More on Obama's "The Audacity of Hope," a continuing book report

As I blogged yesterday, I'm reading, slowly, Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope."

Here's a continuation of my continuing book report.

On page 17, Obama bemoans the near-dictatorial rule of the Republican-ruled Illinois State Senate when he arrived he arrived at the statehouse.

He writes:

By the time I arrived in Springfield in 1997, the Illinois Senate's Republican majority had adopted the same rules that Speaker Gingrich was using to maintain absolute control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Without the capacity to get even the most most modest amendment debated, much less passed, Democrats would shout, holler and fulminate, and the stand by helplessly as Republicans passed large corporate tax breaks, stuck it to labor, or slashed social services.

Let me add some context.

The president of the Illinois State Senate at that time as the bombastic James "Pate" Philip, who did run the state's upper chamber in the Gingrich mold. However, Illinois' governor from 1997 (Obama's first year in Springfield) until 1997 was Republican Jim Edgar. A social moderate generally disliked by Illinois' conservatives, Edgar went beyond fiscal-conservatism--he was a fiscal tightwad who gained the nickname "Governor No" for his usual answer to spending "favor" requests from state legislators of both parties.

Edgar left office in 1999 and handed to his GOP successor, the now-disgraced George Ryan, a $1 billion surplus. Not all the credit for the surplus goes to Edgar--a booming economy helped add to the state's coffers.

A consummate practitioner of the big-deal, Ryan opened up Illinois' cash spigot with a massive $12 billion public-works project called Illinois FIRST, or the Illinois Fund for Infrastructure, Roads, Schools, and Transit--an estimated $12 billion in spending. Illinois FIRST was funded by a hike in license plate fees, higher liquor taxes, and the benefit of a still booming economy--more funds were being collected by the state from its income and sales taxes.

A little of that Illinois FIRST money made it's way to an Obama project--$100,000 for the Museum of Science and Industry--located in Barack's state senate district--for a special exhibit on the concept of time.

By 2003, the Democrats took control of not only the governor's mansion but the state senate as well.

Sure, Obama was in the state senate, and I wasn't. But his summary of those mean Republicans is Springfield is an oversimplification, for sure.

Oh, I almost forgot. During Obama's eight years as a state senator, the Democrats controlled the Illinois House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting this morning that Obama's first book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, is drawing new scrutiny because of this passage:

Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. . . . I got high [to] push questions of who I was out of my mind.

This revelation was a minor issue for Obama during his 2004 US Senate run. But with Obama looking at entering the 2008 presidential race, the bar is much higher for him.

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