How Does Obama Feel About America?Fri Mar 7, 3:00 AM ET

Barack Obama's words are often attractive but oddly concealing. His speeches are all balm and mood. It's all very well to seek, as Obama claims, to transcend old categories, to reject the "old politics." But then what? This graceful rhetorician leaves you wondering: Who is he really? What does he want for himself and for his country?

In search of answers that go deeper than the Congressional Record, I read his first book, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." Once you get past the happy surprise of finding a politician who can actually write, the book contains some disquieting elements.

*snip*

Obama never reveals her political views nor her feelings about America. But we get one glimpse in this passage:

"Looking back, I'm not sure Lolo [his Indonesian step-dad] ever fully understood what my mother was going through ... why the things he was working so hard to provide for her seemed only to increase the distance between them ... He landed a job in the government relations department of an American oil company. ... Sometimes I would overhear him and my mother arguing in their bedroom, usually about her refusal to attend his company dinner parties, where American businessmen from Texas and Louisiana would slap Lolo's back and boast about the palms they had greased to obtain the new offshore drilling rights, while their wives complained to my mother about the quality of Indonesian help. He would ask her how it would look for him to go alone, and remind her that these were her own people, and my mother's voice would rise to almost a shout.

'They are not my people.'"

*snip*

Whom does he reject — or what? ... The very existence of the factories, the timber interests, the plastics manufacturer, will have rendered their [Indonesian] culture obsolete; the values of hard work and individual initiative turn out to have depended on a system of belief that's been scrambled by migration and urbanization and imported TV reruns."

Obama's self-portrait in this book is that of a searching, nonjudgmental young man attempting to find his rightful place after a confusing start in life. But he is attracted by the harshly ideological Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose church he joins. Wright peddles racial grievance religion. Following 9/11, he said, "[W]hite America got a wake-up call ... White America and the Western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just 'disappeared' as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns."

Questions for Debate:

1) What do you think Obama feels about America?

It's an odd question in a way. We don't ask Bush or Clinton what they feel about America.

As an aside, and the reason we do not ask Bush or Clinton this question: Obama has a Kenyan father; grew up through age 10 in Indonesia with an Indonesian, Muslim step-father; and his first book was a paean to his father's African heritage and carefully detailed the lives of his relatives in Kenya. Generally, our presidential candidates do not have such exotic connections.

Carry on....

but before America puts an African American in office they want to know what kind of African American they are getting. America wants to make sure on day one their new president isn't going to pop up on the news and say "Hello my fellow Americans. Lets talk about Reparations!"

As an aside, and the reason we do not ask Bush or Clinton this question: Obama has a Kenyan father; grew up through age 10 in Indonesia with an Indonesian, Muslim step-father; and his first book was a paean to his father's African heritage and carefully detailed the lives of his relatives in Kenya. Generally, our presidential candidates do not have such exotic connections.

Carry on....

As an aside, and the reason we do not ask Bush or Clinton this question: Obama has a Kenyan father; grew up through age 10 in Indonesia with an Indonesian, Muslim step-father; and his first book was a paean to his father's African heritage and carefully detailed the lives of his relatives in Kenya. Generally, our presidential candidates do not have such exotic connections.

Carry on....

You would be correct, sir. I mean, unless the Federal govt wants to compensate the families of former slave holders for the lost value of the freed slaves, I would suggest the blood of over 600,000 dead in the Civil War pretty much paid all debts...

Ah, we who?

What the nationality or religion of the man's father have to do with anything I cannot fathom.


America has always been a nation of immigrants and it's no shock that a child with a foreign parent might rise to the presidency. It's a no-brainer given our history.

No, "we" as this question mostly because of ideological bias and xenophobia...

Do carry on.


That's just illogical. No one called the dead of WWII reparations for the Holocaust.

There are many reasons to opposes slavery reparations, but that's a hollow one.

If, then, one of the reasons the North fought was to liberate the slaves--and no one can deny this was one of the reasons for the war-- then all the death required to do so bought the slaves' freedom. This is an unavoidable conclusion. The price was paid 150 years ago with primarily white soldiers' blood.

Mona Charen has a new column about how Obama feels about America. This is doubly interesting because she earned an undergraduate degree from Barnard College, Columbia University (with honors), where Obama graduated, and a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, meaning she also has the law degree, again like Obama. She read Dreams, like I did, and has some concerns as I result, also like I did.

Questions for Debate:

1) What do you think Obama feels about America?

It's an odd question in a way. We don't ask Bush or Clinton what they feel about America. Nevertheless that's the question. Probably like most folks he feels ambivalent. I'll just deal with what seems fairly self-evident. I think he sees a country that offers enormous opportunities but can be cruel and indifferent to people on the margins. Along with fulfilling some personal ambition to rise in politics I think a major portion of his adult life has been devoted to working with poor communities to lift themselves up and I think that will be reflected in his politics. His varied background seems to have given him special gifts in reaching out to a broad range of people of all colors, religions, ethnicities and incomes. I certainly don't see a radical, more an easy-as-she-goes reformist.

The reason Obama gets asked this question is because there is not much known about him. He's had little national exposure. He's brand new to the scene. He has no negatives, so that's why people ask questions like this, because they don't know anything about him.

The reason Obama gets asked this question is because there is not much known about him. He's had little national exposure. He's brand new to the scene. He has no negatives, so that's why people ask questions like this, because they don't know anything about him.

I would hope that our President feels that our country is a big sham and stinks to the high heavens. We need to overhaul the entire system and educate our woefully ignorant populace with a quickness. But if he says that, he doesn't get elected. So I guess his speeches that are littered with undefined pronouns and vacuous rhetoric will be sufficient for now.

Can't say I ever pity a dead cop.

Not to mention that they are all scumbag pigs. That's a scientific fact by the way.