There are silly rationalizations from the left, like Ezra Klein's defense of Wright arguing a double-standard for white and black political/religious extremism.
And there are countless silly examples from the right as well, stockpiling "evidence" that Obama is "toast," and not a true patriot because he doesn't wear flag lapel pins, and because his wife sometimes says ungracious things.
However, some other conservative bloggers are hitting a larger point that Obama himself has all but confessed: his association with the Trinity United Church of Christ was a calculated effort to gain credibility amongst inner-city blacks, with whom Obama would be working as an organizer. NRO's Lisa Schiffren often drifts off the deep end of political discourse, but her point here sticks:
[H]e must have come to understand that, to succeed in politics, it would help to acquire the trappings of being a good Christian — regardless of what he may or may not have personally believed. It is generally beyond the pale to question a public figure's personal religious commitment (Democrat's, anyway) —and I don't personally care whether he is a genuine Christian (whatever that may be) or not. But, if he was there to absorb the spiritual stuff, he can't have missed the political message, since they were pretty closely intertwined.
The point taken in that context makes Obama neither admirable nor abhorrent. What it does show is that he can be diminished in stature when it is revealed that for all his measurable gifts, he is still just another politician at the end of the day.
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Barama is just another politician, but not all politicians have benefited from personal real estate deals that netted a highly questionable $300,000 discount on the asking price for the property when his co-buyer paid full price. He may have satisfied the editorial boards of the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times, but it just seems unbelievable that there wasn't a penultimate moment of self-dealing awareness (during his self-described "bone-headed" move) when the recently elected senator from Illinois muttered to himself, "Damn! This is probably going to cost me some votes, but I really want this $1,650,000 mansion!" If there was another offer on the adjoining property, why didn't the bonehead just work out a deal with THAT buyer and bypass Tony Rezko altogether?
Posted by: Tomas Gordon
| March 17, 2008 5:51 PM
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