Obama: If It Hasn't Already Been Said Then It's Probably Not Worth Saying

December 2007: Look closely. Obama certainly has aged. Us, too.

Entire cyber forests have been leveled in praise and condemnation of a man who in all likelihood will be president-elect when the sun comes up on Wednesday morning, so there's not a whole lot more worth saying.

In that spirit -- and because your feckless . . . er, fearless correspondent is running on empty, herewith a review of what he wrote about Barack Obama over the past year as the impossible begate the unpredictable, which in turn gave birth to the extraordinary.

In the end, whether Obama gets the nomination will have less to do with his ability to move beyond those symbolic Boomer battles than the reality that the mainstream media manipulates campaign coverage because of its willingness to be manipulated by the campaigns.

Along with the deeply corrosive influence of big money on politics, the incestuous relationship between the MSM and Old School politicians and the ability of both groups to create the illusion that presidential politics are by and for the people, by golly, are the most screwed up aspects of this quadrennial ritual.

So will Barack Obama do any better than Eugene McCarthy did? My instrincts tell me that the answer is a resounding "no." (11/9/07)

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[Frank] Rich notes the MSM's inability to get into a groove on Obama has a lot to do with him being of mixed race and the built-in story line that fact provides despite the fact that who his parents are means far less to the average voter than the media could possibly imagine. This has not stanched the flow of stories to the effect that Obama may be too black for whites and too white for blacks.

But I think it runs much deeper than that: Beyond his electability -- which is very much an open question -- Obama is the only candidate on either side who is truly a fresh face at a time when voters are desperately craving one.

And the MSM has been incapable of understanding his appeal because it is incapable of understanding that. (12/3/07)

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Can Obama succeed without a political philosophy? Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to name several notable presidents of the century past, all had philosophies that were their lodestars.

Obama has not burned sufficient shoe leather compared to say, Reagan, whose political philosophy the conservatives who bankrolled his candidacy cut, pasted and handed to him on a silver platter. Yes, I'm being facetious, but it is a good question nevertheless.

This is because when the proverbial hits the fan, which is bound to do sooner rather than later in an Obama or any other presidency, what does the guy have to fall back on? A big bowl of symbolism just won't do it, but I'm willing to take a chance and will vote for Barack Obama next Tuesday. (1/30/08)

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His father was a Muslim. He doesn't have to go first in debates. He sometimes dresses like a foreigner. He's too young. He experimented with drugs as a teenager. He's naïve. He has an unfair campaign spending advantage. He's not a war hero. He bought a house from a slumlord who once had a business deal with a former accomplice of Saddam Hussein. His middle name is Hussein. Louis Farrakhan endorsed him. Lou Dobbs plans to endorse him. Tina Fey doesn't like him. His superdelegates are committed to him. He doesn't try to retaliate when attacked. He's a radical centrist. He once was invited to a coffee klatch at the home of a former Weather Underground member. He's a cult leader. He hasn't had to lay off any campaign workers. He doesn't cry on cue. He doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin. He's not black enough. He's a secret Manchurian Candidate put up by radical Islamists. He's too charismatic. The news media is biased for him. He doesn't have to tone down his rhetoric. His campaign is organized from the bottom up. He doesn't have enough experience. When people offer him lines for his speeches he uses them. He's a leftist. He once had a teacher who was a Communist. He refuses to play the race card. He wants to withdraw American troops from Iraq. He doesn't engage in fear mongering. He lives in Chicago. He'll take away votes from Ralph Nader. His wife says she only recently found a reason to be proud of America. He's no Mike Huckabee. He scares the Washington defense establishment. He hasn't been able to attract elderly white woman voters. He's an idealist. He keeps giving the same damned speech.

How the heck can anyone believe in this guy, let alone vote for him? (2/27/08)

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I have come to believe that the 2008 presidential contest will be the last -- or perhaps the second to last -- where the race and the religion of the candidates really matter.

The reason is that many voters, and this is especially true of young voters, simply don't care about that stuff like their parents and forebears did and do. This already is substantially true in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and is reflected in the popularity of Barack Obama. But as was all but inevitable, Obama has hit a bump in the perceptual road, albeit rather later than I would have anticipated, as questions about his personal relationship with a controversial African-American minister and business relationship with a controversial fixer have come to the fore.

So Obama's speech this morning at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia took on an outsized importance and will be viewed as a defining moment in his improbable campaign. (3/18/08)

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Many of us are so caught up in the Sturm und Drang of the most contentious presidential campaign since forever that we lose sight of the fact that we're merely bogged down in the preliminaries before the big dance: That on January 20, 2009, a black man, white woman or grizzled war veteran will inherit a job that under the best of circumstances would be extraordinarily demanding, but will be doubly burdened with impossibly high expectations after eight years of a president who has been equal parts inept, corrupt, arrogant and capricious.

In that respect, and despite all of the talk of experience by the surviving presidential wannabes, none have the experience to repair all of the damage wrought by Bush and his puppet masters. Maybe Heracles, but certainly no mere mortal could.

That is why I believe that Barack Obama, who has the shortest resume of the three, nevertheless is best qualified to meet my expectations. For Clinton and McCain, the truth is an adjustable wrench to be set according to the political needs of the moment, and I am unable to muster even the most meager expectations for them to be better than the man they want to succeed. (5/1/08)

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That Barack Obama felt compelled to give a speech today on patriotism speaks volumes about the lousy state of political discourse in the U.S. That few minds will be changed although the speech was a noble effort is a fact of life for this African-American with a foreign-sounding middle name and an opposition with toxic intentions. That there are so many real issues crying out for attention in this deeply troubled land as the July 4th holiday draws near and he feels the need to wrap himself in the flag is disheartening.

What Obama sought to do at the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri was redefine our archaic and platitude driven views of what constitutes patriotism by telling his own story in much the same way he did in a March speech on race and religion in Philadelphia prompted by the damage his problematic relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright was causing.

Wresting a piece of the patriotic franchise from conservatives who believe that only they are entitled to it will be difficult. Additionally, Obama is trying to be dispassionate yet passionate about a subject where emotion is an easy substitute for substance and trying to redress wrongs is akin to being unpatriotic. (6/30/08)

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While the right-of-center chattering class, with a leg up from the struggling McCain campaign, has been in high dudgeon for days over Barack Obama's not-a-campaign speech campaign speech today in Berlin, my memory is a little longer and my perspective a whole lot less narrow. . . . Long story short, Obama understands the wisdom of multilateral policy making and McCain does not.

While Obama's speech had campaign-esque undertones and there were shouts of "Yes, We Can!" from the crowd, he avoided any overt references to the failures of the Bush administration while enunciating what he would do on the world stage as an internationalist president. And those of us waiting to see what German catchphrase he would use waited in vain, but then how do you top President Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" proclamation of 1963?

Comparisons between Obama's speech to JFK's are apt only to a point because the world order has changed so extraordinarily over the last 45 years.

This is that point: JFK sought to assure nervous Berliners of America's unflinching support after Communist East Germany erected the Berlin Wall. Obama sought to assure nervous Europeans that he will help repair an historic friendship while at the same time telling them they are expected to do their part, too. (7/24/08)

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It is difficult to believe that this time a year ago, I was considering voting for John McCain.

This is because I understood that getting beyond the Age of Bush, let alone trying to rebound from its excesses, was not simply a matter of partisan politics. It was a matter of leadership, and in the distant past of September 2007 it seemed to me that the man from Arizona was made of sturdier stuff than a certain former First Lady.

Enter Barack Obama and a political ascendancy that is as improbable as this election is important.

If you are in the thrall of the media noise machine, then you may believe that Obama has raised more questions about his ability to lead America out of that morass than he has answered.

I do agree that few potential presidents during my lifetime have seemed more like a work in process, although not the empty vessel that George Bush was and remains. But Obama should be well known at this juncture: A hugely charismatic man who has cleverly marketed the politics of change but has a bare-knuckled pragmatism evident in his selection of Joe Biden.

Taking a chance on Barack Obama is not really much of a gamble because he has made the hoary concept of governance a centerpiece of his campaign and will surround himself with the best and brightest; even Republicans. (9/2/08)

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Had they lived, my parents would have known exactly what Michelle Obama meant last spring when she said that she felt proud of America for the first time in her adult life. They also would have understood why such a heartfelt comment would be so widely disparaged and intentionally misinterpreted by lapel-pin patriots.

And beyond its sheer drama, this historic election would have been as deeply emotional for them as it has been for me.

I teared up the night that Barack Obama clinched the nomination, during his acceptance speech and when Obama first introduced Joe Biden, whose parents Jane and Joe not only knew but admired for their blue-collar work ethic and own deeply held principles.

Mind you, these are tears of joy leavened with some apprehension.

These tears are shed with the knowledge that six years before Obama was born, Rosa Parks refused to move after she was ordered to get out of her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, because of the color of her skin. And that today a man of color -- the embodiment of the dream that Martin Luther King shared with my parents and hundreds of thousand of other true believers in Washington on that day in 1963 -- stands on the threshold of the presidency.

This one's for you, Joe and Jane. (10/15/08)