Hi,

I appreciate your response. I think your 2nd point must be true about how many on the left prefer ideological purity over practical steps to widening the base. And just to make sure we are on the same page: you and I see how far Barack is from that position. In fact, his stance on healthcare could be seen as an example of how ready and willing this guy is to go in directions that the left will rag on. Even if you are for Clinton's plan, it's clear that Barack isn't living in dogmatic leftist dreamland on this topic.

Also, from what I can tell, his work in politics is marked by an ability to actually make things happen via smart allegiances and creative compromises. I've read a number of pieces in which republicans describe what it has been like working with him.

But your point is not about Obama; it is about how some dogmatic idiots from the far left are attached to him. This gets into a larger question for me that I wanted to put to you and MPhillip (and all, of course).

I'm not comfortable by how much responsibility we place on these individual politicians. Hillary can only do and say so much to shake off her racist supporters(or any of her supporters who hate Obama and won't vote for him). Obama is "getting love" from snobs and elitists, but his life and political work clearly isn't governed by such tendencies (right?).

Now if you, Joan, are actually concerned that Obama secretly does agree with those types of views and practices, then you might very well wish to point that out. My understanding is that you are concerned about perception and the effect of middle-class voters falling for the idea that he is a silly snob who actually only wants to fight for pie-in-the-sky ideals and has no skills making real things happen.

If your concern is the 2nd, I would say you have a responsibility to use your brains and writing skills to show that this notion of misty eyed snoby Obama simply doesn't fit with the facts of his life. If your concern is that he is actually a guy who lives in the dogmatic-ideological castles in the sky, I understand why you don't write in support of his approach towards politics. I understand why you might need to constantly get on his case. And I would be with you.

Maybe I'm confused by your stance because you haven’t figured out where you think Obama fits. It could be that you simply don't know yet if Barack is the dogmatic-leftist kind person who you don't like. All I know to do is check his record and descriptions of those who have worked with him. I might be missing a lot, but it seems like he works very well with wide-tents of folks in highly practical ways. Is there a lot of evidence against this picture of him? Couldn’t it be that he is the recipient of all this intense dogmatic leftisism due not to his own views/tendencies but because he is an easy target for such projection (fresh, new, black, speeches well)

I guess i just keep wishing that you would cleanly differentiate your views about elite ideology from you views of Obama's work and views. If there is reason to think he doesn't work as practically as Clinton or that his views really are dogmatically ideological, I want to see it.

Part of respecting your brain is that I get worried that you are seeing evidence that Obama is somewhat like these idiots who turn him into a messiah. It is one thing to have trouble navigating his new found rock start status, it’s another if he is showing signs that he thinks he is the risen Christ. I just see a decent democrat trying to figure out how to get in office. I don’t see an extremist or somebody who is even speaking in ways that encourage extremism.

I know this: the grand narrative this season definitely weeds out almost everything Obama says that doesn’t fit the picture of him being a rock star. I have to actually work fairly hard to read what else he says and what else he has done, other than sell out stadiums and talk about changing the universe. You also have to look equally hard to read anything about Hillary that goes against the grand narrative on her.

I like Greenwald's work so much because he gets into the structure of this narrative, who is serves and why it is so often unexamined by the media.

My guts tell me that if you actually didn't see Obama as sharing significant qualities with those dogmatic ideologs, you would be writing more often about the distinction. From what I can gather, everything points to Obama not sharing those tendencies. In fact, quite the opposite.

i missed it by that much!

{I apologize for posting more than three times today;I have recently learned that I should be monitering myself to about 3 comments a day; and shorter than the first two}

I always get a happy little buzz when I'm driving around town and I hear those NPR folks talk about something reported on Salon.com. I'm sure the right-wing radio hosts mention Salon as well, but I can't seem to find them on the dial...