also not for children).

quote: "Obama was against going into Iraq when Bush's poll numbers were through the stratosphere. Obama risked his Senate bid with that position."

Obama ran for the Senate in a solidly Democratic state against a weak, carpetbagger Republican (Alan Keyes). I don't think his position on the war was all that risky.
I think I'm with Rod on all this. While problematic in many respects, a McCain presidency would serve to block the Democratic Congress. My guess is that we'd get all kinds of disastrous hard-left policies (o.k. "disastrous hard-left policies" is redundant) with the Democrats in charge of both the White House and Congress. Just imagine the results of far-left wingers such as Obama and Pelosi working together to pass legislation. Also, let's not forget that Obama has promised to do something that would greatly setback pro-life gains in the states, namely sign the odious "The Freedom of Choice Act."

http://www.barackobama.com/2008/01/22/obama_statement_on_35th_annive.php

I don't pretend that McCain will be perfect. But he probably will be better than Bush, especially on spending. Conservatives who are upset with Bush need to remember that it is because Bush wasn't conservative and cautious enough with things such as spending and foreign policy. Obama will be much worse, particularly on spending and social issues. Unless I'm convinced that McCain is hell-bent on starting a war with Iran or picks a totally unacceptable VP such as Giuliani, I'm voting for McCain. Otherwise, my vote will go to a third party candidate.

rr

Rod, I think "laughable's" comment at 1:54 above crosses the line of civil discourse.

"When we're judging candidates (or friends), we don't just judge the individuals but the milieus that produced them. We judge them by the connections that exist beyond choice and the ground where they will go home to be laid to rest. Andrew Jackson was a backwoodsman. John Kennedy had his clan. Ronald Reagan was forever associated with the small-town virtues of Dixon and Jimmy Carter with Plains. "

Not everyone has these kinds of roots to fall back on anymore. A lot of us spend all of our growing up years moving from place to place. There's whole tribes of kids who grow up like this, whether military brats, diplomat's kids, or simply people whose parents have trouble (and sometimes the trouble is psychological) staying put and still making ends meet. The number of professions that fall into that last category are only growing. And journalism is not the least of them.

Sometimes it is disorienting, but I think most of us who grow up under those circumstances develop a pretty clear identity, at least in our minds. I don't feel dissolute for not having one hometown, one ethnicity. I don't think I am less grounded for hailing from a family which is evenly split Northern and Southern, Catholic and Protestant, Democrat and Republican. I've had to reach for other identity measures - being part Hispanic, from a close-knit family with a history of civic and military service, which has suffered its share of hardship and poverty. I had to craft my own identity out of disparate parts. There was no other choice.

Where does this kind of background leave you? It tends to leave you very willing and able to see things from a different perspective. It tends to make you want to be a bridge-builder, or a diplomat, even past the point where it is practical. It leaves you with a much wider heritage to draw on, and I would argue more, rather than less, tradition. You become quite willing to take a stand, but you see no reason why you shouldn't build bridges, communicate, and learn from a wide variety of perspectives. You see no reason why people hailing from diverse perspectives should not grant you the same, no reason why you should not agree to disagree and work together anyways.

But it's also a frustrating place to be, because people will try to pin you down into one category or another. And they will sometimes see your varying views on varying subjects as inconsistency.

Now, I'm not saying Obama has or hasn't been consistent over time. I do not have enough data at my disposal to judge this. But I have no problems getting "who he is." He is all of his roots. But yet he can lay claim to none of them entirely. He is who he has made himself to be. He had no other choice.

In the end, I will vote this election based on foreign policy, as I always have. I could not in good conscience in the past two elections give my vote to a man who had little knowledge and displayed little curiosity on foreign affairs. The President of the United States, answerable for a massive military and financial infrastructure, will by necessity have to deal with the world. I would love to vote for a military veteran. But in the end it may be even more important for our next President to re-build some bridges. We have learned we cannot go it alone without just staying home, despite our massive military and economy. If we do not choose isolation then we must choose a much different path - and Obama I think has seen and experienced enough of the world to begin to strike off on that path.

Well, Rod, in your defense, as far as I know you never advertised yourself as "fair and balanced."

You'll shut down discussion on a topic that presents too many inconvenient truths to counter your thesis, but what about the assertions here? The Illinois version of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act would have stopped the evil and repugnant practice described, but it also would have stopped treating an ectopic pregnancy. It would have let a woman die even if her unborn child was destined to die, too. The federal version of the law was worded more clearly. According to CNN reports, Obama supported the federal law. He voted present once and no once on the Illinois law.

But getting back to the post, the reason people don't know Obama is they don't know the subjects to which he--and McCain--address themselves. There really is such a thing as nuance, and it really can make a difference, however annoying the people who use the term may be.

Who’s the real Rod Dreher? He claims to be a crunchy con and Orthodox, yet he runs around quoting neocons who think that Orthodox Palestinians are little better than animals and Orthodox Russia is a looming enemy…who we’ll probably have to take out somewhere down the line after Iran etc.

No kidding, Rod. You need to think about the company you keep. If you take your faith seriously (and I think you do) some re-evaluation of who’s on your side and isn’t is in order.

Are Brooks and the Weekly Standard really the friends you think they are?

Well--at least he doesn't associate with domestic terrorists like The Weathermen. Speaking of shutting down discussions, it seems that happens pretty frequently on this blog by people screaming in the comboxes a faulty analogy until it drowns everything else out.

If Obama decided to round up his political enemies into work camps (and I don't think he does by any stretch), there would be people on this blog who would write about what happened to the Native Americans.

"If Obama decided to round up his political enemies into work camps." says Don Altabello. A conservative who cares about civil liberties. Now that's funny! Something tells me Don, if McCain (or Bush) were to do the same, you would cheer him on. You know I'm right Don.

Address the subject at hand. The last batch of overgeneralizations were irrelevant. Which is why you can hear a cricket chirping somewhere.

Do you remember hearing your mom say...be careful of who your friends are. I don't won't you hanging out with them. Better yet, what the Bible says...ie:fools...many verses on the subject. It isn't just assoc. with the Rev. Wright, it is the fact that he was his spiritual mentor. If that is correct then he has been mentored in the Black Liberation Theology...Read up on this type of religion. It is also the church Obama sat in for 20 years. Do you sit in church and not get anything out of the sermon EVERYTIME? I have heard some say that they can sit in church and not get anything out of it. What kept Obama is that he had a long line of political step stools in this church. Wright took him under his wing and led him to the people who would help him step up in the political world. Wouldn't you listen to someone who is helping you in UR career?

I don't believe anyone is reading this thread anymore, but I would like to respond to the blatant misinformation about the Illinois Born Alive Infant protection act posted by Rob at 3:24. In no way does offering the same medical treatment to babies who survive an abortion as is given to a baby who miscarries constitute a threat to the lives of the baby's mothers. How in the world would offering medical care to a baby constitute a threat to a mother? Under this logic we ought never to care for premature babies because doing so might somehow harm their moms.

These kinds of knee-jerk reactions to any humane measure that recognizes the life of the unborn as having any value are the reasons why abortion supporters are continuing to lose public support. So please do continue your rantings Rob. They only help the pro-life cause when the lies upon which abortion depend are revealed.

Rightwing Evangelical and Neo-Conservative-Likud hatemongers associated with the likes of Rupert Murdoch have alot to answer for including the latest hate crime by a rightwing Evangelical terrorist. I recall how the Unitarian Church stood with American Muslims when they were subjected to hate crimes after 9-11 only to fall victim themselves. This rightwing terrorist who carried out the Knoxville killings was perfectly sane but filled with hatred for liberals who championed human rights and opposed the Bush administrations war of terror. In his room were found three anti-liberal tracts by Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage which the police have seized as evidence indicating motive. The Unitarian Church members were only the latest victims of an orchestrated hate campaign led by FOX News, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Glenn Beck,and Lou Dobbs to name only a few. When will we have an open denunciation of the hate mongering media outlets and their corporate sponsors who have made such bigotry "mainstream" in the world's most racially and religiously diverse country. Imagine if the shooter had been an American Muslim or Hispanic targeting Neo-Con Likudniks or Armageddon Evangelicals associated with the likes of John Hagee, Norman Podhoretz, or Franklin Graham. Further, imagine he had written a hate filled justification clearly linked to incendiary anti-conservative writers-there would be a media frenzy about the terrorist danger and indoctrination overwhelming America. We learn much about our country not only from this hate crime but by the fact that there is not a broader outcry against the purveyors of ethnic and religious bigotry when the source of terrorism at home, not to mention abroad, is, as is often the case, a white rightwing Evangelical/nationalist male.

Sincerely,
Mujeeb Khan
Doctoral Program
Dept. of Political Science
The University of California-Berkeley