Neibuhr-TR debate not Obama-McCain

At the British newspaper The Independent, Johann Hari takes a fascinating look at the presidential campaign through Obama’s and McCain’s professed heroes.

First, Hari gets a lick in at McCain’s choice of Teddy Roosevelt:

It is the aggression that he loves in his Teddy, not the reform.

Want proof? Hari quotes McCain:, speaking about Teddy’s charge up San Juan Hill:

‘He surveyed the awful carnage, the torn earth, the trenches filled with enemy dead, and pronounced himself delighted with the day.”

Indeed he did.

Hari then notes that Reinhold Neibuhr, by temperament and more, has some close parallels to Obama.

(A)s you probe Niebuhr's thought, you see that his contradictions and complexities intriguingly mirror Obama’s.

Read the full column for more of this insight.