intellectual honesty? in a Presidential candidate?

[jrtom]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-oped0314obamamar14,0,7185898.story

...[Obama] had an important topic to discuss: the controversy over President Bush's warrantless surveillance of international telephone calls between Americans and suspected terrorists. I had written a short essay suggesting that the surveillance might be lawful. Before taking a public position, Obama wanted to talk the problem through.

In about 20 minutes, he and I investigated the legal details. He asked me to explore all sorts of issues: the president's power as commander in chief, the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Authorization for Use of Military Force and more.

Obama wanted to consider the best possible defense of what Bush had done. To every argument I made, he listened and offered a counterargument. After the issue had been exhausted, Obama said he thought the program was illegal, but now had a better understanding of both sides.

That's...impressive. Not many people I know go to that much trouble to make sure that they understand all sides of an issue before taking a stand on it, and I'm not aware of any politicians that behave so.

Of course the author of this article is biased...but if even half of what he says is accurate, he's got the potential to be a kickass President, by my standards at least.

Comments

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I'm trying not to let myself get too excited about the idea that we have a chance to have an actual grownup as President. It's hard when he keeps hitting it out of the park like he does.

[paisleychick.livejournal.com]

I read that a couple of weeks ago (I think) and frankly I wasn't surprised from everything that I knew of him before, but day-um. It would be so awesome to have him sitting in the White House.