Barack Obama - A Career Without Conviction

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30law.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

The above link is to a New York Times article about Barack Obama. I applaud the New York Time’s for a thoughtful and insightful piece. I wish more of their work was like this.

I find it fascinating the lengths Obama has gone to over the years to not take a definitive stand on anything. He voted “present” 130 times in the Illinois Senate, instead of casting "yes" or "no" votes on legislation. In 12 years at the University of Chicago he never published a scholarly article. In the U.S. Senate he has not taken the lead on any issue. His law school students admired his intellect and his ability to parse the complexities of issues but were frustrated by his unwillingness to ever say what he believed.

In the NYT’s article, libertarian colleague Richard Epstein summed it up well when he lamented that Barack Obama would not venture beyond his ideological and topical comfort zones. “His entire life, as best I can tell, is one in which he’s always been a thoughtful listener and questioner, but he’s never stepped up to the plate and taken full swings.”

When you combine this with his wholesale reversals on almost every key campaign position, like the FISA bill with retroactive immunity (he had promised to lead a filibuster against this), public funding for campaign finance, or gun control, it leads me to one conclusion. He is deeply unprincipled.

Can you with any conviction say what it is Obama believes? I can’t. Ronald Reagan spent a decade meeting and speaking with groups in every corner of the country to articulate his plan to defeat communism, promote smaller government, and recharge the economy by cutting taxes. As president, Ronald Reagan governed according to his principles; there was no confusion. Barack Obama has spent 20 years taking extreme care to ensure no definitive position could ever be ascribed to him.

Is a thoughtful listener and questioner and an accomplished facilitator who cannot take a definitive, principled stand the best person to be President? Can he make the “least bad choice” or will he be paralyzed by his ability to see the unfortunate consequences of every course of action? In this regard, Barack Obama is a very risky proposition.