Book Review

I just finished reading Barack Obama's book, "The Audacity Of Hope". I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that it's the first book, fiction or non, that I've completed in probably five or six years. Don't know why or when or how I lost the thirst for reading books but somewhere along the way I did. But thats a topic for another post. Reading the book in the context of the completed campaign, election and finally the installation of Obama as president I'm struck by the consistency of his themes across the past several years.

Now that we actually see Obama's ideas being put to practice, it'll be quite interesting to observe how successful he is in holding to his core values. Like some others, I wonder if even at this early stage of his presidency whether many of the central tenets of 'obamalogy' have already been disproven or shown to be frighteningly naive, just as his critics contended during the campaign. Was the new age-y utopian optimism of Obama's "we are the change we've been waiting for" mantra that appealed to so many across the political spectrum but a liberal version of Ronald Reagan's "shining beacon on a hill...morning in america", ie a steaming pile of cult-of-personality bulls**t? Back in the day many liberals decried Reagan's clarion call as post-eisenhower era idealism. But at least Reagan had the experience of the better part of a lifetime to draw upon and time spent as governor of CA to hone his (almost totally wacko in my view) political ideologies. I wonder whether with some of Obama's early struggles we are witnessing in real time some of the tangible disadvantages - - again just as the critics contended - - of choosing inexperienced idealism over experienced idealism? (presuming we desired some great measure of idealism) In my humble opinion the answer is pretty much yes and I find the realization disconcerting at best and frightening at worst. BUT (and its a big butt) I still think new blood was needed in our political dialogue and that Obama, at the least I'd say, has already shaken up the sticks in ways that we cannot even begin to measure. Furthermore, I wouldn't sell this Obama cat short. As with most objective observers, he strikes me as smart as whip, quick witted and willing and able to learn. If, as I'm suggesting above, his amalgam of policies and ideas do in fact embody a sort of ideology, it's an ideology that seemingly allows for great flexibility. This can cut both ways of course, and I think therein lies a paradox: basically we still don't really know what, when it all comes right down to it, Barack Obama stands for. And I must say I hope the watered-down jambalaya of a stimulus bill that he just bet IMO most of the political capital earned by his election on (he'll have to acquire more to get to spend more IMO) doesn't actually reveal the answer: Despite the books and the confidently delivered rhetoric perhaps even he doesn't yet know. I mean, when you listen to his economic surrogate, this Geithner cat, don't you just get the notion he's feeling his way in the dark??