Obama's Lost Years

is the title of a Weekly Standard article that sifts through his many columns and articles that appeared in The Hyde Park Herald and the Chicago Defender during his years in the Illinois Senate.

What they portray is a Barack Obama sharply at variance with the image of the post-racial, post-ideological, bipartisan, culture-war-shunning politician familiar from current media coverage and purveyed by the Obama campaign. As details of Obama's early political career emerge into the light, his associations with such radical figures as Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, Reverend James Meeks, Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn look less like peculiar instances of personal misjudgment and more like intentional political partnerships. At his core, in other words, the politician chronicled here is profoundly race-conscious, exceedingly liberal, free-spending even in the face of looming state budget deficits, and partisan. Elected president, this man would presumably shift the country sharply to the left on all the key issues of the day-culture-war issues included. It's no wonder Obama has passed over his Springfield years in relative silence.

As Obama tracks to the center to pick up the votes of the Obamacons and undecideds, this should be interesting reading. Frankly, I've been amazed at his transformation in the past two years. He's either the most crafty politician of our era, or has top flight handlers and managers.