Obama's Shabby Apartment

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President-elect Obama did 60 Minutes last night and America was watching. While I enjoyed watching the interview, something sort of stuck with me about it: then Sen. Obama's crappy apartment.

There's an optimistic side at looking at this or a darker, more suspect side to it. It depends on where you stand in the Obama camp.

One could believe the then Sen. Obama was (and still is) an extremely down to earth person who lives simply and doesn't need for many possessions. It's a happy thought and I like thinking this is so. Yet, from time to time, I get a little paranoid about my government.

The Obamas live in a grand home in a good neighborhood in Chicago. It's probably good for a family and shows the life of a guy who has accomplished much politically and as an author of two bestselling books. The fact that he has a DC apartment so bad his staffers scoff at it could show that he is a simple man who knows he's not raising a family in two locales.

But then the dark side comes to mind. This is a man who agreed not to use private funds for his campaign until he realized he was really good at fund raising. When the Obama campaign learned how much money they could make, they shirked their word and didn't look back. The money they raised probably made this election a slam dunk and reinforced the democrats' 50 state strategy. He could have been living poorly because it wasn't going to make sense for him to have a fancy apartment he was never going to see because he spent much of his time in the US Senate campaigning for the presidency. Perhaps he had such a bad apartment because he immediately had the expectation that he wouldn't be staying there long

I love the guy. I have hope for the guy. I know he'll lead this nation in a better direction. But when you look deeper at him (legitimately, not spreading lies and guile), some things just look sort of shifty.

Americans, be on the lookout for the good and the bad. All politicians have it. President-elect Obama is only different with the degrees to which he has both.