Replies

I break bread with many self-identified socialists, Marxists, Greens, etc. It is a professional reality in my field that you remain engaged with and entertain the possibility of collaborating with folks running the political gamut, or find yourself consigned to obscurity. And it really does run the gamut, from pro-Market Cuban refugees, to Chinese communists and Chinese anti-communists, to secular European socialist-greens, to liberal Jews and fundamentalist Muslims, to a Republican DoD researcher who is regular attendee at Cheney holiday parties.

They all know where I stand on politics, and I know where they stand. Politics, in the rare instances certain topics are broached (as inevitably happens), is discussed very gingerly in mixed company, at least in my experience!

So one has to really look at the nature of the association - and in Obama's case, his associations ARE nakedly political, and clearly bilateral (i.e. it is not a case of Obama having an unfortunate class of admirers, while extending no reciprocal goodwill contingent upon their political proclivities). It is not a case of him going to a doctor who happens to be a communist, or getting hired by a law firm which employs a radical with eco-terrorist leanings to do their landscaping. Or even collaborating with a Marxist lawyer on apolitical matters. Obama made a conscious effort to embed himself with some interesting political groups, and he should be expected to reap the rewards and damage of these POLITICAL associations.

Just as I, if political ambitions were to arise, would have to answer for my public associations with the NRA, Federalist Society, Cato Institute, Heartland Institute, Reason Foundation, National Center for Policy Analysis, etc. Luckily, no John Birch Society skeletons would await discovery though, LOL.