Perils of choosing one's friends

There is even less there there to Obama than previously thought, says Thomas Sowell.

Barack Obama's own account of his life shows that he consciously sought out people on the far left fringe. In college, "I chose my friends carefully," he said in his first book, "Dreams From My Father."

These friends included "Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rock performance poets" — in Obama's own words — as well as the "more politically active black students." He later visited a former member of the terrorist Weatherman underground, who endorsed him when he ran for state senator.

Obama didn't just happen to encounter Jeremiah Wright, who just happened to say some way out things. Jeremiah Wright is in the same mold as the kinds of people Barack Obama began seeking out in college — members of the left, anti-American counter-culture.

Obama self-consciously constructed his persona, to a greater extent, at least, than some. Than me, anyhow.

Thanks to Althouse, where the comment thread has gotten wild and wooly.

Update: More on this from Neo-Neocon and Engram. More from Stanley Kurtz.

Another update: Rev. Wright's new house. "God damn America!"