By now everybody acknowledges that Barack Obama is good at making speeches that inspire people with hope of a better America. "Yes We Can!" and all that.



But one of the recurrent raps against Obama is that he's naive, that he doesn't understand the realities of power, that he has his head in the clouds and doesn't understand that there are powers that must be overcome in order to accomplish the kinds of transformation of which he speaks.



If we had only these inspirational speeches to judge by, we might reasonably suspect that possibility.



But there is some other evidence available to us. And with this evidence in hand, it ceases to be reasonable to imagine Obama to be some naive fool ignorant of how power works in the world. That evidence comes from his book DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, a book published in 1995, when Obama was 33 years old and before he was involved in electoral politics.











(Of him, Obama says:) So it was to Lolo that I turned for guidance and instruction...[H]is knowledge of the world seemed inexhaustible...He knew more elusive things, ways of managing the emotions I felt, ways to explain fate's constant mysteries.

"Have you ever seen a man killed?" I asked him.



He glanced down, surprised by the question.



"Have you?" I asked again.



"Yes," he said.



"Was it bloody?"



"Yes"





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