He did too practice as an working attorney for more than one law firm.
You think he worked for ACORN, or something? Watch a lot of Fox News, do you?
The only work he did for ACORN was as an attorney, not during his organizing years, and he didn’t register voters. As a community organizer, he mostly did tenant advocacy and spearheaded efforts to do things like repair buildings, fix potholes, clean and build parks and advocate for tenants’ rights against slumlords (one major issue, for instance, was getting landlords to remove asbestos from the buildings).
He also tried to do facilitate job retraing and employment advocacy for steel workers who had been laid off ater a steel mill closed.
He was working in a very depressed community, and was not able to save it, but he had some minor successes (against considerable odds), before he decided that he would not be able to affect any real change without political power.
Palin just exploited an opening to get herself into the Governorship. She then soon became embroiled in an ethics violation of her own.
What was he supposed to do? The fact that he was able tio swim in that cesspool at all, and come out as clean as he did is testament to his integrity.
So she was an idiot when she was there, and became smart after crossing the city line? Or her intelligence manifested itself when she decided to leave?
Is it possible for other people currently in small towns to also be intelligent? Perhaps they simply haven’t left yet?
My wife is brilliant. She was born brilliant. There is nothing genetic about people in small towns that makes them stupid. The problem is that small town culture tends to be intellectually stultifying, provincial, xenophobic, religiose, incurious and intolerant.
So I just came back from checking out the Fire David Letterman Rally outside the Ed Sullivan Theater. It’s weird, but I actually felt a little sorry for them. There were maybe 40 protesters, with more Anti-Obama signs and buttons than anti-Letterman stuff. The whole thing was pathetic on too many levels to count.
Umm no it’s quite clear he didn’t but he wasn’t a particularly well known activist in Chicago nor do his achievements, with all due respect, seem that impressive. But hey, good effort in trying to rip on me when I’m just pointing out that he really didn’t do much prior to being a politician (though he may have been a politician all of his professional life in one sense).
One that I believe she was cleared of and in no way was it anywhere near the level of corruption resulting from Stevenson’s tenure as an Alaskan Senator. Whatever her motives, she did take on a very corrupt system.\
Ahh here we go, Obama utilized Daley’s crew to run unopposed for the State Senate in 1996. Now if Obama does it it’s simply good strategy but if Palin did it she’s a corrupt harpy? Double standard is a little galling.
Here’s the WSJ article (sorry if I screw up the url):
Quite frankly that’s a cop-out. Given his mantra for demanding change etc, the fact is, he never raised any issues with Daley, Cook County or the endemic corruption in the Illinouis legistlator (on both sides). It’s almost like he was keeping the slate clean for future runs. Sorry, that’s not a testament to his integrity but to his ambition.
Indeed, I believe he rand unopposed in 1996 with the assistance of Daley’s petition busters. However, let me get a cite for that otherwise it’s not applicable.
I certainly don’t begrudge Obama for his sucess but this notion that he is somehow above all the riff-raff of common politics is both wrong a slightly dangerous. He’s a shrewd, manipulative politician and I don’t say that in a bad way. Palin is similar in many ways as she milks her current status as a “victim” of the left.
He wasn’t an activist at all in Chicago, and he succeeded as well or better than could have possibly been expected.
She wasn’t really cleared. They said she’d abused her power.
No he didn’t. His predecessor resigned, then tried to come back illegally. He didn’t blocke her from coming back, the law did. He did nothing illegal, or unethical
That WSJ hit piece really misrepresents the facts, but that’s a Murdoch publication for you.
I woud like to know specifially what he you think he should have done.
I didn’t say Obama wasn’t politically calculating, I’m just saying he went through the Chicago system without being personally corrupted or unethical. There’s a difference between being politically pragmatic and being a crook.
I tend to see him in much the same light as Harry Truman – supported by a corrupt machine, but personally with integrity (though with loyalty to friends and shrewdness, as you say). The analogy is not perfect, but the similarities are real.
Sounds exactly like the folks I grew up among in Baltimore, MD. And like some of the folks I live among now in Chillicothe, OH. In my admittedly limited experience, there are small minds in big towns, and great minds in small towns. From this, I draw no sweeping conclusions, but I have confirmed to my satisfaction a narrow one: no matter where you may end up living, you will be a blowhard and an asshole.
I don’t see it that way. If anything, it appears that his silence was purchased. That’s hardly rising above it now is it? Further, when he was a Senator he could have pushed Daley and Cook County harder (it wasn’t just the Stroger issue) but he didn’t. Indeed, his silence was deafning. So he didn’t get through the system clean, he got through the system by either willingly agreeing to avoid conflict with Daley or by putting his head down and ignoring the obvious.
Neither seem to be particularly redeemable to me. Understandable to be sure, but ethical or upstanding? Not so much.
Same with Palin, perhaps she was just being self-centred in her fight with the Alaskan establishment. Shouldn’t we give her the same benefit of the doubt that we are giving Obama in Chicago?
And to be clear, Obama disqualified all four of his opponents in 1996.
Really? I thought he worked for the Developing Communities Project and Project Vote during his time in Chicago, the first before law school and the second after. Am I wrong about that, or is that not activism, or are you just spouting bullshit again?
Developing Communities wasn’t activism. He was hired by local churches to help rebuild a devasted community. Community organizing is not the same as political activism. Project Vote was not politically activist either, so basically the short answer is no, neither of those things was “activism” (unless you;re defining it in some broad, non-political sense).
Cool, thanks, you are further defining yourself. Project Vote’s effort to “engage low income and minority voters in the civic process include the provision of training, management, evaluation and technical services” and the Developing Communities Project’s efforts to set up a tenants’ rights organization do not constitute political activism. Amazing. What does constitute activism, in your lexicon?
I’m not requiring that Obama was successful in his work within community activist organizations in Chicago. I voted for him twice and wish him well. I thought I had voted for an activist, however, and would like to be instructed on how I misunderstood Obama’s career or the meaning of activist by our goalpost-moving blowhard, Dio.
