January 17, 2007 [LINK / comment]
Sen. Barack Hussein Obama -- a.k.a., "Barry," as his college friends called him -- has set up an exploratory committee for a presidential campaign in 2008, and from the way the press talks, you'd think he was a shoe-in. All of a sudden, Hillary has lost her status as most likely Democratic nominee. Only three years ago, Obama was in the Illinois state legislature; ironically, he portrays his lack of experience in national politics as an asset. When elected to the U.S. Senate just over two years ago, he promised to serve his entire six-year term. Oh well, nobody's perfect... For more on this superstar's background, see the Washington Post. Aside from vague upbeat platitudes, it's hard to pin him down on policy issues. My main concern is that his fondness for old-style Big Government solutions would drag us back to the 1970s. It would also be a big shame if the first-ever African-American president had no family roots in the African-American experience of slavery and discrimination.
Previous blog posts on Obama: Feb. 7 (2nd item) and Dec. 5 last year, and July 28, 2004 (2nd item; his speech at the Democratic convention).
Someone should write a book on famous "media darlings" in history: Mikhail Gorbachev, John McCain, ...