Load Up Your Kindle

I just listened to the July 4th Edition of Left, Right, and Center. I highly recommend this podcast to anyone who is unfamiliar with it.

One thing caught my attention. Arianna Huffington mentioned that Obama should remain on track with his rhetoric from the primary season (a recently popular topic of conversation, it seems). She said that he should “[put] RFK’s speeches on his iPod” and should “[remind] himself of why he got into this race.” Sure enough, she really means it — and she even mentions the Kindle.

It seems to be an appeal to his…higher emotions…or something?

I tend to think that Barack Obama is a politician, just as everyone else in the Senate is a politician. From now until November his one and only job is to win an election. During a campaign season, that is every politician’s one and only job. The rest of it doesn’t matter if they lose. If you’re going to argue that he change his strategy, shouldn’t that include some argument about the benefit it would bring him? (She attempted to do this, rather unconvincingly, earlier in the show).

One of the things I can’t help but notice about Obama supporters is that they have such wide-eyed admiration of him that they seem to forget he’s a politician. He must appear to be something different.

Maybe I’m a cynic. Maybe Huffington’s cynic is your realist.