If we have learned anything about Barack Obama thus far, we have learned he absolutely refuses to tell us who he is except to say he’s a “progressive” kind of guy. The problem, of course, with this lack of courage and honesty is that when a candidate aspires to the presidency, the American people want to know exactly who the person is.

In fact, the public so much wants to know the answer to the question Obama refuses to answer that millions have stepped up to do the job for him, among them the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, who revealed his thoughts about the problem in a recent USA Today piece.

Mr. Goldberg first points out that many people believe Obama is fundamentally a person with a “God complex” or a person who is “hopelessly arrogant.” Why? Because Mr. Obama says things such as this: “[Sin is] being out of alignment with my values.”

(“My values”? You would think Columbia and Harvard would teach students to avoid a definition of sin that sends people exclaiming sarcastically, “Now I understand perfectly why Stalin, Hitler, Mao, et al. believed themselves sinless!”)

Having made that point, Goldberg goes on to offer an alternative view of Ivy League Barack, arguing he is a “post-modernist” because he excelled in learning what Columbia and Harvard teach ad nauseam: “There is no such thing as capital-T ‘Truth’” (except, of course, for the truths advanced by postmodernists).

Now, there’s no arguing with the good sense of Jonah Goldberg’s conclusion. But there is a much more simple answer to the question, an answer that avoids ivory towered talk about the beliefs held by “Po Mos” and thus one understood immediately by the American people.

It is also an answer Goldberg hints at when he concludes his essay by speaking of empty, dangerous words that serve as the basis for a candidate and a campaign that “seems to be about itself” and whose “relationship to reality is almost theoretical.”

Before mentioning the simple, accurate, and powerful way to categorize Barack Obama, it is useful to examine some other empty, dangerous words uttered by similar frauds whose history of refusing to tell the truth about themselves began long before postmodernism infected American culture.

emanations and penumbras — Activist judges introduced the nation to this reincarnation of perfectly medieval hocus pocus when they announced that the Constitution’s words radiate “emanations” that create “penumbras” that sometimes speak with absolute specificity and at other times in a general manner that leaves specifics up to the activist judges themselves.

evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society — Having subjectively defined every word of this phrase, activist judges use it to force their own beliefs upon the entire nation. Of course, when the nation defines the phrase in a manner that conflicts with the dogmas worshipped by those sorcerers, they will rule laws enacted by the American people unconstitutional (the “evolving standards of decency” observed by the ignorant slobs who inhabit the fifty states be damned.)

Of course, insidious, vacuous utterances are not limited to spilling from the dictatorial mouths of activist judges. Moreover, new ones pollute the nation every day as evidenced by words taken from the proposed 2008 Democratic platform, words so empty and duplicitous that even liberal Michael Kinsley mocked them in a piece he wrote for the NY Times.

Following are a few of them with comments a bit stronger than those offered by Mr. Kinsley:

tough, practical and humane immigration reform (Yes, Virginia, there is a devil; and he always hides himself in the details.)

immediate relief to . . . people who have lost their way (Finally, the absolutely perfect bureaucracy for Democrats who have absolutely lost their minds.)

Military Families Advisory Board (Hooray! Democrats have finally decided to act upon the Number One issue on the minds of military families!)

a generic pathway for biologic drugs (the more seniority the Democrat politician has “earned,” the more soberly he nods upon every mention of “generic pathway.”)

supporting and funding English Language Learner classes [so that] Limited English Proficient students [can] get ahead (No, even ESL in obnoxiously heavy make-up doesn’t help students get ahead but rather guarantees they will fall very far behind.)

[a] uniquely American [health care system] (It will be unique, all right, because it will be an amalgam of the systems currently existing in Canada, Europe, Russia, China, Cuba, and Sudan.)

So, how does all this help us categorize Barack Obama in a manner that is simple, intellectually honest, and effective?

First, we must recognize that Obama’s words and actions have consistently revealed he agrees with the political ideas and policies reflected in the words quoted above — from the profound danger posed to American democracy by judicial activists from Earl Warren to Stephen Breyer to the laughable stupidity of federal programs such as those aimed at finding and placing on the right path “people who have lost their way.”

Then, we can state confidently that Barack Obama is a liberal, completely and passionately devoted to every last dogma enunciated by liberalism and espoused by his fellow high priests of the Liberal Church.

And that tells the American people everything they need to know about who the “progressive” from Chicago really is.

Copyright by A.J. DiCintio