Funny, these things are spun every which way... it hard to know how to measure the man at all. Clearly, once a time, he was fighting the good fight... one has to hope there is still some of that fight in him.

Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart
Wednesday 30 July 2008
by: Jodi Kantor, The New York Times
http://www.truthout.org/article/teaching-law-testing-ideas-obama-stood-apart

Before he outraised every other presidential primary candidate in American history, Mr. Obama marched students through the thickets of campaign finance law. Before he helped redraw his own State Senate district, making it whiter and wealthier, he taught districting as a racially fraught study in how power is secured. And before he posed what may be the ultimate test of racial equality - whether Americans will elect a black president - he led students through African-Americans' long fight for equal status.

So how do you go from being that person, to being this person?

How Chicago Shaped Obama: A Look at the Rise of a Politician
Democracy Now! Interview with Ryan Lizza
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/28/how_chicago_shaped_obama_a_look

The other thing that it did, besides the fact that his constituents now were so much different, the overall goal of redistricting in Illinois was to take back the State Senate for the Democrats. They gerrymandered the state, and they accomplished that in 2002. So, after 2002, Barack Obama, who had been a state senator since January of 1997 in the minority, where he couldn’t get much done, he’s now a state senator in the majority. And that allowed him to do—to actually get some things passed and get all of the issues—and get all of the things passed that he would then use as a platform for his 2004 Senate campaign. So that redistricting was incredibly important to his political career. I think you could make an argument that without that redistricting, he may not have been a real contender in that US Senate race.

Interesting further comments from Lizza:

At the same time, he made a—if you read it today, it still stands up very well. He made a very powerful case against the Iraq war at a time when a lot of Democrats weren’t doing that. But there were certainly some politics in mind. And if you talk to some of the people who were in that audience that day, one of the common things you hear is, “Wow, this guy is not just talking to us, he’s talking to either some statewide or national crowd. This speech seems pointed for the—seems more like for the history books than just for us here at this antiwar rally.” And this comes up throughout Obama’s political history. He often had his eye on the next rung of the ladder, if you know what I mean.

And finally, from the excellent Adolph Reed:
“Where Obamaism Seems to be Going”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=697&Itemid=34

This is what passes for a left now in this country. It is a left that can insist, apparently, that Obama's FISA vote, going out of his way (after all, he could simply have followed the model of Eisenhower on the Brown decision and said that the Court has ruled; therefore it's the law, and his job as president would be to enforce the law) to align himself - twice, or three times -- with the Scalia/Thomas/Roberts/Alito wing of the Supreme Court, his declaring that social problems, unlike foreign policy adventurism, are "too big for government" and pledging to turn over more of HHS and HUD's budgets to the Holy Rollers are both tactically necessary and consistent with his convictions. So, if those are his convictions, or for that matter what he feels he must do opportunistically to get elected, why the fuck should we vote for him?

Tags: Election 2008, Obama, Adolph Reed, Chicago, Democrats