Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Why Are Barack & Michelle Obama Devoted to a Racist, Divisive, Anti-American Church?

John F. Kennedy was a lifelong, if nominal, member of the Catholic Church, which is not associated with any particular ethnic group, and indeed may consist of every race and ethnicity on the planet.

Barak H. Obama, by contrast, is a member of a highly ethnocentric sect so preoccupied with African racial identity that it lauds non-Christian afrocentric allies like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in its official publications.

Like Erik Rush, I have waited in vain for Sen. Obama to account for his devotion to a sect that is so hostile to assimilated American identification, and so hospitable to the divisive, anti-Semitic, racially inflammatory message of a Muslim race-baiter.


Demercrats
item by Erik Rush

How many Americans would vote for a presidential candidate who was the member of a church that professed the following credo?

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the White Community
3. Commitment to the White Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the White Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the White Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the White Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.

The question is rhetorical, of course. The answer is that such a candidate wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected dog catcher...let alone President, because that candidate would be instantly branded a racist, among the most vile and frightening of white supremacists. And those holding the branding irons would be 100% right.

Yet, in the “About” section of the U.S. Senate website for Barack Obama, Democratic senator from Illinois and contender for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, it states that Obama and his family “live on Chicago’s South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of Christ.”

So…? Well, to say that the Trinity United Church of Christ (http://www.tucc.org) is afrocentric in the extreme would be a gross understatement. It’s not simply afrocentric, it’s African-centric. In fact, one could argue that this organization worships things African to a far greater degree than they do Christ, and gives the impression of being a separatist “church” in the same vein as do certain supremacist “white brethren” churches – or even Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.

Shocking? An overstatement? An overreaction? One can see for oneself on the Trinity United Church website, which is replete with confirmation of what I present here.

What follows is an excerpt from their Mission Statement:

“We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent.

We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism.

It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

“Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black
Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and
Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value
System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.”

Sound familiar? Of course it is, since it’s identical to the 12-point list at the beginning of this column – the one from the theoretical white supremacist candidate’s church; the only difference is the substitution of the word “Black” for “White.”

Trinity United Church of Christ’s congregation also claims to hold to a “10-point Vision” which is similarly afrocentric or, if you will, separatist. Again, like the Nation of Islam, a white separatist church or the Branch Davidians, Trinity United more resembles a cult than a church. Only this one has as one of its most prominent members a serious contender for the White House. And George W. Bush’s born-again Christian status scares people?

These revelations, of course shed all the light we need on Obama’s inscrutability; since before he announced his candidacy, both the Right and Left have commented on the lack of information vis-à-vis just who Barack Obama is and what he’s about.

From The Chicago Tribune, February 6, 2007, column "Against Middleclassness?" by Rich Lowry: “Vallmer Jordan, a church member who helped draft the precepts, said they were designed to empower the black community and counter a value system imposed by whites. ‘The big question mark was racism,’ he said. ‘Black disempowerment was an integral part of that historical value system. It became increasingly apparent to me that we black people had not developed our own value system . . . to help us overcome all we knew we had to battle.’”

“A value system imposed by whites…” Is Jordan speaking of the value system that kept families together and promoted morality, industry and integrity, or the one imposed by Liberal dependency pimps since the Civil Rights Movement?

True enough that many blacks did abandon values; again, this was due to the corruption of the black clergy by white socialists and their black foremen.

Trinity United seems to have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Gravitation toward an Africanized “year-round Kwanzaa”-based pseudo-Christianity seems less of a solution than returning to the moral and social conservatism Blacks held prior to the aforementioned socialists gaining their stranglehold in the black community.

So is Obama seeking to be our first black president, or our first stealth black nationalist president?

You see, were he a run-of-the-mill insincere Christian of convenience like Bill Clinton, Obama might belong to a run-of-the-mill, lukewarm, large nondescript church. But he doesn’t.

He belongs to a church which is (as I indicated before) blatantly afrocentric and even suggests the supremacy of Africa’s descendants in America. Granted that the Left will have no qualms about this highly questionable affiliation, but what about all of the American swing voters to whom Obama has built broad appeal by presenting himself as sort of a generic, open-minded moderate Democrat (as Bill Clinton also did, by the way)? Are they going to go for a candidate whose heart is actually closer to that of a refined Black Panther?

Trinity United clearly embraces things African above things American. The content of their website makes this undeniably clear. Aside from this tack being divisive, separatist and calling into question its adherents’ identification as Americans, if they’re looking for values, they – and Obama – would be better served by looking to modern political conservatives and traditional Christianity than retrograde African precepts and the Democrat Party.

Obama’s affiliation with this church, if I must call it that, should be as alarming to the American voter as a Republican candidate for president belonging to the Aryan Brethren Church of Christ. Any argument against this assertion is politically-correct delusion, reverse discrimination and a hypocrisy – a very dangerous one.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Republicans Relieved as Barack Obama Dispatches Formidable Hillary Clinton

John F. Kennedy was not an all-out Liberal, and in fact campaign records show that he donated money to one of Richard Nixon's early campaigns. When he ran against Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, he was able to get out to Nixon's right on some foreign policy issues, and to paint the Republican as soft on Communism.

Barack Obama couldn't do that to Rudy Giuliani, much less John McCain. And of course he wouldn't want to. His Senate voting record is to the left of Teddy Kennedy's, Dick Durbin's and Charles Schumer's. But this will leave him less room for maneuver in September and October, when the conventional wisdom is that both candidates contest for moderate and independent votes.

Obama might defy that conventional wisdom, and turn out enough hip-hop youngsters and swooning celebrity worshippers to win without making any concessions to the center. I believe it's possible. But Republicans don't think he can, and according to Christopher Ruddy of Newsmax, they're breathing a sigh of relief as they see Obama putting Hillary out of business.

Here's his article:

Why the GOP Loves Obama
by Christopher Ruddy

Republicans this week are breathing a deep sigh of relief.

What was seen as a washout for them this coming November — with big losses expected in the House and Senate and a catastrophic loss of the White House — is now shaping up to be less ominous.

With the Democrats moving to pick Sen. Barack Obama as their nominee, the Republicans see a real opportunity to keep the Oval Office in GOP hands.

There is no question that the Republicans had viewed Hillary Clinton as the most formidable of the Democratic candidates.

During one of the primary debates, Obama suggested that the Republicans were “comfortable” attacking Hillary, suggesting they actually wanted her to be the nominee. Au contraire. Republicans were attacking Mrs. Clinton because they believed she would be the nominee. They could hardly foresee Obama’s rise.

Indeed, she was the Democratic front-runner and hence the focus of their attacks. Now, Obama is discovering that he’s the focus of Republican scrutiny, with John McCain highlighting Obama's accommodationist views with tyrants.

The glee seen in GOP eyes this week can be chalked up to the clearly visible fault lines shaping up for the November election, a seismic battle between McCain and Obama.

There are many reasons the GOP would rather face Obama. Here are some of the best reasons:
Obama is the risky liberal. Every time the Democrats run a liberal like Obama, who the National Journal reports has a 100 percent liberal voting record, they lose.

Remember President McGovern, President Dukakis, President Kerry? Mrs. Clinton, however, has been quite clever in her record and rhetoric to come across as more moderate. In New York state she consistently won hardcore Republican districts in her two Senate races.

A McCain insider told me this week that Obama’s support — for example, for driver's licenses for illegals — is worth at least “five percentage points in the election.” Mrs. Clinton was smart enough to back away from that hot-button issue.

Obama energizes Democratic voters. It’s been talked about quite a bit that Obama is a charismatic man who energizes young voters. But young voters notoriously don’t vote.
Remember all the hoopla in the last election with MTV and its “Vote or Die” campaign to bring out antiwar young voters for President Kerry?

Indeed, Obama, as the first African-American candidate of a major party, will energize black voters. But don’t the Democrats know that black voters vote as a bloc for them already?

What does Obama actually bring to the table for Democrats? It’s not clear. Mrs. Clinton, as her longtime critic Dick Morris likes to point out, would have most assuredly energized women voters, especially millions of single moms that have never voted before.

Obama’s Latino problem. Clearly Latino or Hispanic voters are shaping up to be the key swing vote in this election, as they have been in recent elections. Some political pundits say George Bush’s come-from-behind win in 2004 was due to the solid 40 percent of Hispanics who voted for him, tipping the election in his favor.

This year was shaping up to be a terrible year for the GOP vis-à-vis Hispanic voters. But in primary after primary, Obama has had great difficulty winning over Latino voters.
Even in Illinois, where he beat Hillary to 2 to 1 in the primary, he only captured 52 percent of his home state’s Hispanic vote.

There are a variety of explanations for Obama’s Latino problem, including the belief there is an ethnic rivalry between Hispanics and blacks. Hispanics would like to see a Latino president in the White House, so the theory goes.

Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, has done extremely well among Latino voters, perhaps owing to her husband’s likeability among these voters.

The recent primaries show Obama improving with Hispanic voters. Republicans, however, believe the problem with this key group will persist.

And then there is John McCain, who is the one Republican who is very well liked by Latino voters. He’s also a strong leader, which Hispanics respect. He’s pro-immigrant. As we all know, McCain joined Ted Kennedy in backing the recent immigration bill.

There’s little doubt Hillary could keep the Democratic stranglehold on Latino voters. Obama won’t.

Obama’s naiveté. Don’t forget, America is still in a war on terror. It is doubtful America will be tempted to go for an untested leader, no matter how charismatic he may be.

Some have drawn the comparison between Obama and JFK’s election win in 1960 during the height of the Cold War. But the Kennedy-Obama comparison is a weak one. For starters, John Kennedy was a war hero when he was elected president. Obama can make no such claim.

Kennedy also had far more Washington experience in Congress and the Senate than Obama.

JFK also had his well-known father Joe at his side. And Democrats like to forget this, but Kennedy outflanked Nixon on defense issues, arguing that Nixon was too soft on communism. Obama’s dovish complaints about the Bush administration being too hawkish on terror won’t resonate with middle-of-the-road voters.

With good reason, the GOP is feeling better, finding its second wind as it coalesces around John McCain.

Despite some differences with the maverick senator, the Republican base will turn out for him. His $12 million fundraising haul for January is just one sign of that.

But there are many other reasons the GOP is more comfortable with Hillary out of the picture and Obama as the nominee.

First, Obama will not be able to lay claim to the good economic times of the 1990s that Bill Clinton presided over, as Hillary can.

And Obama will be a nightmare for Democrats with swing voters in key states. Take for example the highly influential Cuban-American vote that Bill Clinton won in 1992 and 1996 — and was the key reason George Bush beat Al Gore.

The Cuban vote has been moving into the Democratic column but they will not go for Obama because he has clearly stated he will open up relations with Castro.

Sen. Clinton’s announced Cuba policies take a hard line, which resonates with these voters. And then there are the key Jewish communities in swing states like Florida and Ohio that are already deeply worried about electing Obama to the presidency.

Obama has talked openly about sitting down — without any preconditions — with Iran’s diabolical leader Ahmadinejad, who just this week referred to Israel as “bacteria” and has said in the past that the Jewish state is a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map.”

With the McCain campaign blanketing key markets with TV ads featuring “independent Democrat” Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Obama will be in deep trouble.

The Democrats haven’t completely abandoned Hillary. But it sure looks that way.

There’s an oft-quoted saying that the Democrats “fall in love and Republicans fall in line.”

After this November, we may have to change that to “Democrats often like to run off the side of a cliff and the Republicans love to watch them.”

© 2008 Newsmax.

Divining Barack Obama's Core Beliefs from Wife Michelle's Written Speeches

Jacqueline Kennedy, so far as I know, never made a controversial public statement while she was First Lady, or while JFK was campaigning for the office. If JFK had been a stealth candidate, there would have been no way to estimate his true views by his wife's comments.

Barack Obama's core beliefs are, by comparison to JFK's, secret. His message bodyguards are attempting to make his true views off-limits even to speculation. Themes of unity and change are to supplant any untidy specifics of agenda and implementation.

Recalcitrant analysts are therefore left to extrapolate Obama's views from the views of those with whom he has chosen to keep company: Jeremiah Wright Jr., Al Sharpton, Bernie Sanders, Paul Simon and, of course, Michelle Robinson Obama.

Here is Ronald Kessler's recent effort at doing so.


The Real Barack Obama
by Ronald Kessler

Michelle Obama’s comment that, for the first time in her adult life, she feels proud of America helps crystallize who Barack Obama is.

To be sure, the wife of a candidate is perfectly free to have views that are distinct from her husband’s. But on a matter that is so fundamental to one’s being as love of country, it is difficult to imagine that Michelle Obama would publicly twice make such a statement suggesting disdain for America unless she felt it comported with her husband’s views.

Equally important, her statement aligns perfectly with the hate-America views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s minister, friend, and sounding board for more than two decades. On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism.

“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in his church magazine Trumpet. “White America and the Western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.”

Wright has been a key supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in December, honored the Nation of Islam leader for lifetime achievement, saying he “truly epitomize[s] greatness.” Farrakhan has repeatedly made hate-filled statements targeting Jews, whites, America, and homosexuals.

Those who think two of the closest people to Obama could publicly make anti-America statements unless Obama himself felt that way, are fooling themselves. To date, Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than a great orator, rendering the statements of those around him even more important in illuminating his true character and agenda.

During his Senate career, he skipped 17 percent of the votes and sponsored only one bill that became law. That bill was to promote “relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Bereft of official accomplishments, Obama has distinguished himself mainly by being against measures that protect American security, such as finishing the mission in Iraq. If we were to leave Iraq quickly, as Obama vows he would do, it would become a launch pad for al-Qaida attacks on the U.S.

Obama avoided voting on extending the Protect America Act, thus putting America at risk when immediate interception of terrorist communications is required. Last August, Obama voted against a measure that would have allowed the U.S. to continue to monitor overseas conversations of terrorists like Osama bin Laden without first obtaining a warrant. If his radical vote had prevailed, bin Laden would have been given the same rights as Americans.

To this day, Obama has not distanced himself from most of Rev. Wright’s comments.

In a statement supposedly issued to address the matter, Obama ignored the point that his minister and friend had spoken adoringly of Farrakhan and that Wright’s church was behind the award to the Nation of Islam leader. Instead, as outlined in a Jan. 17 Newsmax article, he disingenuously claimed he thought the magazine bestowed the award on Farrakhan for his efforts to rehabilitate ex-prisoners.

Neither Wright’s encomiums about Farrakhan nor the Trumpet article mentions ex-prisoners.

Similarly, after John McCain’s wife Cindy responded to Michelle Obama’s remarks by telling a Wisconsin rally, “I have, and always will be, proud of my country,” Barack Obama told a radio interviewer that his wife did not say what people think she said. He then proceeded to rewrite her comments, claiming that she had meant she was encouraged by the “large numbers of people” who have gotten involved in the political process. Michelle Obama then made a similar revision of her remarks.

In her speech in Milwaukee, Michelle Obama said flatly, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

And what has been wrong with America up to now? That it gave Michelle the opportunity to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School? That it gave Barack Obama the chance to attend Harvard and Harvard Law School and become a U.S. senator making more than $1 million a year from book royalties?

Was it that America stopped Nazi Germany from continuing to murder millions of Jews? That America has provided Africa and other countries with $15 billion to combat the spread of AIDS/HIV and that another $30 billion is on the way? That 46 percent of all Americans classified by the Census Bureau as poor own their own homes, 76 percent of them have air conditioning, and 75 percent of them have at least one car? Or that America allows us to express our views freely without fear of being put in jail, as is the case in Russia?

A lawyer, Michelle Obama is perfectly capable of expressing herself precisely. In fact, she spoke from a written speech.

Those who do not want to believe she meant what she said — and that Barack Obama could not be so close to Rev. Wright if he did not himself believe in much of what he has said — are in denial.

The real Barack Obama is starting to emerge, and for those of us who are grateful to America for everything it represents, it is not a pretty sight.

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Now, Michelle Obama is Proud of America

John F. Kennedy was blessed, most agree, with the perfect political wife - Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. To the best of my knowledge, she never embarrassed or disadvantaged him.

Barack Obama, too, is blessed with a "keeper." Michelle Obama grew up in a stable two-parent family, went to Princeton as an undergraduate, then Harvard Law School, then returned to her native Chicago for a richly compensated legal career. She is, by all accounts, a devoted mother to their two daughters.

"Michelle Obama has achieved enormous professional success, political influence and personal acclaim in America," writes conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. "Ivy League-educated, she's been lauded by Essence magazine as one of the 25 World's Most Inspiring Women; by Vanity Fair as one of the 10 World's Best-Dressed Women; and named one of "The Harvard 100" most influential alumni. She has had an amazingly blessed life. But you wouldn't know it from her campaign rhetoric and her griping about her and her husband's student loans."

Although Mrs. Obama communicates for a living, she has brought discredit on her husband this week by an appalling gaffe.

In Wisconsin, Mrs. Obama told supporters Monday that "people in this country are ready for change, and hungry for a different kind of politics and let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback."

"America hasn't been good to her?" asks blogger Jim Geraghty in The Campaign Spot. "What, opportunities to go to Princeton, Harvard Law, working for top-shelf law firms and hospitals, sitting on the board of directors for a major Wal-Mart supplier — that's not enough?"

"If American ingenuity, a robust constitutional republic and the fall of communism don't do it for you, hon, then how about American heroism and sacrifice?" writes Malkin. "How about every Memorial Day? Every Veterans Day? Every Independence Day? Every Medal of Honor ceremony? Has she never attended a welcome home ceremony for the troops?"

"Michelle Obama is 44 years old," writes Commentary magazine editor John Podhoretz. " She has been an adult since 1982. Can it really be there has not been a moment during that time when she felt proud of her country?

"Forget matters like the victory in the Cold War; how about only things that have made liberals proud — all the accomplishments of inclusion? How about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991? Or Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s elevation to the Supreme Court? Or Carol Moseley Braun’s election to the Senate in 1998? How about the merely humanitarian, like this country’s startling generosity to the victims of the tsunami? I’m sure commenters can think of hundreds more landmarks of this sort. Didn’t she even get a twinge from, say, the Olympics?"

"The narcissistic, self centered, arrogant insult delivered by Michelle Obama," writes Liberal blogger and Clinton supporter Taylor Marsh, " is a slap at the American spirit that runs throughout this country, regardless of political party, race, gender, creed, religion, you name it. "

"I am a proud American first," she writes, "a liberal second. But Michelle Obama will never speak for me."

Malkin who, like Obama, is a woman of color and working mother of two, cited Michael Kinsley to the effect that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. "In this case, it's what happens when an elite Democratic politician's wife says what a significant portion of the party's base really believes to be the truth: America is more a source of shame than pride."

But "even Dennis Kucinich would probably have no problem finding something to be proud of in the past two decades," blogger Mickey Kaus writes in Kausfiles. "If Michelle Obama's default position is set to 'Aggrieved,' it also suggests something personal, no?"

It's personal for John and Cindy McCain.

"I'm proud of my country," Cindy McCain, wife of the Arizona senator, told supporters Tuesday as she introduced her husband at a rally. "I don't know if you heard those words earlier. I'm very proud of my country."

"I have never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I haven't been proud of the privilege" of being an American, the senator said in his victory speech Tuesday night.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Who Will Name the Next Supreme Court Justice, and Whom Will He Name?

Conservative Republicans are suffering considerable anxiety about Sen. John McCain's likelihood of being Soutered should he have the opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court nominee.

As a judge of character, he hasn't inspired much confidence by welcoming Mark McKinnon, Juan Hernandez, Jerry Perenchio and Janet Murguia into his inner counsels, and it was McCain himself who said last month that "I'll rely on people to judge me by the company that I keep."

It was hard enough for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush to identify reliable conservative judges to nominate to the Supreme Court. Even George W. Bush flirted with an ambiguous nomination, in Harriet Miers. Is McCain motivated to get it right?

He has said nice things about Janice Rogers Brown, a brilliant conservative jurist comparable in intellect to Robert Bork, and perhaps comparable also in her prospects of Senate confirmation. One has to wonder if McCain isn't just mentioning Brown as bait to gather vagrant conservatives back to the fold before the general election, knowing full well that he'll have to back off Brown and submit a more ambiguous nominee.

Ah, for the good old days when a president could send a nominee to the Hill with confidence that the Democrats there would bring it to a vote. They might be rejected, as LBJ and Nixon found out, but the Senators had to stand up and make their case against the nominee, and bring it to a vote promptly.

President Kennedy's only appointment to the Court was Byron White from Ft. Collins, Colorado. White was an All-American football player nicknamed "Whizzer," and a member of Phi Beta Kappa at the Univ. of Colorado, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1938. He then went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar (1939-40), and received his law degree at Yale in 1946 after serving in the Navy in World War II.

White served (1946-47) as law clerk for Chief Justice Frederick Vinson before going to Denver to practice corporate law. He supported Kennedy for the presidency in 1960, and was appointed deputy attorney general in 1961. In 1962, Kennedy nominated him to succeed Justice Charles Whittaker on the Supreme Court.

How would Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nomination compare to JFK's? Well, don't get your hopes up. In today's partisan cage-fighting, White would stand no chance of confirmation. He was one of two justices to dissent from the Roe v. Wade (1973) abortion decision, and in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) he wrote a decision that upheld Georgia's sodomy statutes. And in an Obama presidency, White would have no chance of nomination in the first place. Obama never met an abortion he didn't like, including partial-birth (infanticidal) abortion.

If William Kunstler were still alive and young enough, I think he would be the ideal Obama appointment. Perhaps he'll settle for Lawrence Tribe or Bill Lann Lee, or shore up his credentials with Latinos by nominating Carlos Moreno. Of these, Moreno is the least partisan and least controversial. But here is my prediction: John Edwards.

Edwards would be a reliable vote for the edgy government programs that Obama has hinted at, and his antics might affect the collegial operation of the court such that some older members might elect to retire, further empowering Obama to fill the court with Balkanized, collectivist, pro-abortion, pro-gay Justices. By providing Edwards the venue of the Supreme Court for his class resentment themes, Obama would satisfy Edwards' enormous appetite for the spotlight but remove him as a 2012 primary challenger, thus freeing Obama to make strategic symbolic moves toward the center during his re-election campaign.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Chicago Politics That Made Obama "Lucky"

Like JFK, Obama's credentials are a bit thin for a presidential candidate. Here, on TownHall.com, his hometown radio host Guy Benson describes the mean Chicago politics that have vaulted a relatively unaccomplished ward heeler to the cusp of the presidency in the period it takes most people to get through grade school.

The Opportunistic Rise of Barack Obama
By Guy Benson
Unlike most seasoned politicians, who earn presidential nominations through many years of legislative, executive, or military accomplishments, Obama has exploited his rock-star status to skip to the front of the line.


By now it's a familiar tale: On July 27, 2004, Barack Obama strode to the podium at the Democratic National Convention and captivated the nation with a soaring and memorable keynote address entitled "The Audacity of Hope."

The speech marked America's first encounter with a rising political star. By the time Obama took the stage in Boston, he was already a shoo-in to become the next United States Senator from Illinois; he enjoyed a massive lead in the polls back home, where the state Republican Party was in total disarray and his carpet-bagging opponent seemed to specialize in alienating voters.

Since that summer night more than three years ago, Obama has rocketed into the political stratosphere and now faces the possibility—if not the probability—of becoming his party's standard-bearer in the 2008 election.

Several questions still linger. How did Barack Obama rise from relative obscurity to his current level of prominence? How many Americans have heard of Alice Palmer, Blair Hull, or Jack Ryan? These names may hold no significance to the legions who now chant "yes we can," but they are names that Barack Obama should remember well.

The mainstream press, which affords Obama nearly unanimous glowing coverage, has repeatedly failed to report a reality that doesn't quite fit the Obama-as-Messiah narrative. Namely, that this self-stylized agent of hope and change is a political opportunist extraordinaire.

Barack Obama's dizzying ascendancy to political celebrity has been marked by less-than-inspirational bare-knuckle politics, an unremarkable legislative career, and a slew of lurid scandals that conveniently sunk formidable opponents.

Obama's first big break came in 1995 when Democratic Congressman Mel Reynolds resigned from office amid allegations of a sexual relationship with an underage girl. As state officials convened a special election, a venerable Chicago politician and civil rights leader named Alice Palmer chose to vacate her State Senate seat to pursue the open Congressional slot. After she was defeated handily, Palmer returned to run for re-election, only to discover that her hand picked successor was unwilling to relinquish his spot on the ballot.

Though a series of legal challenges, Barack Obama strong-armed Palmer—and several other Democratic challengers—off the ballot, clearing a path to victory by destroying all potential competition.

During his unexceptional tenure in Springfield, Obama managed to rack up 129 "present" votes, including numerous noncommittal tallies on controversial issues such as abortion and gun rights.

He also developed a curious, albeit rare, pattern of registering incorrect votes—including an accidental "no" vote on a hotly contested child welfare bill. When confronted with his mistaken vote, Obama asserted that he was "unaware" that he had voted the way he had, and asked that the record reflect that he had "intended" to vote the other way. Similar cases of supposed vote-casting confusion afflicted Obama on five additional occasions.

As the 2004 general election approached, Obama began to eye greener pastures. He decided to run for US Senate, positioning himself as an antiwar candidate. His longshot effort attracted throngs of college students, yet Obama gained little traction against the party's frontrunner, millionaire Blair Hull.

But a bombshell scandal resurrected Obama's prospects. In amazingly short order, Hull experienced what the Chicago Tribune described as "the most inglorious campaign implosion in Illinois political history." Late in the primary race, unsealed divorce papers revealed allegations that Hull had verbally and physically abused his ex-wife. The Hull campaign tanked, and Team Obama celebrated. The nomination was theirs.

Illinois political observers then turned their attention to what promised to be a fiercely competitive general election race between Obama and GOP frontrunner Jack Ryan, a well-funded, charismatic businessman.

Once again, however, scandal lurked in sealed divorce papers. Over the objections of both Ryan and his ex-wife—actress Jeri Ryan—the damning documents were made public, and the resulting headlines were salacious: Ryan had allegedly pressured his wife to visit sex clubs. Like Reynolds and Hull before him, Ryan dropped out of public life in disgrace, with Obama happily playing the role of beneficiary.

With Jack Ryan out of the picture, a desperate Republican Party trotted out a polarizing non-Illinoisan to face Obama in the fall. Alan Keyes' disastrous Senate campaign is perhaps best remembered for Keyes' spate of vicious, counterproductive attacks launched against Obama, including the assertion that Jesus Christ himself would have voted against Obama. The rout was on.

DNC organizers, anticipating Obama's assured victory and recognizing his potential widespread appeal, wisely offered him a coveted primetime speaking slot during the summer convention.

Although the Beantown gathering was designed to be a political infomercial for the ill-fated Kerry/Edwards ticket, Obama stole the show with a speech that inspired millions and, more-importantly, transformed him into an instant media darling. Obama had seized his moment and smashed a rhetorical homerun. Less than half a Senate term later, he announced his Presidential bid.

Now only two figures impede Obama's path to the presidency. Unless Hillary Clinton can revitalize her sputtering campaign, or John McCain can defy the political odds and prevail in a tough electoral climate for Republicans, Barack Obama will become our next Commander-In-Chief.

Unlike most seasoned politicians, who earn presidential nominations through many years of legislative, executive, or military accomplishments, Obama has exploited his rock-star status to skip to the front of the line.

With many of his supporters apparently distracted by his powerful persona and vague, uplifting message, few people seem to notice, or care, that Obama's qualifications to be president are more than a bit thin. Americans would be well-served to shake themselves from the "change" trance long enough to examine Senator Obama's relatively meager record.

Guy Benson is the host of The Guy Benson Show on 560 WIND-AM in Chicago.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

McKinnon Poised to Bolt McCain Campaign

McCain aide Mark McKinnon says he will quit the campaign if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination.

McKinnon — a Democrat-turned Republican who was President Bush’s chief media adviser in 2004 — told National Public Radio he would leave the McCain team to avoid involvement in any attacks on Obama.

“I met Barack Obama. I read his book. I like him a great deal,” he said. “I disagree with him on very fundamental issues. But I think … it would be a great race for the country and I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama. I think it would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign.”

Hmm. He disagrees with Obama on fundamental issues, but he'll resign from McCain's campaign rather than oppose him. He's willing to run attack ads on Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, but not Barack Obama. And he was the chief media advisor to George W. Bush in 2004. I think this guy is a compelling argument for adding a 53rd card to the Deck of Weasels.

Seriously, Mr. McKinnon obviously has identified Obama as a winner, and is positioning himself for a place at the table - or perhaps some more tangible reward - this time next year.

His highly attenuated loyalty also raises some important questions for Republicans. First, is "big tent" Republicanism really a good idea? They've got moles like McKinnon poised to bolt when they most need him, and they've got Log Cabin "Republicans" directing most of their campaign dollars to Democrats. Can leftists ever have anything but contempt for grass-roots conservative Republicans?

Second, what does this McKinnon affair say about McCain as a judge of character? What other moles would he escort into the inner sanctum? Is he the Most Likely to Be Soutered of the Class of 2008? It was tough enough for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush to identify conservatives for nomination to the Supreme Court. Is McCain up to it?

McCain's selling point, I suppose, is that he's not Barack Obama. Who's on Obama's short list for Supreme Court nomination? Now that William Kunstler has died, one has to assume that John Edwards has moved up the list. He would be a dependable vote for the edgy new government programs Obama has hinted at, and by enthroning him, Obama would remove him as a challenger in 2012.

John Kennedy's Supreme Court legacy was to nominate Byron White, the last pro-life Justice appointed by a Democrat, and one of the few by either party.

.

Obama Afraid to Debate?

A recent Clinton ad accuses Obama of dodging a debate at Marquette University in Wisconsin. Clinton accepted the invitation, but Obama didn't answer.

In the 1960 debate between Sen. John Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon, which was the first televised presidential debate, most radio listeners concluded that Nixon had won. However, most television viewers said Kennedy won. Nixon appeared without make-up, and looked sweaty and nervous compared to the relaxed, composed Kennedy.

Focus groups have generally reported Obama at a disadvantage to Clinton during head-to-head debates, although he is quite good. The conventional wisdom is that there's little for a frontrunner to gain from a debate with his challenger, and it appears that Obama is showing less enthusiasm for debates now than when he was an insurgent underdog.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Senator, You're No Jack Kennedy

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Who can forget the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen's zinger to young Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debates? Quayle, at age 41, was considered green although he had served three terms in the House and was twice elected to the Senate before George H.W. Bush tapped him as his running mate.

Yet Barack Obama is widely accorded the gravitas of a legitimate contender for the post-9/11 presidency although he not only is no Jack Kennedy, he's no Dan Quayle.

"The reality is that Obama has a lot in common with Harriet Miers," writes blogger John Hawkins. "Yes, he has accomplished a lot in his life compared to most people, just as she had, but she was still completely unqualified for the job she wanted to fill just as Barack Obama is completely unqualified to be President of the United States."

Why the rush to the White House? Why the urgency to run now, without the seasoning that we like to see in the leader of the Free World? Is it just an obey your thirst thing? Is he going to be a green, untested president just because he can? Here again, Hawkins is insightful, in a post entitled "Barack Obama: A Human Hallmark Card for President."

"Barack can't wait around and get some seasoning because in another term or two, his incredibly liberal voting record would make him unelectable," Hawkins writes. "He is, after all, the single most liberal senator in the entire Senate. Do you realize what that means? It means that Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Schumer are all to Barack Obama's right."

Is it small-minded or backward-looking or unfair to point out Obama's lack of qualifications for the enormous responsibility he seeks? Well, Ronald Reagan called Bentsen's well-rehearsed J.F.K. remark "a cheap shot."

But Dukakis/Bentsen campaign manager Susan Estrich replied that "when the Republicans call something 'a cheap shot,' you know you've scored a direct hit." That is perhaps not the best guide for one's conscience, but neither is its converse. A point is not invalidated by its protest or dismissal by a self-interested, self-serving partisan.





Friday, February 15, 2008

Obama’s International Socialist Connections

By Cliff Kincaid

Campaign workers for Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama are under fire for displaying a flag featuring communist hero Che Guevara. But Obama has his own controversial socialist connections. He is, in fact, an associate of a Chicago-based Marxist group with access to millions of labor union dollars and connections to expert political consultants, including a convicted swindler.

Obama's socialist backing goes back at least to 1996, when he received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an Illinois state senate seat. Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter reported that Obama, as a state senator, showed up to eulogize Saul Mendelson, one of the "champions" of "Chicago's democratic left" and a long-time socialist activist.

Obama's stint as a "community organizer" in Chicago has gotten some attention, but his relationship with the DSA socialists, who groomed and backed him, has been generally ignored.

Blogger Steve Bartin, who has been following Obama's career and involvement with the Chicago socialists, has uncovered a fascinating video showing Obama campaigning for openly socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Interestingly, Sanders, who won his seat in 2006, called Obama "one of the great leaders of the United States Senate," even though Obama had only been in the body for about two years.

In 2007, the National Journal said that Obama had established himself as "the most liberal Senator." More liberal than Sanders? That is quite a feat. Does this make Obama a socialist, too?

DSA describes itself as the largest socialist organization in the United States and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. The Socialist International (SI) has what is called "consultative status" with the United Nations. In other words, it works hand-in-glove with the world body.

The international connection is important and significant because an Obama bill, "The Global Poverty Act," has just been rushed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with the assistance of Democratic Senator Joe Biden, the chairman, and Republican Senator Richard Lugar. The legislation (S.2433) commits the U.S. to spending hundreds of billions of dollars more in foreign aid on the rest of the world, in order to comply with the "Millennium Goals" established by the United Nations.

Conservative members of the committee were largely caught off-guard by the move to pass the Obama bill but are putting a "hold" on it, in order to try to prevent the legislation, which also quickly passed the House, from being quickly brought up for a full Senate vote. But observers think that Senate Democrats may try to pass it quickly anyway, in order to give Obama a precious legislative "victory" that he could run on.

Another group associated with the SI is the Party of European Socialists (PES), which heard from Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, back in 2006. Dean's speech is posted on the official Democratic Party website, although the European socialist parties are referred to as "progressive."

Democrats, Dean said, want to be "good citizens of the world community."

He spoke at a session on "Global Challenges for Progressive Politics." Following up, in April 2007, PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen reported that European socialists held a meeting "in the Democrats HQ in Washington," met with officials of the party and Democratic members of Congress, and agreed that "PES activist groups" in various U.S. cities would start working together.

The photos of the trip show Rasmussen meeting with such figures as Senator Ben Cardin, Senator Bernie Sanders, officials of the Brookings Institution, Howard Dean, and AFL-CIO President John W. Sweeney, a member of the DSA. The Brookings Institution is headed by former Clinton State Department official Strobe Talbott, a proponent of world government who was recently identified in the book Comrade J as having been a pawn of the Russian intelligence service.

The socialist connections of Obama and the Democratic Party have certainly not been featured in the Washington Post columns of Harold Meyerson, who happens not only to be a member but a vice-chair of the DSA.

Meyerson, the subject of our 2005 column, "A Socialist at the Washington Post," has praised convicted inside-trader George Soros for manipulating campaign finance laws to benefit the far-left elements of the Democratic Party. Obama's success in the Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses is further evidence of Soros's success. Soros has financially contributed to the Obama campaign.

It is not surprising that the Chicago Democrat, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, has endorsed Obama. Schakowsky, who endorsed Howard Dean for president in 2004, was honored in 2000 at a dinner sponsored by the Chicago chapter of the DSA. Her husband, Robert Creamer, emerged from federal prison in November 2006 after serving five months for financial crimes. He pleaded guilty to ripping off financial institutions while running a non-profit group.

Before he was convicted but under indictment, Creamer was hired by the Soros-funded Open Society Policy Center to sabotage John Bolton's nomination as Ambassador to the U.N.

After his release from prison, Creamer released a book, Listen to Your Mother: Stand up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, described by one blogger as the book that was "penned in the pen."

A blurb for the book declares, "Some people think that in order to win, Democrats need to move to the political center by adopting conservative values and splitting the difference between progressive and conservative positions. History shows they are wrong. To win the next election and to win in the long term, we need to redefine the political center."

In addition to writing the book, Creamer is back in business, running his firm, Strategic Consulting Group, and advertising himself as "a consultant to the campaigns to end the war in Iraq, pass universal health care, change America's budget priorities and enact comprehensive immigration reform."

His clients have included the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org. In fact, his client list is a virtual who's who of the Democratic Party, organized labor, and Democratic Party constituency groups. Creamer's list of testimonials comes from such figures as Democratic Senators Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Harold Meyerson, MoveOn.org founder Wes Boyd, and David Axelrod, a "Democratic political consultant."

Axelrod, of course, is much more than just a "Democratic political consultant." He helped State Senator Barack Obama win his U.S. Senate seat in 2004 and currently serves as strategist and media advisor to Obama's presidential campaign.

Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at cliff.kincaid@aim.org

Sorry You Feel That Way, White Interloper and Bloodsucking Jew

Here are excerpts from Bill Levinson's Jan. 4 post on Israpundit about Barack Obama's stubborn loyalty to Jew-baiting race hustler Al Sharpton.

Obama Campaign Responds to Bigotry Complaint with Patronizing Insult
by Bill Levinson

Imagine the following interchange between an African-American voter and a candidate who has appeared with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan:

Voter: “It is impossible for me to support someone who promotes and endorses an individual who has called my people the N word, and who has at least indirectly incited a lynching and the firebombing of a Negro church. You should apologize and distance yourself from that Klan leader.”
Candidate: “I’m sorry you feel that way” (or “I’m sorry you’re a Negro.”)



If our readers think such an interchange is highly unlikely, we will now share the Barack Obama campaign’s official response to our complaints about Mr. Obama’s ongoing promotion of the prominent racist and anti-Semite Al Sharpton.

We began with the premise of a candidate associating with and openly promoting a Ku Klux Klan leader who has at least indirectly incited a lynching, and the firebombing of a Negro church in which people were killed.

Al Sharpton played at least an indirect role in fomenting the 1991 Crown Heights pogrom in which a mob yelling “Kill the Jews” did so: a rabbinical student named Yankel Rosenbaum. Sharpton personally called the Jews “diamond merchants” with the blood of innocent children on their hands....

In 1995, a mob from Al Sharpton’s National Action Network – the same organization that Barack Obama endorsed last April – paraded around a Jewish-owned store, Freddy’s Fashion Mart, in Harlem. This mob, under Sharpton’s personal supervision, chanted epithets like “bloodsucking Jew” and “cracker,” to which Sharpton personally added “white interloper.”

Like a Ku Klux Klansman who threatens to burn a Black-owned church or business in the “wrong” neighborhood, one of Sharpton’s people threatened to burn Freddy’s Fashion Mart. Another later put this threat into effect, just like a Kluxer who throws a firebomb into a Black-owned store or church, with the loss of seven innocent lives.

In 1988, Sharpton played a central role in the racist Tawana Brawley scandal, which did immense damage to the reputations of innocent people while costing Dutchess County something like half a million dollars.

We encourage our readers in New York to (ask) the people of Dutchess County, and especially Wappinger Falls, just how much damage Obama’s friend did to their community twenty years ago. Remember, many people now of voting age had not even been born at the time.

This April, Barack Obama appeared at a meeting of the National Action Network–the very same hate organization that shouted slogans like “bloodsucking Jew” and “cracker” at Freddy’s Fashion Mart–where he endorsed this ... organization and its proprietor.

Sen. Barack Obama: “Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.” In November, Obama made at least one more public appearance with (Sharpton), at the Apollo Theater.

We have, in response to numerous unsolicited e-mails from the Obama campaign, called (866) 675-2008 to complain about Mr. Obama’s open promotion of a vicious professional bigot who has built his career by promoting hatred of white people, and especially of Jews. Today, we received an official reply that we can construe only as a patronizing brush-off, if not a deliberate insult:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about Senator Barack Obama and his candidacy for President. Senator Obama welcomes an open dialogue about America’s future, and hopes for the widest possible participation in a great nationwide discussion.

Hearing and exploring different positions and ways of thinking furthers this discussion. It challenges our reasoning, sharpens our analysis of issues, and leads to new solutions. We appreciate having the benefit of your perspective.

One of Senator Obama’s mentors was the late Senator Paul Simon, a man of great ability and integrity. He believed that people could disagree without being disagreeable, and Senator Obama has taken that guiding principle as his own.

Thank you again for contacting Senator Obama.

Sincerely,
Obama for America


The operative statement appears to be, “people can disagree without being disagreeable.” In other words, “We’re sorry you feel that way about our candidate’s public and ongoing promotion of a racist and anti-Semitic hate monger, but we don’t care because we own the Jewish vote anyway.”

It is therefore vital for us to spread the word as widely as possible that Barack Obama has so little respect for common decency that he consorts openly with the (equivalent) of the Ku Klux Klan and the Stormfront White Nationalist Community.

It is ... clear that Obama feels that he can be everything to everybody, and that he does not have to take a principled stand on anything....

Perhaps Obama (can) understand the following: (1) You can’t appear at a tribute to Michael Vick today and at an SPCA meeting tomorrow, and expect the SPCA people to believe that you are really against dog fighting and other forms of animal abuse. (2) You can’t appear at the Ku Klux Klan today and the NAACP tomorrow, and expect African-Americans to believe that you support civil rights. (3) You can’t appear arm in arm with Al Sharpton today and at AIPAC tomorrow, and expect Jewish voters to think you have anything but total contempt for them as well as for common decency.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Why Does Barack Obama's Pastor Matter?

Here, from FrontPageMagazine.com, is a response to those who suggest it's improper to take Barack Obama's church affiliation into account.

The author is misinformed about the origins of Liberation Theology, which preceded the Cold War. This historical error, however, is irrelevant to - and does not impair - his overall analyis.

In arguing against the notion of white racism as a factor in the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine penalties, he makes a convincing case in the context of federal legislation, but leaves undiscussed several other factors, including state legislation, local allocation of law enforcement resources, and sentencing in state courts.

Despite these flaws, I think he makes a persuasive argument that Barack Obama owes us a somewhat detailed accounting of his agreements and disagreements with the highly politicized clergyman he has identified as his spiritual mentor.

Why Does Obama's Pastor Matter?
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com Monday, February 04, 2008

Barack Obama, in a way that recalls John F. Kennedy, a politician to whom he's frequently compared, has carefully controlled and burnished his image to create the impression of an independent figure, free from dogma and ideological entanglements. But there is one man who threatens to undermine Obama's appealing narrative as a man above the ugly quarrels and divisive partisanship of the past: his longtime pastor and spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

On March 1, 1972, Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. became the pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), a position he still holds to this day. Because he has been a revered figure in the life of presidential aspirant Barack Obama for two decades, Wright's political views, which he commonly draws from the tenets of liberation theology, are worthy of some scrutiny—if only to shed light on the teachings that have had enough resonance to retain Obama as a TUCC congregant since 1988. So great is Obama's respect for Wright, that the former sought the Reverend's counsel before formally declaring his candidacy for U.S. President.

Moreover, Obama and his wife selected Wright to perform their wedding ceremony and to baptize their two daughters. These are honors of considerable magnitude, and it is reasonable to speculate that if we learn more about Rev. Wright, we may gain some insight into the personal qualities and belief systems Barack Obama holds in high regard.

When we read the writings, public statements, and sermons of Rev. Wright, we quickly notice his unmistakable conviction that America is a nation infested with racism, prejudice, and injustices that make life very difficult for black people. As he declared in one of his sermons: "Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!... We [Americans] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

In a similar spirit, Wright laments "the social order under which we [blacks] live, under which we suffer, under which we are killed."[1]

Depicting blacks as a politically powerless demographic, he complains that "African Americans don't run anything in the Capital except elevators."[2]

On its website, Wright's church portrays black people as victims who are still burdened by the legacy of their "pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism," and who must pray for "the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people."Wright detects what he views as racism in virtually every facet of American life. In the business world, for instance, he attributes the high unemployment rate of African Americans to "the fact that they are black."[3]

Vis-à-vis the criminal justice system, he similarly explains that "the brothers are in prison" largely because of their skin color. "Consider the 'three strikes law,'" he elaborates. "There is a higher jail sentencing for crack than for cocaine because more African Americans get crack than do cocaine."[4]

Notwithstanding Wright's implication that the harsh anti-crack penalties were instituted by racist legislators for the purpose of incarcerating as many blacks as possible, the Congressional Record shows that such was not at all the case. In 1986, when the strict, federal anti-crack legislation was being debated, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)—deeply concerned about the degree to which crack was decimating the black community—strongly supported the legislation and actually pressed for even harsher penalties. In fact, a few years earlier CBC members had pushed President Reagan to create the Office of National Drug Control Policy.[5]

In Wright's calculus, white America's bigotry is to blame not only for whatever ills continue to plague the black community, but also for our country's conflicts with other nations. "In the 21st century," says Wright, "white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01. White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just 'disappeared' as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns."

Remarkably, no mention of jihad—the ageless Muslim tradition of aggressive, permanent warfare whose ultimate aim is to achieve Islam's dominion over the human race at large—managed to find its way into Wright's analysis. Rather, he assured us that the 9/11 atrocities were ultimately traceable to the doorstep of U.S. provocations. In fact, Wright apparently sees no reason to suspect that Islam may be incompatible in any way with Western traditions. "Islam and Christianity are a whole lot closer than you may realize," he has written. "Islam comes out of Christianity."[6]

Apart from America's purported racism, Wright also despises the nation's capitalist economic structure, viewing it as a breeding ground for all manner of injustice. "Capitalism as made manifest in the 'New World,'" says Wright, "depended upon slave labor (by African slaves), and it is only maintained by keeping the 'Two-Thirds World' under oppression."[7]

This anti-capitalist perspective is further reflected in TUCC's "10-point vision," whose ideals include the cultivation of "a congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY." Dispelling any doubt that this is a reference to socialism and the wholesale redistribution of wealth, the TUCC mission statement plainly declares its goal of helping "the less fortunate to become agents of change for God who is not pleased with America's economic mal-distribution!"

This view is entirely consistent with Rev. Wright's devotion to the tenets of liberation theology, which is essentially Marxism dressed up as Christianity. Devised by Cold War-era theologians, it teaches that the gospels of Jesus can be understood only as calls for social activism, class struggle, and revolution aimed at overturning the existing capitalist order and installing, in its stead, a socialist utopia where today's poor will unseat their "oppressors" and become liberated from their material (and, consequently, their spiritual) deprivations.

An extension of this paradigm is black liberation theology, which seeks to foment a similar Marxist revolutionary fervor founded on racial rather than class solidarity. Wright's mentor in this discipline is James Cone, author of the landmark text Black Power and Black Theology. Arguing that Christianity has been used by white society as an opiate of the (black) masses, Cone asserts that the destitute "are made and kept poor by the rich and powerful few," and that "[n]o one can be a follower of Jesus Christ without a political commitment that expresses one's solidarity with victims."

Many of Wright's condemnations of America are echoed in his denunciations of Israel and Zionism, which he has blamed for imposing "injustice and … racism" on the Palestinians. According to Wright, Zionism contains an element of "white racism."

Likening Israel's treatment of Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of blacks during the apartheid era, Wright advocates divestment campaigns targeting companies that conduct business in, or with, Israel.

Given Wright's obvious low regard for the U.S. and Israel, it is by no means surprising that he reserves some of his deepest respect for the virulently anti-American, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

"When Minister Farrakhan speaks, Black America listens," says Wright. "Everybody may not agree with him, but they listen … His depth on analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye opening. He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest. Minister Farrakhan will be remembered as one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African American religious experience. His integrity and honesty have secured him a place in history as one of the nation's most powerful critics. His love for Africa and African American people has made him an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose."

Wright's paean to Farrakhan was parroted in the November/December issue of TUCC's bimonthly magazine, the Trumpet, which featured an interview with the NOI "icon" who, according to the publication, "truly epitomized greatness." "Because of the Minister's influence in the African American community," the Trumpet announced that it was honoring him with an "Empowerment Award" as a "fitting tribute for a storied life well lived."

This seems an odd distinction to confer upon someone whose anti-American, anti-white, anti-Semitic statements are numerous. For example, in 1996 Farrakhan told a Tehran newspaper that God would "bestow upon Muslims" the honor of "destroy[ing] America."

In February 1998, he sent a cordial and supportive letter to Saddam Hussein, calling him a "visionary" who had earned the Iraqi people's "love," and whose demise would "mean a setback for the goal of unity [among Muslims]." In July 2002, he declared that America, "with blood dripping from [its] hands," had no moral authority by which to overthrow Saddam.

In February 2005, he condemned the United States for waging a war "against Islam," adding: "[T]here's no way that I, as a Muslim, could countenance my children or grandchildren fighting a war against fellow believers in any part of the world."

Farrakhan also has a long, well-documented history of venom-laced references to the white "blue-eyed devils" and Jewish "bloodsuckers" who purportedly decimate America's black communities from coast to coast. Moreover, he has referred to white people as "the skunks of the planet."

On a 1984 trip to meet with the Libyan dictator (and America's arch enemy) Muammar Qadhafi, Farrakhan was accompanied by none other than Jeremiah A. Wright.

Farrakhan has long considered Qadhafi to be his trusted "friend," "brother," and "fellow struggler in the cause of liberation for our people." In 1996, the NOI leader formed a partnership with Qadhafi, who pledged $1 billion to help Farrakhan develop a Muslim political lobby in the U.S.

Said Qadhafi: "We agreed with Louis Farrakhan and his delegation to mobilize in a legal and legitimate form the oppressed minorities—and at their forefront the blacks, Arab Muslims and Red Indians—for they play an important role in American political life and have a weight in U.S. elections."

"Our confrontation with America," added Qadhafi, "was [previously] like a fight against a fortress from outside, and today [with the NOI alliance] we found a breach to enter into this fortress and confront it."

Farrakhan's October 16, 1995 Million Man March ranks among the events about which Rev. Wright has written most extensively and passionately. Wright attended the rally with his son, and has described it as "a once in a lifetime, amazing experience."[8]

When a number of prominent African Americans counseled fellow blacks to boycott the demonstration because of Farrakhan's well-documented history of hateful rhetoric, Wright derided those critics as "'Negro' leaders,"[9] "'colored' leaders," "Oreos," and "house niggras"[10] whose most noteworthy trait was their contemptible "Uncle Tomism."[11]

"There are a whole boat load of 'darkies' who think in white supremacist terms," added Wright. "… Some 'darkies' think white women are superior to black women…. Some 'darkies' think white lawyers are superior to black lawyers. Some 'darkies' think white pastors are better than black pastors. There are a whole boatload of 'darkies' who think anything white and everyone white is better than whatever it is black people have."[12]

In the book titled When Black Men Stand up for God, a collection of sermons and reflections on the Million Man March, Wright identifies Kwanzaa founder Maulana Karenga as an attendee of the rally.[13]

In the end notes that follow a transcript of one of Wright's sermons, Karenga is described as "an internationally acclaimed social activist and scholar in Pan African Studies"; "the founder and creator of Kwanzaa, the well-known African American holiday"; and "the director of Pan African Studies and Visiting Lecturer in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside."[14]

Unmentioned is the fact that Karenga is a self-identified "African socialist" whose "Seven Principles of Blackness," which are observed during Kwanzaa, are not only the Marxist precepts of parity and proletariat unity, but are also identical to those of the 1970s domestic terrorist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Nor is it noted that in 1971 Karenga was convicted of torturing two women who were members of United Slaves, a black nationalist cult he had established.On its website, Wright's church describes itself in distinctly racial terms, as being an "Unashamedly Black" congregation of "African people" who are "true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization," and who participate in TUCC's "Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community."

Some have suggested that such seemingly exclusionary assertions, coupled with Wright's own racially loaded statements and his close affiliation with Farrakhan, indicate that Wright is guilty of racism. But Wright casually dismisses this charge, stating: "I get tickled every time I hear a 'Negro' call me a racist. They don't even understand how to define the word. Racism means controlling the means."[15]

In other words, Wright employs a rhetorical escape hatch that permits him to evade all charges of racism simply by claiming that only the "dominant" (i.e., white) demographic is capable of such ugliness. The implication is that no deed or utterance, however hateful or vile, is egregious enough to qualify any black person as a racist; that blacks are always the victims of racism, never its perpetrators.

American voters ought to have more than a passing interest in the fact that when Barack Obama formally joined TUCC in 1991, he tacitly accepted this same Jeremiah Wright as a spiritual mentor. Moreover, he pledged allegiance to the church's race-conscious "Black Value System" that encourages blacks to patronize black-only businesses, support black leaders, and avoid becoming "entrapped" by the pursuit of a "black middle-classness" whose ideals presumably would erode their sense of African identity and render them "captive" to white culture.

In addition, voters should examine carefully the question of whether Obama shares Wright's socialist economic preferences. They ought to be aware, for instance, that the Democratic candidate is on record as having said that his religious faith has led him to question "the idolatry of the free market."

Moreover, Obama's voting record and his issue positions show him generally to favor high spending and increased government intervention in all realms of life.

When Rev. Wright's controversial statements and positions recently became more widely publicized, Obama said, "There are some things I agree with my pastor about, some things I disagree with him about." It is the duty of every American voter to determine exactly where those agreements and disagreements lie.

Notes:
[1] When Black Men Stand up for God (Chicago: African American Images), 1996, p. 17.[2] Ibid., p. 102.[3] Ibid., p. 17.[4] Ibid., p. 17.[5] John DiIulio, Jr., "My Black Crime Problem, and Ours," City Journal (Spring 1996), pp. 19-20.[6] When Black Men Stand up for God, p. 16.[7] Blow the Trumpet in Zion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), 2005, pp. 8-9.[8] When Black Men Stand up for God, p. 10.[9] Ibid., pp. 11, 37.[10] Ibid., p. 80.[11] Ibid., p. 11.[12] Ibid., p. 81.[13] It should be noted that Wright's church has conducted Kwanzaa programs for its congregants. See When Black Men Stand up for God, p. iv.)[14] When Black Men Stand up for God, p. 25.[15] Ibid., p. 102.

John Perazzo is the Managing Editor of DiscoverTheNetworks and is the author of The Myths That Divide Us: How Lies Have Poisoned American Race Relations. For more information on his book, click here. E-mail him at wsbooks25@hotmail.com

Friday, February 8, 2008

Truth Truck Lets Omaha Know Abortion Is An "Obamanation"

Omaha, NE - February 8, 2008 -Democratic Presidential candidate Barak Obama was protested by Operation Rescue's Truth Truck and Rescue the Heartland during a visit Thursday to Omaha, Nebraska. An estimated overflow crowd of about 10,000 people attended the campaign stop with the line to get in the door stretching down the street.

For three hours the Truth Truck circled the block around the Omaha Civic Auditorium where Obama appeared.

In a move of questionable legality, police prohibited pro-life protesters from picketing on the public sidewalk around the auditorium. Officers moved protesters across the street.

Obama avidly supports abortion and boasts of a 100% "pro-choice" voting record.

"There's not a dime's worth of difference between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama on the abortion issue. They are out of touch with Americans, who are becoming increasingly pro-life and are beginning to demand abortion restrictions and outright bans in a number of states," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.

"We will continue to expose both candidates at every opportunity. Anyone who cannot respect the life of the most innocent and vulnerable is not fit for public office."

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Obama Wins Prominent U.S. Muslims' Endorsements

The Honourable Al-Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, son of the late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, has endorsed Barack Obama for president.

"He is the best candidate for the presidency," Muhammad said, according to the Muslim Americans for Obama website.

Born Wallace D. Muhammad, he was installed as Supreme Leader of the Nation of Islam in 1975, and quickly embarked on a path of moderation that brought the sect closer to orthodox Sunni Islam. He renamed the organization several times, settling eventually on the Muslim American Society. He changed the spelling of his name to Mohammed, and later changed his full name and honorific.

A splinter group under Louis Farrakhan rejected Muhammad and left to build their own sect, which reclaimed the name Nation of Islam. Farrakhan and Muhammad reconciled in 2000, after nearly a quarter of a century estranged.

"Dear Muslim brothers and sisters," he declared at the annual Savior's Day convention, "it is not difficult for Minister Farrakhan and Wallace D. Mohammed to embrace each other. That's easy for us. When I first met him in the early '50s, I liked him on first sight, and I became his friend and his brother. And I have not stopped being his friend and his brother. Maybe he has not understood, but I have always been his friend and his brother."

Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, endorsed Obama about a year ago.

"He speaks with a unifying spirit," Ellison said of Obama. He said he supports "Obama's message of an open and fair economy, a balanced prosperity and clear opposition to the war in Iraq."

Ellison has called himself, variously, Keith E. Hakim, Keith X. Ellison and Keith Ellison-Muhammad. Although he used to be a Nation of Islam apologist, he has since denounced Farrakhan's anti-Semitism, and enjoyed some Jewish support in his recent Congressional campaign. He identifies himself as an orthodox Muslim.

Although Ellison's congressional district is Minneapolis, he did much of his fundraising among Florida Muslim members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-IL) have acccused of "ties to terrorism," possibly Hamas and Hezbollah.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Obama Picks Up Another Kennedy Endorsement

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver, endorsed Barack Obama Sunday, just days after he backed Republican John McCain.

"You know, if Barack Obama was a state, he'd be California," Shriver said at a campus rally. "I mean, think about it: diverse, open, smart, independent, bucks tradition, innovative, inspiring, dreamer, leader!"

"He is about empowering women, African-Americans, Latinos, older people, young people," Shriver enthused. "He's about empowering all of us."

Shriver is hardly in need of empowerment. A niece of JFK, Bobby Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy, she is the daughter of Sargent Shriver, who managed Merchandise Mart in Chicago for the Kennedys before marrying into the clan. JFK appointed his brother-in-law the first director of the Peace Corps, and Shriver later served Presidents Johnson and Nixon as Ambassador to France. After leaving the embassy, he ran for Vice President under George McGovern.

If the governor's wife shares Obama's antiwar sentiment, she comes by it honestly. Sargent Shriver opposed America's entry into WWII, helped found the America First Committee at Yale, and was a member until it was disbanded shortly after Pearl Harbor.

Maria Shriver was on the fast track at NBC News until she resigned in 2003 to be a full-time mom and First Lady of California.

Her endorsement appears to complete a unanimous Kennedy shift to Obama. No Kennedy has won a national election in nearly half a century, but they have retained enough heft to play kingmakers - and spoilers. In 1980, Teddy Kennedy's primary challenge to incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter weakened him before the showdown with eventual winner Ronald Reagan, and in 2004, his support was decisive in John Kerry's campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Despite the themes of redemption and empowerment, the Obama rally was awash in tycoons and celebrities, including Shriver's cousin Caroline Kennedy, singer Stevie Wonder and Oprah Winfrey.

Shriver's endorsement comes just two days before Super Tuesday, when California and 20 other US states will hold primaries. California is one of the most delegate-rich contests, and it is "in play," unlike Illinois and New York, where Obama and Clinton are expected to win their own states handily.

Rupert Murdoch's New York Post Endorses Obama!

Here, from Charles Warner of the Huffington Post, is an analysis of the New York Post's endorsement of Barack Obama:

The New York Post has surprised many readers with its unexpected endorsement of Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying he “represents a fresh start.”

Rupert Murdoch’s Post also opined that Hillary Clinton and her husband “stand for déjà vu all over again — a return to the opportunistic, scandal-scarred, morally muddled years of the almost infinitely self-indulgent Clinton co-presidency.”

But the Obama endorsement “was not about politics or Billary hating as much as it was about business,” Charles Warner observes on The Huffington Post.


Murdoch wants to use his newly acquired Wall Street Journal to challenge the New York Times and his Post to drive the New York Daily News out of business, observes Warner, who speculates on what Murdoch might have been thinking:


“I hate The New York Times and want to position the Post as its opposite, especially after the Times endorsed Billary. By endorsing Obama I appeal to many of my core readers, especially younger ones, which advertisers love.

“By endorsing Obama before the Daily News does, I get a nice little circulation pump and I put the News in a bind — a strategic dilemma. If it endorses Billary” it will perturb many of its readers “and look like it is taking a cue from the Times. If the News endorses Obama, that’s good because it might help defeat Billary, plus it will make it look like it is following the Post — a win/win in either case for me.”


By endorsing Obama, Murdoch “has achieved another edge on the Daily News,” Warner concludes, “even if he had to get under the political bedcovers with liberal Ted Kennedy.”

Is Obama Really a Uniter?

In the tradition of Yasir Arafat, he speaks one way to his core followers on the street, and another to the public at large. If he is not yet a full-blown media darling, he is fast becoming one. Reporters get a kick out of him, finding him exciting, personable, and a joy to quote. As the liberal New York Post columnist Jack Newfield has pointed out, he is 'dangerous because he is so likable.' And only rarely is (he) held accountable for his offenses, both past and ongoing. The tendency to forget, or to brush aside, is close to overpowering.

No, the National Review's Jay Nordlinger is not writing about Barak Obama here, but about race hustler Al Sharpton, in an essay over seven years old. But it is as much a description of our credulous talking heads and newspapermen as of Sharpton.

How does Sharpton rate identification (only in the mass media) as a "civil rights leader" when he has made his living as a political shakedown artist?

His "Chappaquiddick," as columnist Nat Hentoff called it, was the Tawana Brawley hoax. After staying away from home for several days, young Tawana smeared herself with dog feces, wrote racial epithets on her body, climbed into a garbage bag, and waited to be discovered. Then she claimed she was abducted, raped and otherwise abused by six white men, including a police officer and an assistant district attorney, practicing Irish Republican Army rituals.

Sharpton became the family's press spokesman. Bill Cosby offered a large cash reward for information leading to arrests and convictions, but Sharpton told the family not to cooperate with New York Attorney General Robert Abrams. To cooperate with him, Sharpton said, would be "to sit down with Mr. Hitler."

One of Sharpton's assistants was quoted telling him "Robert Abrams, you are no longer going to masturbate looking at Tawana Brawley's picture."

It was a total, absolute hoax. Sharpton never apologized. Over a decade later, he said "If I had it to do again, I'd do it in the same way." He taunted one of the falsely accused men to sue him if he was innocent, and when the man did, he was subjected to death threats and menacing encounters that can only be attributed to Sharpton.

In the Central Park "wilding" case, a young white woman was set upon by a group of young Black males, who raped and beat her near death. Sharpton came to the rapists' defense, describing them as the equivalent of the "Scottsboro Boys." When the case went to trial, Sharpton brought his group to the courthouse steps where they shouted "whore" at the victim and chanted "the boyfriend did it."

Sharpton brought Tawana Brawley to the courthouse, where she and the jogger's attackers greeted one another warmly. Ever the ready provider of quotable zingers for the media, he said he had brought her there "to see the difference between white justice and Black justice."

When a Hasidic Jew lost control of his car, jumped the curb and killed a Black child, Sharpton decided to throw gasoline on the fire by denouncing a Jewish diamond company that bought South African diamonds, routed them through Tel Aviv and wholesaled them out of a Hasidic neighborhood in New York City. Rioters injured 100 Jews and lynched a rabbinical student.

"All we want to say is what Jesus said: if you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise. You got to pay for your deeds. It's no accident that we know we should not be run over. We are the royal family on this planet. We are the original man."

When a Jewish retailer revoked a Black subtenant's lease in Harlem, Sharpton's National Action Network mounted a series of rallies to intimidate the Jew. Picketers screamed "bloodsucking Jews" and "Jew bastards," and threatened to burn the store down. They taunted a Black security guard as a "cracker lover."

At one of the rallies, Sharpton declared that "we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."

A Sharpton associate said "we're going to see that this cracker suffers. Reverend Sharpton is on it."

After weeks of escalating rhetoric, one of the overwrought partisans shouted "it's on," rushed into the store with a drawn firearm, and ordered all Blacks out of the store. He shot three whites and a Pakistani, whom he apparently mistook for a Jew, then set the store on fire, which killed five Hispanics, one Guyanese and the Black security guard.

Sharpton never took responsibility for inciting hatred against the Jewish retailer. At first he denied that he ever spoke at the rallies. When tapes proved he had, he was dismissive.

"What's wrong with denouncing white interlopers?" Sharpton asked.

What's Al Sharpton got to do with Barak H. Obama?

Well, the two have appeared together and been photographed together on several occasions. I don't think Obama would pose for photos with David Duke. And Obama has endorsed the activities of the man Richard Brookhiser called "an impresario of hatreds."

"Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What the National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up."

If I've taken Obama out of context, I'm willing to be corrected. If you know of any instance where he has expressed disapproval of the way Al Sharpton handled the Tawana Brawley lie, the Central Park wilding, the Jew-lynching Crown Heights riots or the racially motivated shootings and arson on 125th Street, please post them in the Comments section below. I don't want to be unfair to Sen. Obama. But please supply a citation so that readers can look it up and independently verify it.

How would JFK have handled an endorsement by the Provisional Irish Republican Army?

It's safe to say that, despite his sentimental loyalty to Ireland, he would have distanced himself from violent Irish activists at least as emphatically as he distanced himself from the peace-loving bishops of the Catholic church.

Despite his stated ambition to be a uniter, Barak Obama has, thus far, lacked the steel or the inclination to renounce his most bigoted supporters. To date, this has been an asymmetrical factor in his favor. In South Carolina, for example, prominent Black Democrats openly acknowledged their racial motivation in voting for Obama. However, when former President Clinton noted that Jesse Jackson had won the South Carolina primary, he was accused of attempting to "marginalize" Obama by racial subtext.

This advantage is likely to hold as long as the generally left-leaning mass media keep message discipline. If significant media outlets break ranks to hold Obama as accountable as they held George Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University or Trent Lott for praising former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, the pressure could reach critical mass, at which point Obama may have to denounce his most fanatical supporters or forego outreach to independents and undecideds.