here’s more detail on the Palmer story.

“Showing his bare knuckles
In first campaign, Obama revealed hard-edged, uncompromising side in eliminating party rivals”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-0704030881apr04,0,6468332.story
He knocked ALL his opponents off the ballot, including the beloved ‘elder stateswoman’ who had befriended and recommended him, getting him onto the ballot in the first place, Alice Palmer.

In The New Republic:
“The Agitator” about Obama’s ‘community organizer’ days (“rub raw the sores of discontent”)
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=a74fca23-f6ac-4736-9c78-f4163d4f25c7&p=10 (This is page 10 of 10)

The worst sort of bad judgement is when you KNOW about a possible future problem — but don’t take even the most obvious steps of looking into it and taking precautions.

Current big example’s are Wright and Rezko. Months ago Obama and Wright discussed Obama having to ‘distance’ himself from Wright if he got the nomination. But Obama didn’t even bother to have his staff check the video sermons his own church was selling! Now they’ve cleaned their website … but plain competence would have required doing it long ago.

Is that a male thing too? Let a crisis happen, you can always stomp in with your teflon armor and get credit for ‘solving’ it?

(Wasn’t that mentioned in Deborah Tannen’s TALKING 9 TO 5? The woman who works late preventing a crisis doesn’t get noticed.)

but we’ll fight them every step of the way!!!

Speaking of better qualified women getting passed over, here’s Obama’s entry into politics in 1996. Not just a little backstab, but a fatal stab to the heart — of the beloved elder stateswoman who had just got him ON the ballot.

A popular local activist in a ‘safe seat’ in the Illinois state senate (Alice Palmer) gave him his start. A few weeks later when they ended up on the same ballot, party elders asked Obama to withdraw from that race, offering to find him another seat so their faction could have two seats instead of one.

Obama refused, and instead of running a fair contest with Palmer, he had her knocked off the ballot, along with all his other opponents, so he could run unopposed. After ‘winning’, soon he himself gave up the seat. So instead of two seats, his faction had none at all, Palmer’s career was ended, and Obama had made enemies and got a dishonorable episode on his record permanently.

All because he could not wait his turn and didn’t care who or what he damaged for his own ambition.

(Yes, Palmer made some mistakes too. But hers were innocent mistakes: optomism, carelessness — and trusting Barack Obama’s character.)

As for job title — that meme is also elitist. In a mom and pop operation, everything may be in Pop’s name. But often while Pop is out front shaking hands, the real brain is Mom in the back room.