Why Obama isn't a socialist

In Progressive? liberal? socialist? Where is Obama coming from? Charles Richardson writes that both sides seek to label Obama as a socialist, although for different reasons:

That conclusion suits the interests of pundits on both left and right. For the right, Obama is a target of fear and loathing, for reasons that range from the simply partisan to the deeply pathological, so “socialist” or some near equivalent is a natural charge for them to make. For the left, Obama is recognised as “one of them” (again for a complex of reasons, some of which I’ll come to shortly), and since most left-wingers still have an emotional if not rational attachment to big government, they bring him within the same tent.

Richardson concludes that the label is wrong.

Great Vanity Fair article on Barack Obama

Michael Lewis has written a great article on Barack Obama: Obama's Way.

To understand how air-force navigator Tyler Stark ended up in a thornbush in the Libyan desert in March 2011, one must understand what it’s like to be president of the United States—and this president in particular. Hanging around Barack Obama for six months, in the White House, aboard Air Force One, and on the basketball court, Michael Lewis learns the reality of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who sent Stark into combat.