<p>Interesting read:</p>
<p>[Dallas</a> - News - Obama and Me](<a href=“http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-02-28/news/obama-and-me/1]Dallas”>http://www.dallasobserver.com/2008-02-28/news/obama-and-me/1)</p>
<p>Know your candidates!</p>
<p>There are plenty of hatchet job stories out there about Hillary too, you know. I’ve read them. But I’ve not posted links to them because I suspect much of their contents constitute “hear say” and are very much politically (or economically) motivated.</p>
<p>The detail of recent Illinois political history is interesting. Illinois folks…is it accurate?</p>
<p>What history? This was less entertaining than Hunter S. Thompson - and had about as much substance. Oooh - Obama was mean to me!
And your point is…?</p>
<p>But in any case, politics being what it is, I doubt there’s any shortage of hatchet job stories about McCain, either. Stories of this nature mostly feed the biases of the candidate’s detractors, play fast and loose with the truth, and/or spin neutral facts into damaging negatives. When I read such stories, even if they are about a candidate I don’t support, I try to examine who it is that is writing the story, what their motivation might be, if it’s possible that they have a grudge, or an agenda that’s less than honorable, or if it’s possible they might be on the take. And I try to compare all the reports I’ve heard or read about the candidate, and see if I can parse out some semblance of the truth. It can be very difficult, granted, but swallowing propaganda hook, line and sinker (whether it be of the wildly positive variety, like a lot of Obama’s hype, or extremely negative, like some of that being lobbed in his direction in a sort of backlash) is best avoided.</p>
<p>There ought to be some level of coverage between “hatchet” job and fawning puff piece and as thin as it is, that’s what this piece is. </p>
<p>We don’t have a link to the first, flattering profile the writer says he wrote about Obama, but coupled with this one, I would say that he was trying as a journalist to give a full picture of what he knew and learned covering the candidate’s early days as a state legislator. To me, the picture is pretty accurate: a very smart, ambitious young man who has made politics his career and is succeeding spectacularly at it so far. </p>
<p>There’s nothing in the piece that would make me not support Obama if he is the Democratic nominee. But let’s be real, he’s a politician and he’s got warts like anyone else.</p>