It's very interesting to me how this image of Obama the "new politician", the "agent of change", the bringer of hope, sticks and has grow to mythic proportions.  Sorry, but Obama is a carefully crafted product, an old school political hack - Chicago style, which if you're not from here, isn't pretty.  He's a mixed race guy form Hawaii who never lived the American black experience until he decided being black would be a good move for him as a political commodity.  For real street cred he got aligned with the Trinity Church, which gets along real well with Nation of Islam down the street, which pulls big black Chicago democrat machine power around town, which gets along well with the Daley black machine, etc.  If you need to raise money you get in bed with Rezko, etc, etc.  Is this bad?  I don't know, I don't know another way, that's how things get done here, that's how you get elected in Chicago.  Does his Madonna- like self invention make him less genuine in his ideals? I don't know, maybe not. Is a well designed ascent utilizing one's ethnic attributes as a catapult a bad thing?  Not necessarily.  But please, don't for a minute think he's any different than the oldest, most seasoned, most crusty hack of a politician.  He's not.  He's literally the same product, different package.  He's very smart, and a good, viable contender; but essentially offering a very hazy outline of generally accepted democratic party standards.

As for the feminist issue, I think it's comical that women feel Hillary's too old school, old boys club, not inspiring, not offering enough hope.  What the hell does a woman have to be in this country to get elected?   While so many of us swoon over Obama, in a naive high school like crush, we're passing up a golden opportunity, the best thing that's come along in decades.  Give it another look girls... and boys.