Hope one day Wretch will stop relying on other people’s readings of “Dreams” especially if he insists on casting aspersions – “slightly underhanded” etc. – on O’s motives. While O avoids getting all up into a heavy discussion of the limits of local community organizing paradigm in “Dreams,” he makes it clear how his own way of seeing came to be different from his mentor/organizer. (Race mattered here too and Judis misses that angle and an important dimension of the task that now confronts O.) Wretch has posted on this topic a few times. In response to his July 4th post “Community Organizer,” I suggested that O fully comprehended the moral dangers/possiblities of entering politics…

“If you go into the Game, you KNOW your hands will be dirty. Did O cross the line to become a hack? – was he after that State Sen sinecure? Or was he thinking big. Figuring he might be the One – because of his one-of-a-kind background and sympathetic imagination – to become the tribute of everyday people whose lives will not be transformed w/o a long-term NATIONAL campaign of reconstruction…”

Wretch gives himself a little pat for anticipating the arguments of John Judis.

“It didn’t require much effort to figure out that Obama self-orientation was fundamentally at odds with the ethos of community organizing.”

While it’s true that O’s NEW orientation was at odds with the IAF’s version of the organizing tradtion (which, btw, is not exactly Alinksy’s). It was not really at odds with the older traditions of the Civil Rights Movement that O had been studying for a long time. SNCC’s peak, for example, was the attempt to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 64 Democratic convention. And, though King didn’t run for office, he certainly worked as a charismatic national figure in harmony (generally) with local organizers. Wretch (and Judis) are focusing on an actual dichotomy – you could even call it an experiential gulf! – but there are historical reasons why O believes the right kind of leader can cross the border, close the gap…

Appreciate your focus how Mac broke it down in his speech and on the place of shame — in O’s life-history and everybody’s. You could do more with that comparison if you’d read “Dreams” but thanks for zeroing in on those ponderable lines…