I finish this book---certainly the best book for understanding Obama to date. This book will be the first draft of the history of the presidential election of 2009.
To understand Barack Obama you have to understand where he comes from: a Kenyan father who abandoned him and his mother when Obama was 2, a white mother from the Midwest who was an anthropologist and what we might call a bleeding-heart liberal, living in Indonesia for a time but raised by his maternal grandparents in Hawaii. Along the way he experienced a wide diversity of peoples and cultures. His world-view derives mostly from his real-world experience on other countries and cultures rather than from books
His basic political approach is to first seek common ground with his adversaries. I take it that he is alway willing to consider compromise---better to get something done rather than nothing. What is interesting is that this approach can eventually disarm his opponents as the Republicans are discovering to their chagrin.
Like him or not, Barack Obama is truly a different kind of politician. We can say for sure that he is a pragmatic centrist. The nonsense about "socialist" and "fascist" is laughable except for the morons who spout such rubbish.
For the good of all of us, I hope he succeeds.
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