Ryan Lizza’s in-depth look at Barack Obama’s political career in Illinois for the New Yorker has something for most everyone — right and left — to chew over.
Folks right of center seem to be focusing first on Obama’s response to the 9/11 attacks, published on September 19th in the Hyde Park Herald:
Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.
We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad. We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent. Finally, we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globeâ€â€children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.
Ed Morrissey points out that Obama greatly misunderstands the nature of the enemy:
Poverty, ignorance, helplessness  actually, none of these describe the 9/11 attackers. The lead terrorists came from wealthy or upper-middle-class families, and even the “muscle†hijackers mostly came from comfortable settings. Osama bin Laden’s family is very wealthy, and Ayman al-Zawahiri came from enough wealth to put him through medical school. The impulse for these terrorists comes from their embrace of radical Islamist philosophy, not from poverty or ignorance.
That Obama saw al Qaeda this way, in contrast with the US as motivated by “rage,” is telling.
Folks left of center may find more reasons for unease in Lizza’s article overall, which suggests that Obama’s career in Illinois is marked by opportunism, a lack of loyalty to those who supported his ambitions, and a lack of regard for his constituents. The piece begins with commentary from Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, who represents Obama’s former home base of Hyde Park:
Although many of Obama’s recent supporters have been surprised by signs of political opportunism, Preckwinkle wasn’t. “I think he was very strategic in his choice of friends and mentors,†she told me. “I spent ten years of my adult life working to be alderman. I finally got elected. This is a job I love. And I’m perfectly happy with it. I’m not sure that’s the way that he approached his public lifeâ€â€that he was going to try for a job and stay there for one period of time. In retrospect, I think he saw the positions he held as stepping stones to other things and therefore approached his public life differently than other people might have.â€Â
On issue after issue, Preckwinkle presented Obama as someone who thrived in the world of Chicago politics. She suggested that Obama joined Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for political reasons. “It’s a church that would provide you with lots of social connections and prominent parishioners,†she said. “It’s a good place for a politician to be a member.†Preckwinkle was unsparing on the subject of the Chicago real-estate developer Antoin (Tony) Rezko, a friend of Obama’s and one of his top fund-raisers, who was recently convicted of fraud, bribery, and money laundering: “Who you take money from is a reflection of your knowledge at the time and your principles.†As we talked, it became increasingly clear that loyalty was the issue that drove Preckwinkle’s current view of her onetime protégé. “I don’t think you should forget who your friends are,†she said.
***
I asked her if what she considered slights or betrayals were simply the necessary accommodations and maneuvering of a politician making a lightning transition from Hyde Park legislator to Presidential nominee. “Can you get where he is and maintain your personal integrity?†she said. “Is that the question?†She stared at me and grimaced. “I’m going to pass on that.â€Â
What Preckwinkle misses is that Obama’s political image is built on forgetting who his friends are — or hoping you do. As Lizza notes later in the article:
Part of Obama’s political success is that he has been able to exploit relationships with important yet ethically dubious figures in Illinois while still maintaining his independence. In some ways, this is an Illinois tradition. When the liberal reformer Adlai Stevenson ran for governor, in 1948, one Democratic boss reportedly noted that he would “perfume the ticket.†The earnest Lincoln scholar Paul Simon stood out in the Senate for his moral rectitude and his commitment to good government even as his state wallowed in scandal. “The political bosses knew they had to have what they used to call in business a loss leaderâ€â€the showcasing,†Don Rose, the Chicago political consultant, said. “The car that you sold for under its value for advertising purposes. While you had at the top of your ticket a shining star, under that it was like turning over a rock.â€Â
The rest of the article explains the various ways in which Obama worked the system from which he claims to stand apart. Indeed, a sub-theme in the article is the old Chicago question “Who sent you?,” which is based on a story by Abner Mikva, a former congressman from Hyde Park and former federal judge — one of the first politicians to challenge the original Daley machine:
I met Mikva at the Cliff Dwellers, a private dining club atop a downtown office building. As we looked out over Lake Michigan, he told me a story that has often been repeated by others to capture the essence of politics in the city. “When I first came to Chicago, Adlai Stevenson and Paul Douglas were running for governor and senator,†he said. “I had heard about the closed Party, closed machine, but they sounded like such great candidates, so I stopped in to volunteer in the Eighth Ward Regular Democratic headquarters. I said, ‘I’m here for Douglas and Stevenson.’ The ward boss came in and pulled the cigar out of his mouth and said, ‘Who sent you?’ And I said, ‘Nobody sent me.’ He put the cigar back in his mouth and said, ‘We don’t want nobody nobody sent.’ â€Â
Obama would later invoke Mikva in his failed campaign against Rep. Bobby Rush:
“Nobody sent me,†Obama said at his campaign kickoff, on September 26, 1999. “I’m not part of some long-standing political organization. I have no fancy sponsors. I’m not even from Chicago. My name is Obama. Despite that fact, somebody sent me… The men on the corner in Woodlawn drowning their sorrows in alcohol… the women working two jobs… They’re all telling me we can’t wait.†It was the best moment of his campaign.
The reality was a bit different. Lizza explains half of it:
While it’s true that nobody sent Obama in the sense that Abner Mikva meant it, one of Obama’s underappreciated assets, as he looked for a political race in the early nineties, was the web of connections that he had established. “He understands how you network,†Mikva said. “I remember our first few meetings. He would say, ‘Do you know So-and-So?’ And I’d say yes. ‘How well do you know him? I’d really like to meet him.’ I would set up some lunches.â€Â
In other words, Mikva — now a fixture of the Democratic landscape in Illinois and nationally — sent Obama. And Mikva was likely not the only one Obama was having arrange lunches.
What Lizza leaves out is that Woodlawn was the site of Grove Parc Plaza, the flagship of a number of housing projects developed and managed by Obama’s close friends and political supporters, who profited as many of Obama’s constituents suffered in uninhabitable units or lost their homes outright. If there were men drowning their sorrows on corners in Woodlawn, Obama and his pals were probably part of the reason for it.
It was during that same campaign that Obama — along with one of his supporters, Kenny B. Smith — launched the Englewood Beautification Plan to help rehab one of Chicago’s most blighted neighborhoods. Smith got the earmarked development money; Englewood got what the Chicago Sun-Times calls “a field of unfulfilled dreams, strewn with weeds, garbage and broken pavement.”
Thus, it is not surprising that the Obama campaign would prefer that people argue over whether the New Yorker cover — which mocks Obama’s opponents — is somehow offensive to Obama. It is — to use one of Obama’s favorite words — a “distraction” from Lizza’s story, which is not the narrative the campaign wants to promote.
Is he wearing shoulder pads?
Aw, he’s upset by the Jacksonian POV: you mess with my family, you mess with my country, you are dead, dead, dead. No excuses, no mercy, no remorse. No touchy-feely kumbya-fests. Dead meat.
Deal with it.
So if you find yourself in need
Why dont you listen to his words of heat
Be a child free of sin
Be some place, yes I can
Words of wisdom: yes I can
xoxxoox
good stuff, Karl
Chicks dig me.
Karl you motherf…
Wait, let me read the article first.
;-)
No one would be happier than me to see O! go down in ignominious defeat. Except that that would leave us with…McCain. Mr. cap-n-trade, Mavericky, appoint-another-Souter-or-two, amnesty-promotin’, “obscene profits”, “force-his-own-party-to-confront-climate-change”, McCain.
Generally I prefer a wine buzz, but come Nov., I’m gonna have to start early with cocktails and maybe some shooters to get myself to vote for him. And then I’ll have to face myself the morning after. And then realize there’s a used condom in my butt.
I will come over to your house and give you belly button tequila shots if that will get you to vote for him, kelly.
Or if not doing that would help, I wouldn’t.
See this for help. East coast conservatives are going to party like it’s 1999 to get drunk enough to pull Old Maverick’s lever.
Belly Button Tequila Shots for McCain is a catchy slogan. Plus it would help remind people he’s running.
I’m still undecided, and if it McCain vote comes with a used condom in my ass you can count me right out.
I know you didn’t mean that.
Heh. See what thinking about McCain does to me. Damm you Maverick!
For the record, I don’t want to associate any votes with any foreign (or domestic) objects in my ass.
This thread is taking a trip into creepy.
I think for the cover the unfortunate thing really is that this picture will get a lot of coverage internationally, and when Baracky is defeated it will make for a pat America is full of the muslim hate narrative. It’s a lot a poison pill image I think.
The cover says not electing Baracky will validate these stereotypes. You don’t want to look stupid and bigoty do you America? Think of the embittered children. This is something new I think.
EG,
Cowboy up, buckaroo – it’s gonna be bareback all the way.
Creepy?
Naw, unusual, maybe. But, after all, it is Protein Wisdom. And I don’t even think 16 posts is a record for deliberate misinterpretation of a sentence construction for bawdy purposes…
Or 11.
shorter NY-er: Obama is a politician, who says things his constituents, almost all of whom were left-of-center, want to hear. In return, he met people who were rich or connected, who helped get his ass elected.
yup, that’s about it.
Given that I do this for a living, I can now state for the record that he’s about 100% like every other machine hack right and left I’ve ever met and covered.
Only thing special about O! is/was the fact that his competition was almost heroically inept and screwed things up so badly.
Could’ve saved Dave Ryan’s fee.
All ‘hand waving and distractive avoidance’ all the time isn’t going to get for O! He is going to try to talk about substantive matters every once and awhile between now and Nov. (if only because he likes to hear himself talk) and every time he does, he runs a fearsome risk of revealing his shallowness. Himself is not a pretty picture really. He is his own undoing.
I can’t quit you Rick. The truth is that I am sorely in need of a candidate that can provide an alternative, lifestyle choices being important to me it’s hard not to gag on the doctrine of fairness that McCain wants to jam down my throat.
OK, weak tea admittedly but I’m humping a dry well here.
EG if you live in California, Illinois, or Massachusetts, you can enjoy sitting home and not voting for McCain guilt free. Then you will not have to experience all those disgusting things people are mentioning up thread.
Ann Coulter does make me cringe (often) bu this is good stuff about McCain and ANWAR and his “centrist” decisionmaking:
Heh!
Dang, Ed Guy. I think you could have worked in a “salad tossing” reference in there somewhere. A riff on arugula or something?
Mr. Pink
I live in Virginia. Chances are good my vote may actually count.
Carin
True, but with the lame references I had already given, I was dangerously close to committing a hate crime. Thanks for covering for me though.
MN too, Mr. Pink.
Sorry then EG, you are screwed.
I live in Florida, so I’ll wait until the Supreme Court decides if my vote counts.
I’m happy because I have just been dying to find out Obama’s initial reaction to 9/11. I knew it wouldn’t be tough, I knew it would give a passing nod to military actions, and it confirms my suspicions that his talk about increasing military action in Afghanistan now is simply because it isn’t where we’ve increased our military action.
Look at any answer he has given during debates about how he would respond to a terrorist attack or notification of a pending one. It is almost always this same answer…starting with intelligence and identification:
That’s from an April 27, 2007 article by Byron York.
Methinks that Obama hasn’t been reading a whole lot of Muslim history. He should check out Muhammed, the assasin cult during the crusades, the Wahhabes of the early 19th century, the hindustanies of 19th and early 20th century Afghanistan and India right up through the Muslim Brotherhood, the various Islamic Jihad organizations, the PLO (more political/Marxist but using religious justifications), the minefield clearing teenage Iranian boys in the 1980’s, Hezbullah, Hamas, al qaeda, et al.
It may not be “unique” to Muslim Radicals but their history of “uncaring” runs longer and deeper than just about every other culture you could name.
I have heard variations on this theme from so many different Liberals/Progressives and the inbred ingnorance is just stunning. As pointed out, the vast majority of the important members of the various paramilitary Ialamic radical groups are middle to upper-upper class people with money and position within their culture and well educated. While their foot soldiers/splodeydopes tend to be poor it is certainly not the primary reason for their commitment.
It’s about the religion and it’s atoneing power for the lost and sinful.
Certainly the nature of the radical madrassah education available to poor young men (whether it is the Saudi/Wahabbe version or the Pakistan/Deobandi type) it is the indoctrination by rote and harsh discipline into a tightly configured and maximally radicalized mindset. The lack of good secular education in counties like Pakistan and (until recently) Afghanistan creates golden opportunities for radicalization to jihad against all infidels and apostates, young or old, man or woman.
The poverty doesn’t matter if the religion controls the educational system. Maybe less parents would be willing to send their sons to be brainwashed at no cost into mindless Islamic killing machines but, guess what?
That Genie is already out of the bottle.
Talking about dealing with poverty and ignorance as an important part of counterterrorism is absurd. First, you have to make radicalized Jihad such a poor career choice in terms of success over a period of time that many will drift away from the life. Al qaeda’s greatest recuiter was never Iraq or Afghanistan and the US presence; It was 9/11 How do I know this? Bin Laden said it himself on one of his messages. No, it doesn’t mean you have to kill them all (somebody catch those sprinting goalposts) but it does mean you have to defeat them time and time again until the rest value the Quran’s instructions to lay down your arms for a period of time when your opponent is too strong.
Of all of the things that concern me about any presidential candidate, this is the sort of pablum that genuinely frightens me. As much as I have serious issues with McCain this one area where I know I can count on him understanding the issue.
Obama? not so much.
“I can’t quit you Rick.”
Stay with me, pard. The trail up Brokeback Mountain is a tough’en. We’ll both be hunched over and gasping in the end but the view from on top is supposed to be spectacular. As long as you don’t look down…
It might not get her to vote for him, but if I happened to witness this, it might get me to vote for him.
Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
Osama has an engineering degree and family has billions.
Atta’s dad was a lawyer, and he had a degree in urban planning.
Zawahiri’s father was a professor, and he is a surgeon.
KSM has an engineering degree.
Many of the other hijackers were educated and came from affluent families.
So, is Obama stupid, or does he think we are?
Yes.
Thanks for the offer, MayBee. I think I’ve stumbled on a new slogan for the Mav:
Take one up the ass for the GOP ’08!
Wait — does “belly button tequila shots” have a meaning I wasn’t aware of?
Huh. All this without alpuccino. Good work, people.
Karl, your ass is still mine, bitchass. Don’t make me go all Darkerella on yo’ ass (I pity the fool…).
This was a good post though. I agree with it as a whole: Those of us who started out supporting Hillary and sort of edged over to Obama for various reasons have had our eyes open to the fact that he is a pretty non-messiahish narcissistic politician. Which is why we don’t necessarily fall apart when he fucks up or reveals himself to be a self-absorbed douche. Nor are we necessarily shy about saying: “Wow that was spectacularly douchey of him” sometimes.
It is the dewy eyed newbies to politics who are shocked and angry when they hear of some thing he has made a political calculation to flip or throw under the bus. I think the article contained in the New Yorker takes a hard and not-so-flattering look at Obama as a politician – a real, garden variety opportunist and self-aggrandizer with a knack for oratory fabulousness and mad charisma.
Very interesting stuff.
This thread got so homoerotic that when I read upthread to #25 I thought it said “I live in a Vagina, and I think my vote will count” for a second.
Really put an interesting new demographic spin on the election for a moment.
Va-jay-jay is for lovers.