Customer Reviews

Frontline: Dreams of Obama

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This episode of PBS's highly rated "Frontline" series aired just a few days after the Inauguration in January 2009. It begins and ends with his acceptance speech on the night he became President of the United States. In between we learn about his Law School career (not much is covered in his younger years), and his entry into politics in Chicago. There is time spent on his dealing with Rev. Wright and his campaign for the Senate in Illinois against incumbent Bobby Rush. His campaign against John McCain gets only a minute or two and his campaign against Hilary Clinton gets barely a sentence.

Recent comments by his staff (David Axelrod) and fellow Harvard Law alumni are blended with writers for Time, New York Times, New Yorker and Rolling Stone and new footage.

All in all, it presents a balanced portrait of the President's rise through the political stream from his college days until he took office in January.

There are no special features.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

This documentary mainly focuses on the more recent events that led to Obama's decision to run for president and the decisions that were made for the campaign that got him there, which is about 95% of it. Only about 5% gets into his past (childhood, college years, etc), the democratic primaries, etc.

The pitfalls and perils of the campaign as well as the opportunities and creative solutions that were developed are covered here. One thing is made clear, the desire to be president was in his head long before most of the United States even really knew about him.

Whether or not you are a fan of President Obama, this is still interesting to watch. It is only an hour, so it's not extremely comprehensive, more like a summary which isn't unusual for documentaries such as this. One might even learn a few things about running for political office!