Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” – my review

“In the world’s greatest deliberative body, no body is listening.”

This is how Senator Barack Obama describes Congress in his new book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. There are many problems facing this nation including health care, social security, and national security among others.  Senator Obama speaks of these problems, as they need to be addressed not by partisan politics but by engaging in positive debate and through compromise.

He takes to task the so-called “compassionate conservativism” of George
W. Bush and calls it what it is: absolutism.  The current
administration has the mind-set of you are with us or against us
repeated in countless speeches.  This absolutism extends to other
Republican leaders such as Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay as well as the
Christian right who he says is trying to “march toward the New
Jerusalem.”

But he does not just stop at criticizing the Republican leadership as
he says, Democrats are “confused” and “become the party of reaction” in
light of the conservatives stronghold on all three branches of
government and Democrats inability to combat it.

“In reaction to a war that is ill conceived, we
appear suspicious of all military action.  In reaction to those who
proclaim the market can cure all ills, we resist efforts to use market
principles to tackle pressing problems.  In reaction to religious
overreach, we equate tolerance with secularism, and forfeit the moral
language that would help infuse our policies with a larger meaning.  We
lose elections and hope for the courts to foil Republican plans.  We
lose the courts and wait for a White House scandal.”

Fortunately we are in the midst of White House and Congressional
scandals that show the promise of winning back the House in November
but Senator Obama has an extremely strong point in this paragraph.  How
has it come to waiting for the scandal to break in our favor; instead
of being proactive from the beginning we have been a party that has
reacted to Republican advances and rhetoric.
He later states, “I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or
demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose.  Whenever we
dumb down the political debate, we lose.”
While in some circles Obama was criticized for calling Democrats
confused and the party of reaction, he is merely taking a step back and
finding the faults that he visions in the party.  These are not insults
but observations.
Moreover, Senator Obama writes about his own experience in his
senatorial race against Alan Keyes in which Keyes consistently attacks
his faith.  Coming from this experience Obama shares another
observation that liberals and Democrats have a problem when it comes to
the faith vote. 

He writes:

“I think we make a mistake when we fail to
acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people, and
so avoid joining a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our
modern, pluralistic democracy.”

While it is important to keep in mind the principal of separation of
church and state, it is just as important to remember the value of
fighting for the moral principles of equality and justice.  The two can
be balanced and must be balanced for good of the nation.  This is
essentially where I believe he is coming from. 

These are not the only two things Senator Obama tackles in his latest book but just the highlights from my own perspective.
Throughout the book, much like his first book, Dreams of My Father,
Obama comes off as being very open-minded, looking for new ideas and
then formulating this own thoughts and possible solutions.  The writing
is impeccable and leaves me wondering if he is using his presidential
hype to sell the book or the book to sell his presidential hype.  We
will just have wait and see.