This statement has been thrown around a lot in the comments sections of reader posts recently.  It's an opinion I disagree with, but it's also one I would honestly like to understand better. 

I don't believe Barack Obama is the second coming of Jesus, Gandhi or even John Lennon.  But none of those guys ever ran for political office.  And let's face it, it's a hell of a lot easier to be 100% true to your principles when you don't need to raise hundreds of millions dollars to finance a campaign and devise a strategy that will not only win you a majority of votes from a fickle and largely uninformed public, but a majority that will deliver you the appropriate number of delegates from a screwy, often illogical electoral map.

In other words, I believe Barack Obama, like every politician in every age of history before him, lies.  (Stay with me, fellow Obama backers.  I'm not trying to harsh on our hope buzz.)

 

By "lies", I mean tell people what they want to hear, couch views a certain way depending on the audience, compromise principles for practical purposes and make promises to people because you need favors from them. Obama and every other candidate does these things and they do them because they are part of the job for any politician.  

Voters don't like to admit their chosen candidate ever stretches the truth, makes deals with corporate jerkwads or panders to those dreaded special interests.  But we all know it happens.  We mostly turn a blind eye or, if we happen to be the ones pandered to, lap it up.  Or maybe, if we're intelligent folks who frequent TPM, we engage in some rhetorical ju-jitsu in an effort to prove our chosen candidate, does it way less than the other guy and is therefore a better candidate.  Which brings me back to my interest in the comment: "Barack Obama is a phony."

Given that all politicians are, by necessity if not nature, disingenuous to some degree and that, in general, a less disingenuous politician should be held in higher regard than more disingenuous politician, I personally find Obama far less "phony" than the most other politicians.  I base that opinion on what I have read and heard from him in relation to his record and the opinions of people who I trust, a few of whom actually worked with him (on an after school program in Chicago).  But clearly there are a decent number of people out there-- Democrats and independents-- who completely disagree with me and find Obama as phony as I find him genuine.   I'm having a hard time understanding why, not because I'm so anti-Hillary or blindly-Barack, but because the only evidence I've ever seen given to back up this "Obama is a phony" statement is either a critique of the people who support Obama (cult like, suckers, blind, etc.) or another equivalent judgement ("he's a snake oil salesman, a con man, etc.).  

So my question is: what specifically do those of you out there who routinely make this comment believe makes Obama such a phony?  I would genuinely be interested to know and I think some other Obama supporters would too.

(NOTE: I don't want this to become either an Obama bashfest or Clinton-backer ambush, so I would urge anyone who comments to try and be civil to one another, regardless of how frustrating you may personally find another comment.  Assuming anyone wants to comment.  Thanks.)