I haven’t read Barack Obama’s first book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Obama’s revelations were not an issue during his Senate campaign two years ago. But now his open narrative of early, bad choices, including drug use starting in high school and ending in college, as well as his tortured search for racial identity, are sure to receive new scrutiny.
I’m shocked — shocked — to learn that someone my age used drugs.
Okay… no. I’m not. My eyebrows barely twitched in reaction to this news. While I do know some people in this same age range who managed to arrive at the relative sanity of adulthood without ever trying anything illicit (or at least inhaling), they’re few and far between. Very few. Very far.
The WaPo article goes on:
As a potential candidate, Obama has presented himself as a fresh voice offering a politics of hope. Many say he offers something new in American politics: an African American with a less-than-traditional name who has so far demonstrated broad appeal. What remains to be seen is whether the candor he offered in his early memoir will be greeted with a new-style acceptance by voters.
It was not so long ago that such blunt admissions would have led to a candidate’s undoing, and there is uneasiness in Democratic circles that “Dreams From My Father” will provide a blueprint for negative attacks.
And of course they’re correct to be uneasy; it will open the door for negative attacks. Then again, that’s the way our highly evolved political system works, does it not? Had Barack Obama not written his book eleven years ago, somebody would have been dug out of his past come forward and said, “Barack and I used to hang out behind the bleachers in high school and get high”.
You know they would.
In Barack Obama’s case, however, the resultant negativity is likely to be even worse — because there’s little else on which to attack him. Furthermore, he scares the opposition, both Republican and Democrat. A relative unknown with a fresh approach and a clean slate is dangerous to those who’ve accumulated some personal and political baggage during their own years in the limelight.
I’m willing to bet some presidential hopefuls are keeping plenty of their own indiscretions (youthful and not-so-much) very carefully under wraps. Or don’t you think other candidates are doing their dangdest to hide things?
To me, the real story behind Obama’s revelations is one of personal triumph. Many young people sadly do not emerge from those years well; the choices of their youth carry into young adulthood. Furthermore, his message to young urban black men is that one can, in fact, make different choices — choices that will lead to a radically different outcome than the difficult, dangerous, and ultimately destructive lifestyle of drugs and crime.
All in all, I think I’ve decided I like Barack Obama better today. I also think it’s high time I read that book.
* * * * *
There are a number of people blogging about this (unsurprisingly). Polimom was particularly impressed by Captain Ed’s take. Here’s a snippet:
Are we to argue that anyone who used pot in high school and college will forever be banned from high public office? (Stop snickering — you know what I mean.) No one goes through life without making mistakes, after all, and the mistakes Obama describes have been made by plenty of people in my generation, regardless of skin color, economic strata, or location. It would make a big difference if Obama or anyone else was still making these mistakes, but it looks like those issues are twenty years past or more — hardly indicative of the man he his now, or the value of his talents to his constituents.
And I enjoyed this immensely from Ankle Biting Pundits:
This just in: I don’t care.
Please leave a comment in our comment thread if you have never done anything in your life that you are not proud of.
I am a recovering alcoholic. B.T. is a sex addict. BDP is a compulsive overeater. Okay, I made those last two up. (BDP Comment: Hey, why does he get to be the sex-addict? I’ve got more seniority here, so I think I should get to choose my made up addiction. Let B.T. be the fatty, and let me score all the babes!) BT Comment: No no, Pat, you got it wrong: I’m a sex MACHINE!!!!
Indeed. Glass houses, stones, and all that.
Two h/ts: memeorandum (where one can also follow other reactions), and TMV, where Pete Abel’s title really sums this up: The Measure of a Man.
* Saying I haven’t read the book reminded me of my very good friend Jon Swift. He, like so many of us, has found that one needn’t actually read a book to have an opinion.
It’ll be interesting to see how this affects Mr. Obama, given what happened with Dubya back in ’00. Remember, when he admitted to some youthful indescretions in his past, then some big-time Dem supporter decided to make the details (having to do with alcohol IIRC) public about a week before the election? At least this way maybe the negative attacks will have spent their force well in advance of the day people actually make up their minds/pull the lever or whatever in the voting booth.
I’ll certainly agree with this statement:
If I am going to support (or oppose) the man, I intend to do so based on his stand on the issues I care about — not what he may or may not have done back when he was a young skull full o’ mush. Ditto for Hillary, McCain, Romney, Giuliani, or any other candidate for the office.
~EdT.
What will bother me most about Obama will be a lack of time in office. He has not held an executive position, and what national legislative position he has had has been less than a full term before he deemed himself worthy of serious candidate consideration.
I don’t think of him as a bad person or anything, I just think that after 2-3 years in the Senate if you think you really have enough to be president (in the modern age, not saying this has held for all time), that kind of shows you to have a big head. Seriously, I don’t have much to go on with so little record as a voter. I’d rather he stick it out one more term to show some consistency before I felt confident in what I was looking at. Even with Bush’s record as governor, he has not turned out to be everything I hoped for, so what am I to think of someone with less time.
Jack — I can’t say I disagree with you that it would be helpful to have more of a record on which to judge him. That’s balanced somewhat, though, by the utter freshness of someone untainted.
As it happens, although I really am dismayed by how early the ’08 campaign has started, in Obama’s case it makes sense. It will take that long to get a measure of the man and his politics. My early feeling is that he’s going to be too liberal for me, but I’m not sure at all yet. It’s certain, though, that any attempts to attack him on the grounds mentioned in this post won’t affect my judgment at all.
What you mention, though, about GW Bush is not (in my mind) a mark against Obama. Bush, whatever he was, did, and said in Texas, did not perform as advertised (so to speak). His experience led to unmet expectations.