Dickerson makes a great deal about whether or not Obama falls short of an honesty test. I suppose from an absolute, objective, divine contemplative position you could say Obama falls short.

Who doesn't?

After all, by Dickerson's standards one could argue that Lincoln also failed this criteria. During the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln consistently dodged Douglas's jab that Lincoln believed African-Americans were equal to whites in all respects. Lincoln carefully distinguished between equality before the law and equality of right to the fruit of one's labor from absolute equality, because he knew that white voters wouldn't accept the idea of absolute equality.

Lincoln also proffered the standard Northern Whig platform of internal improvements: a transcontinental railroad and land grant colleges, which, I doubt discomfitted his audiences.