A close-up look at Barack Obama's years in the Illinois State Senate reveals someone different from the post-racial Barack Obama we thought we knew. Stanley Kurtz writes a must-read article on  "Barack Obama's Lost Years", and it is in the Weekly Standard.Kurtz has gone through old issues of the Hyde Park Herald and the Chicago Defender (the nationally prominent African-American Chicago newspaper) from the period of Obama's service in the Illinois State Senate. He appears prominently in the political coverage of both papers, and this Kurtz finds a portrait of his actual political positions and activities during those years.It's not the Barack Obama we knew from his national campaign. No post-racial Obama is to be found.Two samples:In 2004, a U.S. District Court disallowed the ordinance under which Chicago required the use of at least 25 percent minority business enterprises and 5 percent women's business enterprises on city-funded projects. In the immediate aftermath of...(Read Full Post)