Pernicious Influences

After I posted the critique of Cynthia Tucker's rather silly column on Paul Ryan in which she tried to wed him to the worst aspects Ayn Rand's philosophy I came across a piece by S.E. Cupp who made a very trenchant observation about the people who influence our politicians and which influences the media care about and which they don't.

She wrote that it's important to know whose ideas have shaped the thinking of candidates for high office, but only, you must understand, if the candidates are Republicans. Queries about who has influenced Democrat candidates, particularly if the candidate is Mr. Obama, are considered not at all germane to his fitness for office.

Here's part of Cupp's piece:

But because Obama’s campaign, his two memoirs not withstanding, was so cagey about all of that information, and the liberal media was happy to leave those gaps unanswered, voters had to fill in the blanks themselves. And it turns out, it wasn’t that hard.

They found out about Obama’s father, Barack Sr., a socialist activist the President devotes a book to, “Dreams From My Father.” They found out about Saul Alinsky, author of “Rules For Radicals,” who influenced young Barack into community organizing. They found out about Frank Marshall Davis, a labor activist and communist in Hawaii that Obama wrote highly of. They also found out about Roberto Unger, Obama’s Harvard law professor who is sick and tired of American hegemony.

There are plenty of others — notably Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — people who, unlike Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand, Obama actually knew, and has himself cited in various places, before mounting a presidential run, as having influenced his political philosophy.

But conservatives were told over and over again in 2008 — scolded, really — that they were racist, small-minded, fanatical extremists if they tried to make any connections, tenuous or otherwise, between Obama and his self-proclaimed mentors and influences.

Questions about his father, his professors, his friends, his pastor…all off-limits.

Well, let's pose some questions. Who is the more pernicious influence, Ayn Rand or the motley collection of communists, far-left radicals, and America-haters who've shaped Mr. Obama's thinking over the years? Why is Ms Tucker deeply concerned about Rand's influence on Ryan but blithely indifferent to the people with whom Mr. Obama has surrounded himself? Can't we safely assume that Mr. Obama was drawn to these people because he shares their views? Can't we assume that Mr. Obama is himself just as much of a radical leftist as are the people who molded his worldview?

If we're to be worried about Rand's influence on Ryan why should we not worry about the influence of all of these Marxist-Leninists on Obama?

We might ask one more question. Have there been any strong influences on Mr. Obama at any point up until he assumed the presidency who were not socialist/communist leftists?