Nothing is written

(H/t to CJR)

The New Yorker adds some context for the meteoric rise of Sen. Obama in their mammoth article Making It. It goes to show that this man was not anointed by anyone. He fought his way up - because that's what you do.

Ryan Lizza interviews former political allies (some bitter, some not) who are not shy about telling tales. He also reveals a rather key role played by [former Weathermen] Alan Dobry & Lois Friedberg-Dobry.

When Obama was running for a state senate seat vacated by his mentor, Alice Palmer - who had left to run for Congress. Palmer had gotten thumped, and was returning to run for her old seat. She expected Obama to back out of the race. He did not, and Palmer entered the primary to oppose Obama.

The Dobrys were surprised that Palmer had so quickly gathered the signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot. They went to the Chicago board of elections and reviewed her petitions; as they suspected, they were filled with irregularities. One skill that the Independents had mastered in the years of fighting the first Mayor Daley was the machine’s tactic of challenging ballot petitions, and the Dobrys were experts at this Chicago ritual. Publicly, Obama was conciliatory about the awkward political situation, telling the Hyde Park Herald that he understood that some people were upset about the “conflict between old loyalties and new enthusiasms.” Privately, however, he unleashed his operators. With the help of the Dobrys, he was able to remove not just Palmer’s name from the ballot but the name of every other opponent as well. “He ran unopposed, which is a good way to win,” Mikva said, laughing at the recollection.

 Partisans have attacked Sen. Obama for his association with the Dobrys - but I have to say - I'm not seeing much more than the usual story of politics making strange bedfellows. The article makes clear the Dobrys are part of the established political landscape in Chicago, and have been for years. It's enlightening to see what a dramatic part they played in him winning the state senate primary, but I'm not sure there's a lot of hay there.

Something that will surely get talked up is the account of then state senator Obama squabbling with another senator named Hendon.

Lizza quotes an exchange where Hendon is hazing the new arrival about his bill that would make a directory of graduates available to local employers:

HENDON: Senator, could you correctly pronounce your name for me? I’m having a little trouble with it.
OBAMA: Obama.
HENDON: Is that Irish?
OBAMA: It will be when I run countywide.
HENDON: That was a good joke, but this bill’s still going to die. This directory, would that have those 1-800 sex line numbers in this directory?
OBAMA: I apologize. I wasn’t paying Senator Hendon any attention.
HENDON: Well, clearly, as poorly as this legislation is drafted, you didn’t pay it much attention either. My question was: Are the 1-800 sex line numbers going to be in this directory?
OBAMA: Not—not—basically this idea comes out of the South Side community colleges. I don’t know what you’re doing on the West Side community colleges. But we probably won’t be including that in our directory for the students.
HENDON: . . . Let me just say this, and to the bill: I seem to remember a very lovely Senator by the name of Palmer—much easier to pronounce than Obama—and she always had cookies and nice things to say, and you don’t have anything to give us around your desk. How do you expect to get votes? And—and you don’t even wear nice perfume like Senator Palmer did. . . . I’m missing Senator Palmer because of these weak replacements with these tired bills that makes absolutely no sense. I . . . I definitely urge a No vote. Whatever your name is.

 The article goes on to say that Obama and Hendon got into a screaming match on another occasion. By Hendon's account, Obama threatened to kick his ass. Whether he did or didn't say that - it seems to me that Hendon would have deserved it.

CJR's Katia Bachko seems to think there are damming implications to this story, she cites criticism in the blogosphere that focuses on the Hendon dustup, and Obama's reaction to 9/11.

Obviously, I have my own bias - but Hendon story is rather endearing. It's nice to hear that Obama can get pissed off, just like the rest of us. Anyone who is surprised by this fact is naive or trying hard to be surprised.

Criticism of Obama's 9/11 column in the blog Bachko links to (to my mind) rings hollow. Lizzo is writing to show that on September 12 the bulk of Illinois legislators were ignoring the national tragedy in favor of their own redistricting scrum. Barack Obama did something else. He wrote a lengthy column about 9/11 and about an angry nation's duty to be responsible when it exacted retribution. That's hardly a moral failure in my book - although I am certain that any position that deviates from the hawkish "kill 'em all" mentality will look weak to some. The idea that we should be terrible in war, but should not kill innocents should is a scandal only to people who willfully avoid common sense.

It's a good article - read the whole thing.