In the past decade, we’ve had the dot.com bubble and the real estate bubble. Since that magical January evening when Barack Obama won 36.7 percent of the caucus votes in Iowa, he seems to have been in a bubble, too.
His latest fourth decisive victory Sunday February 10, winning the Maine caucuses so unnerved Hillary Clinton that she made the decision to replace her campaign manager. There’s a lot to be nervous about – the official delegate count has Clinton at 1,128 and Obama at 1,116 and he is expected to do quite well today in heavily black Washington, D.C., and in Maryland and Virginia.
Whether or not he is nominated and elected president, Obama is surely a rock star-like phenomenon. A truly eloquent orator, a figure of considerable poise and grace, he is “the one” that Oprah Winfrey and others – including the Kennedys (or most of them) have awaited.
But the rush to anoint Obama may slow now that the New York Times has published a front-page story about his occasional drug-taking during his college years. In Obama’s 442-page book, Dreams From My Father, (1995), published when he was 33 – he is now 46 -- Obama spends a page and a half on references to his use of drugs.
Obama wrote that as a college student at Occidental in Honolulu from 1979 to 1981, he felt confused about his identity as the son of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father. He wrote that he would get high on marijuana, and occasionally, cocaine “to help numb the confusion.” He wrote: “Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man….Except the highs had not been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind.”
While such honest disclosures were written before he ran for office, an adviser to Clinton could not resist the temptation of pointing out that such a “history” would make him vulnerable to Republican attacks. If the Republican squads of conservative dirt-diggers don’t drill deep, you can bet Clinton’s staff will certainly pick up the shovel.
The Barack Obama who made Law Review at Harvard is a long, long way from the junkie he feared he would become. But what Obama calls “post racial” America may turn against him as his enemies forget the “political correctness” sanctions of the 21st century and introduce his drug admissions and racial insecurities into the campaign -- possibly from “sources” the New York Times missed.
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Comments
As I read this I thought about the long list of Republicans who've been busted for sexual malfeasance of the most odious kind. It just doesn't bother me if someone young experimented with drugs as they were hashing out their identity and goals in life. People who've made it into office with unresolved sexual issues that cause them to act out their repressed behavior are more dangerous.
Obama has worked out his issues and those guys haven't. I'm sure he'll handle that particular battle just fine. No one really gives a rats behind about that particular argument aside from withering old conservatives.
Posted by: magicmary | February 12, 2008 1:16 PM
Even Barama is beginning to believe he has faced the worst of the opposition research that Hillary has tossed his way and survived it, but the truth is that Republican operatives will be much more ruthless than any Democrat. Forget John McCain and the gentile rules of the United States Senate. The campaign to destroy Barama will come from the same crowd that so successfully "swift-boated" the last Democratic candidate.
On a related issue, I'd like to see the polling about the Barama vs. McCain match-up couched in these terms: "Which candidate would you prefer if there is a substantial terrorist threat or attack one week before the election?" I suspect that the current polling favoring Barama over Hillary in such match-up polling would evaporate.
Barama has become a rock star, and his popularity is solely based on his vague (and largely untrue) promises to deliver universal health care, unite the country, and somehow make us believe again! His rhetorical flourishes are totally transparent to anyone who has studied acting, and if anyone thinks he is not an ambitious politician seeking to enhance his own position, just check out the widely reported but apparently discounted sweetheart deal he pulled off with the indicted Chicago slumlord, Tony Rezko. You can bet John McCain or one of his cohorts will!
Posted by: Tomas Gordon
| February 12, 2008 6:23 PM
My apologies to all gentiles! I meant to type "genteel," though I guess it works either way!
Posted by: Tomas Gordon
| February 12, 2008 6:36 PM
Let's not forget the impending drug scandal. I do not know if it is true, but some guy is on You Tube saying that he did drugs with Obama is 99 along with other things. I doubt the Repub will let that pass. It will be another Harold Ford. If Obama is the nominee, say hello to our new president JOhn McCain. 4 more years of Hell!!
Posted by: jack | February 12, 2008 8:54 PM
The drug thing just ain't what it used to be.
Posted by: greg heaton | February 12, 2008 9:46 PM
It's old news by now. There's nothing there that hasn't been freely admitted. Whatever impact it's had has already been made.
Posted by: ProgRook | February 13, 2008 1:57 AM
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