Foxfyre wrote:okie wrote:Foxfyre, I probably posted with my edit when you posted, but have you finished his book, I have, and I am curious of your assessment.
I agree approaching office of president with the mindset discussed here is a very questionable thing, and could be very dangerous with the wrong person.
The book provided some useful insights into Obama's thought processes, but my impression is that it was specfically written to further the political ambitions of somebody who intended to aspire to high office; i.e. it is self serving. It carefully skirted just about everything that could be serously used against him later on. I didn't think it otherwise particularly remarkable and, at least for me, made for very tedious reading. Maybe his other book would be better, but I'm not motivated to take it on.
Good thoughts, I agree wholeheartedly that the book was carefully written to accomplish political purposes, and some of the angles used were to try to give the impression he liked ideas from both parties, and had this all encompassing view and understanding of all viewpoints so that he could bring all of it together into the most sensible consensus. He wants to be seen as the final arbitor of all the conflict between parties and ideas, sort of the messiah image to bring it all together as the one with the ultimate wisdom, and of course everyone will agree with him, and I guess we are all supposed to buy into it. But this image tended to fall apart toward the end of the book as he couldn't seem to resist criticizing Republicans more and more. He also tries to humanize himself greatly by describing his feelings about all kinds of things, and even his home life and conflicts there in great detail, which I thought was rather juvenile. By the time I reached the end, I had the distinctive feeling of having read a huge snow job of what he really thinks. It has become obvious that he has carefully laid the groundwork for a political career for a very long time, and the book did little to reveal the real Obama and what he really thinks. He remains a mystery to me, and not a particularly good one. I actually started out liking the guy many months ago, but I am getting more and more wary of him by the day. And so I will continue to view anything he does now with skepticism and suspicion, especially after reading his book.
