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Opinion & Analysis

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Obama is a triumph of style over substance

OPINION: The US presidential candidate's rhetoric is intoxicating - but what would he do if elected? asks Tony Allwright

THE MORE I read about and watch Barack Obama, the more I am reminded of Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, 13:1: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am but an empty gong or a clashing cymbal."

With his soaring rhetoric, Obama speaks with "the tongues of men and of angels", but it is unfair to suggest he lacks love. He clearly loves his family and has many friends. And it is, after all, not he but his wife who has trouble with the concept of loving America. But the talk of "an empty gong or a clashing cymbal" strikes a chord, so to speak.

Even after more than a year of vigorous campaigning, it is impossible to know what he would actually do if elected. Not that he hasn't told us, he has told us plenty, but he keeps telling us different, contradictory stuff. So what are people supposed to believe? Does he even know himself what he believes?

Is he for unconditional talks with Iran, anywhere, anytime, or not? Does he want to pull out of Iraq regardless of what happens, or does it depend on circumstances? Is he for Nafta (North American Free Trade Agreement) or against it, or indeed free trade in general? Does he love business or hate it? Is Jerusalem to be undivided or separated? Does he respect the white grandma who raised him or despise her as a racist?

Over the long campaigning months, his uplifting speeches and (rarer) debates and interviews have at different times adopted both sides of these questions, and many others, in what almost amounts to Orwellian doublespeak.

His big nomination speech during the Democratic Convention didn't add much light, and for much the same reason. For example, how long will it be before he "clarifies" what he means by, say, his trumpeted tax cuts for 95 per cent of working families, or whether ending US dependence on Middle Eastern oil in 10 years means making the current two and a half million daily imported barrels vanish?

Let's see whether other aspects of his life
shed any light. Views about people are often
formed by what they have achieved in their
lives. But Obama's career before this
campaign has thrown up no accomplishments
of note, other than two autobiographical
books that are earning him millions of
dollars, though this seems to be more
because of his rock-star status than their
content.

“

A handsome
but empty
shell which
makes a
pleasing
noise

He began his working life as something called a "community worker", but no one ever explains what that means, and if he had left a legacy, you can be sure we would have been told about it. He then lectured on law at the University of Chicago Law School, but published not a single piece of academic work - unusual for someone termed a professor.

He was elected a two-term senator in Illinois with another term in the federal Senate, but without being the primary sponsor of any legislation of significance, and in the latter forum, his voting record last year placed him as the 100th most left-wing senator out of 100.

So you certainly can't evaluate him by his achievements. Is he therefore "but an empty gong?" How about the people he mixes with, then? They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. But some of Obama's friends look decidedly odd.

There are the America-hating, toxic pastors Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright and Michael "Hillary mocker" Pfleger; the unrepentant "weather underground" terrorist leaders Bernardine Dohrn and her husband Bill Ayers - about whom the Obama campaign is trying to suppress a YouTube video reminding us that he tried to blow up the Capitol in 1971, and a fascinating interview with Stanley Kurtz, a Hoover Institute Fellow, about the murky Obama/Ayers relationship.

Then there is that pair of Obama fundraisers - Rashid Khalidi, an Israel-hating supporter of Palestinian terror, and property developer and convicted fraudster Tony Rezko.

These are the kind of people he likes to hang out with and who have helped him in his career and life to date, which includes bolstering his campaign. So what does that tell us about the future judgment, sympathies and behaviour of a President Obama?

Anyone can make a mistake by choosing a friend who turns out to be a knave. But six of them? Then, contrast this motley, awkward and embarrassing coterie of buddies with his intoxicating speeches. Does this make him a "clashing cymbal"?

Extraordinary oratory; flip-flopping policies; accomplishment-free; dodgy company. That to me is Obama. A handsome but empty shell which makes a pleasing noise, along the lines described by Saint Paul.

Of course, it's too early to say with conviction whether Sarah Palin is any different, though her fellow Alaskan, Mary Mullen in Galway, writing in this newspaper the other day, clearly thinks she's not.

But you be the judge. In fact here's a better idea. Let the American people be the judge this November.

Tony Allwright is an engineering and industrial safety consultant, and blogs at www.tallrite.com/blog.htm

Published column as PDF

Published columns as JPG

Further details in a blog post entitled “Obama The Empty Gong”;
alternative link - http://tinyurl.ie/obamagong

The case against Barack Obama - 11^th September 2008	My (unpublished) case against letter-writer Daragh McDowell
Madam, - Tony Allwright's column on Barack Obama ("Obama is a triumph of style over substance", Opinion, September 10th) is both misleading and of questionable accuracy on several key points.	Every factual statement can be backed up with evidence in the public domain.
Barack Obama worked as a "community organiser" after he left college, with the organisation Project Vote, which worked to register and empower poor African-Americans in the south side of Chicago. He did this for little pay, and even less prestige, after graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. Such a resumé would have granted him almost instant access to any high-paying corporate law firm, but he chose to give back to the community instead.	Still a pretty vague description, and activity that left no legacy of note, which is all I alleged.
True, Senator Obama did not publish any academic papers while he was lecturing in constitutional law at the University of Chicago. This is because at the same he was working at Miner, Barnhill Galland, a law firm specialising in civil rights litigation and neighbourhood economic development, and later as a legislator in the Illinois state senate. It is not surprising that while teaching, giving legal aid, being a state senator, and serving on the boards of several charitable foundations, Obama did not find the time to publish. Perhaps being an academic just wasn't his primary career goal.	Even though he was a professor he published no academic work – because he was too busy? Show me a professor who says he only publishes academic work because he’s not busy.
Mr Allwright is incorrect when he claims Obama has not sponsored any significant legislation in the federal Senate. What about the Lugar-Obama arms control legislation, or the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act, which has allowed citizens to see directly where their tax dollars go? Do these count as insignificant in his eyes?	I claimed that Mr Obama was not “the primary sponsor of any legislation of significance”. In Mr McDowell’s examples he is the junior sponsor; that’s why his name appears second.
He also recycles the National Journal's claim that Obama is the most left-wing senator in the US. Really? More left-wing than self-styled socialist Bernie Sanders? Or progressive icon Russ Feingold? Even more left-wing than the senator the National Journal claimed to be the most left-wing in 2004, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry? One might be tempted to question the Journal's methodology (as several academics have, and concluded that ideologically Obama is slightly to the left of the median Democratic senator).	I said “his [Senate] voting record last year placed him as the 100th most left-wing senator out of 100”. This refers only to the votes he cast in the Senate and only to 2007; and it’s on the record. Mr McDowell’s refutation wanders beyond both of these limits.
Mr Allwright then simply lists various people Obama has known at some point or another as if this is somehow damning evidence. Obama did serve on two non-profit boards with William Ayers - not surprising, given that they were both professors at the University of Chicago at the time. And while Mr Allwright might describe Rashid Khalidi as an "Israel-hating supporter of Palestinian terror", many others would call him an internationally respected academic and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia University, New York.	The six I listed were not merely “various people Obama has known at some point or another”. They were very close associates who raised campaign money for him, entertained him in their homes, put him on boards. In the case of Rev Wright, Mr Obama and his family sat in his church for twenty years and also gave it money. The reprobate behaviour of these six people, and Mr Obama’s ties to them, are all on the public record.
One can certainly criticise Senator Obama's policies, but practically every second sentence in Mr Allwright's article is a distortion, a smear, or a mischaracterisation	It is the rebuttal that is rife with “distortion” and “mischaracterisation”.
(particularly his assertion that Senator Obama believes his grandmother to be a racist).	On 18^th March 2008, he described Grandma as “a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe”.
It does not reflect well on Senator Obama's opponents if this is the best they can throw at him. - Yours, etc, DARAGH McDOWELL, Drummartin Terrace, Goatstown, Dublin 14.	Is this the best rebuttal that can be thrown at me?
US presidential election campaign - 12^th September 2008 Madam, - The shallowness of Tony Allwright's analysis of Senator Obama's capacity to lead (Opinion, September 10th) is encapsulated, inter alia, in his denigration of Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, as an "Israeli-hating supportor of Palestinian terror". His article tells us little about Senator Obama but lots about Mr Allwright. - Yours, etc, SHAY DUFFY, Sutton Park, Dublin 13. Note: I said Israel-hating not Israeli-hating, and also spelt supporter correctly.
Redoubtable Sunday Independent columnist Senator Eoghan Harris points out that my article “has some home truths for Barack Obama supporters. Five of Obama's former friends have either terrorist footprints or hold extreme anti-American views, while a sixth is a convicted fraudster. Mark my words, McCain will beat him by a very big margin”. [4th November 2008 hindsight: Better *not* to mark his words!]

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Opinion & Analysis

Obama is a triumph of style over substance

The case against Barack Obama - 11th September 2008

(particularly his assertion that Senator Obama believes his grandmother to be a racist).

It does not reflect well on Senator Obama's opponents if this is the best they can throw at him. - Yours, etc,

The case against Barack Obama
- 11^th September 2008