We have been told ad nauseum that Senator Barak Obama is a new kind of politician, one who transcends race, party and all other traditions of politics.  We had Senator Joe Biden's patronizing remarks about Barak being clean, intelligent and articulate. We've heard about "The Audacity of Hope, and heard the great media power Oprah Winfrey proclaim the senator as the only politician she could consider working to elect.
    The truth, however, is much more elusive.  How many people remember the despicable and nearly criminal activities that helped him win a seat that he originally was viewed as having no chance of winning.  Mr. Obama was the beneficiary of one of the dirtiest tricks in the history of American politics when the Chicago-Herald Tribune went to court to open up the sealed divorce documents of Obama's Republican rival Jack Ryan.  Originally some of the documents the paper wanted were kept sealed due to the damage their release could be do to the Ryan children.  The paper, though, undaunted in its verve as a surrogate for Mr. Obama, judge-shopped until they were able to find a partisan judge who would grant them the records that were legitimately denied them previously.  The documents, which dealt with the sexual habits of Mr. Ryan were used to force him out of the race.  As the primary had already ocurred, the Republican Party was left without a candidate and Mr, Alan Keyes, from Maryland was recruited to carry the GOP banner.  Keyes slogged through the campaign labeled as a carpet bagger and lost to Obama by a substantial margin.
    While Obama was elected with a wide margin, the question still persists, can the beneficiary of the old Chicago democrat political machine win in a fair fight?  Any criticism is met with charges of "playing the race card" while the gaffes of the young senator are coming more and more frequently.  Obama's minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, confirmed what many feared about an institutional racism against whites.  Obama's refusal to dissociate himself from the pastor or the theology that guided him gives many legitimate pause to wonder if this "new kind of politician" has any thing to offer but besides tired, old recycled ideas of failures past.  What kind of Federal and Supreme Court justices is such a person likely to name?
    If we think of Obama as anything but the old style political hack, we do so at our own peril.  Yes, he is a much more presentable and articulate hack,but a hack just the same.  The candidates "bitter" remarks and his devotion to a theology and a pastor that are passionately hateful toward the majority of the citizens of this country should make us all consider whether this is someone who can govern judiciously over all of the people who live in this great country.  I think we would also be wise to question just how far is a man with such a world view and philosophy of our history willing to go to protect us and our allies in an ever more dangerous world.