I'm not much on disliking people: I think it's important to be fair in criticizing, and use the same rules for your "opponents" as you would for yourself and your "allies" -- too often people use one set of weights and measures for people they are predisposed to like, and another for people they're predisposed to oppose. (This never works out well in the long run.)

That said, I feel a need to talk about Barack Obama.

Obama seems like a nice guy. I say "seems like" not because I'm sure he's unpleasant in real life, but rather because we don't really know all that much about him. Like everyone else, I see the public persona, and am attracted to it. I also admit that I think it would be kind of nice to have a black president: even his mere candidacy makes a mockery of popular claims that this a deeply racist nation, and that race matters here more for everything else.

When Obama first appeared on the scene -- I saw his speech at the DNC -- I thought: Well, this guy seems like a breath of fresh air. His speech wasn't about how wonderful "his people" were, and how awful "those people" were -- instead it struck a conciliatory and hopeful note. Even back then, there was buzz about the possibility of this "young" guy as a presidential hopeful.

Frankly, I'm a sucker for the scams everyone else falls for. Deep in my heart, I'm a liberal too. I felt attracted to Amway. I understand the appeal of New Age beliefs. I've flirted with atheism, back while I suspected atheists were the truly "bright" ones. But where it all went, and still goes, wrong for me is that I apply the rules I wrote at the top. Evidence is important, and so is fairness. I don't just listen to my heart -- I also pay attention to my senses and my ability to reason.

And sadly, over time, it seems the evidence has shown that Barack isn't at all what he appears to be. But he's very good at what he does, so most people won't notice. He reminds me of a magician, who is good at re-/mis-direction, and who is skilled at convincing you you're seeing one thing, when careful thought would indicate something altogether different. And of course he has a pretty accomplice on stage (called "the media") to stand in front of, and obscure, anything you shouldn't notice -- or direct your attention elsewhere as needed.

Consider Obama's political stance: He gives a wonderful little speech about the need to bridge right and left. Of the need to be above it all. To look beyond partisan politics.

Yet dig into his track record, and you'll notice he's a reliable hard-leftist. He has NEVER voted for any bipartisan issue, and has always voted as far left as possible. There is simply zero evidence that he wishes to meet Republicans halfway on any or all issues, and lots to the contrary. Strangely, the ideal he advocates, whether it's good or bad, more aptly describes his opponent, John McCain. I personally see nothing wrong with principled partisanship, but Obama says he does -- and should thus be considered by his own purported standards.

Consider his stance on race. Most of us agree with what he says: That it's bad to be divided, racially, and that we need to transcend a fixation on that subject. Nice words, but he went to a church -- for two decades! -- which was pastored by an apparently unreconstructed racial bigot -- a man who he called his mentor and father figure. As there's no way to believe Obama was unaware of his church's race-focused orientation (good heavens, the church's "Values" page on their website even proclaimed them until a recent edit), his speeches on the subject are revealed, yet again, as a pose: He's saying what he knows we want to hear. Actual racial demagoguery bothers him not an iota, it seems.

The same could be said about his many other political stances where he comes across, time after time, as a moderate. Each sounds like typical mainstream American values, and yet each is also in conflict with subtle signals from his past and present about his real values. To pick one more example: Consider Obama's stance on Israel and Hamas. In public, Barack sounds like this:

Calling Israel's relationship with the US "unbreakable", he said: "I will do whatever I can in whatever capacity to not only ensure Israel's security but to ensure that the people of Israel are able to thrive and prosper." [1]

"Our job is to renew the United States' efforts to help Israel achieve peace with its neighbors while remaining vigilant against those who do not share this vision.... That effort beings with a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel: our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy." [2]

That is, indeed, what most voters in the US want to hear. But a President's policies are often influenced, guided, and enacted by those he appoints. And when we look closely at the foreign policy advisers Obama is drawn to, an entirely different picture emerges.

One of his advisers, Samatha Power, in a speech which was ignored by the mainstream media, argued we should stop supporting Israel, pour "billions of dollars" into Palestine, invade Israel, and put US troops on the ground! (She says it's "sad" that we live in a liberal democracy, because the idea would be opposed.) Obama let Power go -- but only for calling Hillary a "Monster", not for any of these stances. (Power has hinted that Obama still likes her, and would probably invite her back.)

Consider another Obama foreign policy adviser: Robert Malley, a frequent critic of Israel who has been meeting frequently with Hamas. Some, no doubt, would think that's good: perhaps we can talk Hamas into abandoning their terrorism and coexisting peacefully with Israel. Yet Barack's public stance has been that he opposes talks with Hamas. When news emerged of Malley's meetings, Barack "sacked" him, claiming he wasn't a paid adviser (almost none are, when you're a candidate) and insisting, in what appears to be an emerging pattern, that he simply had no inkling of Malley's views (which inadvertently undermines claims Malley wasn't acting as an adviser!).

Sadly, Obama follows this pattern regarding his entire laundry list of political stances: He preaches (there's no other word for it) something mainstream and centrist, but does things which are far, far to the left. In soccer, this is called a "head fake" -- the head moves one direction but the hips -- the true center of gravity -- reveal an entirely different intention.

Like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, Obama is a masterful communicator -- yet there are great differences among them. Ronald Reagan apparently actually communicated his real beliefs: when he said: "We win, they lose" about his hopes for the USSR, that was a reflection of his actual foreign policy stance. His campaign rhetoric about cutting taxes and "morning in America" economically, was exactly what he pursued -- like it or not. He challenged Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!" and worked in the shadows to give it a toppling push from the inside. I have no idea if he ever dissembled, but there was no question about his policy stances.

Bill Clinton usually said what he wanted to believe. I do believe he said many deceptive things, but I also believe he himself was able to believe them when he said it -- or at least wish they were true. He promised during his campaign, for example, that he would isolate China. Instead, he did the opposite. But I don't believe he was thinking the opposite at the time: he just was going with the surrounding political current. When he later said: "I did not have sex with that woman", I believe he believed it -- holding, in his head, some lawyerly-precise definition of "sex" or "is" or something. And one can understand a lie (or perhaps, in his mind, a technically true deception) given under duress more than a lie offered as a policy statement.

Yet Obama knows precisely what he's doing. He is a conscious, not an unconscious deceiver. When John Kerry gave his infamous "I've been meeting with foreign leaders" statement, he was speaking extemporaneously, from a fond daydream. But before Barack preached against NAFTA, threatening to cut the deal we'd made with Canada, his campaign first called up the Canadian government to tell them he was just kidding about it all. Whichever position you think he really held, it was clearly a calculated and premeditated deception.

Obama has even admitted his approach: "I am enough on the national political scene," he wrote in The Audacity of Hope, "to serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their views." Well, it's not just his newness, it's also that he actively tells us things which don't reflect his short record, and discourages people from finding out anything more about him. Ask about those he surrounds himself with, and you're engaged in "dirty politics" and "guilty by association". (This from the people who have demonized Karl Rove!)

Obama clearly hopes to make all the way to the White House before we can discover who he is, and what he actually stands for.

A long time ago, when our country was in a recession, an eloquent Presidential candidate complained of the current administration's big-government approach, of the need to cut taxes, to encourage the economy. That was, apparently, what the voters wanted to hear: he was elected. Sadly, he did the exact opposite of everything he promised, and moved the nation into a long and deep depression. People starved and waited in bread lines while grain was plowed under. Whole industries were confiscated by the government, and run into the ground. But nobody blamed him, because he was, after all, a religious man, an eloquent speaker, and "on their side."

I'm not saying Obama and FDR are identical. There are many, many differences. But Obama worries me nonetheless, especially in the face of his absolutely skillful mastery of rhetoric and delivery. I find myself believing in him while he talks: I have to remind myself, afterwards, of this thing called "reality", and the distance between what he just said, and what he was doing.

True, since we don't know much about him, he might actually do a political about-face and be the centrist he pretends he is today. But leftism, in my experience (having seen my own internal struggles) dies hard. When people "learn" in DC, it almost always means they shift left. It takes a lot of internal grit and determination to do otherwise. I disagree with liberal policies, of course. But I'll take a principled liberal with whom I can disagree over a skilled demagogue who says one thing while consciously thinking and intending quite another.