With Friends Like This...

I'm not an American, but I usually get interested in American politics during the run-up to national elections.

I find Obama a fascinating candidate, mostly because of the phenomenon that he represents (hope?), no doubt aided by the fact that we know very little about him (voters tend to fill in the blanks with their own wishes and desires).

I'm too old and cynical to buy into the hype though; I much preferred Clinton for the nomination because she just seems much tougher than Obama, a quality I think is simply crucial in a political leader.

In my own country, the leader of the opposition is not unlike Obama in the fact that he is a professor, but he is also a complete wimp, allowing everyone (especially power brokers within his own party) to run roughshod over him. The example of Socrates, Thucydides, Xenophon, and a few others from a bygone era notwithstanding, I think the two (intellectual and wimp) tend to go together. (I say this as someone who is well on the road to becoming an "intellectual" and is a certifiable wimp to boot; but I wouldn't vote for me as president either.)

This will sound terrible because of the following statement's unstated assumptions and implications, but I do think it would be good for America if Obama does win the presidency, though not because I think he'd be a particularly good president (I actually half expect another Jimmy Carter [= a naif]), but because it would help the US get past the whole race thing.

However, it's clear that Obama's securing of the nomination has brought out the crazies... in the Democratic party (hat-tip Politico):

"Fred Hobbs, a state Democratic Party Executive Committee member representing part of Davis’ district, said he understands why Davis is not endorsing Obama and is “skeptical” of the Illinois senator himself."

“Maybe [it’s] the same reason I don’t want to — I don’t exactly approve of a lot of the things he stands for and I’m not sure we know enough about him,” Hobbs said when asked why he thought Davis wasn’t endorsing Obama. “He’s got some bad connections, and he may be terrorist connected for all I can tell. It sounds kind of like he may be.”

I assume he's talking about Bill Ayers (one of the founders of the Weathermen) and Bernardine Dohrn, both of whom were indeed terrorists (apparently still unrepentent) during the turbulent 60's and 70's, when a lot of stupid young people did a lot of stupid things. Both now live in Chicago (they're married) where they apparently ran into Obama a few times. However, Obama's relationship to them appears to be limited to serving on the same board as Ayers at a charity and running around in the same social/intellectual circles in the Chicago (Hyde Park) area. Hardly justification for labelling or implying that Obama is a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer.

The more worrying aspect of Obama's associates, it seems to me, is his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, precisely because they were so close for so long. He sounds like a race baiter of the worst kind to me; you have to wonder what it says about a person who attended a church like Wright's for 20 years.

Wright's sermons are simply inflammatory race-mongering and not a little crazy (note all the conspiracy theories). Have a gander at this ABC news story:



Here's some more raw footage:



Happily, Obama has now renounced Wright and left his church. I only hope it was for the right reasons.