Soccer Dad

Distracted

Charles Krauthammer makes an observation in Obama's Distractions (or here)

In the now-famous Pennsylvania debate, Obama had extreme difficulty answering questions about these associations and attitudes. The difficulty is understandable. Some of the contradictions are inexplicable. How does one explain campaigning throughout 2007 on a platform of transcending racial divisions, while in that same year contributing $26,000 to a church whose pastor incites race hatred?

Exactly. How does one claim to be "post-racial" while regularly listening to (and subjecting his children to) sermons of racial hatred? My guess is that "post-racial" referred to a country who would vote for a man with a different color skin, but not necessarily to the candidate himself. In other words, he was trying to take credit for white America's enlightenment.

Dr. Krauthammer punctures another Sen. Obama's pretension that I hadn't considered:

Obamaphiles are even more exercised about the debate question regarding the flag pin. Now, I have never worn one. Whether anyone does is a matter of total indifference to me. But apparently not to Obama. He's taken three affirmative steps in regard to flag pins. After 9/11, he began wearing one. At a later point, he stopped wearing it. Then last year he explained why: Because it "became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security."

Apart from the self-congratulatory fatuousness of that statement -- as if in this freest of all countries, political self-expression is somehow scarce or dangerous or a sign of patriotic courage -- to speak of pin-wearing as a sign of inauthentic patriotism is to make an issue of it yourself. For Obamaphiles to now protest the very asking of the question requires a fine mix of cynicism and self-righteousness.

It's kind of like the guy at the psychiatrist's office who's subjected to an ink blot test. Asked what he sees, each time he answers "A naked woman." The psychiatrist observes, "Mr. Smith, you have a dirty mind." To which Mr. Smith replies, "But Doc, you're the one showing me the dirty pictures."

I'd like also to direct your attention to Wolf Howling's very complete analysis of Sen. Obama and what those questions about his character mean. Rhymes with Right also looked at Sen. Obama from a similar perspective.

In an editorial A discouraging word The New York Times offered this advice:

As he looks beyond Illinois, Mr. Obama should get used to the idea that people are noticing his behavior.

Actually, the sentence was written about then Sen. George Allen (and Virginia) about whom a single word misspoken derailed his campaign for re-election. I thought "macaca" was a distraction, not a pattern. But when someone's running for president, the patterns of his behavior are not distractions, but indicators of how he will act as President.

UPDATE: Blue Crab Boulevard summarizes:

From Obama's dismissal of small town Americans to his defense of the indefensibly wrong Reverend Wright, Krauthammer nails the real distractions Obama is using. Trying to distract people from his own behavior and questionable associates.

(via memeorandum)

barack obama.