The Globe piece is a killer. (Mickey Kaus rightly called it the most damming thing written on O.) Lived uptown in an area that’s been gentrifying in fits and starts for years so my fam knows exactly what sort of folks O has been in bed with. The problem is that shaming him on this front has been mixed up with a lot of silliness – take a bow Wretch – re Manchurian Candidate, closet islamist, mother-ridden anti-American, racist etc. THAT stuff was pathetic. This is the real deal.

So what does it tell us – in order to rise high as a pol in this country you compromise yourself. Dem or Pub – You don’t diss the rich guy you went to school with or the buppie with millions or the less-than-smooth operator with machine connections or the Foundation biggie…you cultivate them. (Remember Bush’s comic line to his GOP donors – Welcome to my base – “The haves and have-mores.” – A line that was met with huge enjoyment from his crowd.) If you’re coming from Outside like Obama your moves on this front may seem particularly egregious – though compared to biz-as-uusal Clintons (or Johhny Mac with his heiress)…

Wretch noted a couple posts back that rolling with O required a leap of faith – I came back today planning to say – you’re right as rain – and O himself once acknowledged that. Then I was going to point ya’ll to the Globe piece. Should’ve figured Wretch would beat me to it! Now – what the hey – why don’t you guys go back and read O’s speech on patriotism. Maybe you’ll be able to focus on what’s exceptional about Obama – the narrative gifts and sense of American possibility. Not just on the nasty stuff he shares with all ambitious pols. Where’s the love? – My guess is that O’s appeal to our better angels is no more of a shuck than Linc’s. Hell Abe was a corporation lawyer whose “ambition was an engine that knew no rest” (as per his friend Herndon.) I still think the key is in the stories. Who does Obama consistently celebrate? It’s not the money-men – it’s men and women of honor – everyday people who uphold common virtues and the idea of community – As DH Lawrence once said of American writers, Trust the tale not the teller.