The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08

[Above: Barack Obama with his father, Honolulu, Hawaii, December 1971. This is from the only time in his life Obama actually saw his father in person.]

Chattanooga’s own Jon Meacham, who’s the editor of Newsweek, has a pretty good article in this week’s issue for those of you interested in the biography of Barack Obama. Highly recommended - you may learn some things about the man you haven’t heard before.

& there’s this thought provoking passage:

“Obama cherishes his life story as a unique saga, but the drama of a fatherless child’s rise to temporal power, driven by ambition, a hunger for control and an appetite for the approval of others, is a familiar one in American politics. Presidents, and presidential candidates, tend to come from one of two kinds of distinct families. There is either a powerful, prominent father at the center of the clan (the Adamses, the Kennedys, the Bushes, the McCains) or, more often than you might think, there is either a weak father or no father at all. An unusual number of presidents have been the sons of absent or weak fathers. Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton lost their fathers before they were born; Gerald Ford did not meet his biological father until he was 17 years old.

I asked Obama why he thought powerful politicians had either a strong father, or no father at all. “I think to put yourself through what is a pretty rigorous process of running for president you’ve got to have learned to set up some pretty high expectations for yourself,” he said. “Something’s got to be driving you, and in my case if you have somebody that is absent, maybe you feel like you’ve got something to prove when you’re young, and that pattern sets itself up over time. But also because, again in my case, the stories I heard about my father painted him as larger than life, which also meant that I felt I had something to live up to. You could argue that if you’re too well adjusted, you don’t end up running for president.” I laughed at this; journalists often joke that nobody normal ever makes it to the presidency, and it was funny to hear it from a man who wants the office. Obama went on: “So if the pattern sets in pretty early on where you’re pushing your comfort level it probably has to do with those very early influences, and that can come from either the absence or the presence of a father who ends up motivating you in some way.” He has a romantic streak about the possibilities of politics—hence the theme of hope—but Obama is also a realist, and his pragmatism has ancient roots.”

Read the full article here.

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