Obama: The Great Divider?

March 04, 2009
By Victor Davis Hanson

I confess I did not believe Barack Obama entirely during the campaign when he bragged on working across the aisle and championing bipartisanship.

You see, as in the case of any other politician, one must look to what he does--and has done--not what he says for election advantage.

And in the case of Sen. Obama, in his nascent career in the Senate, he had already compiled the most partisan record of any Democratic Senator. He had attended religiously one of the most racially divisive and extremist churches in the country. His Chicago friends were not moderates. His campaigns for state legislature, the House and the Senate were hard-ball, no-prisoner affairs of personal destruction, even by Chicago standards. Campaign references to reparations, gun- and bible-clingers, and Rev. Wright's wisdom were not words of healing.

In short, while the rhetoric was often inspirational, I found no real reason then--or now--to believe that Barack Obama wishes to be a uniter. And nothing in his first five weeks of governance has disabused me of that first tough impression. the rest

President Barack Obama just plain rude to Britain. Don't call us in future. and No Colgate Moment, Indeed