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…