David Brooks has a harsh, but interesting piece out today on the enigma that is Barack Obama:

God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.

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This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

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Back when he was in the Illinois State Senate, Dr. Barack could have taken positions on politically uncomfortable issues. But Fast Eddie Obama voted “present” nearly 130 times. From time to time, he threw his voting power under the truck.

Dr. Barack said he could no more disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than disown his own grandmother. Then the political costs of Rev. Wright escalated and Fast Eddie Obama threw Wright under the truck.

Dr. Barack could have been a workhorse senator. But primary candidates don’t do tough votes, so Fast Eddie Obama threw the workhorse duties under the truck.

Cold, calculating ambition.  Brookes is very astute to note the Eddie Haskell nature of Obama, who says whatever he feels will help him to his various audiences to win.  Except this Eddie-Barack is hard for some to detect.  If you look at his performance at AIPAC recently, where he stated positions 180° from what he had said were his positions previously, and then afterwards tried to un-state those new views, you can see the pattern:

“Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided,” Obama declared Wednesday, to rousing applause from the 7,000-plus attendees at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference.

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“Two principles should apply to any outcome,” which the adviser gave as: “Jerusalem remains Israel’s capital and it’s not going to be divided by barbed wire and checkpoints as it was in 1948-1967.”

He refused, however, to rule out other configurations, such as the city also serving as the capital of a Palestinian state or Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods.

“Beyond those principles, all other aspects are for the two parties to agree at final status negotiations,” the Obama adviser said.

He also flipped on whether the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – responsible for funding, training and arming militant killers in Iraq sent to kill Americans – was a terrorist organization under international law.  He was afraid admitting terrorists where terrorists might give Bush and America reason to deal with them.  This is so similar to what happened in the 1990’s, where Clinton kept the threat of al-Qaeda hidden (and worried more about e-terrorism against the internet than attacks on our soil), that it really does make one question the sanity of the far left and their new Messiah.

We all know the far left want to surrender to al-Qaeda desperately.  And we can see the indications that they will not get a chance to while on Bush’s watch – at least until the elections are over.  I don’t think al-Qaeda will risk losing the coming of Obama to save their tattered movement.  But once the elections are over we should expect and attack, so they left can claim Bush/McCain did not keep America safe.  If Barack has been elected it will put some wind in his sails, if McCain has been elected it will sow doubts and give the Democrat Congress reason to keep up the march to defeat.

But back to the enigma who is Obama.   He also recently spoke out of both sides of his mouth regarding Iraq and what he said privately to an Iraqi official.  In private he told the Iraqi official he would not withdrawal US forces based on some time table (or political promise) alone.  He promised he would ‘consider’ (whatever that means) the gains made to date and the security (read stability) of our new Iraqi allies.  In public he denied saying any such thing and went back to his simple-minded plan to pull troops out as fast as possible based on a schedule and nothing more.

Why does Obama need to hide his plans?  Why all these votes of ‘present’?  Why all these vague and clearly ambiguous positions (Brookes is correct, that kind of discipline in creating clear ambiguity is the sign of a political chess master)?  

George Bush promised to say what he means, and do what he said he would do.  He lived up to that promise.  He destroyed all the fantasy hopes people tried to read into statements.  He failed to extrapolate where many on the far right had assumed he would go, based on their reading of hidden messages.  There were no hidden messages from Bush.  And during the 9-11 aftermath it was hard love for America – but sincere love – that kept Bush to his word.  He told us what we needed to hear and what he planned to do about our challenges. He did not try and sell us, he bluntly told us what was up.

Obama is trying a totally different tactic here.  He is telling everyone what they want to hear.  Not what they need to hear. He is reflecting like the Mirror of Erised, a magical item from the world of Harry Potter:

 

 

The Mirror of Erised is an interesting fictional device – something everyone should be able to relate to at some level. Here is a description of the device, that very much mirrors Obama’s media-image (pun intended, of course):

According to Dumbledore, the Mirror “shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts”; which is why Harry sees his family, while Ron sees himself achieving more than his older brothers — but cautions Harry that the mirror gives neither knowledge nor truth and that men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they see.

The mirror’s purpose seems to be to distract people from their life, to rob them of their life, by showing them a false promise of a reality they cannot achieve. So what is Obama of Erised up to? What really bothers me is all those ‘present’ votes. They were calculated to keep Obama as much a blank page as possible, so people could reflect their deepest desires onto his vague positions and see what they want to see.

I’ve seen pols try and blur their positions before, but nothing like this. The dems and their ‘end the war in Iraq’ gambit in 2006 is a prime example of hiding their true intentions of surrendering Iraq from the voters, hiding their plans to create a modern Vietnam – when one did not have to exist at all as we now see. I find people who cannot state bluntly and clearly their views as the charlatans they are. I have seen people imply promises they had no intention of keeping, and make good on their charade.

Is the power of the Presidency Obama’s final goal where he will rip off his cloak of political invisibility and finally show us what he is at his core? Or, is there something more to this calculating and devious maestro, who literally says all things to all people, thus hiding his true intentions from people under the cover of their own deep desires projected onto this political enigma?

Brookes is right to some degree, Obama is not some fool with naive intentions. He is much, much worse. He is a conniving charlatan who hides behind vacuous words like ‘hope’ and ‘change’, allowing each voter to project their deepest desires onto him, which he reflects back. All the time, hiding what the real purpose of his mission in life. I hope we figure this puzzle out before we give him the keys (and power) to the kingdom!

Update:  Another Obama of Erised non-committal, non-statement:

It was not quite a Roger Mudd moment, but it was close. Mudd, you might recall, posed a simple question to Ted Kennedy in 1979: “Why do you want to be president?” Kennedy’s vague, unprepared answer raised serious questions about his candidacy.

Recently, Jake Tapper of ABC News asked a similarly blunt question of Barack Obama: “Have you ever worked across the aisle in such a way that entailed a political risk for yourself?” Obama’s response is worth quoting in full: “Well, look, when I was doing ethics reform legislation, for example, that wasn’t popular with Democrats or Republicans. So any time that you actually try to get something done in Washington, it entails some political risks. But I think the basic principle which you pointed out is that I have consistently said, when it comes to solving problems, like nuclear proliferation or reducing the influence of lobbyists in Washington, that I don’t approach this from a partisan or ideological perspective.”

For a candidate running as a centrist reformer, this is pretty weak tea. Ethics reform and nuclear proliferation are important issues but they have hardly put Obama in the liberal doghouse. When I recently asked two U.S. senators who are personally favorable to Obama to name a legislative issue where Obama has vocally bucked his own party, neither could cite a single instance.

The contrast to John McCain is stark. Contrary to some depictions, McCain is not a moderate. He is a conservative with a habit of massive, eye-stretching heresy. He has supported gun control legislation, the expansion of the AmeriCorps service program, and campaign finance and comprehensive immigration reform — leaving many conservatives in fits of sputtering, red-faced outrage. He joined the moderate Gang of 14 on judicial nominations and supports mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

Is the Obama’s reflecting surface starting to dull and become transparent, exposing the enigma underneath?  Which candidate has “Got Change?”

Tags: 2008 Election, Iran, Iraq, Mirror of Erised, Obama