Mr. Intellectual Honesty Is At It Again

A few months ago, I chided "Reality-Based" blogger Mark Kleiman for a post in which he simultaneously claimed that his side -- however defined -- had the edge in intellectual honesty while at the same time urging his allies to refrain from criticizing General Ricardo Sanchez, apparently even if such criticisms were true. I argued at the time -- and it still seems to me to be true -- that it's self-contradictory to trumpet your own intellectual honesty while at the same time urging your political allies to refrain from advancing what they believe to be

Well, he's at it again. A couple of weeks ago, he declared a "Cease-Fire" on Hillary Clinton, saying that "anyone looking for criticism of Hillary Rodham Clinton or her campaign will have to look elsewhere from now on" Why? Because, in his estimation, Obama had it won and Obama supporters should "aim their fire at John McCain."

Today he threatened to revoke his unilateral cease-fire, in a short post:

Yes, we've been observing a unilateral cease-fire.

But if you keep lying about our candidate, we might just have to start telling the truth about yours.

And that wouldn't be fun for anyone, would it?

To begin with, I am not at all sure that his fellow Obama supporters have been observing the cease-fire. Or maybe Kleimain means "I" here, and he's using the "Royal We." Nor am I sure he has the authority to declare cease-fires or the resumption of hostilities on behalf of the Obama campaign.

But leave that aside. Kleiman seems to be saying that there are true bad things about Hillary Clinton that Barack Obama supporters haven't been saying? And, as of a week ago, when he though it was in the bag, that he thought they shouldn't say. Where is the intellectual honesty in that? Shouldn't Kleiman just say what he thinks the truth is, rather than refraining out of short-term political expediency? And if we know that Kleiman will lie by omission, by refraining from saying bad things about Hillary, and if he urges others to do the same, why should we believe him when he says (or fails to say) stuff about other candidates? He's already admitted that political maneuvering takes precedence over telling the truth as he sees it.

His attitude makes perfect sense for Senator Obama himself, or for people officially-connected with his campaign. If he wins the nomination, he's going to need the support of Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton. At some point, it makes sense for him to ease off if he's got it won. Running up the score doesn't do him a lot of good.

But so far as I know, Professor Kleiman isn't officially connected with the Obama campaign. He's a Professor who happens to support Barack Obama. Which is, you know, perfectly fine. Call me an idealist if you want, though, but I think that Professors ought to think of themselves as Priests in the Temple of Truth. They might believe in a particular political candidate, and they should certainly feel free to advance arguments in favor of the person they support. But figuring out the truth and stating it ought to be Job One.

Heck, even if he supports Obama, he ought to be willing to criticize Obama if and when he thinks the Senator is wrong. And the same is true of supporters of Senator McCain, of course. Recently, McCain stated that "there's strong evidence" that thimerosal causes autism. "Nonsense on stilts," as Megan McArdle put it. So what should a McCain supporter do? And intellectually honest McCain supporter, I mean, and one not deluded into thinking that thimerosal causes autism.

An intellectually honest McCain supporter should say "I support Senator McCain for these four reasons, but he's spouting crap on this." Given his statements, there's absolutely no reason to believe that Professor Kleiman would take such an intellectually honest position were Obama to make a similarly nonsensical statement. He may think himself "reality based," but his statements about the "Cease Fire" make it clear that he values political outcomes ahead of telling the truth as he sees it.

Being Obama

If Barack Obama does win the Democratic nomination, we are undoubtedly going to be treated to a tiresome parade of complaints about imagined racial slights. Here's one: Saturday Night Live had Fred Armisen (who?) play Barack Obama in a recent skit. Ann Althouse links to this Washington Post piece about the ensuing outrage.



Why the outrage? According to the WaPo article, Armison is of white and Asian heritage. Oh gosh, can't have that, can we? Well, the sort of people likely to take umbrage at this sort of thng have taken umbrage:

Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune put the question bluntly: "Call me crazy, but shouldn't 'Saturday Night Live's' fictional Sen. Barack Obama be played by an African-American?" Ryan went on to conclude: "I find 'SNL's' choice inexplicable. Obama's candidacy gives us solid proof of the progress that African-Americans have made in this country. I guess 'SNL' still has further to go on that front."

You're crazy Maureen. But you aren't the only one. My favorite comment comes from Todd Boyd, a "Professor of Critical Studies" at USC:

Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California, says viewers might have a different reaction if the roles were reversed. What if, he says, "SNL" had cast a black woman to portray Hillary Clinton? "Do you think there's ever going to be a day when we start casting Queen Latifah to portray Princess Diana?" he asks. "We just don't have the same representations going in other direction.

You know, if I were a professor in a politically-driven pseudo-discipline, I would avoid being quoted in the newspaper, if only to avoid having people ask what a "Professor of Critical Studies" actually you know, studies. I suppose, though, that if you're going to pretend that being a community organizer is a real job, you might as well pretend that a Professor of Critical Studies is a real Professor. (Unlike Barack Obama, who is not, contrary to some claims, a Professor of Constitutional Law.)

But I digress. This gripe is so stupid on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start.

Well, start with the obvious: as the WaPo and Professor Althouse both observe, SNL has a long history of having blacks play whites, and vice versa. Eddie Murphy played white characters, and Billy Crystal played Sammy Davis, Jr. Heck, SNL did some skits where men impesonated women: Dan Akroyd as Julia Child, and Will Ferrell as Janet Reno.

As Professor Althouse says, the question for Saturday Night Live isn't whether a particular actor is the same race or gender as the person he or she is impersonating -- the question is whether the impersonation is funny. And you know, by the standards of modern-day SNL, I think that Armison's impersonation really is kind of funny. Not Dan-Akroyd-as-Julia-Child funny, but SNL hasn't been that funny in a long time.

But in Obama's case it is particularly dumb. As Paddy O, one of Professor Althouse's commenters put it: "How is Obama any more black than white? Is there some kind of one drop rule in effect?" Sure, Obama may choose to identify himself as "black," and he may have joined an Afrocentric church, but none of this alters the fact that his mom was white. In terms of pure ethnic background, it's no more inappropriate to have a white guy impersonate him than to have a "pure" black Obama imitator. If you are insisting on racial verisimilitude, why not go all the way and demand he be impersonated by a man of mixed race whose dad was Kenyan and mom was a white chick from the midwest? Fred Armisen is of mixed race, if not quite the same mix as Obama. In that sense, he is more appropriate than either an all-black or all-white actor.

Look, if somebody of importance actually says something racist about Obama, I'll jump on them with both feet. But this crap is just nonsense.

Patriotism Gap

Megan McArdle thinks this anti-Berkeley ad is weird:



She thinks it's stupid to run the ad on Fox News in D.C., because the Berkeley City Council is unlikely to be affected by the actions of Washingtonians. Well, sure.

But that isn't the point. It's a culture war thing. The whole point is to make people riled up about the fact that there are still "blame America First" leftists out there.

And if you want to tie it to the election, well, it's pretty obvious that the sort of people who boo National Guard ads in movie theaters are, in general, the sort of people who vote for Democrats. And of course Mrs. Obama played right into that when she made her unfortunate but revealing remarks about being proud of her country for the first time. Personally, I don't give a shit whether Barack Obama wears a flag in his lapel bin. But the Patriotism Gap is a serious problem for the Democrats. And stuff like the antics of the City Council of Berkeley only make it worse.

Obama's Che Flag

A bit of a back-and-forth between John Cole over at Balloon Juice and Captain Ed. Captain Ed slammed Obama because -- get this -- his campaign office in Houston features a Cuban flag with a picture of Che superimposed on it hanging on the wall. Cole calls Ed a "loyal party hack" and talks about our Cuba policy. Which of course is quite beside the point -- a Cuban flag with a picture of Che on it isn't a critique of America's inane boycott of Cuba; it's an endorsement of a brutal communist despotism and a murdering thug.

In a later update, Cole clarifies that it was Obama volunteers, not staffers, who put up the flag. Well, call me unmoved. If any Republican candidate had volunteers who put up a Nazi or Fascist emblem, or even a Confederate Flag, this would be seen as emblematic of Republican racism and fascism. Surely it says something about Obama -- and the left wing of the Democratic Party -- that his volunteers think a communist emblem is just dandy.

But this shouldn't be a surprise -- it's all part of the double standard. Communism was every bit as evil as fascism -- more evil, by pure body count. And yet Che is chic. Disgusting.

Obama's Free Ride

This Howard Kurtz article in the Washington Post has gotten some traction in the blogosphere. Kurtz's question: is Barack Obama getting a free ride from the media? Are they leaning in his favor? Hillary's operatives make the obvious claim: the media has been far more harsh and negative about her than toward him. One of Obama's people has a hilarious response:

Obama spokesman Bill Burton says the accusation of softer treatment is untrue but "the Clinton campaign whines about it so much, it becomes part of the chatter. No candidate in this race has undergone more investigations and examinations than Barack Obama has," he says, citing lengthy pieces in the Chicago Tribune and New York Times. "As Obama says, running against the Clintons is not exactly a cakewalk. Their research operation has ensured that if there's any information about Obama to be had, it's been distributed to the media."

Over at TPM, Greg Sargent doesn't take a side, but instead asks readers for their view.
Clive Crook, by contrast, states the obvious: "there's no question that Obama has been given an easy ride." But Crook suggests that this isn't a result of media bias per se -- or not just media bias -- but instead reflects deeper feelings within the populace as a whole:

But is this sentiment peculiar to the press, I wonder, or a feeling in the country at large? I suspect the latter. The United States may have doubts about Obama's policies (if it knows or cares) or lack of experience (compared with Hillary's such as it is), but it likes him. He is new, and the country is giving him the benefit of the doubt. When it comes to Hillary, there is no such instinct. She is asking for eight years in the White House--another eight years, as her claim of greater experience keeps reminding people--and people seem tired of her already.

I suspect that's a part of it. And you can add to that the fact that he seems like a fairly likable guy. And she isn't. Likable, that is. Well, she's not a guy either, but that's not my point. And the whole underdog-wins narrative is fun, too.

Pardon me for mentioning the obvious, but there's another thing going on as well. In our society today, the worst thing you can be accused of (other than child molestation) is racism. And this means that members of the chattering classes generally avoid saying things that may get them accused -- falsely or not -- of being a racist. In Obama's case, this translates into a certain reticence about critcism or investigation. It means pretending that being a "community organizer" is actually a real job, and writing fawning articles like this. It means paying very little attention to the fact that he is a member of what is effectively a black-supremacist church. But the thing is, Obama is black (or half black, and that means he is "black" by cultural argeeement), and he's not obviously insane, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Obama is the affirmative action candidate.

And the worst part is, the Democrats can't complain, given their institutional commitment to pervasive racial preferences. This is what they asked for, isn't it?

UPDATE: Weird editing glitch fixed.

Barack Obama Is Not a Constitutional Law Professor

Barack Obama has at least once, uttered the sentence "I was a constitutional law professor." This has been repeated, uncritically. One of Sully's correspondents, for example. Mark Kleiman, who really ought to know better, called him a "Con. Law Prof."

As Powerline noted back in April, this is, shall we say, a bit of puffery. Obama has taught courses in constitutional law, and so in casual conversation his students might well refer to him as "Professor." But he is listed on the University of Chicago web page as "Senior Lecturer in Law." His publications page lists his two autobiographical books, but no academic work of any sort, much less any academic writings on constitutional law. Now, given his relatively strong academic credentials and the extent of affirmative action in academic hiring, if Obama had written articles about, well, pretty much anything, he would undoubtedly have been able to get hired at an elite law school in a tenure-track position. But he didn't.

Barack Obama may well know a lot more about constitutional law than the average person, or even the average lawyer. But he is not a Professor of Constitutional Law. Nor is he an assistant professor or associate professor. At most, he's an "adjunct professor," which is not the same thing at all.

An Obaminable Attack

Matthew Yglesias is outraged by a recent Clinton-campaign attack on Obama. As he puts it, "Um, seriously, the Clinton administration is attacking Barack Obama based on an essay he wrote in kindergarden. They follow up with an account of something he did in third grade!"

Yes, it sounds utterly ridiculous. But if you follow his link, and actually read the statement, in context, it is a lot less unfair than Yglesias would have us believe. Obama has attacked Hillary Clinton, arguing that, unlike her, he hasn't been angling for the Presidencey for decades. Hillary Clinton's camp issued a press release which quotes Obama repeatedly telling people, from his law school classmates to his brother-in-law, that he planned to run for President. Yes, the Clinton camp cited statements he made back in kindergarten and third grade, but only as a part of a pattern on his part.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. Every American has the right to want to grow up and run for President -- most Americans get over it. Some Senators (subliminal voice: Joe Biden) ought to get over it. But if one of Obama's claimed advantages is that he only recently considered running for President, then it is surely responsive and relevant to point out a long string of contrary statements, apparently going back as far as kindergarten.

UPDATE: About ten minutes after posting this, I noticed that Glenn Reynolds has picked up the story. He links to both Robert Reich and Dan Riehl, neither of whom seems to approve. (Riehl is nice enough to link to the original press release, rather than a news story about it, which I think is the better practice. So I thank him for the link.)

I am not generally a fan of Hillary Clinton, but read in context, I think she is making a fair point. Obama says he hasn't been thinking about running for President. He claims that as an advantage, a reason why he is a better candidate than Hillary Clinton I think it's perfectly fair for her to point out a series of statements which belie his claim. There's nothing wrong with writing an essay about how you want to President in grammar school. I don't think that Hillary Clinton argues to the contrary. But if you are claiming that you never thought about running for President, the fact that you've been thinking about is since kindergarten is a pretty compelling rebuttal.

"Undecided Voters" = Left Wing Activisits

Fresh off the Clinton-campaign mini-scandal regarding her planted questions, CNN decided to up the ante: via Glenn Reynolds, this link to a Hot Air video demonstrating that nearly every "undecided voter" asking a question at the recent Democratic debate was a left-wing activist of some sort.



Seriously, if CNN thinks that anti-war activists, union organizers, and other sundry Democratic Party agitators will ask better questions that randomly-selected average questions, fine. In fact, I rather dislike the whole "Town Hall" concept myself. But characterizing these people as mere "undecided voters" is so misleading as to be tantamount to a lie. Sure, they may well be undecided in the sense they've not yet formally endorsed a particular Democratic candidate, but they're not undecided in the ordinary sense of the term. They're activists!

Let them ask questions if you like, but identify their affiliation. I mean, all I want is the truth. Is it that hard?

By the way, while I don't like Obama, I do admire the fact that he didn't pretend that he didn't know the lady whose question was directed toward him. It was a softball, but he didn't try to pretend she was a stranger to him.

Obama Off-the-Record With A-List Bloggers

Young Mathew Yglesias and Brian Beutler brag about their participation in an off-the-record confab with Barack Obama. A few commenters give them a delightfully hard-time about the rather obvious status-mongering subtext -- "I got to talk to Obama and you didn't, nyah, nyah!"

Puncturing the vanity of Young Mathew Yglesias is Always A Good Idea, but I think that the issues go beyond that. This whole off-the-record thing is one area where bloggers might not want to imitate the Mainstream Media. I can see a justification for an off-the-record conversation with a whistleblower -- somebody whose life or livelihood might be endangered if he or she made on-the-record comments. But Barack Obama is a sitting United States Senator and leading presidential candidate. What is the justification for letting him go off the record? Isn't any statement he makes inherently a matter of public concern? All this "off-the-record" and "deep background" crap is one of the Bad Things about the Mainstream Media, and it's something that bloggers ought not thoughtlessly emulate.

Yglesias and Beutler are free to do what they want -- there's no Blogging Council that will disblog them. But I think that the ideals of transparency that differentiate blogging from the MSM are not served by this sort of secret meeting.

Hortonizing Obama?

Sully links to this Marc Ambinder post on the South Carolina Democratic "YouTube" debate. It seems that somebody put up fliers outside the site of the debate. These fliers referenced the Michael Dukakis prisoner-furlough program and its most famous beneficiary, Willie Horton. The linked Obama to that by referencing a 1999 vote he cast in the Illinois Senate.

There were some reports that Obama's staff was blaming Hillary Clinton, but Ambinder says that these reports untrue: his staff doesn't know who did it, and therefore doesn't have anybody to blame. His commenters immediately zero in on Evil Sith Lord Boy Genius Karl Rove as the force behind these leaflets. Others seem to think that the Hillary theory bears looking into.

Well, I don't have the faintest idea who did it, so I am going to propose (with no evidence) the obvious suspect: Barack Obama, or his sympathizers. Why, you ask, would they do a thing like this? Obviously: to make their preferred candidate a victim of racist attacks. Once he has achieved Victim Status, valid criticisms can be ignored.

Andrew Sullivan, whose attraction to Obama rivals that of the Obama Girl, had this to say: "The longer Obama's campaign lasts, the more the racist and code-racist attacks will come." Precisely. No serious or important figure is going to launch an actually-racist attack on Obama. So, he and his supporters will want to characterize any criticism of him or his far-left positions as "coded racism."

I think that Obama and his supporters plan to play the race card -- early and often, with as much force as they can. What better way to lay the groundwork for that than to plant arguably-racist leaflets at the site of the debate?

Give Obama Credit

Mark Kleiman comments on this story about the Presidential Candidates' tax returns. It appears that nearly all of the presidential candidates have failed to release their tax returns. McCain, Guiliani, and Romney on the Republican side, Clinton and Edwards on the Democratic side.

All but one -- it seems that Barack Obama has indeed released his returns. Kleiman is annoyed that the article doesn't emphasize this fact more heavily.

Well, credit where credit is due. Obama isn't my favorite guy, but on this one I give him credit for full disclosure, where other candidates haven't done it.

A Tale of Three Gaffes

The 2008 election campaign is already getting weird.

ITEM: Mitt Romney addresses a crowd at Regents University. He tells them that, in France, marriage is now often contracted for a seven-year term. The bloggers are all over him on this one, because it turns out that his claim is not, well, reality-based. The prevailing theory seems to be that Romney lifted this from a science fiction novel by fellow-Mormon Orson Scott Card. (Some folks seem to be crediting Anna Marie Cox with the theory, but she herself credits Bradford Plumer over at The Plank.)

ITEM: Barack Obama claims that 10,000 people were killed in the Kansas tornado when the real number is 12. His explanation? He was tired. This triggers an exchange between big-time bloggers Eugene Volokh and Glenn Reynolds over whether Obama has an excuse to be tired at this point in the campaign. For what it's worth, I am with Glenn -- and Don Surber. Being President is hard. Hence the oft-noticed phenomenon of an outgoing President looking a lot older when he leaves office than when he went in. If Obama really wants to be President, he's got to prove he can make good decisions and control what he says even when he is out of sorts.

ITEM: Glenn Reynolds links to this video at Ace of Spades (also found here and here via Rob Port and Allahpundit). Watch the video for yourself, but the gist is that Edwards is asked about the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, which is apparently now the locus of "truther" inquiry. Edwards tells his interlocutor the he will look into it. Now, Ace, Rob Port, Allahpundit, and to a lesser extent Reynolds all jump on Edwards with both feet. In my last post, I fretted over a poll which purports to show trutherism being quite prevalent among Democrats. I would agree that if Edwards (or any candidate) were to adopt one of the 9/11 conspiracy theories, that candidate should be hammered.

But frankly I don't interpret the video the way Ace, Rob Port, and Allahpundit do. I think that Edwards didn't know what the guy was talking about. The guy's questions was pretty incoherent to start with, and Edwards didn't seem to be aware that "World Trade Center Seven" has become a catch-phrase among the truther set. Nor did Edwards promise a full-blown official investigation if he was elected -- he said he would look into the guy's question and get back to him. I don't think Edwards should be condemned, because I don't think he knew his questioner was alluding to these conspiracy theories, and I don't think his answer constituted an endorsement of them. Now, I do agree with Allahpunidt that the applause is a bit creepy, because the folks in the audience seemed to be fully aware of what the guy was talking about and they seemed to think Edwards was signing on to it. But I don't think he was. As I said, watch the video -- it really is ambiguous.

Now, if Edwards comes back and says "fire doesn't melt steel," or gives credence to the notion that Bush knew -- well, hammer away at him. But I think that the criticism being launched at Edwards at this time is overblown given the apparent confusion in this exchange.

Are we having fun yet?

UPDATE: I want to thank Instapundit for updating with a link to my take on the matter. Lance over at A Second Hand Conjecture is skeptical of my view that Edwards misunderstood the question, and I suppose I may be giving him too much benefit-of-the-doubt. (Although Lance is willing to cut Edwards slack if he disclaims Trutherism.) It really is my sense in viewing the video that Edwards was confused about what was being asked. But it would be nice if Edwards were to clarify his position.

Breaking News! Presidential Candidate Embraces White Value System!

Breaking News! You heard it here first on the Cheerful Iconoclast.

It turns out a leading Republican presidential candidate is a member of a church which practices racial separatism. On their web page -- until it was recently taken down -- his Congregation explained that "We are a congregation which is Unashamedly White and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the White religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent." And his church has adopted a 12-point "White Value System" which it believes "must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Whites are gathered"

His church's 12-point White Value system:

1. Commitment to God

2 Commitment to the White Community

3 Commitment to the White Family

4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education

5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence

6 Adherence to the White Work Ethic

7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect

8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"

9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the White Community

10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions

11. Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the White Value System

12. Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.

Now some of these virtues are unobjectionable, or at least expected. As an atheist, I would reject "commitment to God," but most people in the United States are religious, so I expect our next President will belong to a church, and whatever church he (or she) belongs to, they will claim to be committed to God. Likewise, nobody objects to education, excellence, self-discipline and self-respect.

Yet other aspects of this creed are quite troublesome. The commitment to the White Community implies that one is less committed to other communities -- Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. The commitment to the "White Family" implies that the families of other racial groups are somehow less worthy. And how exactly does the "White work ethic" differ from the plain old "work ethic"? The bit about pledging allegiance to White leaders who embrace the White Value System seems almost like a fascist "leader principle."

Even weirder is the bit about how they're supposed to disavow the pursuit of "middleclassness." Huh? Being "midlle class" is what Americans are supposed to aspire to -- it's the American dream. And middle class values (like, uh, the work ethic, education, and self-discipline) lead directly to economic success.

OK, everybody has probably figured it out by now. I played a trick: I substituted the word "White" for "Black." The candidate whose church embraced this creed is Barack Obama. The archived version of the "Black Value System can (for now) be found here. Bloggers were, as usual, head of the curve -- this was discussed by Illinois Review back in December, and I owe commenter Don Castella credit for the admittedly not-particularly-original idea of substituting "White" for "Black."

Now a few more bloggers -- including big-timers like Insty, Kaus, and Steve Sailer -- are all over this New York Times Story about Obama's ties to the afrocentric Trinity United Church of Christ and its pastor, one Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright.

This is some scary stuff. Wright isn't just the minister of a church that Obama happened to go to because it was in the neighborhood. Rather, Obama consciously chose Wright as his spiritual mentor. And he did it as an adult. The title of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, comes from one of Wright's sermons. And Obama is a sincere follower of Wright's Afrocentric creed. The New York Times story quotes Jim Wallis, an activist and friend of Obama's as saying “His faith is really a personal and an adult choice. His is a conversion story.”

Whoever is elected president is going to be an avowed believer, most likely a Christian of some sort, although I might hope for a secret freethinker. But Obama's conversion story is troubling because he chose to convert to a goofy Afrocentric church whose mission statement embraces everything Black (always capitlized) and eschews "middleclassness." Now, for an individual person, I suppose that's a voluntary choice. But Obama is running to be the President of the United States. And it's worth noting that, on the page I quoted, there are several references to Africa, but none at all to the United States. He was a grown adult. He chose a church which identifies exclusively with one racial group. I'm thinking that his interest in racial unity may be a bit less sincere than he would have you believe.

I have not yet gotten around to reading Dreams of My Father, but Obama's choice of churches does seem to provide circumstantial evidence favoring Sailer's side of the Sailer/Koznetzki debate. If nothing else, it is interesting: Barack Obama is a mixed-race man who is abandoned by his father and raised by his white mother and her family. As an adult, he joins an Afrocentric church led by a charismatic father figure.

We've had one President with Daddy issues who got religion as an adult. How has that worked out for us?

An Obaminable Reason To Vote For Somebody

David Greenberg has this article in Slate trotting out the already-tired comparison between Barack Obama and JFK. Like JFK, we learn, Obama "manages to inspire people with sex appeal, cerebral cool, and a message of generational change."

Fine. Whatever.

But the article goes on to make a more specific comparison. Kennedy, you see, was Catholic, and at the time he ran this was thought by many to be a Big Deal. Obama is black, or at least he so identifies. (He is of mixed race, and by the not-particularly-logical rules of American culture, this makes somebody "black," unless they work very hard to stress their racially-mixed background.) And this may turn out to be a Big Deal as well. According to Greenberg's account, Kennedy was down big going into the West Virginia primary, a state where his Catholicism could really hurt him. But Kennedy turned it around: he gave an interview with Franklin Roosevelt Jr. where he dealt candidly with the issue of his Catholicism. In so doing, he made it an issue of tolerance: vote for Kennedy and prove you aren't an anti-Catholic bigot.

Greenburg thinks that Obama is using a similar tactic: implicitly telling white voters that a vote for him is a way of demonstrating their own moral rectitude.

Now I know I shouldn't be "Shocked! Shocked!" at any campaign tactics, but isn't this a really bad reason to vote for a guy? Sure, if you think Obama will make a great President, you ought to vote for him. By the same token, if you think he'd make a really bad President, you ought to vote against him.

As an individualist, I would certainly say it's stupid to vote against somebody because of their race, or gender, or other irrelevant characteristic. But, by the same token, it's stupid to vote for somebody as a sort of fashion statement. I mean, couldn't people just drive a Volvo instead?

The Obaminable Speech

I've gotten a chance to read the transcript of the speech that I blogged about a few days ago -- before I had just listened to the tape -- and it really is a bad speech. (Link via Steve Sailer and Powerline) Like Ann Althouse, I'm struck by what a "gasbag" Obama is, although I suspect that it's partly attributable to the fact that everybody has been telling him what a great orator he is, and he's starting to believe his own publicity.

It really is pretty bad. It's no wonder he quotes a 1968 Robert Kennedy speech: the guy's still living in '68, mouthing those left-liberal platitudes and advancing bog-standard left-liberal policies. For all his faults, Bill Clinton understood that the seventies and eighties had happened, that there had been a powerful critique of conventional big-government liberalism, and that the Democrats had to at least pretend to adapt to the notion that business and commerce and markets are, like, good things. Obama's liberalism is boring, conventional, and utterly retrograde. Bill Clinton at least pretended to be a "New Democrat" -- he understood that the Spirit of '68, however emotionally compelling it might be to some folks, simply was not an answer to Ronald Reagan and everything that had gone into his election.

Obama is a throwback, a true believer in the Spirit of '68.

Mark Kleiman Points and Sputters

Mark Kleiman refers to Steve Sailer's American Conservative article on Obama's book Dreams of My Father as a "dishonest, bigoted, anti-Obama screed." Kleiman accuses Sailer of being a "lying racist" and wonders aloud if any non-lying non-racist conservatives still exist.

What I find fascinating is that Kleiman's post contain nothing but invective. That is, at no point does he attempt to identify any specific "lies" that Steve Sailer tells about Obama or Obama's book. He refers to Sailer's article as a "piece of trash" filled with "racist lies," but there's absolutely no substance, no argument, not even an attempt at an argument.

He does cite Alexander Konetzki's critique of Sailer, which actually contain some argument, so I suppose he's piggybacking on that. But you know, from somebody of Kleiman's academic credentials, I would expect him to at least try to parse the arguments, and explain why he thinks Konetzki is right and Sailer wrong. (Sailer responds to Kontezki here.) Indeed, Kleiman doesn't even indicate whether he's read the book!

For myself, I will reserve judgment on whether Sailer's article is fair -- the book is in the mail, and when I read it, I may choose to enter the fray.

Pretty Darn Obscene

According to Kaus, Obama's speech, in which he tries to link the Virginia Tech massacre to his pet list of political issues -- including losing one's health care coverage due to foreign competition and Imus's comment (!) -- "doesn't come off quite as obscene as you'd expect when you listen to it." I don't know -- I think it's pretty obscene, myself. It's also absurd -- Imus was a shock jock, and however stupid and obnoxious his comments, they don't compare to mass murder. And the health care hook is just a non-sequiter. His comments were logically incoherent, and yes, he was clearly pumping the Virginia Tech massacre for his own political purposes. Which I do find obscene, even if his phrasing was typically low-key.

So the question is: will the media (and even bloggers) continue to give Obama the free ride he's been getting?