IX: Obama’s Triumph of the Will: The 2008 Primaries 363Barky’s “innocents abroad” world blitz: “...as millions of Americans who watched the primary
campaign learned, Obama is invariably articulate. There would be no verbal gaffes.”^188 Invariably
articulate? No gaffes? Obama’s Teleprompter dependency and gaffes, like Carter’s infamous
“fuzziness,” had already emerged as a major campaign issue. Without the glass plates of the
Teleprompter, Obama hemmed and hawed, or virtually babbled in delirium. What planet was
Broder living on? This column posed the question of mental impairment not just for Obama, but for
Broder as well.
OBAMA’S MENTAL DEBILITY:
IMPLICATIONS OF NEW MARIJUANA RESEARCH
By a happy coincidence, new evidence of the relation between marijuana use and mental
impairment came to light late in the primary season. Given Obama’s confession of heavy marijuana
use, these considerations are highly relevant to his qualifications for the presidency: ‘Long-term
heavy use of marijuana may cause two important brain structures to shrink, Australian researchers
[have found]. Brain scans showed the hippocampus and amygdala were smaller in men who were
heavy marijuana users compared to nonusers, the researchers said. The men had smoked at least
five marijuana cigarettes daily for on average 20 years. The hippocampus regulates memory and
emotion, while the amygdala plays a critical role in fear and aggression. The study, published in the
American Medical Association’s journal Archives of General Psychiatry, also found the heavy
cannabis users earned lower scores than the nonusers in a verbal learning task — trying to recall a
list of 15 words. The marijuana users were more likely to exhibit mild signs of psychotic disorders,
but not enough to be formally diagnosed with any such disorder, the researchers said. “These
findings challenge the widespread perception of cannabis as having limited or no harmful effects on
(the) brain and behavior,” said Murat Yucel of ORYGEN Research Centre and the University of
Melbourne, who led the study.’ (Will Dunham, “Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts: study,”
AP, June 2, 2008) Reporters who get to question Obama should ask him how his hippocampus and
amygdale are doing these days. Not well, we fear.
THE ROLL CALL OF THE STATES DECIDES THE NOMINEE – NOT DEAN
It was unthinkable that any responsible political leader would be willing to see Obama receive
the nomination while the sword of Damocles of further scandals hung over his head. Larry
Sinclair’s videotape had been on the Internet since mid-January, and it had at various times been the
object of discussion on something approaching a million websites. The issues are Obama’s crack
cocaine use, his bisexuality, his possible involvement in the Donald Young assassination, and the
allegations of character assassination and harassment against Sinclair funded by the Obama
campaign. There was also the matter of the Michelle Obama “hate whitey” tape. Karl Rove knew
all about each one of these points, and there was no way to deter Karl Rove and his cohorts. So,
although it might have incomprehensible to Obama’s drooling acolytes, the interest of the
Democratic Party was best served by thorough airing of these allegations to before the roll call of
the states is held on August 27, 2008 — and this was exactly what Sinclair had been trying to do
since mid-January. If Sinclair had been a GOP deployment, he would simply have waited for
September or October to come forward.
There were of course those who lamented and regretted that it was necessary to dredge up the
sordid details of a figure like Obama. They suggested that it was better to use political campaigns
to talk about issues. This might sound plausible, but it is totally wrong, and the fault rests with