Across the Divide: How Obama is shaking up Assumptions.

[illinoisprogressive]

July 16, 2007 issue - Cornel West was on fire. Bobbing in his chair, his hands sweeping across the stage, the brilliant and bombastic scholar was lambasting Barack Obama's campaign. Before a black audience, at an event outside Atlanta called the State of the Black Union, West was questioning why Obama was 600 miles away, announcing his bid for the White House in Springfield, Ill. Did he really care about black voters? What did that say about his willingness to stand up for what he believes?

"He's got large numbers of white brothers and sisters who have fears and anxieties and concerns, and he's got to speak to them in such a way that he holds us at arm's length," West said, pushing his hand out for emphasis. "So he's walking this tightrope." West challenged the candidate to answer a stark set of questions: "I want to know how deep is your love for the people, what kind of courage have you manifested in the stances that you have and what are you willing to sacrifice for. That's the fundamental question. I don't care what color you are. You see, you can't take black people for granted just 'cause you're black.

A few days later, West was sitting in his Princeton office after class when the phone rang. It was Barack Obama. "I want to clarify some things," the candidate calmly told the professor of religion and African-American studies. Over the next two hours, Obama explained his Illinois state Senate record on criminal justice and affordable health care. West asked Obama how he understood the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and interrogated him about a single phrase in Obama's 2004 Democratic-convention speech: that America was "a magical place" for his Kenyan father. "That's a Christopher Columbus experience," West said. "It's hard for someone who came out of slavery and Jim Crow to call it a magical place. You have to be true to yourself, but I have to be true to myself as well." A few weeks later, the two men met in a downtown Washington, D.C., hotel to chat about Obama's campaign staff. Just a month after ripping into him onstage, West endorsed Obama and signed up as an unpaid adviser.

for the rest of the story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19651719/site/newsweek/

[Colobo]

1. What a great read!

[Ethelk2044]

2. Excellent Article

[demgirlamerica]

3. obama is a joke

lets face facts, if he was a WHITE LIGHTWEIGHT with 3 years in the senate he would be ignored. he is nothing other than a media darling.

hillary or no one

[silverweb]

4. Keep telling yourself that, honey.

Enjoy your visit to DU.

[Name removed]

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[Colobo]

7. You won't last long around here...

[silverweb]

8. Disagree all you want. It doesn't matter.

Dodd's a good man, but he evokes mostly yawns from people. Like it or not, charisma is as much a part of the game as the issues.

Obama's got it on the issues, he's got something like the Bill Clinton touch when it comes to working with adversaries, and he's got plenty of both formal education and practical experience in working within the legistlative process.

And he's got the charisma. He inspires. He gets people enthusiastic and eager to pitch in, and that's a large part of what's called "leadership," which people in this country are desperately hungry for.

Your idea of what a "lightweight" is just doesn't figure into the equation at all.

[wildeyed]

18. I read recently that he taught constitutional law for a while after he finished at Harvard.

Another small plus to add to a really great package. :)

[Buck Laser]

5. BZZZZT! Wrong!

What makes people come to Obama is his intensity. Some call it charisma, as I do. I go way back to the FDR days, and the only candidate I've seen in the same league with Obama was JFK. Bill Clinton's got some of it, but not as much as Barack.

[hedda_foil]

12. You' ve pegged it , Buck.

I don't go back quite as far as you, but almost. FDR died a few weeks before I was born, and the only candidate I've seen in Barack's league was JFK. And you're right that Bill Clinton doesn't have as much of what we lamely call charisma as Barack or JFK.

[Odin2005]

15. My 84-year-old grandmother loves Obama and says he reminds her of FDR!

:hi:

[barack4prez]

20. Obama actually reminds me more of

RFK.

[Ethelk2044]

6. Correction He has more elective experience than Hillary are people

taking her lightly. He has 10 years to her 6.

[maximusveritas]

9. This mirrors my impressions of Obama

Obviously I didn't get the luxury of meeting him one-on-one, but I too was initially very skeptical about Obama's sudden rise to fame. I didn't know much about him other than his DNC speech and didn't see what all the fuss was about. After I started reading more about the guy and reading his words, I saw what all the fuss was about.

[silverweb]

10. Terrific article!

Finally finished the whole thing. Very objective, very insightful.

K&R.

GObama!

[illinoisprogressive]

11. It's written by Richard Wolffe. He is good and fair.

[silverweb]

13. LOVE your sig line!

Out of the mouths of babes, huh? :D

I had to go find the source and send it to my kids, who are both in Obama's corner.

:hi:

[TwilightGardener]

14. Thank you for posting--great article.

[bling bling]

16. Great article. Long one, too. Interesting all the way through. n/t

[DeepModem Mom]

17. K&R

[illinoisprogressive]

19. I am really happy to see Obama on the cover