Rob Natelson has lined up with others to take a shot at Obama supporters who are investing messianic qualities in the new president. There’s something to be said for that. Cult of leadership is not a new phenomenon. Many of us noticed that Americans also invested superhuman qualities in George W. Bush after 9/11. That was fear speaking, however. The new followers are preaching hope. They are probably just as naive.

Nonetheless, Natelson’s criticisms of Obama are off the mark.

Obama had one of the thinnest resumes of any major Presidential candidate ever, but supporters have convinced themselves that he would not only govern brilliantly, but ”transform America.”

I think Obama brings impressive credentials to the table. For one, his educational achievements are stellar – Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cum laude from Harvard. People are pooh-poohing that now, but those Latin words on parchment separate him from 99.99% of us. Few could have achieved what he did while in school. He then went on to community organizing, staying in touch with common folk, as opposed to most Harvard grads who head for Washington or Wall Street. In addition, he taught constitutional law, served in the state legislature, and the United States Senate. That’s a good start for a relatively young man. He’s a far cry from what we’ve had in office – a bright man with huge potential – one who has shown that he can organize, lead, and inspire. I find his resumé to be quite impressive.

People who claim to be against hate-mongers have blinded themselves to a record of associations that would have induced them to indignantly repudiate anyone else.

This is beneath Mr. Natelson. Over the years Obama has met thousands of people, had conservations with them, agreed and disagreed as a man of independent thought would do. I’m glad he’s been exposed to the thoughts of people on the left, including the thoughtful bomber Bill Ayers. Most people don’t take the time. To say that he’s been sullied by association is McCarthyism. That’s a word we bandy about, but it’s a tried and true technique for smearing people. It’s propaganda. I wonder if we went through Mr. Natelson’s background, dredged up every association, if we could find one or two that could be thrown in his face. Probably – if not, I’d say he’d led a sheltered existence.

We’ve had eight years now of a man who insulates himself from every outlook but his own. Now let’s see where we can go with a man who knows that there are more than two sides to every issue.

Supporters have convinced themselves that a politician with a record of cooperating with the Chicago machine is going to clean up Washington.

A man comes home from work, opens the closet to hang his jacket and finds a naked man standing there. “What are you doing here?” he asks. The man says “Everybody has to be somewhere”.

Merely coming from Chicago, living and working there and having success, should have no more bearing on his performance in office than if he came from Wasilla. Mr. Natelson’s point is no point at all. He’s reaching.

Now the gush of ga-ga really floweth over with breathless comments about how Obama’s IQ is the highest of anyone to occupy the White House, etc. etc.

I don’t know what Obama’s IQ is – but I know this: I am tired of being governed by ordinary people with ordinary smarts. People like Bush had to rely on the brains around him for policy, and he didn’t even have the good sense to being in people who disagreed with him. Smart people are not the answer – smart people with humility can lead effectively however. So stand back, Mr. Natelson, and let us do an experiment here. We’ve done it the other way. Now we’re going to try a smart guy at the helm.

Mr. Natelson offers some words of support at the end of his post. He’s not so much down on Obama as his followers. He thinks they are cultish, and that Obama has encouraged this behavior. I’ve seen some of that too. It’ll wear off. I’m already put off by all of the Clinton people and Rahm Emmanuel – the fact that he felt the need to appoint a “progressive liaison” for his transition team, meaning progressives need not apply for other positions. My antennae are already up – I’m already suspecting a Clinton-like triangulator. But I’ll give him a few more days.

I see Obama as a pragmatic intellectual. The closest I can come in comparing him to other presidents is Woodrow Wilson. I hope he does better.

Salon has run an interview with Bill Ayers, the poster child of the McCain/Palin campaign – read it here. It was very much worth my time.

Ayers notes that he has become the symbol of the anti-war movement of the 1960’s, and Jeremiah Wright has become the civil rights movement. The right has reduced everything down to manageable size – something they are good at.

Here’s a passage on his violent activities:

I imagine two groups of Americans. One slightly off the tracks and despairing of how to end this war and penetrating the Pentagon and putting a small charge in a bathroom that disables an Air Force computer. An act of extreme vandalism, but hard to call, in my view, terrorism.

Meanwhile, another group of Americans — also despairing, also off the tracks — walks into a Vietnamese village and kills everyone there. Children, women, old men. They kill every living thing, even livestock, and burn the place to the ground.

And the question is, What is terrorism? And what is violence?

Indeed it was hard during the campaign to listen to McCain, knowing of the violence he had inflicted on Vietnamese people, and Palin, with her head full of silly putty, and not think that the American public had internalized one of the most violent and criminal chapters in our history, Vietnam, and trivialized it.

The Minnesota recount, if allowed to go forward without interference by the parties, will be a good test of optical scanners.

The funny thing about Sarah Palin is that she thinks she is helping herself by doing all of these interviews. The more she talks, the more we know about her, the less her appeal. She will never overcome those initial negative impressions of her – she will only reinforce them. She will always have a small cadre of supporters – those on the religious right who do not value clarity of thought or academic achievement. But the simple truth is that she is not qualified for a high leadership position – she could spend her next four years at Harvard Law, and she still wouldn’t muster up. She doesn’t have the chops. You can put lipstick on a pig …

With respect to Talking Points Memo, today is the day that President-elect Obama sits down to talk with an aggressive, violently extremist world leader, without preconditions.

Here’s a dissenting vote.

See if you can spot a representative of organized labor among Obama’s brain trust:

Keep trying. I’ll check back tomorrow.

The rumors being floated now that Sarah Palin didn’t know the participants in NAFTA, that she didn’t know that Africa was a continent, that she didn’t know that South Africa was a country – it all sounds like utter nonsense, but it is interesting. She’s not terribly bright, but she’s surely not that dumb.

The rumors sound like the results of a meeting in a bar over many beers – people who were angry at Palin decided to do her in. It’s interesting to watch – the Republicans seem to be cleaning their machinery post-McCain. Palin is not the future of the party. That’s been decided.

The problem they have is the extreme loyalty of the Christian base to Palin. Without them, the Republicans are a permanent minority centered in the south.

It’ll be interesting to watch – party leadership is not stupid. In fact, since 1980 or so, they have brilliantly managed their various factions. This could be self-destruction, or it could be just the messy early stages of a much-needed house cleaning.

Three senate races remain undecided, and election machinery/chicanery may play a role in all of them.

Georgia: Saxby Chambliss (R) vs Jim Martin (D): Because Chambliss did not get 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff in December. Georgia is a state that uses “faith based” voting – that is, there are no paper records of votes at the time of voting, and election officials are 100% reliant on the inner workings of the Diebold machinery to fairly report the results. A recount would merely duplicate the original results, as the machines would re-report their original tallies. So it’s completely up for grabs – throw out the pre-election polls and exit polls – there’s no way of knowing who really wins down there. It’s a very stupid state.

Minnesota: Norm Coleman (R) vs Al Franken (D): Coleman currently holds a 236 vote lead, with 2.4 million votes cast. Minnesota uses paper ballots and optical scanning. There will be a full hands-on recount there, so it will be a good test of the o/s machinery. The thing to keep an eye on there is ballot security during the recount process – chain of possession and lock and key and overnight guards and all of that. That’s what messed up the attempted New Hampshire recount earlier this year. But no matter the outcome, the results should be reliable.

Alaska: Ted Stevens (D) vs Mark Begich (D): Stevens surprised everyone with an election night turnaround. Alaska sounds like it is totally corrupted. Just a few facts: The election was hotly contested; there were long lines in early voting; a very popular favorite daughter was on the presidential ballot; participation in the state primary (before the Palin nomination) was up 12.4% over four years ago – forget all of that – election officials say that turnout was down 11% this year. Pre-election polls showed both Ted Stevens and Don Young down by 6-10 points. They also showed that the gap between McCain and Obama had closed to a 14% lead for McCain – final tally was a whopping 25 point win for McCain. Stevens “won” with a 16 point turnaround from polls, and Young won too. It’s an election night miracle!

The State of Alaska has been sued twice now, in 2004 and 2006, to get them to release raw election data for people to review. In the 2004 suit, prior to release, Diebold was allowed to “manipulate the data”. The election department up there is a crawling can of worms. If there is a recount, which is unlikely anyway, it would be overseen by the Palin Administration. Don’t hope for any sunlight up there this winter. There will be no mavericky challenging of the Republican election machine.

I didn’t consider this: Alaska is a couple of times zones over, and after everyone heard there that Obama had won, interest dissipated and lines dwindled. That doesn’t explain poll discrepancies, but might explain low turnout.