Did Bill Ayers Write President Obama’s Book?

Like JFK, Pres. Obama owed his gravitas in part, as he entered the presidential primaries, to his reputation as a serious author. JFK received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage; Pres. Obama's books are Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

And like JFK, Pres. Obama is accused of falsifying his claim of authorship. It is not unusual for a major politician to collaborate with a "ghostwriter," but Pres. Obama claimed in a July 2008 meeting in Fairfax, Virginia, that "I actually wrote [the two books] myself." JFK was never confronted about his authorship, but his aide Ted Sorenson eventually came clean and admitted he wrote Profiles in Courage.

Sorenson admitted to the Wall Street Journal in May 2008 that he “did a first draft of most chapters” for JFK, “helped choose the words of many of its sentences” and “privately boasted or indirectly hinted that I had written much of the book.”

"In other words," writes Alexandria, Va. blogger James Joyner, "[Sorenson] wrote the book, [JFK] did some very late editing, and claimed it as his own work." Sorensen told the Journal that in 1957 — just after the book won a Pulitizer Prize — JFK “unexpectedly and generously offered, and I happily accepted, a sum” for [Sorensen’s] work on the book.

Did Bill Ayers Write Obama’s Book? Author Jack Cashill, among others, has analyzed the writing in Dreams From My Father and concluded that it was written by former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. There is other, non-literary evidence that Cashill is correct about Ayers' authorship, adduced here in an article posted on the Accuracy in Media website.

Also-rans Passed Over for Nobel Prize

Congratulations to President Obama, for winning the Nobel Peace Prize! And too bad for JFK, who never got one, and for all you "also-rans" (losing nominees), whom Mary Catherine Ham catalogs below in a Weekly Standard article. I'm sure you do great work, but you just need a little more charisma and star power, or Oprah on speed dial.

Meet the People Who Were Passed Over for Obama
by Mary Katharine Ham

Sima Samar, women's rights activist in Afghanistan: "With dogged persistence and at great personal risk, she kept her schools and clinics open in Afghanistan even during the most repressive days of the Taliban regime, whose laws prohibited the education of girls past the age of eight. When the Taliban fell, Samar returned to Kabul and accepted the post of Minister for Women's Affairs."

Ingrid Betancourt: French-Colombian ex-hostage held for six years."

Dr. Denis Mukwege: Doctor, founder and head of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. He has dedicated his life to helping Congolese women and girls who are victims of gang rape and brutal sexual violence."

Handicap International and Cluster Munition Coalition: "These organizations are recognized for their consistently serious efforts to clean up cluster bombs, also known as land mines. Innocent civilians are regularly killed worldwide because the unseen bombs explode when stepped upon."

Hu Jia, a human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, who was sentenced last year to a three-and-a-half-year prison term for 'inciting subversion of state power.'"

Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system. He now lives in the United States."

Obama Nobel Prize Jokes

Best Obama-Nobel Jokes - George's Bottom Line

JFK never got a Nobel Prize, despite deftly avoiding nuclear war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Nobel may be one of the few that his dad Joe Kennedy couldn't buy or finagle for him. But grade inflation has arrived, and now Jimmy Carter and Al Gore have one, Yasir Arafat had one, so why not President Obama? Like Carter and Gore, President Obama has a thinly disguised contempt for America and Americans, and Europeans find this an irresistable quality. Here, former Clinton lieutenant George Stephanopoulous assembles some of the best zingers on the subject.

President Obama at War With His Generals

JFK overruled his generals on the Cuban Missile Crisis, not to mention the Bay of Pigs.

Now President Obama is overruling his generals in Afghanistan, including the general he placed there because he didn't like the commander he had there before. There are differences: JFK made his decision and accepted the consequences. President Obama is trying to get the generals to take responsibility for his decision, and to provide cover for him. JFK encouraged his generals to communicate freely with him; he just reserved the final decision for himself. The U.S. general in Afghanistan is finding his advice unwelcome in the White House.

The Sipsey Street Irregulars blog actually described it as "Obama at War With His Generals."
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-hate-being-right-obama-at-war-with.html

According to The Tension: Veritas Vincit blog, Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants 30,000-40,000 more troops (net) in the Afghanistan theater, and has warned that without additional boots on the ground by next year, the mission could fail. Yet Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he will not present the troop request to Obama until the White House completes a review of strategy over the next "few weeks." http://thetension.blogspot.com/2009/09/wire-mccain-says-mcchrystal-seeking.html.

Prairie Pundit blog reports that McChrystal said he has only spoken once with the President in 70 days. http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2009/09/mcchrystal-not-defrayed-from-troop.html#comment-form.

Bob Woodward reports in the Washington Post that President Obama's military advisor, retired Gen. James Jones, says McChrystal's troop request is premature. "The bumper sticker here is strategy before resources," Jones told Woodward. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/26/AR2009092602685.html.

Jones says the president has five policy sessions scheduled over the next few weeks to determine Afghanistan strategy. The outcome of those meetings might moot Gen. McChrystal's troop request, according to Jones.

Unilateral Civility: Only Obamists Get Pass for Bombast, Vulgarity

I am hard pressed to recall any JFK appointee who was (publicly) foul-mouthed, or openly bigoted. President Obama used a call for civility to defang opponents on hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights, but has implicitly encouraged his supporters to denounce his adversaries as robustly as they want, and he does not condemn his supporters' over-the-top rhetoric.

This is not difficult to understand. With the mass media's complicity, the president has been able to impose unequal terms - what I call unilateral civility. Conservatives are required to be on their best behavior; libertines and collectivists can let 'er rip. The outcome is never in doubt so long as Conservatives accept these terms. (The Obamists' loathing of the health plan protesters is based not so much on ideological differences as on the protesters' rejection of unilateral civility ground rules.)

The President appeared to demonstrate his comfort level with homosexual supporters' filthy language, including sexually graphic conversation with school-age children, when he nominated Kevin Jennings to a Department of Education post this summer, as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe & Drug-Free Schools.

Obama Nominates Foul-Mouthed Homosexual Activist and Anti-Christian Bigot
by Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although President Barack Obama has advocated speaking "fair minded words" in debating differences on major ethical issues, his recent nominee to the Department of Education's Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools is a homosexual activist with a history of using foul and abusive language against those who have opposed his homosexualist agenda.

Kevin Jennings, the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), was recently appointed to the Obama Administration as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools, which is under the Department of Education led by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

During Jennings's tenure as the Executive director of GLSEN, the organization sponsored a Tufts University conference called "TeachOut" in March 2000. The conference was co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Education; but the event has been described by pro-family organizations familiar with the conference as "fistgate" for its extremely graphic and detailed workshops to teenagers about the mechanics and variations of homosexual intercourse.

The Massachusetts watchdog group, MassResistance, includes on its website a number of graphic quotations from homosexual presenters, who instigated equally graphic conversations on homosexual sex with youth there. MassResistance says they will be releasing a tape of the event to the public later this week. (WARNING: extremely graphic content discussed here <http://www.massresistance.org/docs/issues/fistgate/index.html>)

Around the same time, Jennings was quoted in Marble Collegiate Church as saying members of the "religious right" were "hard core bigots" who comprised about 20 percent of the electorate.

"We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit - I'm trying to find a way to say this. I'm trying not to say, 'F**k 'em!' which is what I want to say, because I don't care what they think!" Jennings told his audience, which pealed with laughter. "Drop dead!"

According to Americans for Truth, Jennings and GLSEN never repudiated the actions of homosexual activists at the "Teach Out" conference, but instead attacked Scott Whiteman, the Massachusetts parent who video-recorded the proceedings, for violating students' privacy.

"Anti-religious bigots should not be setting policy for schools - and promoting dangerous sex and gender identities to youth is the antithesis of 'safety,'" stated Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth.

"Jennings should have been drummed out of public policy years ago for GLSEN's role in the awful Fistgate scandal that corrupted Boston youth," LaBarbera stated. "But instead the GLSEN founder is now being elevated to one of the most important roles in U.S. education policy."

LaBarbera continued, "Americans For Truth will educate Americans on Jennings' and GLSEN's dangerous agenda, and we will work with other pro-family and parental rights groups across the country - and Obama voters who oppose pro-homosexual indoctrination in schools - to urge that the Jennings appointment be withdrawn."

Obama to honor Sen. Kennedy at funeral Mass (OneNewsNow.com)

Obama to honor Sen. Kennedy at funeral Mass (OneNewsNow.com)

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Miles Says Obama Must Attack Somali Pirate Bases

Can anybody imagine JFK traveling overseas to disparage his own countrymen, or to assure Mohammedans that America does not consider itself a Christian country?

Would Kennedy have waved off reporters' questions about an American hostage in harm's way, and insisted on droning on about pork-barrel politics instead? The contrast between President Kennedy and President Obama hasnever seemed starker than this week.

Retired Green Beret Jim Miles analyzed President Obama's response to the initial Somali pirate incident, brought to a conclusion by Navy SEAL
sharpshooters earlier this week.

One of his predictions has already been disproved: the epidemic of
Somali piracy on the high seas was not subdued by the rescue earlier
this week. Rather, Somali pirates have rallied to commandeer multiple additional U.S. ships. However, Miles did prescribe the proper response to such a contingency later in his post. It will be interesting to see his
remarks on the multiple attacks which came later this week.

It is interesting to note that the President's militant Muslim
family members in Kenya are ethnic Somalis, not Swahili-speaking Kenyans. The President is quite sentimental about his African kinsmen, and has written of his loyalty and commitment to them, and to Muslims in general. It must personally difficult for him to act decisively against the Somali menace.

Here is Jim Miles' post in his blog Hipshot from earlier this week.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Navy Seals takeout Somali pirates

When we first heard about the Somali pirates holding American freighter Capt. Richard Phillips hostage in a small boat my wife angrily exclaimed, "A bunch of pirates forces America on it's knees! Where are Special Forces or Navy Seals?"

I thought at the time she summed it up well. America appeared to be on its knees and where in the hell were our special ops? As a retired Green Beret I knew that somewhere in or near the immediate area off the coast of Somalia the US Military was standing by to rescue the good captain. Standing by for orders from the new president.

This was a test for President Obama and his administration. Would he order a rescue attempt? Authorize the use of military force? The world was watching.

He had just made his first foreign visit telling world leaders what an arrogant country America was and bashing his own country in the process. When asked about the incident by reporters Obama said he was discussing housing and dismissed them with a wave of his hand. So much for looking out for an American being held hostage by a bunch of armed, Somali thugs.

I thought President Reagen gave the best definition of foreign policy and national defense when he said, "Our foreign policy should be based on the principle that we will go anywhere and do anything that has to be done to protect our citizens from unjust treatment. Our national defense policy should back that up with force."

Can't be any plainer and to the point than that. Although it seems that just about everyone in the Obama administration is either a buffoon or a tax cheat he must have a few top-level advisers with common sense. I'm sure someone, a military type, advised the president that it was time to quit pussyfooting around and authorize the use of military force in dealing with the pirates. A voice whispered in his ear, "Now is the time to appear Reaganesque, Mr. President. Give the order and let the military carry it out, Sir."

"Dingy" Harry Reid and Nancy "Birdbrain" Pelosi and their gang of losers and traitors, including the smartest woman in the world Hillary Clinton, probably reacted to the use of force with an "OMG, I can't believe he authorized the Navy to kill those poor, unfortunate pirates. How terrible. What will the world think?"

Who gives a rat's butt what the rest of the world thinks? You can bet the scumbag Somali pirates will think twice before attacking one of our ships on the high seas again.

Regardless of world opinion, U.S. Navy SEALs deserve medals for taking out three Somali scumbags with three well placed sniper shots and wounding a fourth in the successful rescue of Captain Phillips. Way to go Navy Seals!

President Obama, finally in authorizing the use of military force, acted like a Commander In Chief. And it works every time it's used if the president issues the order and then lets the military do its job without undue interference from the White House.

It worked when Reagan sent the US military into Grenada to rescue US students in Grenada in 1983. And it worked when President Bush One sent US troops into Panama and toppled Noriega and again in Desert Storm One to oust the Iraqi military from Kuwait. And it's been working in Iraq and Afghanistan in spite of the "cut-and-run" policies of congressional Democrats.

The Korean War, 1950-53, was our first "no-win war" where it was okay to fight and die but not to win, because it might start a bigger war. Truman fired Gen. MacArthur for insisting on winning a war. In Vietnam we just "cut and run" after winning all the battles.

President Johnson bragged to reporters that the Air Force "can't bomb an outhouse in North Vietnam without my approval." As a result of micromanaging the Korean and Vietnam Wars from the White House we now have a nut case in North Korea threatening to nuke everyone and a bunch of armed communist thugs running things in Vietnam.

The Carter administration made the same mistake in the failed operation to rescue US hostages in Iran. "Give the order then get the hell out of the way" is a winning policy.

The failure of the US military operation in the Mogadishu, Somalia under the Clinton administration (Black Hawk Down) is another stark example of failed leadership from the White House. In October, 1993, a 440 man US Delta force launched an operation against Somali Warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid and his rebel force. Outnumbered and refused reinforcements the Delta force suffered heavy casualties in a seventeen hour battle that resulted in eighteen killed and eighty-four wounded.

The bodies of dead American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu and seen on TV around the world. Clinton responded by withdrawing US troops from Somalia. Another "cut-and-run" debacle.

The next move for the Obama administration, now that the Somali riffraff has threatened to start killing hostages in retaliation for the deaths of the three pirates, is to order military air strikes on Somali targets including pirate vessels. The only thing these scumbags understand is military force. Every time they hijack a ship we strike a target in Somalia.

The Obama administration should request, in no uncertain terms, other nations join the US in conducting joint military operations against Somali pirates and their bases in Somalia. The "speak softly but carry a big stick" policy worked well for Teddy Roosevelt.

However, in the end it will be up to the US to lead the charge.The time has also come for merchant shipping to start arming their crews or hire armed security. The US Navy has shown that shooting and killing pirates has a dampening effect on hijacking ships and taking hostages, especially when its a US ship.

The Obama defense team has a chance to institute a "talk softly but carry a big stick" policy in dealing with Somalia and its bunch of pirates. A douse of superior US military firepower would definitely send the right message. Let's hope the new president is listening.

Obama consolidates power, reduces do-gooders to his discipline

JFK was a tax cutter, and in fact Ronald Reagan's tax cuts 20 years later were inspired in part by the Kennedy tax cuts and resulting prosperity of the early 1960s.

No danger of confusing President Obama with JFK here. He is not only increasing taxes robustly, but cutting the deductions allowed for charitable contributions. This is not mere revenue generation, but consolidation of power in the national government at the expense of private philanthropy - especially churches and parachurch organizations - which compels further dependency on government officials, and potentially yields a large, loyal patronage constituency where once potential rivals lurked.

Princeton professor Robert George has observed that socialism is not merely antithetical to individualism, but it is an attack on "mediating civic institutions," such as the family and the church. When collectivists' ambitions ambitions approach the totalitarian, there's not enough room on this planet for government and church and family. In the long run, such totalitarians cannot tolerate independent families or churches, and come to view them as incubators for resistance.

American Leftists couldn't openly oppress church and family a generation ago, but times have changed. They are now in full control of the media (see yesterday's post about "media malpractice"), so there is no watchdog to hold them accountable. The electorate has been so thoroughly dumbed down (see yesterday's post for URL for filmmaker John Ziegler's exit interviews of 2008 voters) that electoral accountability becomes less likely with each passing day. Triumphal Leftists are casting off restraint now as the Democratic regime settles in.

As an example, legislators in Connecticut recently proposed a bill to remove Catholic Church property from the custody of its bishops, and to require that it be held by laymen. This is transparently an act of retaliation and intimidation of the church because it dares to oppose homosexual marriage. The Latter Day Saints are incurring similar intimidation in California, for the same reason.

Already Catholic Charities has been driven out of the child adoption business in Massachusetts by homosexualists. If President Obama and his allies are not restrained, there will be soon be no refuge for Christian philanthropy - or Christian conscience - in the U.S.

The Death of Journalism

JFK unquestionably was better liked in the media than his Republican opponent, Vice President Richard Nixon. And television was kind to him because he struck a more attractive figure than Nixon. After the Kennedy-Nixon debate, famously, most radio listeners thought Nixon had won, while most who watched it on television thought Kennedy won.

Although there was some gauze-focused, syrupy coverage of the Kennedy "Camelot" in the White House, and a lot of understandably nostalgic retrospective coverage after his assassination, the news media played campaign coverage "down the middle," for the most part, and comedians had no significant persuasive role yet.

Half a century later, the news media were openly partisan in favor of Obama, and if the large news organizations took their role more seriously than Jon Stewart or Saturday Night Live's Tina entertainers, it was often difficult to distinguish. Documentary filmmaker John Ziegler calls it "media malpractice," and says that we have witnessed "the death of journalism."

It appears from this exit poll that dysfunctional public education and vapid, self-indulgent news practices have combined to produce a smug, opinionated, but disastrously ignorant electorate. http://www.howobamagotelected.com/assets/videos/interviews.html.