Ahhh David. Hard at it. Here's a question, so you can set things straight. You say the election is all about Obama. In the absence of "events, dear boy, events" - you may be right. But. Is Obama: 1) The Naive Innocent? Too soft, too shiny, to withstand any attack? With supporters who will run once they face real fire? Or 2) The grand Fascist rabble-rouser? You know, Lucifer with his minions, willing & able to stamo out any dissent? Or perhaps, 3) Fast Eddie, dealing from the bottom of the Chicago deck?

The thing is, if you want your insights into his motivations to have any traction, they have to hang together. Line up with some evidence. Then.... we can test them. At present, week by week you throw a new one on the heap. Or maybe you have a new image which now holds all these pieces together?

Please do put forward your views on this. But note. Once made explicit, it IS worth thinking through to the next step - and then the one beyond it. A bit like chess. e.g. It may not be enough to simply say, his image marred, his naive followers will fall away, and all will be lost. It's a big country, that good ole America. Because yes,some of the naive might leave. True. But some might just... grow up. While others.... might be attracted. There are a lot of Hillary supporters here who seem to feel Obama isn't tough enough. So Fast Eddie might just... appeal.

Finally, your words stating that you believe America would be BEST off if its 300 million citizens were provided with an extended dose of what Franco gave Spain have not been forgotten. This is the thing about offering so many, varying, predictions & prescriptions. Anyone who buys them will son have a medicine cabinet quite overflowing. And taken in combination, can make one quite ill. Much moreso than simply drinking Kool-Aid.

To me, Obama is in the first real test of his candidacy. The negative press, the reactions to his recent decisions, falling contributions, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Seaton's independents...

In one way, specifically, I totally agree with this post. It IS Obama's race to lose. And it is also Obama's race to win. To win, he has to stand up and be counted. He has to be something bigger than just another politician who simultaneously tries to appeal to all bases, stay somewhat true to his own stated principles and fight against an essentially one-sided media who seems unable to hold his opponent to any reasonable standard of competency or truly examine his (McCain's), often shifting, positions.

His secret has been the charm of his difference. If he loses that special quality, and by now there is little left, it will be like Cinderella's coach turning back into a pumpkin and all the pretty horses back into scurrying, little mice.

Obama is an Empty Suit, version 1.05

What has irked me most about Obama critics throughout the primary season has been the condescending dismissiveness. Because you can see no substantial reason for supporting Obama, you are unable to imagine that anyone has substantial reasons for supporting Obama. You project b.s. explanations onto his supporters: his race, his eloquent speaking, his idealistic (but empty) message, our youth, our idealism, our sexism, our cultishness. And you still feel this way, despite months of debates and endless open letters about what we see in Obama, despite the fact that he has generated more enthusiasm than any candidate in recent history, despite the fact that his supporters have tenaciously supported their candidate through all the scandals--Wright, Ayers, elitism, FISA--that were supposed to finally explode the popularity of this man who defies your dour predictions at every point.

David Seaton, you have underestimated Obama, and you continue to underestimate him for a classic reason: you have made a caricature of him and his supporters. You have dismissed his strengths and emphasized his weaknesses. You have ignored the often cogent and nuanced defenses of his "Kool Aid drinking" supporters. You will never understand the secret of his appeal as long as you do not allow yourself to acknowledge the possibility that people of intelligence and clarity support him for substantial reasons. And so this caricature will continue to surprise you.

I have been telling you guys this stuff for weeks and I've been called everything but pretty in exchange... But I think I'm not nearly as lonely out here as I was.

David,
I agree with Genghis. You've reduced Obama and his supporters to one-sided caricatures.

Incidentally, the guy you quote for support of your point of view, Kass. is forever trying to get Obama to oppose corrupt politicians in Chicago. Kass, and I guess you too, want him to speak out, to be the John Wayne kind of reformer--another caricature.

Kass seems to reveal the motivation for this pressure when, in the same article quoted above, he says,

As a candidate, Obama will do what he has to do to win. My argument is not with him--but with the national political media pack that refuses to look closely at what Chicago is. They're fixated on whit it was, and they think it's clean now.

It makes about as much sense to fault people for not going after the Mafia, knowing that going after the Mafia, in a land governed by laws, is a full time job. There's the sticky little issue of proof. Moreover, Daley has a lot of little folks who are not corrupt supporting him, average Joes. Short of launching an investigation, how's Obama supposed to reform Chicago politics?

David, you just don't seem to have thought through the criticisms you're making. They seem aburd.

I think I have heard the D. Seaton Obama blues enough times over the past several months to volunteer this rendition. Imagine David hunched over a guitar in a dark Spanish cafe:

He's a bum,
He's a hack,
Not even really black -
I do so love to attack
Barack Obama.

Got no center,
Got no story,
Living on projected glory -
Makes me miss my dear Al Gore -
Barack Obama.

He's a nothing,
Not nobody,
Probably called his granny "whitey" -
But his wife is kinda hot -
Barack Obama.

Evidently, old age doesn't always bring wisdom...

Please drink more Kool-Aid. Maybe next time your gagging will turn to asphyxiation.