Hart on Obama

Longtime Dartmouth Review contributor and former college professor Jeffrey Hart wrote an op-ed in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the inspirational qualities of Barack Obama. Perhaps more than any article I have read before, Professor Hart captures exactly what it is that fueled Obama's sudden rise to the top of national politics. Predicting an Obama presidency, he is also unrestrained in his praise:

Barack Obama is inspirational but he also possesses good political judgment. This provides a factual basis for his inspirational call for hope.

For example, when he was in the Illinois legislature in the Fall of 2002 when President Bush was trying to sell the war in Iraq, Mr. Obama reasoned as follows:

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, of undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst, rather than the best, impulses in the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaida. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars...

William F. Buckley Jr. many years ago defined conservatism as "the politics of reality." With his realism about Iraq, Mr. Obama to that extent qualifies as a conservative.

Thanks to Dartlog.

SIR—

In a rather brilliant and hilarious move, the Dartmouth Review printed a spam email as a letter to the editor. Word to the wise, don't write to the Review unless you're ready to have your letter printed. I doubt that Jake Baron's letter was more than an enquiring blitz. A while ago, the Review printed an infamous rant from a young, brash Connor Sheph*rd '07, entitled "Whitey Can't Relate to Black People." Sheph*rd, who mused that the letter would certainly not be published, must have been shocked to find it in the paper.