We knew very little about Barack Obama when he ran for president because he’d accomplished nothing of importance before he did.

We knew he voted “present” when faced with controversy, had served as a law school professor, and had been a “community organizer” in Chicago, though, what such a person was, we couldn’t say. We knew that he had no experience in the military, business, economics or foreign policy. We knew he was a liberal, but we really didn’t know him at all.