Jay Cost: Obama Rolls the Dice

RealClearPolitics ^ | January 20, 2007 | Jay Cost

[RWR8189]

From 1997 to 2005, Barack Obama was the state senator for one of the most liberal places in the United States - the Southside Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park.

Home to the University of Chicago, Hyde Park, like many Chicago neighborhoods, has enjoyed a renaissance in the last 15 years. While it is by no means "hip" - the U of C is, after all, where "fun comes to die" - this beautiful neighborhood has become a destination for those looking for what magazine writers these days call "urban living." It is also one of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in the country. It largely consists of University of Chicago students, relatively well-to-do African-Americans, and relatively well-to-do urban whites.

Politically, this means that its representatives in the state legislature can travel as far to the left as they desire, substantively and temperamentally. When your constituency consists of the most strongly partisan types of Democrats you can find in America, you need not worry about compromising with Republicans, or even being nice to them.

Yet, Obama built for himself a reputation for consensus-building in the state senate. He worked with Republicans on many issues, and was well liked. This is obviously a sign of several political qualities that will come in handy for the presidential campaign of the junior senator from Illinois. Not only is he amiable, but - quite unlike strong partisans on both sides of the aisle - he does not seem to suffer from the narrow-minded presumption that those who disagree must be either stupid or acting in bad faith. These are not the only qualities that recommend Obama. His personality is captivating. And, furthermore, the man is obviously intelligent. All in all, he seems to be a smart, politically astute, charismatic, and thoroughly decent fellow.

[King Moonracer]

Chappaquiddick, Chappaquiddick, Chappaquiddick Madrassa, Maddrassa, Madrassa

[rickdylan]

Temporarily. You're talking about campaigning agsinst Ma Barker here. Of all the plausible dem candidates, Hillary is the one with the organization and infrastructure to simply kill people who get in her way, and that's on top of her database system which causes people to suddenly remember skeletons in their closets and bow out of races suddenly for no apparent reason.

[vpintheak]

Osama is a psychotic lefty. End of story.

[Cicero]

Good grief. Yada, yada, yada. I've never read such a lot of drivel in my life.

There was only one gem in the whole article:

the University of Chicago, where "fun comes to die."

I hadn't heard that one before. That's a keeper.

[Strategerist]

Good grief. Yada, yada, yada. I've never read such a lot of drivel in my life.

Because it's not the typical screaming rant that if you read the first sentence, you've read the whole article, that seems to be the only thing people like around here.

[Chi-townChief]

Hyde Park is nice but also pretty snotty, clannish, and suspicious of outsiders.

[glorgau]

Hyde Park is nice but also pretty snotty, clannish, and suspicious of outsiders.

Considering the surrounding neighborhoods, that is just common sense. ;-)

[Iconoclast2]

It always strikes me as somewhat sinister when an entire article puffs up a politician without leaking a hint of his substantive policy views. This writer is a fellow traveler, as they used to say.

[AmericaUnited]

Hillary is the one with the organization and infrastructure to simply kill people who get in her way

So true. If Obama was really smart, he'd pick a nice plot in Fort Marcy Park now, rather than have one chosen for him.

[arthurus]

I suspect that ultimately Mr. Obama is campaigning for the #2 spot on Mrs. Clinton's ticket. I think Mrs. Clinton is also thinking about that and taking precautions at the same time.

[RinaseaofDs]

The most interesting part of this article is this liberals perception of how conservatives perceive liberals: either stupid or acting in bad faith.

How succinctly and accurately put. The irony is that this liberal, Cost, doesn't believe he's either stupid or acting in bad faith, as if there is some other third explanation that would make liberalism benignly justifiable.

My Church, including the pastors, are liberal to a fair-thee-well, and the entire bunch have some how disconnected their ability to recognize logic in an argument and have found a way to live the way they do.

The most obvious of the ironies, especially in a church-going group, is the illogic of reading a right to murder your child into the constitution somewhere, that somehow trumps the specifically mentioned in alienable right to life.

[nowandlater]

In all seriousness, if Obama gets the democratic nomination then it is game-set-match! Heck, even me a staunch conservative thinks he is a very compelling attractive candidate. It's a damn shame that he is so liberal.....

[GrannyK]

Subject: Barack Hussein Obama

Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (black muslim) of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District , Kenya , and Ann Dunham of Wichita , Kansas . (white atheist ). Obama's father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was a radical Muslim who migrated from Kenya to Jakarta , Indonesia . He met Obama's mother, Ann Dunham-a white atheist from Wichita , Kansas -at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Obama, Sr. and Dunham divorced when Barack, Jr. was two. His mother married Lolo Soetoro -- a Muslim -- moving to Jakarta with Obama when he was six year s old. Within six months he had learned to speak the Indonesian language. Obama spent "two years in a Muslim school, then two more in a Catholic school" in Jakarta . Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim while admitting that he was once a Muslim, mitigating that damning information by saying that, for two years, he also attended a Catholic school.

Obama's spinmeisters are now attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came from his father and that influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya immediately following the divorce and never again had any direct influence over his son's education. Dunham married another Muslim, Lolo Soetoro who educated his stepson as a good Muslim by enrolling him in one of Jakarta 's Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrori sts who are now waging Jihad on the industrialized world. Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when you are seeking political office in the United States , Obama joined the United Church of Christ to help purge any notion that he is still a Muslim.

Hope you find this interesting,

Hillary

[ottersnot]

I don't care that Obama is a Muslim. This is America, religious freedom is assured in the Constitution, but he is toast. He can't win. I don't see Hitlery taking that kind of baggage on to her ticket. It's an indefensible position in my opinion--a no win situation. How do you adequately show your loyalty to the USA and military action against terror while being a card carrying member of
the faith?? Will anyone trust this guy to defend us? (I'm probably being stupid as people trusted Clinton to defend us from Terror and we got 9/11 for his efforts).

I'd like to hear him denounce the faith--publicly state that he is no longer a Muslim. Not that I'd vote for him anyways, but it would be nice to hear.

[FDNYRHEROES]

Chappaquiddick, Chappaquiddick, Chappaquiddick

And to think, Mary Jo Kopechne might still be alive today if Roe vs Wade had been passed four years ealier...

[HighlyOpinionated]

Snopes disagrees with this email.

My concern is that if he is a closet Muhammadan, he can do and say anything because there is no recourse in Muhammadanism for lying if it furthers the cult. This concern of mine taints everything and everyone who has had any education in a Muhammadan household or in any Madrassa, such as a Wahabbist Madrassa.

Also, it seems to me that his "books" were a nice "set up" to answer questions he (or someone) knew would come when he ran for President. He doesn't have to "lie" because he can point to the answer in print. And we all know that if you read something, it must be true. Our teachers and instructors told us that for at least the first twelve years of our education. We read, we memorize, we take test on what we memorized. Why would teachers have us do that if what we read were not accurate and the truth?

And so it is taught in Madrassa. Muhammad wrote, you read, you memorize, you take test. Muhammad's truth is the real one and everyone else's is evil and must be abolished. WHY? Because we are afraid that others might taint our little Muhammadan-jihadists-to-be with the unvarnished-truth and confuse them. And if they're confused they have a tendency to convert to another religion. Muhammadans can't have that. It's imperative to defend the structure and stricture of Muhammadanism at all costs, even to the point of brain washing young children.

But Jesus said to them: Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such.

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh.

[zbigreddogz]

Clinton would NEVER take Obama as VP. He's a lot more interesting then her, he'd overshadow her. It would be like Dukakis/Benson, but 10X worse.

It'll be Clinton/Richardson.

[RWR8189]

I've never seen anything to suggest that Jay Cost is a liberal.

[hershey]

Hill will offer him the VP slot.