Bashing Community Organizers

When Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin mocked Obama's days as a community organizer in Chicago the Obama campaign (and aggrieved lefty bloggers, as noted) fired back.

But gues who else panned the whole concept of being a community organizer?  Barack Obama himself, as reported by John Judis in TNR:.  Briefly, Obama had concluded that community organizers were powerless and focused on the narrow self-interest of their communities rather than a larger vision (of hope and change, no doubt).

[Obama] told Kellman [who had hired Obama as an organizer] that he feared community organizing would never allow him "to make major changes in poverty or discrimination." To do that, he said, "you either had to be an elected official or be influential with elected officials." In other words, Obama believed that his chosen profession was getting him nowhere, or at least not far enough. Personally, he might end up like his father; politically, he would fail to improve the lot of those he was trying to help.

And so, Obama told Kellman, he had decided to leave community organizing and go to law school. Kellman, who was already thinking of leaving organizing himself, found no reason to argue with him. "Organizing," Kellman tells me, as we sit in a Chicago restaurant down the street from the Catholic church where he now works as a lay minister, "is always a lost cause." Obama, circa late 1987, might or might not have put it quite that strongly. But he had clearly developed serious doubts about the career he was pursuing.

...if you examine carefully how Obama conducted himself as an organizer and how he has conducted himself as a politician, if you consider what he said about organizing to his fellow organizers, and if you look at the reasons he gave friends and colleagues for abandoning organizing, then a very different picture emerges: that of a disillusioned activist who fashioned his political identity not as an extension of community organizing but as a wholesale rejection of it. Indeed, the most important thing to know about Barack Obama's time as a community organizer in Chicago may not be what he gained from the experience--but rather why, in late 1987, he decided to quit.

With a great deal of background Mr. Judis explains that Obama had turned away from the basic precepts of Alinsky-style organizing:

Before he was done, Obama had rejected the guiding principles of community organizing: the elevation of self-interest over moral vision; the disdain for charismatic leaders and their movements; and the suspicion of politics itself. But he did so in a way that seemed to elude the other participants. Two decades later, Green couldn't recall any disagreement over his more positive take on SON/SOC. Joravsky also didn't remember Obama's criticisms of organizing. Instead, he recalled thinking how "cool" and "well-spoken" Obama was.

Fascinating.  James Taranto in his Sept 8 "Best Of" brings this together brilliantly.

MORE:  Byron York picked up some of this last June:

Obama seemed to realize that it was very, very hard to get anything done. “He didn’t see organizing making any significant changes in things,” Jerry Kellman recalled.

The solution, Obama felt, was to find a way to political power of his own.

“He was constantly thinking about his path to significance and power,” Mike Kruglik told me. “He said, ‘I need to go there [Harvard Law School] to find out more about power. How do powerful people think? What kind of networks do they have? How do they connect to each other?’”

QUERY:  Does anyone know an easy way to perma-link the "Best Of The Web" feature?  I always end up waiting a day and re-linking to the archives, which seems absurdly cimbersome.  [Answer here.]

Comments

[Foo Bar]

But gues who else panned the whole concept of being a community organizer?

Yeah, he was so down on it as of 1987 that when he first gained national attention for becoming editor of the Harvard Law Review a few years later he said he was going to go back into it:

The president of the law review usually goes on to serve as a clerk for a judge on the Federal Court of Appeals for a year, and then as a clerk for an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Mr. Obama said he planned to spend two or three years in private law practice and then return to Chicago to re-enter community work, either in politics or in local organizing.

Oh, but that was just for public consumption, to burnish his image, right? He didn't really intend to do it, did he?

Here's what he was up to in '92, shortly after law school:

The most effective minority voter registration drive in memory was the result of careful handiwork by Project Vote!, the local chapter of a not-for-profit national organization. "It was the most efficient campaign I have seen in my 20 years in politics," says Sam Burrell, alderman of the West Side's 29th Ward and a veteran of many registration drives.

At the head of this effort was a little-known 31-year-old African-American lawyer, community organizer, and writer: Barack Obama.

Are we all smart enough to appreciate the difference between (a) learning that influence with elected officials is important if you want to achieve big things and (b) denigrating the whole concept of community organizing? I think we are.

[Bill in AZ]

So... Hillary is smarter than Obama - once again. I recall reading about her analysis of this same situation, and she decided right away to skip the community organizer nonsense and go straight to law school.

[kim]

What difference does it make, Foo Bar, when Obama is as corrupt as he obviously is?
====================================

[Foo Bar]

My second link in my previous comment is no good. Here is the correct link.

[clarice]

I view community organizers as people who stir uup discontent and try to get groups of people to mau mau the flakcatchers in govt to give them MORE.
OTOH people like the Woodson Foundation, teach poor people how to take care of themselves, how to start businesses and manage their own affairs.
I'm with Woodson.

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

Are you as unsurprised as I am that Obama is linked to an org noted for voter fraud? Did he teach voter fraud in '93 or would you think he was still in the learning phase?

BTW - "stir up discontent" can also read as "organize a raid on the treasury". For the "little people". Like Tony Rezko.

[clarice]

Remember how effectively Tom Wolfe described the community organizer concept in "Radical Chic and Maumauing the flakcatchers"? If not reread it.It remains the best description of the shake down operation.

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Chic-Mau-Mauing-Flak-Catchers/dp/0553380621>Maumauing

[Mustang0302]

Don't let anybody call you a victim.
That's a community organizer's job.

[clarice]

ACORN IIRC is not only noted for its ongoing role in voter registration fraud, it fought for mortgage loans to people who otherwise didn't qualify for them. You know, the folks who've now defaulted creating a financial mess.

[Danube of Thought]

"...he said he was going to go back into it..."

Well, not exactly. He said he would either go back into organizing or or into politics.

But who cares? Here, yet again, we have Obama expressing opposing views on the same subject. It's a phenomenon we've all become accustomed to, and it's why the American electorate doesn't really trust him, and is now prepared to reject him.

[Porchlight]

They're low-level bullies and extortionists. Their rationale is that they're bullying for a good cause. But really all that happens is that the bully-ees give them money to shut up and go away. Hence, nothing really gets fixed, and morale stays low among the people they're supposedly trying to help.

Oh, but they get a lot of voter registrations while they're at it.

[clarice]

Here's ACORN homebuyer site
http://www.acornhousing.org/TEXT/homebuying1.php

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

I linked to an article on Project Vote! voter fraud. ACORN was where Obama was first associated with an org which practices voter fraud. Project Vote! is the second org with which he is linked that has voter fraud on its resume.I wonder if there are very many others?

H/T FooBar

[Danube of Thought]

From the New York Times, no less:

"After months of record-breaking fund-raising, a new sense of urgency in Senator Barack Obama’s fund-raising team is palpable as the full weight of the campaign’s decision to bypass public financing for the general election is suddenly upon it.

"Pushing a fund-raiser later this month, a finance staff member sent a sharply worded note last week to Illinois members of its national finance committee, calling their recent efforts 'extremely anemic.'”

Even the Dems now recognize him as a whining, unprepared loser, and they're voting with their pocket books--"anemically."

[Soylent Red]

Bravo mustang! You have captured the essence of community organizing:

Perpetuating victimhood and class envy.

[Mustang0302]

Dead folks have been voting for Democrats for decades, only recently in an organized manner in selected locations.

[Simple Simon]

Obama is the abortion candidate. The Democrats want to abort this candidacy now.

[Mustang0302]

Conservatives have community organizers too; they're called families, friends, & neighbors.

[Mustang0302]

You may not be very interested in community organizing; depending upon where you live, community organizers may be very interested in you (in groups of even-numbered hundreds only).

[Soylent Red]

community organizers may be very interested in you

Well...your bank accounts anyway.

[Mustang0302]

Dogs have fleas.
Communities have organizers.

[Mustang0302]

Why did the community organizer cross the road?

To subvert the other side.

[Pofarmer]

denigrating the whole concept of community organizing?

I'm good with that, actually.

[Mustang0302]

denigrating the whole concept of community organizing?

No, just the infiltrating, subverting, agitating, bring-on-the-revolution-comrade-to-hell-with-these-useful-idiots parts.

God bless volunteers helping people out of the kindness of their own hearts.

[Danube of Thought]

At bottom, "community organizing" is a silly, juvenile effort at poking a stick in the eye of "authority" while getting taxpayer money in the bargain. No community organizer known to man has ever examined the question of how the people in the community being organized became so helpless and dysfunctional in the first place.

[Danube of Thought]

It's official; the final nail is in the coffin:

"Singer-actress Barbra Streisand, who originally endorsed Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential primary race, has jumped on Barack Obama’s bandwagon with both feet to sing for the newly anointed Democratic nominee at a Beverly Hills fund-raiser next week."

[M. Simon]

There was a link to an association of Community Organizers a while back. I went over there and told them that if they wanted any respect they needed to organize Republicans.

I left before they started throwing stuff at me.

[bgates]

I hope they make sure it's really Streisand.

Some of those cover artists are really convincing.

[Mustang0302]

bgates:

Yikes! It's true: show biz is politics for idiots, and politics is show biz for ugly people!

Wait...STREISAND IS DUAL-QUALIFIED!

[JM Hanes]

FooBar:

"Are we all smart enough to appreciate the difference between (a) learning that influence with elected officials is important if you want to achieve big things and (b) denigrating the whole concept of community organizing? I think we are."

Are we all smart enough to recognize that the manager of a succussful voter registration drive is not the same thing as a community organizer? Apparently not.

[Elliott]

CNN and MSNBC aren't really making a big deal of a guest speaker at Palin's church, are they?

[Topsecretk9]

this is a little over ALL CAPPED (read over wrought) but it appears that Obama hasn't been all that honest on just how he came to a community organizer - 'want ad'

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/09/are-kellman-and-obama-lying-about-how.html

[JM Hanes]

Mustang:

"Why did the community organizer cross the road?..."

Are you always this funny, or are you just on a roll? You've had me laughing all night. Out loud!

[Peter]

I'm retired now but I spent over twenty years as a community organizer. I'd get up, have breakfast, climb into uniform, buckle on my gunbelt and strap that county cruiser to my ass and go organise the community.
The Acorn types didn't like me much, though. I think it because if I had a good day and managed to lock up a burglar or other criminal the folks in the community actually had somewhat better lives. Cummunity organisers hate seeing lives get better, people with good lives don't need community organisers.

[Foo Bar]

Are we all smart enough to recognize that the manager of a succussful voter registration drive is not the same thing as a community organizer?

Apparently, the author of the 1993 piece which I linked in my earlier comment was not smart enough, since it referred to him at the time as a community organizer, not a former community organizer.Note that it also describes what he was doing shortly before he was recruited to work on voter registration:

So Newman decided to open a Cook County Project Vote! office and went looking for someone to head it.

The name Barack Obama surfaced. "I was asking around among community activists in Chicago and around the country, and they kept mentioning him," Newman says. Obama by then was working with church and community leaders on the West Side,

[unseen]

when I hear that term community organizer for some reason I think of the communists that tried to organize the "unions" in the 1930's. Anyone else get the same vibe?

[Mustang0302]

JMH: This topic just struck my funny bone.

Peter: Thanks, Trooper(Deputy?).

"Community Organizers: Building Perpetual Futility Machines, One Community At A Time."

ACORN: "Cops? Aw, hell...RUN!"

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

when I hear that term community organizer for some reason I think of the communists that tried to organize the "unions" in the 1930's. Anyone else get the same vibe?

With the Obama agenda, everything old is new again.

[Mustang0302]

unseen:

Look up Saul Alinsky: who influenced him, and who he later influenced.

BHO later strayed from Alinsky's "ideals", even to the point of disenchantment; but you will instantly recognize the "Rules for Radicals" when you see them, even as "imperfectly" applied today.

[JM Hanes]

"At the head of this effort was a little-known 31-year-old African-American lawyer, community organizer, and writer: Barack Obama."

I guess community organizer includes law school, writing your memoirs, etc.

"The most effective minority voter registration drive in memory was the result of careful handiwork by Project Vote!, the local chapter of a not-for-profit national organization."

This is politics, not community organizing, and what's ironic is that you apparently know as little about the job description as most of the rest of America.

BTW, just thought you might like to know that Obama, the earmark reformer, has a cumulative total of $850,000 in pork. Probably would have been higher if he hadn't been so busy running for election this year.

[Mustang0302]

foobar:

NASA picked Cape Canaveral over a number of other potential sites. That history is well-known.

Why & how BHO picked Chicago is still clouded in man-made mystery.

Launching pads, in both cases. One destination arrived at in '69; the other is currently off-track for '08.

[bgates]

Foo Bar, your efforts at redeeming Obama's community service record are showing that he accomplished nothing more than gathering political power for the likes of Carol Mosely-Braun or the next racial solidarity candidate to come out of the Democratic party (who turned out to be Barack Obama).

learning that influence with elected officials is important if you want to achieve big things
He's got a big house, and a big job for himself and his wife, and Rezko, Wright, Pfleger, Ayers, and Klonsky all made out well; did he achieve anything besides good fortune for himself and his friends?

[granny]

Isn't "community organizer" just the Politically Correct term for what used to be termed "rabble rouser"? (Smile)

[JM Hanes]

Direct from my tube to you!

Obama at a meeting in what looks like somebody's body shop, mocking Palin for flip flopping on the bridge:

You can't just make stuff up! You can't just recreate yourself! You can't just re-invent yourself!

Does the man even own an irony meter? My favorite moment in punditry for the day, though, has to be Jeff Toobin, plaintively addressing David Gergen:

Is it really in the Republicans' interest to reignite the culture wars which are chiefly about abortion, where the Democratic position, the pro-choice position, is by far the more popular one? Why is the culture war a winner for the Republican?

That may be the first genuine, non-rhetorical, question he's asked in months. I think he just realized he doesn't have clue about what's going on.

[JM Hanes]

granny:

That's pretty accurate shorthand right there!

[granny]

JM Hanes -- I always was good at that! ; )

[bgates]

JMH, I think his message got lost in print. What he's really saying there is, "You can't just make stuff up! You can't just recreate yourself! You can't just re-invent yourself!"
In that kind of sentence, it's generally considered more proper to phrase the sentiment as "One can't just make stuff up," etc, but Obama can't say that - he is the One.
And yes, he can.

[JM Hanes]

Oops. Forgot my other favorite of the day, straight from Arianna Huffington, her own self, on Palin:

Her critics like to say that Palin hasn't accomplished anything. I disagree: in the space of ten days she's succeeded in distracting the entire country from the horrific Bush record -- and McCain's complicity in it. My friends, that's accomplishment we can believe in.

Palin made America forget that Obama is running against Bush. Horrors!

[JM Hanes]

bgates:

I'm sure you must be right, because The O would never place the emphasis on "can't," would he?

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Via Atlas:

From Casill's "Mansourian Candidate":

He was, however, one of many people in Obama's network with enough money and influence to get the book written and published.

That network includes the inevitable Tony Rezko. The Syrian-born scalawag owed his bank account and his clout in Chicago politics to Jabir Herbert Muhammad, son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad.

The younger Muhammad knew something about bogus memoirs. In the mid-1970s, he recruited the now celebrated writer Toni Morrison to "edit" Muhammad Ali's fictionalized account of his life, "The Greatest." Muhammad reviewed every page to make sure it hewed to the Nation's racist worldview.

Muhammad made Rezko general manager of his company, Crucial Concessions, in 1983. Muhammad later created the Muhammad Ali Foundation to spread Islam and appointed his confidante Rezko executive director.

Just last week, Muhammad died in Chicago. "Jabir did much for the cause of Islam," said the keynote speaker at the memorial, none other than Louis Farrakhan.

Much has been made of Rezko's Catholic background. The question has to be asked how he could possibly head a foundation whose express purpose was to promote Islam around the world, let alone the racist Islamic cult, the Nation of Islam.

[Pofarmer]

Obama at a meeting in what looks like somebody's body shop, mocking Palin for flip flopping on the bridge:

Ya know, if there were just a hint of honesty in this "argument" it would be one thing. But there's not, in a season of dishonest arguments this is jut onemore to the list. It's no more of less vicious than the smearing of Bristo Palin.l She never requested any funds for the bridge. She was never in a position too. IT doesn't look like she ever campaigned on it, and at the earliest opportunity as Governor she killed it. What a bunch of lying dirty weasels.

[Robert]

To link a Best of the web the day it is printed, start at the days content:

http://online.wsj.com/article/best_of_the_web_today.html

At the bottom of the article click 'Format for Printing'.

At the bottom of this page is a link to the url for the article. So this is kind of a pain as well, but at least you can do it in one day. For instance today's url is:

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122075869303807633.html

[PeterUK]

Obama - early career backed by lobbyists

[xerocky]

"Personally, he might end up like his father;"

He's going to leave his family and start several new ones that nobody really knows all about?

[PeterUK]

"He's going to leave his family and start several new ones that nobody really knows all about?"

How do we know Obama hasn't got another family somewhere? In Hawaii or Indonesia? The man might legitimately have two wives.

[SWarren]

TeeHee! ”Barack The Bombthrower”
Well, his friend is “Bill the Bombmaker”.

LUN

[DebinNC]

Speaking of leaving his family:

O Pastor in Sex Scandal

"Payne's husband, Fred Payne, 64, said he learned of the affair in late February, when he discovered e-mails between his wife and [Jeremiah] Wright.

"There must have been about 80 of them, back and forth," he said. "Wright said things like he was going to leave his wife for Elizabeth."

Wright has been married to his second wife, Ramah, for more than 20 years. The preacher reportedly wooed Ramah away from her first husband in the 1980s, when the couple came to marriage counseling at Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago."

[Sue]

Obama is releasing an ad in Ohio about education.

http://www.time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/>RCP

I hope McCain has an ad ready to go about the failure of CAC.

[Elliott]

Halperin is highlighting this from Obama's forthcoming education speech:

“…[McCain] has not done one thing to truly improve the quality of public education in our country. Not one real proposal or law or initiative. Nothing.”

Among the McCain communications team there seems to be an eerie quiescence.

[M. Simon]

Sue,

∅ needs to find a position he is strong on and pound that.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking.

Every time he opens his mouth he admits weakness.

[M. Simon]

Elliot,

CAC, Bill Ayers. Worked with Bill spent $100 mil, no positive results. Except Maoist Klonsky got a grant.

It writes itself.

∅! cant be that stupid. Axelrod is acting like a political novice.

[Foo Bar]

This is politics, not community organizing,

This is what Byron York has to say in the National Review:

Obama’s professional colleagues, people like Jerry Kellman, believe his lasting accomplishment was to build an organization, the Developing Communities Project, that survived his departure. Today, DCP still exists, run out of a small Methodist church building on 95th Street, working on after-school programs, drug prevention, and voter registration

So voter registration is one of the activities of the organization that Obama helped build back in the 1980s.

Here's what a faith-based organizing group in was up to in 2004:

"People have this image of the church as a monolith, and, in my experience, that's just not true," said Kevin Malone, community organizer for the faith-based San Diego Organizing Project in City Heights.

Getting out the vote isn't just about presidential matters. The Organizing Project works with local churches on community issues ranging from immigration rights to affordable housing and is helping more than two dozen member congregations conduct get-out-the-vote efforts.

[Elliott]

I think someone suggested a while ago that Obama argue that he learned from the failure of CAC.

He can't leave it for McCain. Or, so one would think.

[Sue]

Foo Bar...still fighting the fight Obama wants us to forget.

[kim]

If Obama is going to talk about education he is walking into an ambush.
=======================================

[Pofarmer]

∅! cant be that stupid.

I'm thinking more like---

Yes He Can!!!!

Axelrod is acting like a political novice.

I don't think Axelrod has much to work with and he knows it now.

[Pofarmer]

If Obama is going to talk about education he is walking into an ambush.'

I agree, it won't be pretty. I am really, really, really starting to get turned on by the voucher deal. I can't even imagine what our little parochial school could do if it got the property tax money of the parents who sent kids there. Screw any Federal $$$.

[clarice]

Professor Bainbridge has something good up.

Every liberal I know at one time or another has said something that betrays an underlying sense of entitlement. They think that Democrats are the natural party of government, because Democrats are smarter, nicer, better people. Accordingly, when they lose, it can’t be because the American people have assessed their arguments and found them wanting. Instead, it must be because of nefarious forces. Hence, we get Hillary Clinton blathering on about “the vast right wing conspiracy” and the “Religious right.”

Liberal paternalism. The conservative’s best friend.

http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/punditry/comments/the_liberal_sense_of_entitlement/

[Rick Ballard]

"He can't leave it for McCain."

Elliott,

Who's the savvy political operator with national campaign experience who can put the Obama campaign back on the rails? Axelrod certainly doesn't have the skill set. He runs campaigns where the knockout punch is thrown in the primary or in getting oppo research on the front page.

Could Clinton's team (if they bothered to return calls) be trusted for good advice?

This is Howard Dean's Political Amateur Hour and there's no second act.

[bad]

Foo Bar

Obama's Chicago Annenberg Challenge education foundation gave over $200,000 to Developing Communities Project. Why is a group supposedly about education reform for economically disadvantaged minority children giving money to such causes? ACORN received $25,000 as well.

[clarice]

Spengler on an article about Georgia and the Ukraine, makes a comment equally applicable to the notion of community organizers:
"Carlin's humor had a deep premise: the ridiculous things we do stem from our refusal to take life as it comes. "Why do all these people need help?" he once said of self-help books. "Life is not that complicated. You get up, you go to work, you eat three meals, you take one good [vulgar term for bowel movement], you go back to bed. What's the ***** mystery? ... Why would anyone need to be motivated by someone else? If you lack motivation, a seminar isn't going to help you. What you really need is to get smashed in the head thirty or forty times with a golf club. That will ***** motivate you. Or else it will at least get you moving around the room, locate your socks, get the day rolling."

Carlin was the closest thing stand-up comedy had to Goethe's Mephistopheles, who told Faust that he should listen to the race of devils who have been chewing on this tough biscuit for millennia: from the cradle to the grave, no one has ever been able to digest this lump of sourdough called life. Everyone isn't going to make it, Carlin tells us, and those who don't can go ***** themselves - desert countries where there isn't any food and former Soviet republics where there aren't any babies, for example.

Not everyone is going to make it. That should be America's mantra. America was settled by people who didn't think that Europe was going to make it, and decided that the better part of valor was to bail out and start something new. Georgia and Ukraine are not going to make it. They are past the point of no return. Nothing will save them. They do not like life well enough to perpetuate it. ***** them. "

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JI10Ag01.html

[kim]

He makes it sound easy to locate socks.
=======================

[DebinNC]

Politico: Obama ties McCain to [education] 'ideologues

Who could possibly be more an education ideologue than William Ayers?

[kim]

It's an ambush alright; the Republican Party has a lot more depth and resilience in education reform than the Democrats. Is Obama trying to piss off the teacher's unions, who own the Democratic Party in reality as opposed to the daydreams of the moveon folks?
=====================================

[DebinNC]

"At a high school in the crucial state of Ohio, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will sound like a Republican on Tuesday as he touts school choice —and scoffs at Sen. John McCain’s record on education."

That seems like BO is challenging voters/media to compare McPalin's education records to his. Is he hoping CAC is too complicated to be understood? Other than that, what "record" on education does Obama have? Positions, yes... but actual record?

[DebinNC]

Also, BO will tout "charter schools" .. but the "elite charter school" to which he and his motorcade deposited his daughters yesterday charges $15-20k in tuition. Is that school charter or private?

[kim]

I believe in charter schools, and Obama may have a wedge issue, there. I agree, there is something hokey about a charter school with tuition. The charter schools which I know about are publicly funded, generally despised by teacher's unions, and generally have waiting lists of the good teachers trying to get into them.

Charter schools get accountability of teachers, students, and parents, by contract.

Many Republicans like charter schools.
=================

[Tom Maguire]

Are we all smart enough to appreciate the difference between (a) learning that influence with elected officials is important if you want to achieve big things and (b) denigrating the whole concept of community organizing? I think we are.

Well, OK. But are we smart enough to understand that a young political aspirant is unlikely to trash his own resume as well as many of the allies and supporters he has acquired by denigrating his own resume and, by extension, their life's work?

Why not judge Obama by his deeds - he never did go back to community organizing (I'm scoring that voter registration as a bid for political power), he does not like to depict himself as focusing on the narrow self-interest of small groups, and he is very much supportive of the concept of charismatic leadership. If he is now the anti-Alinsky, why pretend otherwise?

[Porchlight]

DebinNC, I always thought that the UC Lab School was private since it's run by a private school. How could a charter school charge that kind of tuition?

McCain has a positive message on education (which got huge cheers at the RNC) and a handy little negative to pop back at Obama (CAC). Obama has done nothing of note re: education in his short Senate career. I don't see how he can make much of a ripple with this.

[Tom Maguire]

It's official; the final nail is in the coffin:

"Singer-actress Barbra Streisand, who originally endorsed Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential primary race, has jumped on Barack Obama’s bandwagon with both feet to sing for the newly anointed Democratic nominee at a Beverly Hills fund-raiser next week."

Isn't there some famous Greek figure who shows up and performs as a herald of doom? Maybe I am thinking of Cassandra... Baffling.

Robert - thanks for the permalink idea for the WSJ.

[MayBee]

I believe in charter schools, and Obama may have a wedge issue, there. I agree, there is something hokey about a charter school with tuition. The charter schools which I know about are publicly funded, generally despised by teacher's unions, and generally have waiting lists of the good teachers trying to get into them.

Charter schools get accountability of teachers, students, and parents, by contract.

Kim I agree. And the Lab school with $15,000 tuition sounds hinky.
Why do I suspect Obama would bring Teacher's Unions to Charter Schools?

[DebinNC]

Kim, ABC reported Obama taking his daughters to their first day back at school yesterday and described UOC Lab as an "elite charter school". I don't know how accurate that is.

We homeschooled for 19 years, ending in 2002. I'm a big believer in giving parents choice, as is McCain but Obama limits the choice to public schools.. or did, while chosing differently for his children.

[DebinNCDeb]

:ugh: choosing not chosing.
Most homeschoolers spell and type much better than me I.

[MayBee]

It can't be a charter school. Or I should say, anybody that supports a charter school with a $20,000 tuition shouldn't be against vouchers.

[Porchlight]

The Lab School is a private school. He's playing with fire if he tries to describe it otherwise.

FWIW Wiki describes it as a private school, though Wiki's entry for UChicago proper says "The university also administers four unaffiliated public charter schools on the South Side of Chicago."

[MayBee]

Their annual report doesn't mention income from the http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/publications/annualreport0405.pdf>government. [pdf]

[clarice]

I noted this yesterday--O hoodwinked the reporter who wrote that about the school.

[DebinNC]

Obama in July to the American Federation of Teachers:

"Because we know well-designed public charter schools have a lot to offer, and I’ve actually helped pass legislation to expand them. But what I do oppose is using public money for private school vouchers. We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools; not throwing our hands up and walking away from them.

If his daughters are in a private or quasi-private school, isn't "walking away" from public school exactly what the Obamas did?

[SWarren]

Kim,
Obama trying to piss off the teacher's unions,

Yup,teacher's unions under the bus.
He's desperate and adopting the Republican positions:

Obama vows to double funding for charter schools

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago
RIVERSIDE, Ohio - Barack Obama promised Tuesday to double funding for charter schools, pay teachers based on performance and replace those who aren't up to the job, embracing education proposals normally more popular with Republican candidates.

~snip~

A new Obama television ad contends that the Arizona Republican voted to cut education funding and voted against accountability standards.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said McCain has pledged additional funds to improve education.
"Without a single achievement on education reform, Barack Obama has resorted to a desperate attack with absolutely no basis in fact. John McCain has proposed new education reforms to empower parents and students while reducing the influence of the unions and government bureaucrats that support Barack Obama's candidacy," Bounds said.

[Neo]

Top recipients of Fannie/Freddie donations:

#1 Chris Dodd
#2 John Kerry
#3 Barack Obama
#4 Hillary Clinton

[Neo]

A campaign appearance in Flint, Mich., awaited, but before departing he joined Malia, a fifth-grader, and Sasha, a second-grader, on their first day at the University of Chicago Lab School (a large, private facility founded more than a century ago by famed educator John Dewey).

[Danube of Thought]

I simply cannot believe this good fortune: This poor neophyte, in his first contested election campaign, has twisted himself and his supporters into explaining why his experience as a community organizer qualifies him to be president. And he has got himself into a fight about whether his qualifications are better than those of McCain's VP choice--and in the eyes of the electorate, that one is a close call.

It's all almost too good to be true.

[MayBee]

Right, clarice. And the timing is fortuitous (and incidental, I'm sure) given that today Obama comes out swinging for charter schools.

[Foo Bar]

Why not judge Obama by his deeds - he never did go back to community organizing

Well, first of all, he had a degree from Harvard Law School. Wouldn't you expect him to use it in some way? Of course he's not going to go back to doing, full-time, for his entire career, *precisely* what he was doing before.

In any case, here's how a 1995 Chicago Reader piece described his return to Chicago after law school.

When Barack Obama returned to Chicago in 1991 after three brilliant years at Harvard Law School, he didn't like what he saw. The former community activist, then 30, had come fresh from a term as president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, a position he was the first African-American to hold. Now he was ready to continue his battle to organize Chicago's black neighborhoods. But the state of the city muted his exuberance.

[DebinNC]

If Obama spent years 6-10 in a Catholic school in Indonesia, his private high school years in Hawaii, his university years at Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard, did he ever attend a public school?

And has Obama been asked whether he agrees with Wright that institutionalized white supremacy permeates America's schools?

[MayBee]

DoT- even my teenage son recognizes how humiliating it should be for Obama to be running against Palin.

[Sue]

But the state of the city muted his exuberance.

So he started thinking how better can I help them...I know...run for office...

[bad]

From Michelle Obama's thesis:

"Earlier in my college career, there was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the Black community I was somehow obligated to this community and would utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit this community first and foremost."

Is Michelle still committed to the black community first and foremost or is she an Americam first? Seems like a reasonable interview question.

LUN

[Jane]

Top recipients of Fannie/Freddie donations:

#1 Chris Dodd
#2 John Kerry
#3 Barack Obama
#4 Hillary Clinton

That probably explains why Chris Dodd called the President yesterday to blame him.

OT: Since I missed my usual early morning visit, I am so hopefully lost as to need a Cliff note version of what's hot today.

Perhaps I should quit my job until after the election....

[DebinNC]

The Obamas have what appears to be an outstanding public school option right in their neighborhood: Ray Elementary - a magnet school. What excuse could Obama give for "walking away" from this public school?