"Unhindered Intimacy"

There is a wonderful essay/cover story in the Saturday/Sunday January 10-11 2009 Wall Street Journal about U.S. Presidents as writers. The best? Abraham Lincoln. The best since Lincoln? Barack Obama.

I have not read Obama's Dreams from My Father yet, have you? I guess I will see if I can put a hold on it at the local library. The author of the Wall Street Journal piece is Jonathan Raban. Raban describes Obama's writing in Dreams as "meticulously observant realism." He also describes Obama as a pragmatist with a "watchful eye and patiently attentive ear;; a proper humility in the face of the multiplex character of human society; and most of all, a belief in the power of the writer's imagination to comprehend and ultimately reconcile the manifold contradictions in his teeming world."

Wow! If there is consistency between Obama's instincts as a writer, and his performance as president, that might bode well for him, and hopefully, for America. As my fellow bloggers know, writers have to think about things before putting words on paper. Obama is quoted by Raban in Dreams as saying, "My solitude was the safest place I knew." Raban says, "The "I" of his book is a vigilant listener and watcher, a hoarder of contingent details, who hugs observations to himself, then broods on them day and night. Three o'clock in the morning is a recurring theme in Dreams, the hour at which patterns reveal themselves, resolutions are made, and the reader enjoys the illusion of unhindered intimacy with the author."

I thought that last statement was interesting, since so many people seem to feel they have an "unhindered intimacy" with Obama. He encouraged people to attach their "hopes and dreams" on his candidacy. He put Saul Alinsky's concepts to work for himself, although Alinsky's concepts were meant to organize and benefit communities, not the organizer. Obama also got in bed with the far left, who will be pushing him to implement their agenda of dismantling the war on terror, promoting gay marriage, amnesty for illegals, and environmental whackoism.