Barack Obama and Occam's Razor

For six hundred years, Occam's Razor has been a fundamental tool of rational thinking. Developed by a 14th century Franciscan friar, William of Ockham, it translates most closely to, "All things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." Freud is rumored to have put it as "Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar." Today, Occam's Razor points us to the obvious, that the simplest answer may be the right answer.

Lanny Davis, the public defender of Bill Clinton during his blue dress days and a man sufficiently familiar with truth to avoid it whenever convenient, wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week

Clearly Mr. Obama does not share the extremist views of Rev. Wright.

Similar words have been written by others. Clearly, Mr. Obama doesn't share the extremist views or values of his closest friends, mentors and lover: the Rev. Wright and the racist slime his church regularly touts, the terrorist Bill Ayers, the crook Tony Rezko or his wife Michelle. Right?

Not so fast.

Occam's Razor tells us the simplest interpretation fits: Rather than accept all the so very convoluted denials—such as he sat in the pew for 20 years but didn't inhale, side-by-side real estate closings with his friend the crook were strictly coincidental and he's never heard his wife describe America in any but the most reverential tones–let's instead accept the simple answer: Mr. Obama shares to greater or lesser degree the views and values of his wife and closest friends. Certainly coupled with the external evidence, such as his disdain for the symbols of public respect toward his country, it's perfectly reasonable to believe his support of close friends and lover with extreme views reflects his respect for their views.

The straightest line to connect the dots and prove the point is the way Barack Obama treats his daughters. Sensitive parents jealously guard their children from bad language and bad examples. Not so Mr. Obama, who has either arranged or allowed to expose his daughters, ages eight and ten, to a lifetime diet of racist and anti-American victimology. Whether having them listen to their pastor repeatedly condemn America to hell while extolling the bigot Farrakhan, or allowing his wife to teach the girls about an America that is "mean" at heart, a country of which she has never been proud with a people who constantly erect movable barriers to her husband's deserved success, Barack Obama has validated their messages with his presence and with theirs.

Their was a time when I could respect Senator Obama, a respect that allowed disagreement with his politics but recognized his skills. Those days are past. Teaching his daughters to hate their country, teaching them that America and its people are mean while enjoying the fruits that life here allows above all other places, is beyond the limits of hypocrisy I can accept from a candidate or a father.

Barack Obama is erudite and glib but he is either without principles, or worse, is hiding from us the snake oil he is selling.

RELATED LINKS: Barack Obama: Just Another San Francisco Democrat

I'm afraid something wicked this way comes.