My father-in-law, a crusty Republican, said the smartest thing I’ve heard about the Obama movement, though it has taken me months to understand it. Nearly a year ago he and my mother-in-law went to hear Obama speak and came home doing backflips. They joined the movement, have been there since. My father-in-law is a true Obamican. I was for Edwards then, and I said, "But Jack, he has no experience."
My father-in-law said, "Don’t you understand–that’s the best thing about him!"
I realize now that what he was saying is that Everyone is corrupted by our politics, even good people. The longer they are in Washington, the more inevitable it is that they are corrupted. And what the Obama movement sees in Obama’s youth and inexperience is that here is a good man who has not yet been corrupted, as he will be in the Senate, and so let us leapfrog him now into the presidency so that we will have a fighting chance to "end the mindset" that gave us Iraq, as Obama says. Leave Obama in the Senate, and in four years he will likely be disqualified for the job…
On my issue, the Israel lobby, Obama is only halfway bought. Yes he sold out his leftwing ideals on the question when he ran for Congress, as Ali Abunimah has reported. But the leftwing/global view of the matter is still his base of understanding, as he showed in his subtle references to the Israel lobby and apartheid in his speech to the Cleveland Jews….
