Legal Commentary

Beldar on WaPo on Obama's "scrupulous manag[ement] of his own biography"

By Beldar

In my last post, I wondered when the WaPo will get around to writing about Barack Obama with any genuine objectivity. An article in today's issue actually starts off promisingly:

In the opening weeks of the general-election campaign, Sen. Barack Obama has moved aggressively to shape his campaign and offered a clear road map for the kind of candidate he is likely to become in the months ahead: an ambitious gamer of the electoral map, a ruthless fundraiser and a scrupulous manager of his own biography in the face of persistent concerns about how he is perceived.

I actually think that's a helluva lede ? especially the hint that there's something, well, interesting about what Obama has chosen to highlight, and what he's chosen to obscure, in his own biography.

The problem is: No follow-up. No examples, no meat to support the sizzle. Nothing to drive home to you the fact that: "Yes, indeed, this candidate has things about himself that he wants you to know, but also things he'd rather remain shrouded in mist."

Just go look, for example, at the biography on his campaign website. What's mostly missing that you'd expect to see on any résumé submitted as part of a job application?

It's dates.

There are only five years mentioned, despite the fact that he's 46 years old: 1961 (he was born); 1983 (graduated from Columbia); 1985 (moved to Chicago); 1991 (law degree from Harvard); and 2004 (elected to the U.S. Senate).

Like me, gentle readers, some of you have been in the position of making hiring decisions before. Some of you have a reasonable sense of when you're being snowed. And some of you would immediately look just at this list of years and say, "Well, for example, what the heck were you doin' between 1983 and 1985, young man, and why didn't you see fit to mention it on your résumé?"

Do you know? Here's one of two remaining serious candidates for the presidency. Do you, prospective voter, know enough about him to know what should have been filled in that blank?

I'm not suggesting that it's impossible to find out, if you're in the mood for internet sleuthing. Just like the fact of his smoking habit, it's out there somewhere, if you care to dig. Nor is it something that reflects particularly badly on the candidate, in my own opinion.

But then, my opinion isn't what Barack Obama is trying to shape. I don't see anything wrong with the fact that he went to work in New York in a very conventional job ? if not actually, physically "on" Wall Street, then certainly in the business world that he now takes pains to establish that he's always flouted and defied. His deliberate omission of that fact, however, may be a story worth telling.

Unless you're a mainstream media journalist who gets a tingle up and down your leg when you listen to Barack Obama speak. Unless you're in the tank, even if you're in denial about being in the tank. In which case, you can tell yourself that you've done your job as a hard-hitting investigative journalist by merely hinting, instead of actually delivering. "He manages his biography!" you can shout. (Then shut up about the details he's left out, okay? Let's not disrupt "the narrative.")

John Kerry also wanted to scrupulously manage his own biography. In his version, he was a spectacular war hero who volunteered for and served two full tours in heavy combat in Vietnam, and all of the men who served with him loved him and, indeed, held him in awe. But thanks to a few individuals who knew otherwise, including many of those who served with him and absolutely did not hold him in awe, at least some voters took a closer look, and found that it wasn't necessarily so, or at least not in the same way that the candidate claimed.

Yay for the internet! And thank the Lord there are still over four months until the election. The subject of Barack Obama's biography, and what in it he'd rather you not focus upon, will be, in case you haven't already figured it out, a recurring theme on BeldarBlog until November.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on June 23, 2008 (boomark / email).