Gonna have to disagree with Sowell on this one. I’d say that Obama, like most educated liberals, is well aware of socialism’s record of failure. The problem is that it’s irrelevant to them. Socialism gets its hooks into people too deeply for mere historical fact to change their minds.
You’re probably right. Every socialist/liberal I have ever confronted with the factual evidence of socialism’s failure simply replies that it hasn’t been tried “hard enough” or “long enough”. They seem to think that if they can just milk a little more money out of the makers’ pockets and give it to the takers, there will be a tipping point reached where socialism will simply come into being and everyone will live in a socialist utopia. That a “few” eggs get broken along the way (makers destroyed), well, that’s just the price “we” pay for the socialist revolution. Of course, when challenged to walk the talk (i.e., give me all your money right now as a gesture of good faith and walking the talk), they usually spit and splutter something about racism and homophobia.