Where is the bunny, Mr Obama?

This entry is cross-posted at Rezko Watch.

Sometime after posting yesterday's entry on Barack Obama's 'Small Town America' remarks, I came across an essay at a site called UNCoRRELATED that gave me quite a turn. The essay is titled Angry Barack Obama:

... why did he choose the angry Rev. Wright? Why did he court such an angry wife? Why did he hang out with angry Leftists like Bill Ayers, who were angry to the point of bombing their own country?

The writer goes on to quote Jim Geraghty at NRO, who found passages in a book by Obama that are practically a confession that he is (or was, at the time of the exchange) an angry man.

It was luck that I tuned into the Friday night Lou Dobbs show, which spent the entire hour discussing Obama's Small Town America comments. At the show's end I switched the channel to Fox to see what the Red Meat conservatives were saying about Obama's remarks.

I was startled by Sean Hannity's comments and those of Andrew Card. Sean and Card spoke about Obama's 'typical Left elitism' and the locale -- San Francisco -- where Obama had delivered the remarks. Sean was fixated on the idea that Obama had made his remarks to "elitists."

I'd just finished watching the Lou Dobbs show, which had featured an interview with the blogger who broke the story about Obama's remarks. The blogger made it clear that Obama had addressed a very mixed group:

"There was the wife of an army surgeon. There were Safeway grocery store union workers. There were professors, there were housewives, it was quite a cross-section of prosperous California."

So much for the idea that because Obama knew he was speaking to an elitist audience, he felt he could let his hair down. He wasn't speaking only to elitists, and his practiced politician's eye would have told him that.

And Obama had to know that many Californians hail from small towns all over America. So what possessed him to make those remarks in that setting?

At the time I shrugged off the question and what I considered to be Sean's mistake. It was still early in the news cycle and I figured he'd take the weekend to absorb all the details about the ruckus. Just for good measure I made sure to include the CNN interview with the blogger in my post on Obama's remarks.

Yet later in the day, when I checked on the news about Obama's remarks, I saw that the entire issue had been framed in the media as a question about elitism. That struck me as all wrong, although I couldn't propose an alternate theory, except that Obama was an idiot. Then after thinking over the piece at UNCoRRELATED, a pattern emerged from many things I noted over the months about Obama's actions.

Before I continue, full disclosure. I am in perfect agreement with a remark that Mark Steyn made some months back about the US presidential contenders: "How did it come down to these three?" So only the name "Nadhmi Auchi" was able to focus my attention on the campaign and Barack Obama.

Yet my very first clear impression of Obama, which took place a few weeks earlier, was alarm. After seeing a campaign TV ad for him I announced to a friend, "Just thought you'd like to know that an organization is cribbing from Nazi propaganda films to market Barack Obama as the nation's next president."

After the friend got me to describe the ad, he calmed me down by saying that most American college students don't even know who won World War Two, and that the people who filmed the ad were just trying to make him look like a rock star.

I didn't buy the part about the college students. But I found it easier to accept the explanation when I began researching Obama and his connections to Tony Rezko. Ever since March 2, when I first wrote about Obama, I've made it clear that I thought he was a typical corrupt Chicago politician and stupid enough not to realize where all Rezko's connections led. My essays about Obama reflected that view; I considered him more of a phony that anything else.

My view also led me to assume that Obama was initially drawn to Chicago because he thought that Rezko's connections would help him rise fast in politics. After mulling over the UNCoRRELATED piece I blurted, "Maybe he wasn't drawn there by politics. Maybe the hate drew him."

There's a lot of anger in many big cities but Chicago could be described as Hate Central, USA. The city is not only the headquarters of the Nation of Islam and Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church, it's also a magnet for other movements, and for Americans such as William Ayers, whose middle name is hate.

There are people who feed on other people's hate; the hate vibe makes them feel more 'alive.' If Obama is one of those people then many of his 'life decisions,' and his recent 'gaffes' while under pressure, would show in a new light.

For example, when under pressure he couldn't talk about his grandmother without suggesting that she was filled with hate, although he didn't use that word. He wouldn't, if he were an emotional vampire; he would use substitute words such as anger, fear, frustration, bitterness, and so on. But for emotional vampires, it's all about the strongest negative emotions -- hatred, rage.

Now that I've scared myself silly, I recall it was just a few weeks ago that I laughed at Spengler for playing armchair psychologist about Obama. I don't know how much stock to put in my own ruminations on Obama's psychology but I am going to publish them, in the futile attempt to stop a runaway train.

I don't think it was elitism that prompted Obama to use suicidal language for a politician in a struggle for the world's most powerful office. I suspect the language stemmed from a compulsion, although not necessarily the one I suggested.

Yet there does seem to be a pattern of Obama being drawn to hate-filled people -- and lest anyone assume that his relationship with Ayers is casual, I suggest a reading of John Batchelor's comments on the issue.

My pattern, however, is that I still find it hard to see Obama as anything more sinister than a corrupt Chicago politician. So I'm going to close by quoting what I know will be my all-time favorite comment on the presidential contender, which was posted on April 12 by Ms. Sonia Trevino at ABC News blog

obama reminds me of a magician i saw as a little girl. he put a bunny in a hat and then pulled out a quarter. i was 7 y.o and i was not fooled i stood up and screamed where is the bunny, where is the bunny, what did you do with the bunny.