Required Reading

1) From Barack Obama.com, "A Magical Cure for All Insomniacs" by Barack Obama

Greetings, fellow citizens of the world! If you're like me and suffer from insomnia, you'll want to keep the link to Obama's speech in Germany today handy. Free yourself from Ambien! The speech was so dull, even Obama seemed like he was going to nod off half way through it.

My opinion? Believe me, this comes from the heart - I thought the speech was a giant failure. Obama loaded the speech with banal clichés in the hope that it would be a giant nothing-burger, and yet he still failed. To him, referring to oneself as a "citizen of the word" may sound like the kind of meaningless lofty language that he specializes in. But "citizen of the world" is actually a pretty freighted term given the context that this particular citizen of the world wants to be President of the United States.

Perhaps Obama's ego has grown so large that he figures one country, even the world's lone superpower, is no longer worthy of his leadership. A quick prediction - "the citizen of the world" mess-up will be one of the issues that frames the rest of the election.

2) From OpinionJournal.com, "Genocide Flip-Flop" by James Taranto

While enduring an interminable wait for a flight at Washington DC's Dulles Airport, I was struck by the following passage in Ron Chernow's magnificent biography of Alexander Hamilton:

Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen (Hamilton and his brother) between 1765 and 1769: their father had vanished, their mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle and grandmother had all died. James, sixteen, and Alexander, fourteen, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless…Such repeated shocks must have stripped Alexander Hamilton of any sense that life was fair, that he existed in a benign universe, or that he could ever count on help from anyone.

Alexander Hamilton was neither the first nor the last great man whose greatness was partly forged by absorbing at a bone deep level the basic principle that life is unfair. The longtime beau ideal of youthful and inspiring leadership, John F. Kennedy himself, famously joked about life's unfairness during a presidential press conference. Kennedy knew of whence he spoke.

A bone-deep knowledge of life's unfairness tends to hasten the acknowledgement of life's unpleasant realities. Being unfair, life often presents us with no-win situations where no course of action is entirely satisfactory. Choosing the lesser of multiple evils is a regular necessity for all but the most fortunate of us. A way out of tough situations is usually impossible. Most often, a way through is the best that we can manage.

All of this requires a sort of hardheadedness. If one clings to fantasies about life's inherent fairness or in fact has led a life that has allowed the reasonable inference that life is in fact fair, then there's a good chance that hardheadedness will be lacking.

Which brings us to our presidential candidates. Barack Obama has gone to great efforts to stress his humble origins. As is often the case with Obama, methinks the Messiah doth protest too much. If you read Obama's autobiography "Dreams From My Father" (and please note it's "From," not "Of" - all these lefties who claim to have read the book but can't even manage to get the title right cast their credibility into doubt), you'll see that Obama's claims to hardship seem a little trumped up. Yes, his father was absent and his mother a bit eccentric, but he grew up surrounded by people who loved him. It's true Obama grew up middle class, but he was comfortably middle class. While he relentlessly harps on the purported financial hardships he bore as a youth, they didn't prevent him from attending Hawaii's finest and most exclusive prep school.

Obama's adult life has also been devoid of misfortune. He has enjoyed financial comfort his entire adult life in spite of not having a real job or making any real money until he was 13 years out of law school. He can thank his wife for his material comfort. Apparently there have been no health challenges.

Professionally, Obama steadily declined to test himself and experience potential adversity. While most of his Harvard Law classmates entered the maw of big law firm life knowing they would either thrive or fail, Obama shrunk back in relative safety, organizing communities, teaching a con-law class, writing a book and generally living the life of a dilettante intellectual.