Some Obama fans have reconsidered

Even some moderate to liberal ones in the media. LIke this one in the National Journal.

Weeks of brooding over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama eruptions have severely shaken the hope I expressed in January: “If Barack Obama can show he is tough enough and pragmatic enough to win the presidency and serve with distinction, it would be the best thing that could happen to America and the world.”

The question of Obama’s judgment is raised here, the issue the remains when the rest are explained away or excused. But there’s more.

Also disturbing is the bleak picture of America painted by Obama’s closest adviser, his wife, Michelle, in highly newsworthy comments, most of which the media have chosen to ignore.

That’s an important point. 

Her stunning February 18 statement that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country” did get some attention, but just two mentions buried in The Washington Post and three buried in the news columns of The New York Times. The news columns of both papers, and almost all others, have ignored Michelle Obama’s assertions that this country is “just downright mean” and “guided by fear”; that “our souls are broken”; and that most Americans’ lives have “gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.”

The partisan divide on these issues is obvious. This is, however, bi-partisan concern.

But it also appears that Obama shares the unfortunate tendency of many liberals to see far-left extremists (and of many conservatives to see far-right extremists) as kindred spirits. And there may be some resonance between Wright’s angry vitriol and Michelle Obama’s bleak vision of America.

Furthermore…

…would the same Obama who lacked the fortitude to break with Jeremiah Wright be a good bet, if elected, to take on his party’s own special interests? To break, when circumstances warrant, with the across-the-board liberal orthodoxy he has long embraced? Curb entitlement spending? Temper excessive affirmative-action preferences? Tame the lawsuit lobby? Assign the teachers unions their share of the blame for what Obama calls “crumbling schools that are stealing the future”?

Could he get tough, when necessary, with fashionably leftist foreign dictators, highly politicized international institutions, and sanctimonious European America-bashers? Or would he instead heed such soothing platitudes as his wife’s February 14 assertion that “instead of protecting ourselves against terrorists,” we should be “building diplomatic relationships”?

Legitimate questions. At bottom, there’s a concern here that’s getting increasingly vocal. If he was the best of the crop for a lot of excited and engaged Americans, is the ideal president now ‘none of the above’?