During the 2008 presidential campaign, I remember Shelby Steele, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford being interviewed about his book, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win (Free Press, 2007). The election proved Dr. Steele wrong but a comment he made during one interview has stuck with me over the last two years. While I'm paraphrasing, the point is worth reconsidering: "Barack Obama does not know who he is." Well, if he doesn't know himself, how are we to know whether anything about him is real? And, if he doesn't know himself, how can he deliver on any of his dreams/policies/goals?

Then this sentence from his autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, supports the "Who is Obama?" question: �I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.� Which is why people didn't know whom or what they were voting for. They all assumed he was saying what they wanted to hear.

Tonight, Alex Castellanos, an NRO commentator, indicated the same trait with these sentences: "This president defended everything tonight. I�m not sure America knows who he is."

I respect the office of the President but Obama just seems to shoot shotguns - where's his focus, his accountability, his responsibility, his direction, his leadership?

Does Obama know who he is or has he spent his life trying to be something he isn't? Is his latest mantra "to fight for you..." an indication of the fighting within himself?

Labels: Obama