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The Real Barack Obama?

This morning E.J. Dionne writes:

The result of the 2008 election may come down to how voters decide to define Barack Obama. Is he Adlai Stevenson or John F. Kennedy?

Note well that this formulation of the central question of the election does not deign to ask who Obama really is, emphasizing instead that ?almost all of the turns in this contest have been driven by how Obama presented himself and how voters perceived him.? (Emphasis added)

Since the operative question about Obama concerns presentation and perception rather than actual identity and character, I have a much better way to pose it than Dionne?s false alternative between Kennedy and Stevenson. Here?s how I put the question in an email to a good friend back in February:

What a fascinating show future president Obama is putting on! It will be even more fascinating to discover whether he is:

a) Jimmy Stewart, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington;

b) Robert Redford, in The Candidate;

c) Peter Sellers (Chauncey Gardner), in Being There; or

d) Laurence Harvey, in The Manchurian Candidate.

It will also be interesting to see whether, in the remaining primaries, Hillary goes after his record (raising capital gains to 39.5%, a close mentor/minister who praises Farrakhan and calls Israel ?a racist state,? etc.) or leaves that to the Republicans. So far, the only thing Clinton Inc. has accused him of is being black (a half truth?).

Obama ?presents? himself as Jimmy Stewart, and is ?perceived? that way by his adoring and credulous fans.

I could see that appeal after his maiden speech at the 2004 Democratic convention (?There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America,? etc.) Later, for the first part of the primary campaign, he seemed more like a cross between Redford and Sellers, a balloon floating on good looks, good ?presentation,? and the hot air of ?hope? and ?change.?

More recently, however, my ?perception? of him has soured a good bit, and not only because he?s become the Wright man for the job or because of his bitter, clinging rhetorical errors (pronounced ?Ayers?). Or perhaps those errors are merely indicative of what strikes me as even more ominous: the gaping chasm between how he ?presents? himself ? the bi-racial, post-partisan healer ? and what there is of an actual record in his present and past, that of a hard left ideologue.

I don?t want to argue this here, but consider: When has Obama ever bucked his party on a matter of substance? He has taken firm positions on two issues, doing away with Bush?s tax cuts and raising the capital gains tax to 39.5%; and pulling out of Iraq as quickly as he can get the troops packed and loaded on transports. Entirely aside from the merits of these positions, since a good half the country is firmly opposed to tax increases, and a significant number of people regard unconditional retreat as a national security disaster, how would attempting to achieve either one of these goals move us beyond or above the bitter partisanship of the past decades? How would either inviting Rev. Wright to the White House, or pointedly refusing to invite him, contribute to bi-racial good feeling?

I wouldn?t yet say that Obama is The Manchurian Candidate, but on the other hand I don?t think it?s paranoid or out of order to pay more attention to ?where he?s coming from,? Manchuria or not.

Full post as published by Discriminations on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).