But back to the basic question: is Obama a socialist or a communist? Well, too often, unfortunately, that debate centers exclusively on Obama's Oval Office actions, the agenda he has gotten through Congress. And that's a fundamentally flawed premise. Consider: Obama is constrained by a Republican House of Representatives, by the need to be re-elected, by the need to stay (at least) above 40 percent public approval to push his initiatives, by the need to get the votes of both the uninformed and the alarmingly fickle moderates/independents, and by more still. Worse, he's dutifully shielded by an incredibly sympathetic, biased press. Thus, if I had to stand in a court of law and prove, right now, based on his presidential record, that Obama is, say, a Marxist-Leninist, or a French-style Socialist advocating 70% tax rates, I couldn't do it.

Really, the question of "socialist or communist" comes down to what's in Obama's heart, his mind, and (to some degree) his past. In other words, what does Barack Obama truly believe, and what would he really do if he could, without any of the aforementioned constraints on his actions?

Alas, that brings me to what I consider three much more valuable questions that cut to the chase of the real Barack Obama:

1. Was Obama really a communist when he entered Occidental College, as his former classmate, John Drew, claims and details quite conclusively?

2. Did Obama really join the socialist New Party in the 1990s, as Stanley Kurtz maintains?

3. If yes and yes, then when and why and how did Obama repudiate communism and socialism -- assuming he did? Where was the break? Why? When did the conversion happen?

On question 1: I interviewed Dr. John Drew at length for my new book on Obama's communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. Drew, who was a Marxist at Occidental College when Obama arrived there, sees himself as the "missing link" between the communist Davis and other radical Obama associations like Bill Ayers. Drew headed the student Marxist organization on campus, and Obama was introduced to him as a "fellow Marxist," as "one of us." Drew explained to me that Obama believed in the "Frank Marshall Davis fantasy of revolution" -- that is, of "imminent revolution" in America.

In the book, I also quote at length another American Thinker contributor, Selwyn Duke, who made the very insightful observation that, for Obama, there's no "conversion narrative." That's absolutely right. Think about it. There's no account from Obama, not even in two memoirs written before he was president, of when and why and how he left the far left.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/socialist_communist_three_questions_for_obama.html#ixzz20xJDApoQ