OBAMA YAYS AND BOOS

President Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do.

I'm hooting, clapping my hands, shouting YIPPEE, hurray.

What a relief to find an article written by a Harvard Professor, a guy who's written other books, who's lectured about Obama, taught classes, is respected and praised by the New York Times. Professor James T. Kloppenberg has just published "Reading Obama," a book that I'm summarizing right here, right now, because it's factual and affirmative.


Kloppenberg is telling the moaners-who-think-Obama's-a-wimp -- the complainers-who- think-Obama's-a-socialist, the Dems-on-the- left and the Dem-right-wingers -- that President Barack Obama, (whom you elected), told you before you elected him, that he does not share your belief that the Democrats are right and the other guys, the Republicans, and Tea Partiers are wrong.

Kloppenberg has read, studied, and written about what Obama told us in the two books Obama wrote -- one in 1995, "Dreams of My Father," and the other in 2006 -- "The Audacity of Hope."

(I love the titles.)

Obama said in his published books -- he is wary of absolutes -- he doesn't make blanket statements; he doesn't have pat formulas; he doesn't announce his principles -- he's committed to a "Christian tradition and prizes humility, and social service."

He said that he goes for experimentation -- he won't demonize his opponents -- he seeks them out and listens to them, trying to understand how they think and why they see the world as they do.

(The word is EMPATHY -- Obama has said "empathy" was something his mother drilled into him.)

Obama wrote, "Disagreeing is part of our personalities as Americans .... our differences are important, not trivial."

And pay special attention to this, readers -- Obama said his opponents hold principles, ideas as deeply rooted in American history, American tradition, as his own.

In "Audacity of Hope," he wrote, “I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush’s eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him. That’s what empathy does—it calls us all to task, the conservative and the liberal … We are all shaken out of our complacency."

Kloppenberg shows, with quotes, that Obama's decisions about health care, financial reform, his opposition to the Iraq war, his support of the Afghanistan war, were based on Obama's ideas and explained by Obama in "Audacity of Hope."

There's much more, many more specifics about Obama in the books which you can buy and read yourself. What delights me is that Kloppenberg's book is getting attention -- he's letting anti-Obama folks know that we are getting from our President exactly what Obama said he planned to do.

In "Reading Obama," author James T. Kloppenberg said that you can be a Republican and completely opposed to Obama, but "We have a man in the White House, a philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history. There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln, and, in the 20th century, just Woodrow Wilson.”

So, readers -- next time you're getting into a fight with one of your former friends, who's convinced the country's been ruined, etc. by Barack Obama, you can say I understand -- I don't agree, but I understand -- and maintain the friend as a friend.