A heavyweight writes bluntly about the shameful speech President Obama gave in Osawatomie, Kansas (see also: Obama's Kansas Declaration). Among the most respected of political pundits, Michael Barone occupies a special niche. As the co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, he is conceded to be one of the most knowledgeable and even handed of political writers. He writes a takedown of the unscrupulous rhetoric of the president in The Examiner. Democrats like to think of themselves as the party of smart people. And over the last four years we have heard countless encomiums, and not just from Democrats, of the intellect and perceptiveness of Barack Obama. But a reading of the text of Obama's December 6 speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, billed as one of his big speeches of the year, shows him to be something like the opposite. Even by the standards of campaign rhetoric, this is a shockingly shoddy piece of work. You can start with his intellectually indefensible caricature of...(Read Full Post)