...wherein the Ghost of Andrew Breitbart will capture the conscience of the President!"

Yes, the big Andrew Breitbart scoop is out and it's that in 1998, Barack Obama attended a play about the life of Saul Alinsky called "The Love Song of Saul Alinksy."  After the play, Obama participated in... wait for it... a panel discussion on the topic.  This is, by the way, in the tradition of the Chicago Little Theatre of the 20s and 30s, where they used to stage socially relevant (and Modernist experimental) plays and then invite the audience to stay and chat with the cast and directors afterwards.  Obama's night out 14 years ago sounds like fun to me!

Breitbart's Ghost posits that Obama has expunged his record of radicalism from the 1990s and reinvented himself as a moderate Democrat.  My word, Obama was so radical that he appeared on that panel with... Studs Terkel! I may faint.

Apparently, the play had quite a bit of agit-prop in it.  Alinsky plays Moses and talks to God.  He satirizes "My Country Tis of Thee."  What this has to do with Barack Obama, I can't figure out.  The President didn't write, direct or star in the play.  How "The Love Song of Saul Alinsky" compares to, say, the political works of Bertolt Brecht is something that Breitbart's Ghost is unqualified to say.

The most radical part, says Breitbart's Ghost, is at the end:

"The play finishes with Alinsky announcing he’d rather go to Hell than Heaven. Why? 'More comfortable there. You see, all my life I’ve been with the Have-Nots: here you’re a Have-Not if you’re short of money, there you’re a Have-Not if you’re short of virtue. I’d be asking more questions, organizing them. They’re my kind of people – Hell would be Heaven for me.'"

This is a reference to Alinsky dedicating one of his books to Satan as "the first revolutionary."  I guess we're supposed to be offended by that, though Alinsky is only echoing Milton from the late 60s.  By which I mean, of course, the late 1660s.  Radical!

Breitbart's Ghost also calls the President "Baraka" Obama.  Is this a reference to the former LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka), also a playwright (best known for "Dutchman?")  Or is Breitbart's Ghost just being a jerk?

Breitbart's Ghost comes to the interesting conclusion that:

"Because the mainstream media did not explore his roots, the American public remains largely ignorant of the degree to which Obama’s work with ACORN and his love of Alinsky were symbolic of his true political will."

This is very funny.  Because it seems to me that you could link the President's political will to his, you know, Presidential decisions, which we have discussed here ad nauseum and that don't seem radical at all.

So the last call for Andrew Breitbart is a bit of light comedy, it seems.  Those who praised his contributions to journalism can see what real shoe leather reporting can reveal.  In 1998, a state senator went to see a play in his home town and then stuck around afterwards to speak on a panel.  He later became president.  The Republic somehow survived.

And, speaking of plays... some of you might know that I write them.  If you're in my city and free on March 20th (and want to donate $10 to New York City's Abingdon Theatre Company) then you can see one of my short plays in a staged reading.  I cannot guaranty that your attendance will not disqualify you from holding high political office.