Obama’s Achilles Heel Is Obama

This campaign is already crystallizing around one question: “Do I really want the next president of the United States to be this fellow Barack Obama?”

Despite his admirable qualities, McCain grows harder to discern on the political radar screen. Fewer people seem to be interested in asking themselves, “What do I see in John McCain that really makes me want him to be president?”
It looks now as though this election may turn on one issue: Obama as Obama.

By subordinating conflicting policy issues, almost to the point of extinction, Obama is leaving himself (whoever that is), his background (wherever that is) and his integrity (such as that may be) as all that matters.
Ironically, Obama as Obama is the issue upon which Obama first introduced himself to voters. Even “change” was a derivative of Obama as Obama.

Obama as Obama recalls his embarrassing support, then disavowal, of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. That reintroduces the collateral issue of flip-flopping — not necessarily specific flips on which Obama has flopped, but the vague impression of flip-floppery as his personal way of political life. That’s a nasty set of sub-issues Obama doesn’t need, for it echoes Obama as Obama.

Each time Barack Obama reaches for another of his policy-issue boomerangs, he would be well advised not to forget to duck.