Narrator: "As we see him here, able to discuss the vernacular of the street."
Obama: "Brothers, what ideas are we going to put forth in the world for change? Hmm?"
Student 1: "Let's make marijuana legal."
Obama: "The World Bank is the ones that control the reefer."
Student 2: "The niggers in the World Bank..."
Obama: "You want to get reefer legalized, you've got to control the World Bank."

Ahhh, radical life in the seventies.

Now I don't believe, and I'm not suggesting, that you can judge Obama's character and fitness fitness for the presidency today from what he said and believed in 1978, but this video will make for an interesting contrast to Obama's potential presidential opponent, John McCain, in the swiftboating of Obama that will take place once he achieves the Democratic nomination.

Imagine the TV commercials cutting between the student radical Obama slamming down the bones (dominoes) as he talks about the World Bank and marijuana, juxtaposed with images of McCain as a serviceman in Vietnam. In the early 1970's McCain was entering his fifth and sixth year as a prisoner of war.

Much has been claimed by Obama supporters to the effect that Clinton is a lightning rod and that she will rally moderates and conservatives to the polls to oppose her, but I suspect the same is true of Obama - he's just new and fresh enough to have not been fully vetted in this regard.

He'll be excoriated over his radical past, his connections with the indicted and soon to be tried Tony Rezko, his Muslim father, his undistinguished accomplishments and weak-kneed voting pattern while in the Illinois senate, and now his plagiarisms... and I have absolutely no doubt there are scandals lurking in the shadows for Obama on the road ahead.

All of the dirt the Republicans can throw at Clinton has all been thrown before, and there won't be any surprises. For that reason alone I'm convinced that Clinton enjoys greater electability than Obama. The notion that the nation will unite behind Obama, join hands, and suddenly flowers will sprout at our feet and birds will break into song, is youthful Kumbaya naivety as its finest...

...rather like that young Barack Obama in the video above, who no doubt truly, honestly and sincerely believed that the key to legalizing reefer lay in infiltrating and controlling the World Bank.

I'm reminded of the saying "The devil you know is better than the debutante you don't," and when I googled that saying to find its origin I came across a quote from Maureen Dowd where she used that same saying recently as well to suggest that it doesn't apply to Obama v. Clinton in this February 6, 2008 Op-Ed column in the New York Times:

Hillary's strategist Mark Penn argued last week that because the voters have "very limited information" about Obama, the Republican attack machine would tear him down and he would lose the support of independents. Then Penn tried to point the way to negative information on Obama, just to show that Obama wouldn't be able to survive Republicans pointing the way to negative information.

As she talked Sunday to George Stephanopoulos, a former director of the formidable Clinton war room, Hillary's case boiled down to the fact that she can be Trouble, as they say about hard-boiled dames in film noir, when Republicans make trouble.

"I have been through these Republican attacks over and over and over again, and I believe that I've demonstrated that much to the dismay of the Republicans, I not only can survive, but thrive," she said.

And on Tuesday night she told supporters, "Let me be clear: I won't let anyone Swift-boat this country's future."

Better the devil you know than the diffident debutante you don't. Better to go with the Clintons, with all their dysfunction and chaos -- the same kind that fueled the Republican hate machine -- than to risk the chance that Obama would be mauled like a chew toy in the general election. Better to blow off all the inspiration and the young voters, the independents and the Republicans that Obama is attracting than to take a chance on something as ephemeral as hope. Now that's Cheney-level paranoia.

"Risking the chance" that an unvetted Obama will survive the dark-side lashing that lies ahead is just too big a risk to take at this point in our country's future. We cannot continue down the dark road for four more years lead by yet another doddering old white man who believes that 100 more years in Iraq is time and money and lives well spent. We, the People, have moved far beyond the myopic, nation-building days of old.

There is a perfect spot for Obama going forward -- as Vice President, and a Clinton/Obama ticket is sure-fire win. I have absolutely no doubt of that being true, and that -- in my view -- is job 1 for Democrats moving forward. To mount the best ticket with the best chance of winning the White House back.

I've been something of a radical my entire adult life, and in the mid-seventies I was right there in the radical trenches of student-body politics as well, forging change, and serving as Executive Vice-President of my college student body in those tumultuous, heady, radical political times, so I really do understand the radical Barack Obama who looked that camera direct-on and said "I want to be President of the United States of America," and meant it.

And I think that time will come.

But I'm hopeful that at this particular juncture in our country's history, Barack Obama will choose to wait four more years to realize that goal, and in the interim spend a term as Vice-President.

Dick Cheney has shown the extent to which a Vice-President can hold great sway over policy and direction, and Obama and Clinton are not that far off on their policies and views on the important issues to where there will be major ideological struggles Obama would have to face as VP.

It's the right move for Obama. And I trust that Obama has the maturity to see that, more importantly...it's the right move for America.