Today on Uncommon Knowledge, part one of my interview with Shelby Steele, the man George Will recently called “America’s foremost black intellectual.” Our subject: the junior senator from Illinois–and Steele’s new book, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Barack Obama and Why He Can’t Win.

Why on earth should a man whose total experience in office includes only service in the Illinois legislature and one-third of one term in the United States Senate have large segments of the electorate (including large segments of the press) positively gushing with approbation and delight? The excitement can’t last, Shelby argues, but it’s important to understand while it does.