Obama Spare us the Drama
Obama (R) w/ Richard Lugar -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia
by blogSpotter
When I wrote "Truck Stop Governor", my blog about Jim McGreevy, the main impression I carried away about him is that he was too crafty and never very forthcoming. He seemed to manipulate everything around him for political gain. His sex-capades garnered all the attention, but his basic lack of self-honesty was the problem. Now in 2007, Barack Obama, the Illinois senator running for President, is starting to come across ever so slightly as a crafty, McGreevy-esque manipulator -- not necessarily who we want in the Oval Office.
My first complaint is mild and minor -- taken by itself it doesn't mean a lot. Apparently Obama didn't pay his traffic fines in college. To clear his record, he recently caught up with those fines and paid them off. Bravo for Obama, it's good to clean the slate. And yet, I knew people personally in college who let campus fines and parking citations collect. The tickets would form a pile on the desk in the dorm room. These people struck me then as being alternately flaky or arrogant. They were either too ditzy to keep track of a fine, or so arrogant they were sure Daddy would take care of it. Either way, it's a character flaw that would be unbecoming to a President of the USA -- in my personal view.
Now comes "Cracks in the Veneer", an editorial by liberal editorialist Richard Cohen. In it, he gives due praise to Obama's effective writing style in his memoir Dreams from My Father. Then he points out that several touching stories and examples from the book appear to be highly exaggerated or untrue. In fact, the Chicago Tribune did extensive fact checks, conducting 40 interviews with friends, neighbors and coworkers of Obama -- many stories did not wash. Other people didn't remember details the same way, or remember the situations described at all.
Now we've come up with two "oopsies" -- warning flags which taken together might just tell us we have a disingenuous opportunist on our hands. I hate that the very people who seem to succeed in politics are so frequently people with these traits. I'd like to have a straight-shooting nice guy as the next president. Is Obama that person? I'm starting to think not.
© 2007 blogSpotter
posted by blogspotter @ 12:58 PM
2 Comments:
Well, the election's still a long way away, but given that as of today, the only 2 really serious contenders for the Democratic nomination are Clinton and Obama:
"Now we've come up with two "oopsies" -- warning flags which taken together might just tell us we have a disingenuous opportunist on our hands."
Possibly, but at least there's doubt. With Clinton, we know we have a disingenuous opportunist....
"I'd like to have a straight-shooting nice guy as the next president."
Looks to me like Hillary is 0 for 3 there. She's not "straight-shooting," from things she's done/said she doesn't appear to be "nice" and, though the closest thing to it in the Clinton Clan, she technically is not a "guy."
Interesting observation about Obama. A friend of mine, who happens to be a Democrat, has come up with similar information when digging further into Obama's past. Obama is the momentary darling of the press. He can do no wrong at this point. Even his chain-smoking is rarely mentioned which would normally be enough to give the thumbs down to most candidates before leaving the starting gate.
His heritage is in question: There are claims that Obama's father was married to four women and never divorced any of them. He supposedly died in a drunken accident of some kind. Of course, that would not be Obama's fault, but it certainly puts his father in a different light. Obama also says he recalls the hurtfullness of racism while growing up in Hawaii, but friends who have been interviewed don't recall him being singled out in such a way, but that could very well be a personal matter that was his experience.
Some think that Obama's handlers/advisors are taking cues from the Col. Tom Parker School of PR (think Elvis) by keeping him a safe distance from most of the talk shows and venues that require tough and candid answers. At some point he may need to address these issues.
In today's political climate, for the press to become inquisitive about Obama's past, he would have to change party affilliation. As we rifle through the endless pictures of Rudy in drag, it will be up to the voters - as you have demonstrated here - to do their own digging on Obama.
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