Obama: Best since FDR?

The Boston Globe ^ | Robert Kuttner

[Obilisk18]

The Democratic nominee is likely to be Barack Obama.

I have followed politics far too long to fall in love, but Obama is like nothing we have seen since Bobby Kennedy and maybe since FDR. If you haven't read his first book, "Dreams from My Father," you owe it to yourself.

Obama wrote the book when he was 33, having spent nearly three years as an organizer on Chicago's South Side, and then three years at Harvard Law School, where he was elected president of the Law Review. No 33-year-old has the right to such uncommon wisdom and humanity. The comparisons that come to mind are the young Martin Luther King Jr., or Václav Havel, or maybe Thomas Jefferson.

If you think Obama is a pretty face with a gift for rhetoric and not an effective politician in the most noble sense of the word, read the chapters about his small victories organizing in the desolate neighborhoods of the South Side, one pastor and one kitchen table at a time.

Columnist Maureen Dowd described Hillary Rodham Clinton's money machine against the innocent Obama as Hillzilla vs. Obambi.

But Obama's mass appeal could well roll over Clinton's money. Obama is the only rock star in the campaign. We are likely to see a tidal wave of Americans under 40 who have never seen such a leader. Obama is young, and the Republican field is nothing so much as old. And this is a generation casually accustomed to revering the likes of Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey.

Obama lacks the foreign policy experience of, oh, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. But read of his first trip to his ancestral Kenya, and you'll feel quite comfortable that he has an unerring grasp of the complex world beyond these shores.

[Obilisk18]

I want to puke. Whatever you think of FDR, Obama eons away from FDR's capacities both as a politician, and as a man. Obama's being made into a God, and we're bickering about which obscure congressman we ought to nominate to lose to him.

[AmishDude]

The Rohrschack candidate.

[Hildy]

This deification is beyond comprehension...it's the new American racism...

[hsalaw]

But read of his first trip to his ancestral Kenya, and you'll feel quite comfortable that he has an unerring grasp of the complex world beyond these shores.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry - this article is just so damn stupid.

[Kakaze]

Whatever he's drinking, I hope they issue a recall for it.

This guy has got a severe case of the mental "runs"

[Psycho_Bunny]

Ug....get a room.

[MadIvan]

FDR was a much more experienced politician. He was Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson Administration, a Vice Presidential candidate in 1920, and Governor of New York. The comparison is truly out of order.

Regards, Ivan

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Here's all any Conservative needs to know about Barrack Hussein Obama:

Special Interest Group Ratings:

Planned Parenthood - 100% Support
National Right To Life - 0% Support
NARAL - 100% Support
Americans for Tax Reform - 0% Support
ACLU - 83% Support
NEA - 100% Support
NOW Hags - 100% Support
Citizens Against Government Waste - 13% Support
Gun Owners of America - 0% Support
NRA - "F" Rating
Federation for American Immigration Reform - 0% Support
US Border Patrol - 8% Support
Unions - 82% - 100% Support
Population Connection - 100% Support (These are the 'Zero Growth' freaks)

http://vote-smart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=BS030017

[Barrack Hussein Obama's record in the Illinois senate:]

- Opposed the Defense of Marriage Act; would work to repeal it in the U.S. Senate; would not vote for any legislation that would restrict the ability of gays and lesbians to marry.
- Opposed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act four times in Illinois. A similar bill passed the U.S. Senate 98-0. The Born Alive bill would have prohibited a baby from being born alive but left to die according to the mother's wishes. Obama inexplicably opposed this bill not once, twice, or three times, but four times.
- Obama took almost $90,000 in bundled contributions from the Council for a Livable World. The council is a well-known anti-defense organization.
- Obama puts rigid ideology before what's best for the people of Illinois, and presumably he would do that as President as well. He has on several occasions made public his opposition to the NAFTA trade agreement and his belief that it must be negotiated. All the while thanks to NAFTA, Illinois exports $1.3 billion in agricultural goods to Canada.
- Obama refused to vote for a bill in the Illinois State Senate that would have increased penalties for drug traffickers.
- Obama voted against a bill that would have delivered the death penalty to gang members who murder first responders.
- Finally, just in case you thought it couldn't get any worse, Obama was the only member of the Illinois State Senate to vote against a bill that prohibited early release for sexual predators.

Can’t kill the innocent fast enough, can’t free the guilty soon enough!

[Republican Wildcat]

Rather flattering article of the communist.

[I see my hands]

The trouble is if this joker makes it past the Clinton grist mill and secures the Dim nomination he will be immune to attacks from the right.

[pipecorp]

Nah, teddy said it best "osama obama". After all, they both want the same thing in iraq.

[ShawTaylor]

"Obama: Best since FDR?"

I see the Boston Globe people have increased their daily intake of crack cocaine..again.

[atomicpossum]

If his skin were white, he'd be Dennis Kucinich. But with less qualifications.

[Wuli]

The politically driven media begins its sales job, needing not a penny of campaign financing or direction from Obama. They are not a "free" press. They are the dedicated handmaidens of the left and they duly follow its "line of march".

[Moonman62]

If you think Obama is a pretty face with a gift for rhetoric

I think he has big ears and looks goofy.

[Clara Lou]

Wow, Howie is an ardent Obama-lover, isn't he? Sorta sickening. And he doesn't think that the book was written expressly for the purpose of propaganda--building Obama's political career?

[Brad from Tennessee]

[. . .read the chapters about his small victories organizing in the desolate neighborhoods of the South Side, one pastor and one kitchen table at a time.]

It's not surprising an autobiographer--and a knee-jerk liberal--would be the hero of his own book.

[weegee]

I have followed politics far too long to fall in love, but Obama is like nothing we have seen since Bobby Kennedy

He boffed a famous actress, drove her to suicide, stole her diary, and watched his brother's back?

...and maybe since FDR.

Oh, he's a super-socialist.

[Artemis Webb]

Hillary has something Obama does not:

She has a lot of influential Democrats who owe her BIG time.
They owe her for money for the money she (and Bill) has raised for them.

This rather reminds me of how many people believed Howard Dean was a juggernaut to the nomination. When it came time though for the New Hampshire primary the rank and file Democrats fell right in line behind Kerry.

In this election cycle I don't expect Obama to fade quite as easily as Dean did. I think the net result will be the same though and Hillary will be on the November ballot. I wish I was as sure of who will be on the Republican ballot.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Actually this sort of fantasy is not all bad. They want this man to be a winner so bad they can taste it. And to put an unseasond person like this out there as the party nominee in the middle of a world wide war on terror is really scary stuff.
What's even scarier is the US electorate is so dumbed down he might get elected.
Now, THAT is scary.