Barack Obama seems to have come out of nowhere. One day he was just a canididate for Illinois the next he was thrust into the nation's faces and became known as the man of many trades, at least according to an article published on Slate.com by Timothy Noah on February fourtenth, 2007: "U.S. senator from Illinois, best-selling author, Harvard Law Review president, Men's Vogue cover model, Grammy winner, possible telepathic communicator with space aliens from distant galaxies, and declared presidential candidate."
He first became known to me when I came across a slew of articles about him in the news during the Fall when the first whisper of him being a potential presedential canidate first came about. My mother then saw him on Oprah and we discussed him and his book The Audacity of Hope which she purchased for me for Christmas and I have yet to read.
He once again was thrust into the public spotlight when he announced he would race for the presidency. By making himself a canididate he also thrust Hilary Clinton to make up her mind and enter the race as well. New news articles are coming out about him, reaching from Slate.com to Rollingstone magazine.
He has an almost spotless background, but he is just like every politician in the regard to the fact that he has not been able to avoid controversy. There was that "Obama" "Osama" nonesense a while ago and a hooplaw over his middle name being Hussein. The was an entire article at Slate.com discussing politician names and how they may affect careers a few months back. The Colbert Report featured author Deborah Dickerson (The End of Blackness) who discussed the correct terminology for Obama's heritage. According to her he should not be called "Black," because he is not descended from African slaves, but he is somewhat of an African-American because his father is form Kenya. This has sparked a bit of a controversy over the correct usage and connotations for words with different skin tones. It even manedged to trickle down to being a topic of conversation in my IB History of the Americas class today.
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Don't you feel as if the controversies that he has been a part of have been rather....well forced?
1) The name controversy. His first name sounds LIKE Osama and his middle name is the same as Iraq's favorite son. This is just pure grasping at straws. Are people going to rule out John McCain because of John Wayne Gacy?
2) The media blatantly making up history of him attending a Muslim school. A smear tactic that was hastily proven as fallacy.
3) He's a smoker. Oh, lord no! Obviously he must lack leadership skills.
These to me are the signs of people trying to discredit someone who doesn't have skeletons in his closet. The biggest "no no" I know of in his past is some drug use, which he handily admitted to before his candidacy was a blip on the radar.
I have many different viewpoints on political matters from Mr. Obama, but I certainly find him to have the least questionable character of any politician on the national level that I've ever seen.
I believe the contoversy has been forced. Politics seems to be all about making the other guy look bad, and the media exploits the need that certain people have for constant entertainment at the expense of those their expoiting. Some people would do anything for news. Just look at how their milking Anna Nicole Smith's death. It's disgusting.
Obama's a smoker? I didn't know that. It makes me wish he would stop for the sake of his kids, but I still like the man and intend to discredit almost all I hear out of the media about him. He's just like any other person, his past drug use proves that. I agree that having poor health habits in no way makes a person a bad leader or a bad person in general.