I know Barack Obama. 

I know him well. Quite well. We’re actually blood brothers.

True, we aren’t related. We’ve never met. And, to use the MSM’s jargon du jour, there are some nuanced differences between us. I’m older by ten years, Caucasian, fiscally-conservative, a white Southern Baptist with an Alabama drawl, slow with a thought and less sophisticated by half.

But don’t let that throw you. Barack and I are soul mates.

You see, he’s a postmodernist.  You may not know what that means. I do. I once was one. I remember the language. And I hear it whenever he opens his mouth. 

Not that I dislike the guy. He’s handsome and intelligent and married to a girl every bit his equal. They cut a good figure for people who want to make a difference in life.  Barack and Michelle have two beautiful daughters whom they love and aim to protect. What’s not to like about them as a couple and a family? The pressure of a presidential campaign must be enormous. Forget political differences. Anyone who endures that ordeal has my admiration. 

Did I get off track?

Ah, yes, postmodernism.

The linchpin of postmodernism is the conviction that reality cannot be known.   In philosophical jargon, we lack the public criteria to validate ascriptions such as good/bad, right/wrong, or true/false. For those who skipped graduate school in favor of an honest job, it means that one man’s treasure is another man’s junk. Truth is relative. That’s basically what it comes to.

A postmodernist believes that truth is whatever your group says it is. If two groups disagree, it doesn’t mean one group is correct – or even more correct – than the other. We have no way of knowing. All we can say for sure is that the two groups hold different views. So we should practice tolerance and learn to respect alternative views. Don’t ask me why.

Want an example? Examine the theology of Jeremiah Wright. He preaches that Jesus of Nazareth morphed into a black American.  Silly, I know. Maybe the good reverend is just getting even with those who morphed Jesus into a white anglo-saxon protestant. I don’t know and I don’t care. The fact is, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. His distant ancestors were wandering Arameans who drifted over from Arabia a couple thousand years earlier. Facts are facts. 

But to a postmodern thinker, facts are nothing more than useful fictions. Science offers us one fictitious version of reality. Theology offers another. And poetry and music and comic books offer even more. Barack Obama knows as much, as he’s cool with it. Why challenge Jeremiah Wright’s claim that Jesus was a black messiah who preached 21^st century minority politics? What difference does it make? No one version of the scripture is better than another. Pick the one that works for you. Let your feelings – or your politics – be your guide.

The MSM shares Obama’s cold relativism. For their part, they don’t feel good about the word terrorist. It sounds judgmental. Divisive. And it smacks of moral superiority and yukky bad things. They prefer the term insurgent, as though terrorist and insurgent can be interchanged without remainder. Not that this should surprise anyone. Harvard cranks out more English majors than law students. Don’t get me started down that road.

Now to the other critical element. A postmodern thinker is also a cynic at heart. You have to be. If you believe there is no ultimate truth, it becomes difficult to keep an honest face while striving to live a decent life. I mean, c’mon, there are no standards of decency. Truth is relative, remember? The group you’ve joined may believe in decency – or at least their own version of decency – and you may share their view. But secretly you know better. You know there is no such thing as basic human decency. You may think you’re living a decent and honorable life, but you’re really no better than the next guy, including the terrorist . . . er . . . insurgent. That’s a terribly deflating conclusion to reach.

People accuse Barack of vague rhetoric. Of being an empty suit. A flip-flopper. On Iraq. Jeremiah Wright. NAFTA. Offshore drilling. Abortion. On and on.

And how does he respond? That’s easy. He insists that his views are more nuanced, more subtle, than we have allowed. He’s being honest when he says this. He’s explaining to America that there are no true or false answers. The trick is to say it without saying it, and to sound sincere while doing so. He’s been having a tough go with it lately.

Does Barack Obama really think this way? 

You bet he does.

Would he ever admit it? 

Not in public. And especially not in a general election. He’s too good with words. Sort of.

John McCain is not my first choice as President and Commander in Chief of the United States. I was impressed, however, with his responses to Rick Warren at the Saddleback forum. You can tell that McCain has some bedrock beliefs. You may not like them, but they are important to him. He has fought for them. Sacrificed for them. And he will state them succinctly and clearly if asked. Brevity and clarity are hallmarks of conviction. 

Barack Obama, on the other hand, labored over his answers to the same questions. He fumbled for words. Like the battleship evading the submarine, he opted to zig-zag rather than plow straight ahead. Such a strategy requires a lot of words. You could see his mind working overtime: “What do they need to hear? What answer will please everyone, or at least offend no one?” 

At Saddleback, he attempted a hat trick but couldn’t find the rabbit. Warren asked for his view on abortion. Obama answered that theology and science are distinct disciplines. True enough, but where’s the rabbit? Then he claimed that the question was above his pay grade. For those of you who don’t speak postmodernism, he was telling you that the question is above everyone’s pay grade. There is no rabbit. Rabbits don’t exist.

Not a good answer for those of us who bought tickets to the show. We suspected that he might be an illusionist. But we still wanted to see the rabbit.

I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for Barack as he struggled to tell the truth. Words are his forte. Big words, little words, he knows them all. They are his toys. 

Truth is his toy, too. He likes to play with it.

Most Americans do not.