From a fantastic essay, titled "The Mendacity of Hope", by Roger D. Hodge in the February issue of Harper's Magazine:

"Let us grant that Barack Obama is as intelligent as his admirers insist. What evidence do we have that he is also a moral virtuoso? What evidence do we possess that he is a good, or even a decent man? Yes, he can be eloquent, yet eloquence is no guarantee of wisdom or of virtue. Yes, he has a nice family, but that evinces a private morality. Public morality requires public action, and all available public evidence points to a man with the character of a common politician, whose singular ambition in life was to attain power; nothing in Barack Obama's political career suggests that he would ever willingly commit to a course of action that would cost him an election."