The Trouble With Professor Obama
By Paul HogarthLast week, a good friend urged me to read The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, a new book by New Yorker Editor David Remnick. At 586 pages, it is the most thorough and exhaustive biography of Obama yet written – giving readers an encyclopedic background of our current President. As an ex-Chicagoan who lived three doors down from Obama when he first ran for office, I read the book with keen interest. It made me realize how little I knew the guy, and that for years I had drawn conclusions about him based on what I know of Hyde Park politics.
Obama’s a liberal guy, and you can’t help loving his obvious intellect and fascinating background. But he has fallen short of our expectations as President because he is aloof – refusing to get worked up about things when outrage is warranted, and wanting to play fair with conservatives who respond only to fear. That personality served him well at the Harvard Law Review and teaching at the University of Chicago, but not when governing the country.
read more