And she was almost our VP ...

[Sqrl]

steven787 said:

Sqrl said:

steven787 said:
Fantasy: President-Elect Obama is really radical black socialist. Trained by Ayers and Wright to be one.


Reality:

Obama is a crafty, pragmatic politician. He used Ayers, Wright, the Daleys, and all the rest of the establishment of Chicago to move into national politics.

Part of his MO, is to go to older established politicians, lobbyists, community leaders, etc. and pretend they are like a father to him. They boosted him up as much as possible. You see it in Chicago, you see it in D.C..

He is an arrogant man, an elitist, and one of the smartest, most politically aware presidents we've ever had in the U.S. With all the shit that this country is going through and about to go through, we are damn lucky.

Perfectly illustrating my point actually.  This fantasy thing is not at all what I was driving at, but the campaign was and thats why they were unable to make people care, and its why folks who haven't looked into the issue (like yourself and Rubang) think that this type of conclusion is all there is to get from it. 

 

If my conclusion is the correct one, than how am I not looking into it?

 

I am and was perfectly aware of the type of person he is.  He's a power hungry elitist but he's also a transparent, motivational, pragmatic, intelligent , moderate tempered man.

Bush was a moralist but a power hungry, elitist, intellectually incurious, weak-minded ideologue.

McCain was intelligent but an angry, short-sighted, loose canon.

Palin was strong-willed but an intellectually incurious, politically inept (past her base), and racist or at least incited racism.

 

All had their good and bad, only one is what the country needs right now.

I never said your conclusion was entirely correct, this isn't a binary choice after all. I was simply saying that I wasn't arguing towards the "fantasy" scenario you mentioned.  While I agree that political expedience was certainly a goal of his I think the proposition that this was the entire picture is largely betrayed by the facts.

For example, Obama initially stuck up for Wright claiming he could not disown him, even when Wright was toxic and served him no political purpose he stuck with him until he was absolutely forced to disown him. This suggests loyalty not political smarts, unfortunately this loyalty is to a man that many people find disturbing (rightly or wrongly).

Similarly he refused to denounce Ayers and instead only denounced the acts of 30 years ago specifically.  Again an odd sort of statement where rather than simply a universal denunciation he only denounced the specific acts. A strong and emphatic statement is the politically expedient thing to do, a precise statement is..perhaps not loyal, but certainly not politically optimal.

If his mindset with these now disreputable individuals was purely that of extracting the most political advantage I don't think he would have hesitated to cut them off and move on.  But I do agree that the political advantage was a sizable motive for his relationships, just not the entire motive.  I think he did have common ground with these people, and probably not the superbly radical stuff people are assuming it to be.  But by not addressing the issue head on he left it open to interpretation, and since the campaign is over that is where it is likely to remain...unless of course he appoints Ayers as SecDef...because at that point I might start leaning towards the fantasy scenario =P

And while I'm on the subject the true fantasy scenario is where Obama was trained by Saul Alinsky and Louis Farrakhan with the money of Rezko and a mysterious Saudi millionaire (ie Bin Laden).  If you want to go for crazy you gotta really sell out to it ;)

Anyways, I won't argue with your characterizations since they're just your opinion.