Who is that unmasked man?

Well, he’s still masked, in a sense, because many still don’t know about Mr. Obama’s radical past (and present). But Charles Krauthammer has noticed something very interesting about the Barack-fest this past week.

Eerily missing at the Democratic convention this year were people of stature who were seriously involved at some point in Obama’s life standing up to say: I know Barack Obama. I’ve been with Barack Obama. We’ve toiled/endured together. You can trust him. I do.

…So where are the colleagues? The buddies? The political or spiritual soul mates? His most important spiritual adviser and mentor was Jeremiah Wright. But he’s out. Then there’s William Ayers, with whom he served on a board. He’s out. Where are the others?

The oddity of this convention is that its central figure is the ultimate self-made man, a dazzling mysterious Gatsby. The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a stranger — a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who exactly they married last night.

Ohhhh. Good but painful point.

It was creepy, to tell the truth. Because even John Kerry and Al Gore had buddies and pals vouching for them. But not Barack. Still, it took Dr. Krauthammer’s pointing this out for me to realize what was so strange, so amiss; until reading this, I’d not been able to put my finger on it.

Contemplating Dr. Krauthammer’s comparison of this to an affair, it almost seems like the plot to a Hitchcock film, doesn’t it?