Good analysis, today, by Steven Warshawsky. Excerpts:
. . . Obama has prestigious degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, but no significant professional achievements to his name. No businesses or organizations he has founded or managed. No law firm partnerships. No important cases he has tried. Not a single work of legal scholarship . . . . . . he has authored, despite having been Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Law Review and a part-time law professor at the University of Chicago for twelve years. (This is unheard of in the elite ranks of the legal profession, and calls into question the bona fides of Obama’s professorship.)
Obama’s principal occupation before entering politics was as a “community organizer” in Chicago. By his own admission, these efforts achieved only “some success,” and none worthy of highlighting on his campaign website. Obama then served eight unexceptional years in the Illinois Senate, and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, where he is not even considered one of the Democratic Party’s legislative leaders.
And this man believes he is “the one we have been waiting for”? . . .
Full text at Why Barack Obama is in Trouble.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
April 38 08.11.08 at 4:43 pm
Obama has it upside down. We haven’t been waiting for him. He has been lying in wait for us. We’re the suckers he’s been waiting for.
Chai Tea 08.11.08 at 6:58 pm
Actually, I’m surprised this is just being pointed out by others. Hasn’t anyone been paying attention? Or are they all so caught up in the hype that they have missed the fact that the YOUNG Senator doesn’t have much weight behind his political history. What is more concerning is that he has been busy campaigning for the last year and a half and hasn’t even fulfilled his responsibilities as a Senator (neither has Hillary). Obama is also the most liberal senator.
Here’s his voting history: http://obama.senate.gov/votes/
He is ‘not voting’ more than he IS voting.
If he becomes President…will he NOT lead more than he leads?
Jay 08.12.08 at 10:32 am
experience does not make a leader.
mccain has missed more votes this year than obama or hillary.
and please show me where obama ever said “I am the one we have been waiting for.”
and you all complain about obama supporters being sheep.
Cayuga 08.16.08 at 12:07 am
Dear Jay: If you listen to the young people who are interviewed on the street, by Shawn (?) Hannity, not one can give 1 thing that he has done in the Senate, or in the Illinois Senate. All they talk about is, “we need a change!” Change, change, change! Actually, he did vote against a bill that stated that a Dr must attempt to help a child who is a product of a botched abortion. Imagine, the baby can be thrown in a garbage can, or left on a table - just as long as it dies quietly. Not even a hardened abortionist can go along with that. What exactly are we becoming as a nation? What are we teaching our children and society in general? We will reap terrible consequences if this mindset doesn’t stop!
Chai Tea 08.16.08 at 6:47 am
Cayuga - are you a member of the Cayuga Tribe? I noted your nick immediately. Thanks.
Cayuga 08.16.08 at 5:03 pm
No.
Jay 08.17.08 at 10:55 am
Dear Cayuga: Your going to use Sean Hannity to make your point? That just shows that you are getting your information from biased sources. For instance, the smear you have bought and are now spreading is false. He voted against a law in the Illinois state senate (not the federal bill that you are likely referring to). The reason he voted against the bill was that under Illinois state law, fetuses that were viable after an abortion were already protected under state law. That portion of the legislation was unnecessary. The portion he opposed would have put physicians at greater risk and was opposed by the Illinois State Medical Society. Many Republicans in the Illinois state senate also voted against the bill for this reason. I don’t know too many “hardened abortionists” in the Republican party. The smear you are spreading conflates the federal legislation (which Obama would have voted for) with a state bill and oversimplifies the nature of a legislator’s job. I’ll take a president who understands intricacies and votes accordingly over someone who just repeats lies that they hear.
Also, I’d encourage you to read this article that blows the lid off of the experience myth: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12290.html
Jay 08.17.08 at 11:12 am
I also find it interesting that rather than respond to my points (about mccain missing more votes, experience not equating to a good presidency, or obama never saying that we have been waiting for him) you just continued with the obama’s supporters are sheep theme and then threw in a completely unrelated smear. Maybe all they talk about is change. Maybe all you do is parrot lies.
In case you don’t bother to read the article I linked to above, a bunch of historians ranked the presidents according to the success of their presidency (GW was first, Lincoln was second). Only two of the top 10 had more than twenty years of experience (Jefferson and Truman). 6 of the top 12 had the same or less experience than Obama (Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Reagan, Eisehnower, Wilson, and Cleveland). The highest ranked president with as much or more experience as mccain is james monroe at 16. obviously, this doesn’t mean that you can predict success based on experience, but it certainly demonstrates that having a lot of experience is required to have a great presidency.
mccain’s support of (voting with) bush has increased as bush’s approval ratings have decreased. that’s the kind of experience you want?
Gravitas 08.18.08 at 5:55 pm
Come now, Jay. Give me a break. REAGAN had less experience than Obama????? And EISENHOWER???? Eisenhower was a five-star general, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, in the greatest war in history. He defeated the Nazis, for Pete’s sake, before he presumed to run for president of the United States. The British Field Marshal reported to Eisenhower.
Reagan was the highly successful two-term governor of the-then second most heavily populated state, California, and former president of the Screen Actor’s Guild twice: “Los Angeles, CA (June 5, 2004) – Screen Actors Guild (SAG) President Melissa Gilbert issued the following statement on the death of former President Ronald Reagan, who served as president of SAG from 1947 to 1952 and again from 1959 to 1960:
“Ronald Reagan presided over Screen Actors Guild at one of the most challenging moments in our union’s history, as the rise of television significantly impacted the compensation and working conditions for the nation’s screen actors. Under his tenure, SAG grew significantly in size and influence as the Guild tackled issues ranging from runaway production, to fair compensation, to unity in an increasingly complex industry – all issues that remain timely to working actors today.”
Get your facts right before you quote them, please. Nothing BO has done comes close to any of this. “Community organizing” –agitating, stirring the pot — for ACORN, or acting as an obstructionist state senator in Illinois is not comparable to anything Eisenhower or Reagan did.
Grover Cleveland? He was sheriff of Erie County, mayor of Buffalo, and Governor of New York, where he successfully took on Tammany Hall. He delivered his inaugural address without notes. Obama is in the lap of the corrupt Chicago machine, not its reformer, and he can’t say three words without notes or a prompter.
That’s the kind of experience I want. McCain comes close. I would prefer he had major executive experience, but Obama has none of that either. (Apart from being “editor” of the Harvard Law Review.) Obama is like a high school kid running for student body president, both in his abysmal lack of experience and in his ridiculous arrogance.
Gravitas 08.18.08 at 6:20 pm
Jay, sorry: I left Teddy Roosevelt out. He had been governor of New York, Secretary of the Navy, and Vice-President of the United States. He was “a professional historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier.” Over his lifetime, he wrote and published some 35 books, nineteen of those before he became president, to Obama’s two.
It intrigues me to see the fictions those on the left create out of whole cloth. They expect those on the right to be persuaded by tall tales like those on the left so often are. I will let you in on a little secret, Jay: we aren’t as dumb as we look.
Jay 08.21.08 at 9:10 am
take a breath for a minute. i apologize for leaving out the words “in government.” but i did link to the article in which that was clear. and i don’t think sag counts in that definition of government (valid experience though it may have been). the experiences of the great presidents you list are accurate. the larger point, however, you missed and you took up one that i wasn’t making. in fact, you proved the point, because all of that experience that you listed involved very little (with the exception of tr) time in washington. you are dead right. neither one of our candidates have anything on eisenhower in the experience game, but mccain is claiming experience based on years in washington and that is what the article is referring to.
i’m glad though that you so throughly and factually (without spreading smears about infanticide which your “not as dumb” as they look friends on the right do) responded to the point.
that makes one of my three original points that you all have responded too. how about the other two?