Barack Obama

PEOPLE KEEP SAYING this is an historic election, the most important in half a century. And it is. In concrete terms, the United States is faced with a range of crises - economic, military, diplomatic - that are increasingly complex, that defy ideology and demand an uncommon, united effort. Failure to address them in the past has put the well-being of our children and our planet in doubt. Failure to address them now will, we fear, seal their doom. But history also includes things that are less prosaic, more poetic: We could be on the verge of picking a president who symbolizes what our country stands for. Opportunity.

THE CHOICE in Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary is not only the one between a white woman and a black man. It's a choice between the past and the future. More specifically, the nation must decide how to face the future racing toward us in the form of slumping home sales, unstable financial markets and increased joblessness - and staring at us from the Green Zone in Iraq and the beds at veterans hospitals. Should Democrats choose someone who will employ hard-won - even bitter - experiences gained in a past Democratic administration, or reach beyond political truisms toward a new (and untried)

RE THE letter from Lawanda Horton (Feb. 15, "Obama Held to Higher Standard"): Of course it's the white person who makes more money than his black counterparts, but I do have a question. I'm not Jewish, but how were the Jewish people, after being persecuted by just about everybody, able to be successful in the tough world we live in? And what about the Koreans who came with nothing, but arise at 4 a.m. to load up their food stands by 6 a.m., and most don't go home until 7 p.m.? Lenny Serlen, Audubon, N.J. Lawanda Horton, I'm in total agreement with you concerning this country being so racist and bigoted toward President Obama.

A very strange story, a 6,000-word front-page New York Times piece on how, every Tuesday, Barack Obama shuffles "baseball cards" with the pictures and bios of suspected terrorists from around the world and chooses who shall die by drone strike. He even reserves for himself the decision of whether to proceed when the probability of killing family members or bystanders is significant.   The article could have been titled "Barack Obama: Drone Warrior. " Great detail on how Obama personally runs the assassination campaign.

The Democratic presidential primary Tuesday presents Pennsylvania voters with a choice that is more about style than substance. On the issues, there's scant difference between Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. The biggest difference comes down to their styles of leadership. Obama wants to bring about change by inspiring people to accept his vision of social justice. Clinton bills herself as the more competent leader, who knows how to effect change incrementally, due largely to her extensive government experience.

SORE LOSER"; " . . . lead rather than pout"; "Any other candidate would have faced reality with grace and pragmatism"; " . . . a campaign that became even more divisive and dishonest. " You call Hillary Clinton every name in the book, and she's supposed to endorse Barack Obama, because if she doesn't she'll "jeopardize the team's chances . . . "? What is this - everybody in the world owes Obama, and if you don't support him, you're either a racist or stupid or worse? Here's one lifelong Democrat who's sick of this Obama worship from the press, and the misogyny from the Daily News toward Hillary.

WE HAVE HOPE. Of course, that word was the cornerstone of Barack Obama's campaign, but it took his historic victory yesterday to make us realize how much of it we have been missing. Steadily, over the years, we have felt the erosion of hope for a country united on the principles of democracy and fairness, a country that could once again lead the world based, not on military might, but on a steadfast defense of human rights. For so long, we have missed the hope that ordinary people could join together to bring about change.

David Maraniss reminds us that there is no substitute for primary-source reporting in his new book, Barack Obama: The Story. Last week, Maraniss told me that he spent nearly four years researching and writing the book, during which time he logged 50,000 miles, conducted close to 400 interviews, and searched libraries on three continents. The result is a biography of more than 600 pages that ends with Obama's acceptance to Harvard Law School.   While Maraniss told me that his goal was not to vet the president's own memoir, many readers will be tempted to focus on the contradictions between The Story and Dreams From My Father.

Barack Obama The Story By David Maraniss Simon & Schuster. 671 pp. $32.50   Reviewed by Kenneth J. Cooper       Because of his place in history as the country's first black president, curiosity abounds about how Barack Obama navigated the uncharted journey to where he is and who he is.   David Maraniss, who chronicled Bill Clinton's rise in First in His Class (1996), takes a nontraditional approach in this biography of Obama. He probes Obama's family roots in Kansas and Kenya several generations back to find behavior patterns that may have shaped the president's character.

"This war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises ... " - Barack Obama, May 23 Nice thought. But much as President Obama would like to close his eyes, click his heels three times, and declare the war on terror over, war is a two-way street. That's what history advises: Two sides to fight it, two to end it. By surrender (World War II), by armistice (Korea and Vietnam), or when the enemy simply disappears from the field (the Cold War). Obama says enough is enough.

While listening to an NPR report out of Moore, Okla., last week, I was genuinely shocked. Not by the scale of the devastation or the tenacity of people who have grown stoically accustomed to the damage tornados can do, but by a political sentiment that, in almost any other era, would not have been surprising at all. Rep. Tom Cole, a Republican who lives in the very neighborhood that was overwhelmed, was talking about a call he received from President Obama....

It had become fashionable in certain circles to mock tea party activists for their vocal warnings about the abusive power of government, with jokes, for instance, about tinfoil hats. But isn't paranoia useful if someone really is out to get you? That question seems relevant in the wake of reports that the IRS was targeting hundreds of right-leaning groups with tea party or patriot in their names for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. Officials demanded that the organizations send membership lists, meeting minutes, rosters of donors, their leaders' reading preferences, copies of their pamphlets - even, in some cases, records of posts on social media.

Leaving aside the seriousness of lawlessness, and the corruption of our civic culture by the professionally pious, this last week has been amusing. There was the spectacle of advocates of an ever-larger regulatory government expressing shock about such government's large capacity for misbehavior. And, entertainingly, the answer to the question "Will Barack Obama's scandals derail his second-term agenda?" was a question: What agenda? The scandals are interlocking and overlapping in ways that drain his authority.

WASHINGTON - From the moment Barack Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004, he has enjoyed a reputation as a politician with a claim to the high ground. Now, even supporters are questioning whether his administration abused the offices of government for political gain. "Those who are found to have been responsible for this betrayal of public trust should be fired," Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) said of revelations that IRS workers targeted Republican-leaning advocacy groups for extra scrutiny.

WE'LL NEVER know what Juanita Bennett whispered to Barack Obama. It was during his 2008 campaign for the presidency. He was in Philadelphia for a TV appearance, and Juanita was doing his makeup. Juanita, whose makeup clients included a staggering list of eminent people in politics, entertainment and every other kind of field, all yearning to be beautiful, didn't just do makeup. She always had something to say, always of an encouraging nature. But what she confided to Obama is something she always kept to herself.

Vito Canuso, the chairman of the city's Republican Party for close to 20 years, is giving up the post, one of several signs that the party is healing a rift between its old-line leadership and a faction of younger, more aggressive members. Canuso, 66, a lawyer first elected in 1995, announced his intention to resign Tuesday at the party's spring fund-raiser. His replacement - subject to approval from ward leaders - will be State Rep. John J. Taylor, 58, the sole Republican still representing a Philadelphia district in the state House.

In the unforgiving Afghan landscape, we have learned that you can't buy a warlord. You can only rent one. We owe this education to our man in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai. For more than a decade, it has been confirmed, U.S. dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks, and plastic shopping bags have been delivered every month or so to Karzai's office. In the theory of imperialism, we would venture into the Hindu Kush and reform its ways. It would, instead, be the other way around.

Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments, and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination. And where Barack Obama, already naturally inclined to believe his own loftiness, graciously accepted the kingly crown and proceeded to ride his reelection success to a crushing victory over the GOP at the fiscal cliff, leaving a humiliated John Boehner & Co. with nothing but naked tax hikes.