Who is Barack Obama?
By Larry Johnson on November 12, 2008 at 6:35 PM in Current Affairs
Just to clear up any lingering confusion, I do not hate or dislike Barack Obama. I give him full credit for providing his children with something his mother and father did not–a stable nuclear family. And you can tell by how the girls react around Barack that he is a good father.
Despite his campaign’s misogyny, he appears to adore his daughters and they return the favor. Having been the legal guardian of my niece from the age of 10 until 16, I have some appreciation for what constitutes a healthy father-daughter relationship.
I also have some sympathy for Michelle Obama, who will get to experience the normal battle that ensues between mother and daughter when the puberty fairy shows up. It is tough enough to go through that in the privacy of your own home without having to do it in the full view of the world. We are going to see some cranky moments from Michelle, of that I am sure, but she deserves a pass because it is a normal rite of having a teenager. The good news is she has some time to get ready.
Here is what is so puzzling and, dare I say, troubling about the real Barack. By his own admission in one of his books he sought out Marxist professors and other radicals as his friends. What we do not know is whether or not that reflected a deep seated conviction to the extreme left or was simply a temporary marriage of convenience. We know that he had a longstanding relationship, including a working association, with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers. We know that Barack’s campaign went to great lengths to tamp down any serious investigation into that relationship. What we do not know is whether or not Barack’s friendship with Ayers reflected a commitment to Ayers’ worldview or was simply a opportunistic hook-up with someone who could help him get ahead politically and economically.
We know that. Barack sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for almost twenty years and, unless he was deaf or asleep, surely heard and was aware of Wright’s radical black liberation vision of society. What we do not know is whether or not Barack really believed and accepted Wright’s theology as his own theological foundation or simply used Wright to help him build a political base and get ahead.
Judging what Barack has done in the first week since winning the Presidency, it appears that Barack is an old-fashioned, pragmatic political opportunist with no core beliefs other than winning. That does not make him a bad person nor is it unique to a Washington politician. I find it funny that many in the media and hordes of Obama disciples have convinced themselves that this guy embodies mystical, holy qualities that transcend politics. Cut me a break.
We long for a society in which a person is judged by what they do and the integrity with which they do it rather than the color of their skin or their sex. The irony is that Barack is being hailed as the 21st Century messiah simply because of the color of his skin rather than his past actions. Even he admitted he had a thin resume and was not qualified by virtue of accomplishment to be President. But that does not matter anymore, he is the President elect and is on the precipice being saddled with an international economic depression that defies conventional prescriptions and will hinder his ability to pursue his domestic agenda.
What are we to think of Barack Obama, who was a close friend of Rashid Khalidi (who was a spokesman for a PLO entity when it was still considered a terrorist organization) and apparently endorsed anti-Israel sentiments at a going away bash for Khalidi, but then names as his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a Jewish American who joined up with the Israeli Army and fought in the first Gulf War. That sends a pretty strong signal that the guy who will control access to the Oval Office has very close ties with Israel. Not the kind of guy you’d expect to sell out Israel to Hamas or Hezbollah.
Then there is the case of his key advisor on intelligence matters. As I wrote at length yesterday, John Brennan was one of the George Tenet protégés who prospered at the CIA when the case to go to war in Iraq was being fabricated. Brennan made the leap from a GS-14 to an SIS 3 (putting that in terms of military rank, he went from a Lt. Colonel to a three star general, i.e. Lt. General) in short order by doing a dandy job of briefing George W. Bush as a PDB briefer. He was one of the guys helping arm George W. Bush with the information used to mislead the Congress and the American people. Brennan was not the only one nor was he the major culprit, but in my opinion he has some blood on his hands.
Brennan, along with Jamie Miscik and John McLaughlin, have secured spots as senior Obama intelligence advisors but were integral to helping Bush build the case for the war in Iraq. It was John McLaughlin who gave the “slam dunk” briefing at the White House in January of 2003.
For all of these reasons count me a skeptic when it comes to anointing Barack Obama as the savior of America. When you reward people who were part of the problem in developing a policy disaster with top jobs you are sending a disturbing message that accountability does not matter. The one change I was hoping to see in a new administration was a movement towards holding policy-makers accountable for their actions. At this stage in the Barack transition I am seeing the wrong signs and the wrong direction. We appear to be getting more of the same from what we have had over the last 8 years.
It is still early and I will give President-elect Obama the benefit of the doubt. But let’s judge him now but what he does rather than what he says. Is that fair?
by Ronald Scott
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