Who Is Barack Obama?

Continuing with my Shelby Steele blogging, he went into what I thought was a really unfair attack on Barack Obama, drawing an invidious comparison between Obama and John McCain and Hillary Clinton on the grounds that we don't really know who he is. Instead, says Steele, Obama is running on a vague sense that he's a talented politician and a black guy. At first I thought he was going to take this in an unverifiably airy direction, but then he specifically said of McCain that if he's elected "we know what road that guy’s going to go down" whereas we don't know the same for Obama.

Now of course it's possible -- likely, even -- that many Americans don't know what road Obama would go down as president. But he's unveiled a fairly detailed policy record, and assembled a fairly consistent record in public life. It's John McCain, by contrast, who was against the Bush tax cuts before he was against them it's McCain who sponsored an immigration reform bill and then said he would have written against it. It's McCain who wants credit for tackling climate change but opposes all legislation aimed at curbing carbon emissions. It's McCain who's trying to run on an appealing biography while leaving cloudy impressions of his policy agenda.

Comments

It's John McCain, by contrast, who was against the Bush tax cuts before he was against them it's McCain who sponsored an immigration reform bill and then said he would have written against it.

Dear Matt,

Would you consider at least glancing at what you've written before posting?

Thanks.

Posted by Herschel | July 1, 2008 5:33 PM

It's John McCain, by contrast, who was against [you mean for] the Bush tax cuts before he was against them it's McCain who sponsored an immigration reform bill and then said he would have written [you mean voted] against it.

Look, the typos are funky and informal and humorous, and that's cool. But when they cut the very heart out of the point you're trying to make, you've really gotta do something about it.

Posted by southpaw | July 1, 2008 5:33 PM

Maybe you could point out that however irrelevant the argument is to this race, still, it would be preferable to turn down an unknown road with Barack Obama a complete cipher than to go down the road of Republican destruction with right wing freak John McCain. Better the devil we don't know a million times over than the devil we do.

Posted by El Cid | July 1, 2008 5:34 PM

Matthew --
Shelby Steele is a marginally interesting fake.
Always has been. Always will be.
Obama wrong-foots him on his entire public career, so he's thrashing a bit.
Relax.

Posted by charles pierce | July 1, 2008 5:36 PM

Of course, Shelby Steele is the guy who helpfully subtitled his recent book "Why We Are Excited About Barack Obama and Why He Can't Win", so perhaps he's not the best judge of Obama and his potential/policies.

Posted by rashomon | July 1, 2008 5:38 PM

Now of course it's possible -- likely, even -- that many Americans don't know what road Obama would go down as president. But he's unveiled a fairly detailed policy record, and assembled a fairly consistent record in public life.

Yeah, but most people seem to completely ignore it. Especially when attacking him as a "centrist."

I feel like Mugatu in the film Zoolander:

"SHUT UP! Enough already, Ballstein! Who cares about Derek Zoolander anyway? The man has only one look, for Christ's sake! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigra? They're the same face! Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

Posted by Peter K. | July 1, 2008 5:39 PM

Matt,

Both and you and Shelby Steele have read Sen. Obama's 442-page autobiography. Steele has published a short book explicating it. You, however, who publish opinions by the gross each week, thought about what to say about your candidate's autobiography for several months, then finally posted a comment saying only that Obama is a good writer!

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 1, 2008 5:40 PM

We don't know a damn one of them. How else could we be misled into thinking the scion of a Connecticut political dynasty was a born again cattle hand from Texas? How could John Kerry be so easily defined by his opponents if we knew him in some important sense-? And it's not a matter of time in Washington; Kerry had been around town for 30 years.

What Steele is saying is simply a high-gloss method of labeling Obama as the Other.

Posted by southpaw | July 1, 2008 5:43 PM

John McCain doesn't seem to have a position he won't ditch in a heartbeat if he thinks it will be to his advantage. And when he changes position so effortlessly, there's almost never an explanation why or even acknowledgment that he did it.

The guy embodies all of the dangers of expedience but does not seem to bring any of its advantages. (Expedience is not necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly can be.)

Posted by LFC | July 1, 2008 5:51 PM

We actually know a lot about Obama since he has written two books, at least the first definitely written without a ghostwriter. However, Obama has devised a prose style that tends to soothe and bore people, so few have paid much attention to what he actually wrote. Also, the obsession of his first book is "race and inheritance," which is a subject that white pundits such as Matt are deeply uncomfortable thinking about. Finally, there are profound differences between the 1995 autobiography and 2006 campaign book that Obama has not explained.

It's quite possible that Obama matured between 1995 and 2006 (although he denies that in his 2004 preface to his 1995 book), but nobody has asked him about it! Steele, who has a very similar "race and inheritance" to Obama (they both have white mothers), would be the ideal person to interview Obama.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 1, 2008 5:52 PM

I actually DID vote for the $87 billion, BEFORE I voted for it.

Posted by Senator John Kerry | July 1, 2008 5:52 PM

Typos or not (and it has been a typo day) the point is an excellent one.

Posted by Chris Dornan | July 1, 2008 6:01 PM

Shelby Steele hates black people.

/Kanye West

Posted by Shine | July 1, 2008 6:02 PM

Steve Sailer is slowly building up to referencing his awsome, astoundingly deep book review of Barack Obama's autobiography, which, shockingly, allows him to obsess about race again, but first he wants to whet everyone's anticipation with several hints until we're just all about to bust for the opportunity.

Posted by El Cid | July 1, 2008 6:04 PM

Steve Sailer is slowly building up to referencing his awesome, astoundingly deep book review of Barack Obama's autobiography, which, shockingly, allows Sailer to obsess about race again, but first he wants to whet everyone's anticipation with several hints until we're just all about to bust for the opportunity.

Posted by El Cid | July 1, 2008 6:05 PM

Matt, for example, has had almost nothing to say about his candidate's autobiography even though his candidate his largely running on his autobiography. Or, to be precise, on David Axelrod's rewrite of his autobiography.

Obama spent 1969-2000 trying to be "black enough." Ever since the opening of Obama's keynote address in 2004, however, Obama has been positioning himself as the mulatto savior, the modern equivalent of the offspring of a dynastic marriage between warring dynasties (as Henry VIII was to the preceding War of the Roses between the Lancasters and Yorks). Thus, during his most recent Rev. Wright embarrassment, Obama claimed, "That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings."

Obama/Axelrod have been pushing this assumption among white people that having a white mother makes Obama pro-white, even though his relationship with his mother was so embittered that he apologized for what he wrote about her in his 1995 autobiography in the 2004 preface to its reprint.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 1, 2008 6:06 PM

I know Steve Sailer as the guy who keeps on trying to rape my dog. Sometimes knowing less about someone is better.

Posted by Reality Man | July 1, 2008 6:06 PM

He didn't apologize about what he wrote about her. He stated that if he knew his mother was going to pass away at a young age, he wished he could have written a book about her, because she was the parent that raised him, and he owed her so much. Obviously I'm paraphrasing, but you're wrong. And how would apologizing for things he wrote about his mother prove that they are embittered? You're an idiot. And a dishonest one at that.

Posted by Steve Duncan is a tool. | July 1, 2008 6:11 PM

Southpaw nails it -- we don't really know any of these people. But taking Steele on his own terms, Hillary and McCain are, even now, a lot more famous than Barack Obama, so we can revel in the illusion that we know them. When Steele or anyone else says "we don't really know X," all it means is "I don't really know X, and I'm too damned lazy to do the work commentators are supposed to be paid to do and find out."

Posted by CJColucci | July 1, 2008 6:12 PM

Hey, Steve, is being pro-white the opposite of being anti-white? Or the opposite of being pro-black? What does that even mean? I'm a black dude, and I'm not anti-white, does that make me pro-white? You're a tool.

Posted by Andre | July 1, 2008 6:14 PM

Hey, Steve, is being pro-white the opposite of being anti-white? Or the opposite of being pro-black? What does that even mean? I'm a black dude, and I'm not anti-white, does that make me pro-white?

I noticed the "pro-white" phrasing well. The race/immigration obsessives do have a weird zero-sum mentality toward race relations, don't they.

Posted by Shine | July 1, 2008 6:29 PM

You are anti-pro-anti-white, Andre, and pro-anti-pro-black. That's all Steve's trying to say. It's all very simple.

Posted by Walt | July 1, 2008 6:31 PM

Steve Sailer as Obama's literary critic is a painful look; some background is in order.

Posted by archytas | July 1, 2008 6:34 PM

I'm not generally an advocate of censoring blog comments; on the other hand, some people are just so far beyond the pale that they have nothing of value to contribute. The community loses nothing by banning them, while engaging them runs the risk of mainstreaming their extremist hate.

So why is a professional racist like Steve Sailer allowed to comment here? If he isn't beyond the pale, who is?

Posted by Tom Hilton | July 1, 2008 6:38 PM

So why is a professional racist like Steve Sailer allowed to comment here? If he isn't beyond the pale, who is?

Personally, I just scroll past his comments, (as well as those of several other hate-spewing commenters whom I won't dignify by naming.) The real question, to me, is: why do people keep feeding the troll?

Posted by James Gary | July 1, 2008 6:51 PM

When you start banning people you wind up tacitly endorsing everyone you don't and it turns into a "gotcha" game from hell. It's not a good road to go down.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 1, 2008 6:51 PM

Steve Sailer: "However, Obama has devised a prose style that tends to soothe and bore people, so few have paid much attention to what he actually wrote."

god, you're such a fucking tool. his books are critically acclaimed BESTSELLERS. more people have read and enjoyed his books than will ever even know your name.

you must be wondering why no one has picked up on your "Obama hates his white half" meme despite desperate attempts on your part to promote it. Let me explain. it is not because nobody has read obama's critically acclaimed bestsellers. it is also not because people are somehow too afraid to speak what they really feel. the only reason nobody agrees with your interpretation of Obama is because your interpretation is, in a word, shit. It sucks balls. It sucks more balls than a ball machine. do you understand?

Posted by raft | July 1, 2008 7:06 PM

Re Tom Hilton

Actually, Mr. Sailor is what might be termed a gentleman racist. As opposed to Mr. Chris Ford, a basic red neck racist.

Posted by SLC | July 1, 2008 7:10 PM

When you start banning people you wind up tacitly endorsing everyone

You don't have to slide down that slippery slope all the ways o the floor-banning overt racists isn't an implicit endorsement of anything other than nonracism.

Sailer sometimes comments here more than Matt posts, with his whole gang of little vdare cronies. Look at how he pirated the discussion in the present thread, so that it becomes all about Sailer. Sometimes it looks like his views find more expression on the site than Matt's.

This site would be far the better for a Sailer ban.

Posted by rea | July 1, 2008 7:13 PM

Dear god if people in this country bothered to read policy papers, we'd be so much better off.

Idiots. All idiots.

Posted by brenna | July 1, 2008 7:13 PM

Why ban anybody. Let a thousand flowers bloom. So far, the only person that Mr.. Yglesias has threatened to ban is me for the infraction of making an unflattering reference to Iranians.

Posted by SLC | July 1, 2008 7:22 PM

The whole "we don't really know Barack Obama" seems like a warmed-over "he's inexperienced" with a touch of "Otherness" thrown in for good measure. However, with "experience" negatively correlated with "corruption in Washington" in many people's minds, going with "I'm known, and he's unknown" versus "I'm experienced, and he's inexperienced" probably plays better. But really it's the same basic idea.

"Barack is inexperienced, and when confronted with Iranian agression, he might build a kite out of squirrels and fly it to the moon" vs. "Barack is unknown, and he might build a kite out of squirrels and fly it to the moon."

Posted by TheF79 | July 1, 2008 7:22 PM

You don't have to slide down that slippery slope all the ways o the floor-banning overt racists isn't an implicit endorsement of anything other than nonracism.

Exactly.

It's also worth at least considering whether allowing Sailer to post his racist diatribes here has the consequence of driving away people who, quite understandably, aren't interested in participating in a forum where their ethnicity is regularly and viciously insulted. Racism, misogyny, and homophobia all have the practical effect of limiting the discussion in that way.

Posted by Tom Hilton | July 1, 2008 7:55 PM

So, did I call that one just in time, or what? Sailer's so predictable it's truly precious.

Posted by El Cid | July 1, 2008 7:56 PM

You don't have to slide down that slippery slope all the ways o the floor-banning overt racists isn't an implicit endorsement of anything other than nonracism.

Exactly.

It's also worth considering whether allowing Sailer to post his racist diatribes here has the consequence of driving away people who, understandably, are unwilling to participate in a forum in which their ethnicity is regularly and viciously insulted. In practical terms, tolerating racist, homophobic, or misogynist comments doesn't actually make the discourse any freer; it simply changes the character of the discourse.

Posted by Tom Hilton | July 1, 2008 8:02 PM

Sorry about the kind of double post. I swear I hit Refresh and the first one didn't appear.

Posted by Tom Hilton | July 1, 2008 8:06 PM

First, in case you idiots haven't noticed, there's no registration on this blog, so you can't "ban" anybody. Even with registration, it's trivially easy to use alternate identities to bypass the "ban", if anybody wants to bother.

Apparently, there isn't even any particular way to delete posts, as I can't remember anybody ever doing so, and certainly Matt doesn't read the posts enough to give a shit. He'd need a moderator to handle deleting posts and watching for alternate identities. I doubt The Atlantic budget supports that when it can't even support fixing the goddamn server.

[Not to mention that the incompetent server configuration is worse than any troll's posts here.]

While Sailer is an obsessive over race, his posts occasionally refer to or raise interesting points (right or wrong), so I wouldn't say they're sufficiently content free as to warrant banning.

Unlike, for instance, Chris Ford's racist rants or SLC hijacking every thread with insults to me or others over Israel.

If you're going to ban people - which again, you can't on this site without instituting registration - ban the people who consistently hijack the threads with posts that are both irrelevant to the thread and content free and abusive. Just one of those characteristics really isn't enough - you need all three, and consistency as well.

Sailer is posting comments on race and specifically on Obama's books in a thread where race and who Obama is are, at least obliquely, the issues being discussed. So I can't see any justification for banning him based on his posts in this thread. They are neither content free, nor irrelevant, nor abusive. That you don't agree with his viewpoint is not sufficient to institute a ban.

Of course, it's Matt's blog and he can ban whomever he wants if he wants to implement registration and do so. But there's no real justification to ban Sailer based on Sailer's posts.

If you don't like Sailer's posts, don't comment on them. Although he does tend to post more than once, even when he's not been addressed by others, by not responding you prevent the thread from being turned into a thread on him rather than the topic.

So that's all you have to do: don't respond.

Ideally, a blog owner should have a thread where deleted posts and "banned" persons may be read separately from the threads from which they were removed. Thus, the original thread is cleaned up and made more readable for the casual readers, while the "banned" or "deleted" material is still available to anybody who wants to read it or respond to it.

I don't know how well most of the blog programs support this sort of thing but it would be an excellent addition to the feature set.

The wrong way to go about it is the Josh Marshall way: promise everybody in writing never to ban anyone or delete posts without an explanation and previous warnings - then at the end of the week go on the war path and do exactly that just because you hallucinated somebody was an "Israeli eliminationist" - in other words your hot buttons got pressed.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 1, 2008 8:31 PM

Nah, don't ban anyone. The problem here is not too many bigots. The problem is that Matt's collection of bigots is incomplete. He's got dickhead anti-Muslim Jewish Zionists. He's got immature overly pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist antisemites. Well, every blog has some of those. But Matt's got a Jewish Republican racist - who even admits it! He's got a weird crackpot pseudo-scientific racist. He's got a you-talking-to-me? Vietnam vet antisemitic racist. And zomg he's got a Latino neo-Counter-Reformationist latter-day Inquisitor! No other blog can match that. But sadly, Matt does not have a raving lunatic Black nationalist bigot. Nor an actual al Qaeda terrorist. Nor even a Christian fundamentalist anti-semitic, anti-Muslim end-times lunatic. But I am confident they will all arrive here soon enough.

Posted by Gary Sugar | July 1, 2008 8:35 PM

I remember a sadly no! post about the little girl nazi band that had a flame war with real nazis on it that went on for like six months! The world didn't collapse.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 1, 2008 8:39 PM

Gary: You have to give SLC credit for bigot innovation, since he is an ardent Israel hawk who doesn't like Jews, because he fears that a collapse of Israel will lead to all those Jews coming here.

Posted by El Cid | July 1, 2008 8:48 PM

Re Gary Sugar

He's even got an ex-con and former bank robber commentor who advocates the assassination of police officers and says that for 2 billion bucks he will steal one of Israels' nukes. Why not steal one of Israels' nukes and put it up for auction?

Posted by SLC | July 1, 2008 8:50 PM

I think you have SLC mixed up with someone else. Sounds like chris ford, I skip past what he writes anymore once I recognize the style (which takes about three lines and I've never been wrong) so I may have missed the specific reference.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 1, 2008 8:56 PM

Gary: "He's got immature overly pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist antisemites."

Was that me - or Trevor?

"He's got a weird crackpot pseudo-scientific racist."

Was that me or Sailer?

"He's got a you-talking-to-me? Vietnam vet antisemitic racist."

Was that me or Chris Ford?

"And zomg he's got a Latino neo-Counter-Reformationist latter-day Inquisitor!"

Naah, that ain't me. I don't think. Naah, I'm not Latino.

"Matt does not have...an actual al Qaeda terrorist."

Wait! Doesn't my robbing banks in order to destroy the US qualify?

"Nor even a Christian fundamentalist anti-semitic, anti-Muslim end-times lunatic."

Wait! Doesn't Hector qualify?

You also forgot to note the Corrs music bigot and the Transhumanist Terminator robot-loving pervert - both of which are me.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 1, 2008 8:59 PM

Who Is Richard Steven Hack?

Posted by southpaw | July 1, 2008 9:06 PM

can't you ask Steele (and others) to explain/support odd assertions such as the one you describe? or is this fancy "forum" a one-way affair, in which highly paid gasbags get up and say whatever they want?

Posted by david johnson | July 1, 2008 9:29 PM

Hector was the Latino Neo-Counter-Reformationist. Also, Hector emphasizes that he's not a big "fan" of liberal democracies, and he's got a thing about liking the Crusades.

Posted by El Cid | July 1, 2008 9:34 PM

"Who Is Richard Steven Hack?"

Ah, now, that would be the subject of a VERY long post - which you really don't want to read.

SLC: "Why not steal one of Israels' nukes and put it up for auction?"

Because I need the money to fund the operation in the first place, numbnuts. I'm not made of money.

But, yeah, that ain't a half bad idea - if I had the money to fund the operation. Then nobody could blame me when it was set off to make Tel Aviv glow in the dark - or Washington - or the Vatican (another favorite target of mine.) Wasn't me who blew up the place...

OTOH, I'd really prefer being the guy who decides what gets blown up. That way mistakes won't be made. The RIGHT people get blown up.

Wait a minute. I don't recall asking for two billion to steal an Israel nuke. I think I asked for two billion to drop Israel's state. Not the same thing at all - although I might steal a nuke in the process, of course. Would be a great tactic even if the nuke was never used - just the threat posed by one of Israel's nukes going missing would be enough to bring the world down on Israel and make it disarm its nuclear arsenal.

If I wanted to limit the operation to stealing an Israeli nuke, I could do that for a lot less than two billion. One billion would be enough, maybe even less.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 1, 2008 9:42 PM

Why are you wasting our time discussing the incoherent babblings of a lawn jockey like Shelby Steele? Don't you have something better to do?

Posted by TomT | July 1, 2008 9:58 PM

Hey, all I know is the guy I've been excited about wouldn't have supported FISA with telco immunity - but Obama does seem be be going there. I guess I don't know him at least.

Posted by batojar | July 1, 2008 10:22 PM

McCain's bigoraphy is not actually appealing. All that bottom of the class in college and crashing airplanes and ditching a wife and adultery with a woman who later had a drug and theft problem and the scorching, malignant sun and the savings and loan scandals and pretending to be a backer of the new veterans benefits bill that he opposed and then didn't even vote on, to bring us up to the present week.

He was against it, before he didn't vote and took credit for being for it.

Posted by putnam | July 1, 2008 10:30 PM

"[Not to mention that the incompetent server configuration is worse than any troll's posts here.]"

Oh so true!

Posted by 55 | July 1, 2008 11:45 PM

Gee Matt,

It looks like all the "conservatives" that have been masquerading as Obama supporters, turn out to be doing so just long enough to knock out Hillary.

Now that she's out, they immediately jump on the easier meat. Look at the last two weeks of fuck ups by Team Obama, (tacking right for no apparent reason). How is it that they played such a brilliant game in the primary, and now they can go 14 days in a row throwing up nothing but air balls? Hint: They had help from the right wing machine. Live by the sword die by the sword.

Bottom line. Obama was the weaker candidate. He just sold the blog pundits better. And you all ate it up, and now the network effect is turning against you. How did he sell the blogs? Turns out lots of "conservatives" were willing to astroturf you all to make it look like he had more "red appeal" than he really did. They had no problem turning the Hillary screws to divide the liberal base, and they did it with gusto.

You want to know where all this online Obama resistance is coming from? Look no further than the fake Ron Paul revolution. It was the beta test.

I told Josh the race card would be "the factor" back in February before Hillary won NH. And guess what? Applachia is going to look a whole lot larger in November. But the Ivy-league/Manhattan/ DC crowd wanted to believe that the US was one big Ivy league campus. That wishful thinking will cost everything come November. Ironic given that only 24% of Americans even have 4 year degrees. How much of even college life does the total population of all the IVY and first world school represent of the total US college experience? 5% maybe? 5% of 24% does not a consensus view make.

under 35s are not going to win this election. In ten years? Yes. Not this cycle.

Posted by patience | July 2, 2008 12:57 AM

Patience, we are gonna be just fine. Shut the fuck up or vote for McCain or do whatever you want to do. I don't know what world you live in but if it's the world of pissy Hillary people you could hold your state by state conventions in phone booths. Hearing you bitch about the kids is just funny. However few of them exit, there are less than you.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 2, 2008 1:15 AM

"The fake Ron Paul revolution"?

Now that's a really stupid remark. There was nothing fake about Ron Paul or his supporters.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 2, 2008 1:30 AM

Boil it all down: Steele is basically making the argument that fame and name recognition are the best qualifications for the Presidency.

Horseshit.

Posted by Virginia | July 2, 2008 9:10 AM

1. Matt, it is a good idea to read a post out loud before putting it up on your blog. I am not perfect, but I try to hit the preview button once before posting.

2. You are wasting to much time on Shelby Steele. He.Is.A.Movement.Conservative.Hack. Just like William Kristol - interested primarily in preserving the current ascendancy of crony capitalists who have gotten us into our current fix and willing to say anything expedient to accomplish that objective.

3. John McCain is promising to continue the policies of the last eight years, and doubling down on them, both foreign and domestic. Not that it seems to be noticed by most of the troll bloggers on this sight, but housing values have fallen 20% the last two years, and probably has another 20% to fall. Auto sales have hit a 15 year low in June. I don't know how Chrysler and GM will avoid bankruptcy in the next 12 months. Real incomes for 90% of the working population has fallen in this decade and are now cliff diving as their wages stagnate or fall and inflation rises. If McCain gets elected under these circumstances, he will have run the greatest campaign in American history and Obama the worst, even giving McCain the 5% of the vote that might have voted Democrat, but can't vote for a Black guy (as most of those folks who could not vote for a Black guy have been voting Republican since 1972 - and voted for Wallace in 1968). I am speaking sociologically, not about individuals.

Posted by rickstersherpa | July 2, 2008 9:11 AM

Don't ban Sailer. His racism reeks so badly that it sometimes stinks my office up a bit (well, *quite* a bit) right through the intertoobs, but don't ban him. You can tell within a few sentences it's him and if you don't feel like reading his sad horseshit, skip it.

It might be worth making an exception for really crude racial insults like the ones SLC is so proud of - they are not argument at all, just name-calling - but generally, banning is a bad idea. I've never understood the urge to ban, coming from either the right or the left. It's like treating cancer with aspirin.

Posted by jonnybutter | July 2, 2008 9:18 AM