Barry, We Hardly Knew Ye, or What Will A Man Give In Exchange for His Soul?

After enduring eight long years of the inexplicable behavior of the artist formerly known as Barack Hussein Obama, I have developed an hypothesis; what we have been observing is a man without a soul. Note,  I don't mean a soul in the biblical sense (although they are related); rather I mean a man who does not know himself. Obama has spent his whole life trying to discover who he is.

His identity crisis began in childhood. He was the product of man with whom he would have very little contact while was growing up, and a woman who had other things on her mind and without the equipment to raise a son who's identity was confusing from the cradle.

Contrary to popular myth, Barack Obama is not the first African American president - for the simple reason that he is not African American. In a less PC time, he would have been called a mulatto. His identification with his father's African roots was a political choice, not a racial necessity. He could as easily have claimed his mother's white heritage. His attempt to identify with the suffering and alienation of the descendants of American slavery was, and is, a sham based on hear-say.

After being abandoned by his father before he had an opportunity to form any meaningful connection, he was whisked away to Indonesia where he be was assigned the identity of Barry Soetoro, adopted son of Lolo Soetoro. The significant similarity between the two "fathers," was that they were both Muslim - an identify that Barack accepted until it became politically inconvenient.

At some point in his childhood, he was shipped off to live with his maternal grandparents in Kansas. Like most "white folks," they knew little or nothing about the African identity of his father which would occupy much of his later search for an identity. They also knew nothing of the "African American" experience and could not transmit any knowledge of such to their grandson.

After a privileged education at two exclusive American universities, about which little is known because his academic records are sealed, he emerged as an erstwhile, radicalized Black activist. He adopted Chicago as his territory and assumed the occupation of "community organizer" as a way to establish standing in the area (Barry, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a community organizer, Mommy)  How a young man with a middle-class, privileged upbringing wound up in this situation can only be understood as the actions of a man trying to create a persona.

Somewhere in his Chicago adventure, he identified with a radical, Liberation Theology oriented church and "became" a Christian. His claim that he never heard his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, engaging in his frequent anti-American diatribes, is feasible only if he wasn't listening; a very real possibility for a man who wasn't there to learn but to be seen.

It was also during this time that he met and married Michele Robinson, a university educated young woman raised in a prosperous, suburban family who, in spite of the advantages she experienced, was never proud of her country.

His organizing experience paid off when he was elected to the Illinois state Senate, partially by having other candidates eliminated from the ballot. His tenure in the state legislature was uneventful, characterized by frequent votes of "present," a tactic designed to avoid identification with any position which might require an explanation. This lackluster beginning was followed by his election to the US Senate, a position for which he was neither qualified nor temperamentally suited.

What he was suited for was talking, not listening. During testimony at a hearing of one of the Senate committees to which he had been assigned, he turned to one of his staff seated behind and handed him a note reading "just shoot me now." Clearly not an auspicious beginning for participation in the nations highest deliberative legislative chamber. His slide into political oblivion was halted when he was plucked from the realm of obscurity by John Kerry to deliver a keynote speech at the 2004 Democrat Convention. This appearance launched him into a realm of notoriety that might otherwise have been impossible.

Oprah pronounced him "Brilliant," and four years later, this unknown, untested young man with the strange (and troubling) name not only defeated Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democrat nominee, but longtime American hero, Senator John McCain for the white house; and the rest, as they say is history. Or is it?

With the exception of a failed attempt to establish national health-care, Obama's roster of White House achievements is sparse. This is what one might expect from a man who doesn't know who he is and is dependent on others for ideas with which to identify. Given his persona non-existia, it is not surprising that issues like producing a birth-certificate and other records of education and experience emerged during his career.

During and subsequent to the recent election cycle, Obama made frequent reference to his legacy. He urged the election of Mrs. Clinton as a way of validating his term of office. The problem was that there was no legacy with which the American people could identify. Mature, self-assured people do not talk about their legacy; that is for historians. People who are self-aware speak about what they believe and why people should support them.

Ultimately, Barack Obama cannot be understood from a political or social perspective. He can only be understood when he is examined by the authority of scripture. He is a man unique in contemporary experience. He was and remains unknown to the people among whom he lives and to the people who elected him.

He is a man without a soul.