The problem with Barack Obama is not that he is an unknown quantity (or an unknown quality). We know enough about him to make this basic objective observation: Every time the veil is lifted on Barack Obama, it's to hear of yet another leftist radical that he has been fêting or who is fêting him.

All his life, the Illinois senator has associated with people and/or won the admiration of people — American and foreign — who blame America first (or America and its allies first), or, to be more precise, who blame America alone. The Reverend Wright, Billie Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, even Obama's wife (who said, famously, that she could, that she would, be proud of her country only if and only when her husband was elected president).

Beyond that, we have Obama — rightly characterized as "a creature of universities and churches and nonprofit institutions" by Fouad Ajami in the Wall Street Journal — surrounded by the ACORN crowd and the corrupt Southern Chicago machine. Abroad, we have leaders of Iran and spokesmen for Hamas who are rooting for Obama as well.

If it isn't "God damn America", it is "America is a damn-awful place to live in." If it isn't "a damn-awful place to live in," it is "Allah damn America".

Again, this might be less of a problem if Obama were known to associate with other types of people. But he is not. If he were known to count, say, some average, run-of-the-mill businessmen among his associates. But he is not. If he were known to have some average friends who, without being loud full-blooded patriots, simply appreciate the country they live in. But he is not.

For example, prior to the election (in which one single general — a political general — came out for him — Colin Powell has been out of the military and into politics for 15-odd years), the man who purports to have nothing but admiration for the military never seems to have interacted with a member of the armed forces in any substantive way.

Obama came to all his — simplistic — viewpoints about the Iraq war (and its Afghanistan counterpart) from the apocalyptic imagery of the university professors and the mainstream media (also part — obviously — of the blame-America-first crowd). He never seems to have asked a member of the military, let alone a tactician or a strategist, about the conflict.

On the contrary. We know his repetitions of the media's apocalyptic imagery as well as the mantras such as soldiers murdered civilians (not to mention the very few times he visited Iraq). While speaking, during the presidential election (!), of the "splendid" and the "heroic" work performed by American troops overseas, prior to the race (!), Obama famously refused to condemn an abusive ad — and its puerile rhyme — in the New York Times, the one stating that General Petraeus would betray us. He refused to condemn MoveOn's ad that claimed that this splendid member of America's heroic armed forces was worthy of nothing short of scorn.

Barack Obama is not an unknown quantity. It is all too clear what he is. And it is all too clear what office he is not fit to fill…

• Posted on the Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Posted on Red County

|