In Impromptus today, I quote Patrick Kennedy a couple of times, which is a cruel thing to do — both to Kennedy and to readers. The man is no threat to Cicero’s reputation, to put it mildly. He is not even a threat to Martha — Marcia? — Coakley’s reputation. Anyway, Patrick has been talking about “George Bush and his cronies.” That strikes me as an oily phrase, and a stupid one. When you don’t like someone’s friends, associates, or allies, you call them “cronies.” I don’t much care for the Obama administration. But I would never refer to “Barack Obama and his cronies.” I think they are just misguided.

In any case, a reader says, “Barack Obama is cut from the same cloth, really” — same as P. Kennedy. “In Dreams from My Father, he talks about going to work as a community organizer. He wanted to take on ‘Reagan and his minions,’ who were engaged in their ‘dirty deeds.’” Ah, yes, “Reagan and his minions” — a lame, pathetic phrase. Our reader continues, “Actually, it was when I read Dreams from My Father, in the spring of ’08, that I decided I didn’t very much like Senator Obama.”

Interesting. I’ll tell you when I decided — it was during the midterm elections of 2006. Obama campaigned for two U.S. Senate candidates, one in Maryland, the other in Tennessee. In Maryland, the Republican nominee was Michael Steele; the Democrat was Ben Cardin, a garden-variety white liberal. Obama went to a black university and said, “Listen, I think it’s great that the Republican party has discovered black people. [Ha, ha.] But here’s the thing: You don’t vote for somebody because of what they look like. You vote for somebody because of what they stand for.”

Great, great — have believed that, and preached it, all my life. But then Obama went to Tennessee to campaign for Harold Ford Jr., a black Democrat running against a white Republican (Bob Corker). And Obama visited black churches to say, “I’m feeling lonely in Washington” (as the only black senator). Well, which was it?

I thought the racial hypocrisy was stinking. And Obama had given such a beautifully “post-racial” keynote address at the ’04 Democratic convention. Anyway, enough with the past, and back to Massachusetts . . .