Assessing apple pie.

• Author: Myrick, Howard A.
• Position: POLITICAL LANDSCAPE - Political campaign strategies of Barack Obama - Critical essay

HIS LIFE, AS PRESENTED by the media, is a "fairy tale," maintains one critic of Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.). Someone else notes that he needs further vetting, which is political jargon for, "Are we sure we have exhausted all efforts to find dirt on this guy?" Other commentators and critics of various political and ideological stripe question whether he has enough experience--not only to occupy, but even to seek, the nigh office of president. The fairy tale reference was made by former Pres. Bill Clinton. The need for further vetting has been cited by the presidential campaign operatives of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.). Questioning Sen. Obama's comparative political experience has been implicit in Sen. Clinton's references to herself being ready from "day one" to assume a seat in the White House.

"What three people do you fear the most?" asked the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, recounting a joke. The answer: "Osama, yo' momma, and Obama." What has been extremely interesting, especially to media watchers and communications specialists, is the extraordinary effort spent in trying to categorize Obama and predict his political fate. Media coverage has focused inordinately on his "otherness"--variously stating that as the reason for his lack of electability, combined with his being ideologically out of step with the American public.

Shelby Steele, the Stanford University Hoover Institution fellow, titled his latest book A Bound Man--Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win. Suffice it to say for the moment that Steele's focus, too, is on Obama's suppose-a otherness, among various other interesting characteristics. Yet, another scholar--and syndicated newspaper columnist--Thomas Sowell, alluding to Obama's asynchronous position with contemporary American ideology, states that the senator is putting forth "1960s ideas that have failed repeatedly, ever since that irresponsible decade."

Sowell's assertions do not contain corroborating data or commentary on which failed 1960s ideas he is referring to (all of them?). Did Sowell mean to place Obama in the ideological company of John E Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., et al? Does Sowell's recollections of the 1960s as an "irresponsible decade" include references to the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act, space exploration, etc.? Should Sowell's remarks be regarded as divisive codespeak designed to denigrate and minimize the accomplishment and significance of Obama being in the...