On a personal level, I was in 12K of credit card debt by the time I graduated from undergrad, I still spend almost all of what I make apart from my 401K, minor stock purchases, and the very recent creation of an emergency job loss fund, I’m about make a job switch that will reduce my income substantially, I spend money on absolute nonsense all the time, I’m probably the worst impulse buyer you know. How on earth am I a fiscal conservative?

I have provided evidence on how likely it is that he will govern effectively, an article explaining the wisdom of pulling in veteran hill operatives, which you most likely also didn’t read. It simply isn’t worth my time to try to educate you when you aren’t eager, or even willing to educate yourself on these matters.

In terms of intellectual dishonesty, when you write things like “I find it difficult to recall a time in Obama’s career when he has used muddy pragmatism to push the world toward his idealized vision of it. This does not mean that he lacks the ability to do so, but knowing that he has little or no experience doing so disturbs and disquiets me.” Doesn’t that imply that you have looked into his life or accomplishments at least a little bit?

The most disconcerting clause of your post is: “knowing he has little or know experience doing so.” You claim to KNOW what his experience is, and that knowledge both disturbs and disquiets you. But you really don’t know much at all on this point, by your own admission, so perhaps if you did a little reading you wouldn’t be disturbed and disquieted, cupcake. I’d hate for your ignorance to make you all crazy and disturbed inside. If it helps, I’ll hold your hand and email you some links.

As to your strategic retreat, and affirmations that this post was merely saying the painfully obvious that we don’t know how effective he actually will be yet b/c he hasn’t yet served. To that I say, “No Shit, Thanks Captain Obvious. What would we do without you!”

Buck, the man is 47 years old…he barely has a “couple decades” of breathing, much less of interviews. The man has been in public life for 11 years, and was a relative unknown until 2004. The man was a Harvard law review editor in chief, and U of C conlaw professor, and has one unnamed legal article to his name. So lets not overhype his transparency.

(Oh, and by the way, before you get all huffy about me not doing my due diligence. I read every policy position put out by the Obama camp during the election, and for a while read every speech. I admit to not reading his books, as after the first ten pages I found his prose so sickeningly sweet I felt at risk for diabetes.)

As a legislator, we can begin to see a realistic perspective on what he has done, but even those are mostly “I like puppies” laws. He has substantive policies, but not a heck of a lot. This is not his fault. He was in the Senate for 2/3rds of one term, and everyone accumulates the “I like puppies” initiatives.

But this all assuming that Obama doesn’t change in office. Obama has been a legislator his whole career, and per Pres. Ford (another long time legislator turned executive), the mind frame changes once you enter the oval office. Those things that were not so important become more so, and former priorities slide down the scale.

The responsible thing, and truly the only reasonable thing to do, is to wait 100 days before making any judgment call. President Obama is going to be different than Senator Obama. There will be similarities, but there will be key differences.

I will be interested in seeing how it turns out.

All I ever claimed with this post was that it was based on my impressions and instincts about him.

The predictions I made about Obama vs. Clinton were entitled “premature” because I was again trying to be honest.

All I wanted to do with the current post is to urge my liberal friends to be cautiously optimistic about Obama. What I have seen so far has been unbridled hope and optimism, which I consider to be somewhat dangerous.

“I find it difficult to recall a time in Obama’s career when he has used muddy pragmatism to push the world toward his idealized vision of it. This does not mean that he lacks the ability to do so, but knowing that he has little or no experience doing so disturbs and disquiets me.”

I echo Josh: Read the man’s fucking books. How are you supposed to recall things from his career when you don’t know anything about it? Assuming the guy isn’t a serial liar of unparalleled ability, perhaps there is something to be gleaned about how he might govern from more the more than 800 pages of biography and policy discussion he’s published. Or how about the dozens of policy positions on his transition site? What about the hundreds of interviews he’s given over the past couple decades? Gee, it totally sucks that we’re flying blind with this Obama guy.

Would you tolerate this mushy-minded crap coming from someone else? Until you educate yourself your opinion matters no more than my little sister’s. Get your mind mind off its ass and go learn something.

Oh, and I assume these are the same instincts that led you to write:

“I’m sorry to all of my liberal intelligentsia friends, but at this point Obama has about a 1 or 2% chance of winning…It’s really not even going to be close, but the media’s adoration of Obama has created the delusion for everyone that this is a real fight. It’s not.”

As a sidenote, does Max have some kind of close working experience with Obama to be able conclusively state that “there is little question that in private, he is the precise, pragmatic, and efficient political animal that Josh describes”? Perhaps this could facilitate responding to his postings in the future?