Today, Obama and his confederates in the mass media are busily at work trying to refocus voters' attention from the fact that, although he is a healthy, strapping physical specimen, Obama has never served five minutes in the military. National Guardsmen Dan Quayle and George W. Bush are grizzled warriors by comparison. When it comes to military bona fides, Obama takes his place with the much-deferred Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich and college cheerleader Trent Lott.
This presents some difficulties on Memorial Day weekend, as he attempts to hold his own against Republican candidate John McCain, Vietnam War hero, prisoner of war and U.S.S. Forrestal survivor. But Obama has made the best of a bad situation, putting McCain on the defensive for voting against a liberalized G.I. Bill that would have reduced military retention rates by an estimated 18 percent during a manpower crisis in the voluntary force in time of war. Adult supervision often presents a fat, immobile target.
Obama also appealed to military veterans and pro-military voters by promising that he will have a policy of "zero tolerance" for homelessness among veterans. Oh, really? Is he going to prohibit mental illness? Is he going to immunize veterans against all criminal prosecution? Maybe Montel's RV will be stocking Obama's magic "change" pill to prevent all drug abuse and alcoholism among veterans?
I wonder if Obama realizes how many veterans there are in this country? He's making promises to an awful lot of people. There probably weren't a whole lot of veterans going into "community organizing" back in Chicago, so we ought to forgive him if he has miscalculated.
JFK didn't need to out-promise his opponent, partly because his own World War II resume was so strong. He was the hero of PT 109, and suffered a back injury in action against the Japanese that pained him for the rest of his life. His opponent Richard Nixon was, like JFK, a WWII Navy veteran of the Pacific theater. The poker-playing supply officer Nixon had, admittedly, been more of a Sergeant Bilko figure than combat hero. But he and Kennedy shared the same basic worldview.
Obama has no such luxury. The contest between Obama and his opponent is often the difference between two starkly contrasting worldviews. McCain and his constituency self-identify as citizens of a grand and exceptional nation whereas early Obama supporters, upon honest reflection, would more likely identify themselves as citizens of the world. Now Obama must broaden his base. He must reach out to the people largely despised by his core supporters - he must appeal to voters who feel blessed, not embarrassed, to be American.
The pattern for Obama is that wherever he is weak, he promises more extravagantly. He knows next to nothing about international diplomacy and geo-political strategy; he promises a new era of friendship and world peace. He is clueless about economics; he promises to halt outsourcing, excessive corporate profits and capital flight, and to restore good manufacturing jobs. On health issues, he is slightly better informed, and his positions are accordingly more nuanced, more responsible than Hillary Clinton's.
This would seem to suggest that we have picked Obama before he was ripe. He may be a wise statesman twenty years from now, but we are locking him into snap judgments that we demand of him while he is yet very green, and it's going to be an ugly scene next year or the next when his various parasitical constituencies demand that he make good on his absurd promises. He will either have to break his promises, or dispossess innocent bystanders to satisfy his stalwart supporters and enforcers.
If he chooses the latter course, he will eventually learn the lessons of Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe: you can kill the goose that lays the golden egg, but you can only kill it once.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Humor in the Democratic Primaries
J.F.K. distinguished himself in part by his wit, but in the (pre-Vietnam) 1960 election the mass media were still somewhat deferential, or at least courteous, to political leaders on the national stage. There was no Laugh-In, no Rich Little, no Chevy Chase, no Saturday Night Live yet. And so J.F.K. could dish out the humor, but wasn't generally an object of parody or derision.
Times have changed. Despite the Liberal U.S. news media's obvious favor, Barack Obama has nevertheless been satirized and parodied to an extent J.F.K. could never have imagined.
The news media abstained from any serious scrutiny of Obama until the cumulative primary election results were irreversible, but all good things must come to an end, and when Saturday Night Live broke ranks to parody its own (NBC) newsman Tim Russert, much of the news herd shifted to more even-handed treatment of Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Neither would J.F.K. have recognized the cottage industry in humor driven by the news cycle, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Obama figured prominently in the Daily Show's April 14 "Gaffe-In" feature after his condescending comments about embittered, xenophobic blue-collar Pennsylvanians "clinging" to their (Christian) faith and their guns due to unkept political promises. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=166074&title=headlines-gaffe-in
The most absurd and stinging parodies nowadays come from the blogosphere. Perhaps the zaniest is Red State Update, presented by two exaggerated "good ole boys" from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on YouTube.com. Here is their parody of former presidential candidate Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama, accomplished by overdubbing an actual joint interview. It is absurd, more than a little offensive, and side-splittingly hilarious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsvJyJsoBLY
Times have changed. Despite the Liberal U.S. news media's obvious favor, Barack Obama has nevertheless been satirized and parodied to an extent J.F.K. could never have imagined.
The news media abstained from any serious scrutiny of Obama until the cumulative primary election results were irreversible, but all good things must come to an end, and when Saturday Night Live broke ranks to parody its own (NBC) newsman Tim Russert, much of the news herd shifted to more even-handed treatment of Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Neither would J.F.K. have recognized the cottage industry in humor driven by the news cycle, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Obama figured prominently in the Daily Show's April 14 "Gaffe-In" feature after his condescending comments about embittered, xenophobic blue-collar Pennsylvanians "clinging" to their (Christian) faith and their guns due to unkept political promises. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=166074&title=headlines-gaffe-in
The most absurd and stinging parodies nowadays come from the blogosphere. Perhaps the zaniest is Red State Update, presented by two exaggerated "good ole boys" from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on YouTube.com. Here is their parody of former presidential candidate Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama, accomplished by overdubbing an actual joint interview. It is absurd, more than a little offensive, and side-splittingly hilarious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsvJyJsoBLY
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Columnist Says Rezko Protege Obama Helped Cause Chicago Subprime Crisis
JFK was economically sophisticated, as befits an Ivy League-educated heir to the enormous Kennedy fortune. In some ways, he was Ronald Reagan's economic policy precursor, boldly slashing taxes to stimulate the economy and, counter-intuitively, increase government revenues.
But Barack Obama's economic policies - despite his own biography of privilege and prosperity - focus on class envy and poverty rather than the creation, much less the conservation, of wealth.
The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in reaction to racially bounded "redlining," legally empowered community organizers like Obama to pressure banks into extending loans, against their better judgment, to subprime borrowers.
According to Jerry Bowyer, Obama and his comrades are responsible for much of the vast increase in subprime portfolios that now threatens to bring the U.S. economy down. Here, Bowyer brings his accusation against economically clueless community activists and demagogues who insisted on egalitarian loan policies as if there would be no day of reckoning.
How "Community Organizers" (Like Obama) Created the Subprime Crisis
by Jerry Bowyer
TownHall.com
I wrote to you previously (Meet Barry Obama, 'Fair Housing' Lawyer) about the Community Reinvestment Act, a law which compels banks to make home loans in minority neighborhoods to people who were poor credit risks.
Although the CRA is well known in the financial industry, political pundits and reporters often know very little about finance and so have missed this extremely important aspect of the story. Ignorance of economics doesn't help much either. The political class seems blissfully unaware of the concept of unintended consequences which is the idea that laws which are designed to make our lives better often make our lives worse.
On a recent edition of Kudlow and Company, I debated Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on precisely this point. He seemed not only to disagree with my point that if congress compels banks to make Subprime loans, then they share responsibility for the crisis that results when the borrowers default; he seemed not to understand it. For him once we identify the target group as bankers, nothing else matters - they're bad and he's good, no more reasoning is necessary.
It's not just Congress that's responsible. Yes, they forged the weapons, but some army needed to wield them. That's where guys like Barry Obama came in to the picture.
When Barry (who was gradually changing his name to Barack around this time) graduated from Columbia, he took a brief stint as a researcher writing for a corporate consulting firm. According to his memoirs he thought of himself as 'a spy' who was dropped 'behind enemy lines'.
Shortly thereafter, he left the enemy territory of corporate America and moved to a job about which he could feel proud - he went to work for the New York branch of the Public Interest Research Group.
PIRG is one of those left of center activist groups who, among other things, uses the legitimate concept of 'fair housing' to force banks into making bad loans. PIRG has actively lobbied for a stronger (yes, you guessed it) Community Reinvestment Act.
According to his bio, and accounts from friends, Obama became an expert in real estate law and fair housing while working as a community organizer and public interest lawyer. This is especially the case during his Chicago period.
After graduating from law school Barack worked for various community groups which were attempting to get black churches politically involved in left-of-center causes. He was hired because the Developing Communities Project, which was headed by two older Jewish gentlemen, was having trouble making headway in the black community. By then, the name change to Barack was complete and so was the shift to an Afro-centric identity. Barack was a natural.
He was able to play upon crowds' sense of racial identity, castigating black audiences for their failure to embrace the right policies, but offering hope to them in the form of his own leadership. He joined a prominent Afro-centric church at this time, headed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Eventually Barack joined the civil rights law firm, Miner, Ballard and Galland, where he specialized in fair housing. That's where he did work for the (now indicted) Syrian-born entrepreneur Tony Rezko.
Rezko was a very powerful and politically connected urban real estate developer who did quite a lot of business with the government. Rezko helped Barack go from public interest lawyer to State Senator. And Rezko didn't just help Barack into the upper legislative house, he helped him into his family house as well.
One wonders to what degree Rezko was helped by low-income-sub-prime-lending-fair-housing-industrial complex of urban Chicago. For all the details we may need to wait for the Rezko trial.
One thing, however, is perfectly clear already. Obama spent his pre-elected career working right in the middle of the complex of law firms and activist groups which use law and regulations to push banks into vastly increasing their lending to Subprime borrowers right in the middle of the golden age of the expansion of the Subprime industry.
But Barack Obama's economic policies - despite his own biography of privilege and prosperity - focus on class envy and poverty rather than the creation, much less the conservation, of wealth.
The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in reaction to racially bounded "redlining," legally empowered community organizers like Obama to pressure banks into extending loans, against their better judgment, to subprime borrowers.
According to Jerry Bowyer, Obama and his comrades are responsible for much of the vast increase in subprime portfolios that now threatens to bring the U.S. economy down. Here, Bowyer brings his accusation against economically clueless community activists and demagogues who insisted on egalitarian loan policies as if there would be no day of reckoning.
How "Community Organizers" (Like Obama) Created the Subprime Crisis
by Jerry Bowyer
TownHall.com
I wrote to you previously (Meet Barry Obama, 'Fair Housing' Lawyer) about the Community Reinvestment Act, a law which compels banks to make home loans in minority neighborhoods to people who were poor credit risks.
Although the CRA is well known in the financial industry, political pundits and reporters often know very little about finance and so have missed this extremely important aspect of the story. Ignorance of economics doesn't help much either. The political class seems blissfully unaware of the concept of unintended consequences which is the idea that laws which are designed to make our lives better often make our lives worse.
On a recent edition of Kudlow and Company, I debated Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on precisely this point. He seemed not only to disagree with my point that if congress compels banks to make Subprime loans, then they share responsibility for the crisis that results when the borrowers default; he seemed not to understand it. For him once we identify the target group as bankers, nothing else matters - they're bad and he's good, no more reasoning is necessary.
It's not just Congress that's responsible. Yes, they forged the weapons, but some army needed to wield them. That's where guys like Barry Obama came in to the picture.
When Barry (who was gradually changing his name to Barack around this time) graduated from Columbia, he took a brief stint as a researcher writing for a corporate consulting firm. According to his memoirs he thought of himself as 'a spy' who was dropped 'behind enemy lines'.
Shortly thereafter, he left the enemy territory of corporate America and moved to a job about which he could feel proud - he went to work for the New York branch of the Public Interest Research Group.
PIRG is one of those left of center activist groups who, among other things, uses the legitimate concept of 'fair housing' to force banks into making bad loans. PIRG has actively lobbied for a stronger (yes, you guessed it) Community Reinvestment Act.
According to his bio, and accounts from friends, Obama became an expert in real estate law and fair housing while working as a community organizer and public interest lawyer. This is especially the case during his Chicago period.
After graduating from law school Barack worked for various community groups which were attempting to get black churches politically involved in left-of-center causes. He was hired because the Developing Communities Project, which was headed by two older Jewish gentlemen, was having trouble making headway in the black community. By then, the name change to Barack was complete and so was the shift to an Afro-centric identity. Barack was a natural.
He was able to play upon crowds' sense of racial identity, castigating black audiences for their failure to embrace the right policies, but offering hope to them in the form of his own leadership. He joined a prominent Afro-centric church at this time, headed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Eventually Barack joined the civil rights law firm, Miner, Ballard and Galland, where he specialized in fair housing. That's where he did work for the (now indicted) Syrian-born entrepreneur Tony Rezko.
Rezko was a very powerful and politically connected urban real estate developer who did quite a lot of business with the government. Rezko helped Barack go from public interest lawyer to State Senator. And Rezko didn't just help Barack into the upper legislative house, he helped him into his family house as well.
One wonders to what degree Rezko was helped by low-income-sub-prime-lending-fair-housing-industrial complex of urban Chicago. For all the details we may need to wait for the Rezko trial.
One thing, however, is perfectly clear already. Obama spent his pre-elected career working right in the middle of the complex of law firms and activist groups which use law and regulations to push banks into vastly increasing their lending to Subprime borrowers right in the middle of the golden age of the expansion of the Subprime industry.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Like JFK, Obama Lacks Spine to Repudiate Racists Whose Support He Needs
JFK made nice speeches about civil rights, but knew that he needed the support of racist Southern Democrats in the U.S. Senate, so he was relatively inert during the turmoil of the Civil Rights movement.
He also understood that Blacks were inalienably Democratic, and therefore would remain in his column despite his flirtations with white racist demogogues like James Eastland, Orville Faubus, William Fulbright and Sam Ervin.
Likewise, Sen. Obama has generated some soaring rhetoric about unity and racial reconciliation, but he understands as a prosperous biracial man that his bona fides with the resentful Black underclass are not secure enough to permit him to repudiate Black racist demogogues and economic hypocrites like his Chicago pastor.
Just in case Obama wavers, ideological enforcers like the Washington Post's Colbert King are at the ready with columns like the one below.
Why Obama Stands With His Church
By Colbert King
All they wanted to do was pray with the rest of the congregation. But that was asking too much.
To be sure, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, two leaders in Philadelphia's black community, enjoyed great success in bringing African Americans into the Christian fold. But the steady growth in black membership at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church distressed the white congregation that owned the church.
At first, black Christians were moved to seats along the wall. That still allowed for too much mingling. So one Sunday morning as Allen, Jones and the other black worshipers knelt to pray, white church elders tapped Jones and Allen on the shoulders and told them to take their praying upstairs to a recently built balcony.
Rather than submit to such humiliation, Jones, Allen and the rest of the black worshipers walked out. The two men formed their own congregations.
Jones gained permission from the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania to establish America's first black parish, St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. He eventually became the Episcopal Church's first African American priest.
Allen formed a Methodist congregation that eventually became today's multimillion-member African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.
The walkout in the City of Brotherly Love occurred in 1787 -- a year that marks the beginning of America's independent black church, a theological movement born out of racism.
This history comes to mind as I listen to conservative commentators, chief among them MSNBC's Pat Buchanan, brand as "racist" the slogan adopted by Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago: "Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian."
Trinity is Barack Obama's church and the place where the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. -- a gift to all who would bring down Obama -- served as pastor until his recent retirement.
Buchanan and his ilk look at Trinity's slogan with horror. They label the church's theological values "Afro-centric" and "racially exclusive." Trinity is beyond the pale of Christianity, at least their version of it. Psst: Trinity has plenty of company, coast to coast.
Many black congregations, from storefronts to mega-churches, are in sync with the Trinity slogan. They, too, see no need to apologize for their African roots. Nor are they ashamed of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
But hey, what's with this newfound concern about African Americans worshiping among themselves in their own way? More important, who forced that separation?
As sociologist Kenneth Clark noted in his book "Dark Ghetto," ministers and lay leaders of white Christian churches historically were unwilling to incorporate large numbers of blacks into their houses of Christ. That's still the case today with some churches.
Truth is, folks like Buchanan don't really care that America's Christian congregations don't look like salt and pepper on Sunday mornings. The reality of blacks and whites worshiping apart doesn't disturb them. If anything, Buchanan thinks African Americans are ingrates -- that we should be satisfied with our station in life.
"America has been the best country on earth for black folks," Buchanan wrote in his column, " PJB: A Brief for Whitey," posted on his Web site yesterday.
"It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known," he wrote.
He also understood that Blacks were inalienably Democratic, and therefore would remain in his column despite his flirtations with white racist demogogues like James Eastland, Orville Faubus, William Fulbright and Sam Ervin.
Likewise, Sen. Obama has generated some soaring rhetoric about unity and racial reconciliation, but he understands as a prosperous biracial man that his bona fides with the resentful Black underclass are not secure enough to permit him to repudiate Black racist demogogues and economic hypocrites like his Chicago pastor.
Just in case Obama wavers, ideological enforcers like the Washington Post's Colbert King are at the ready with columns like the one below.
Why Obama Stands With His Church
By Colbert King
All they wanted to do was pray with the rest of the congregation. But that was asking too much.
To be sure, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, two leaders in Philadelphia's black community, enjoyed great success in bringing African Americans into the Christian fold. But the steady growth in black membership at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church distressed the white congregation that owned the church.
At first, black Christians were moved to seats along the wall. That still allowed for too much mingling. So one Sunday morning as Allen, Jones and the other black worshipers knelt to pray, white church elders tapped Jones and Allen on the shoulders and told them to take their praying upstairs to a recently built balcony.
Rather than submit to such humiliation, Jones, Allen and the rest of the black worshipers walked out. The two men formed their own congregations.
Jones gained permission from the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania to establish America's first black parish, St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. He eventually became the Episcopal Church's first African American priest.
Allen formed a Methodist congregation that eventually became today's multimillion-member African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.
The walkout in the City of Brotherly Love occurred in 1787 -- a year that marks the beginning of America's independent black church, a theological movement born out of racism.
This history comes to mind as I listen to conservative commentators, chief among them MSNBC's Pat Buchanan, brand as "racist" the slogan adopted by Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago: "Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian."
Trinity is Barack Obama's church and the place where the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. -- a gift to all who would bring down Obama -- served as pastor until his recent retirement.
Buchanan and his ilk look at Trinity's slogan with horror. They label the church's theological values "Afro-centric" and "racially exclusive." Trinity is beyond the pale of Christianity, at least their version of it. Psst: Trinity has plenty of company, coast to coast.
Many black congregations, from storefronts to mega-churches, are in sync with the Trinity slogan. They, too, see no need to apologize for their African roots. Nor are they ashamed of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
But hey, what's with this newfound concern about African Americans worshiping among themselves in their own way? More important, who forced that separation?
As sociologist Kenneth Clark noted in his book "Dark Ghetto," ministers and lay leaders of white Christian churches historically were unwilling to incorporate large numbers of blacks into their houses of Christ. That's still the case today with some churches.
Truth is, folks like Buchanan don't really care that America's Christian congregations don't look like salt and pepper on Sunday mornings. The reality of blacks and whites worshiping apart doesn't disturb them. If anything, Buchanan thinks African Americans are ingrates -- that we should be satisfied with our station in life.
"America has been the best country on earth for black folks," Buchanan wrote in his column, " PJB: A Brief for Whitey," posted on his Web site yesterday.
"It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known," he wrote.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Like JFK, Obama Leading "Double Life"
JFK was a notorious adulterer who profaned the presidency with multiple trysts, and used the White House staff to prevent his wife from discovering women with him there. By contrast, Obama appears to be a faithful husband. Yet, as Thomas Sowell writes below, he "has been leading as much of a double life as Eliot Spitzer."
What Obama found irresistible, however, was not a mini-skirt or a bursting bodice, but the cult of Black racism and treason in Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Now he is telling his spiritual mistress of 20 years not to call him at work, and not to embarrass him in front of his new friends. But it's hard not to notice the lipstick on his collar.
Race and Politics
By Thomas Sowell
March 18, 2008
There is something both poignant and galling about the candidacy of Barack Obama. Any American, regardless of party or race, has to find it heartening that the country has reached the point where a black candidate for President of the United States sweeps so many primaries in states where the overwhelming majority of the population is white.
We have all seen the crowds enthralled by Barack Obama's rhetoric and theatrical style. Many of his supporters put their money where their mouths were, so that this recently arrived Senator received more millions of dollars in donations than candidates who have been far more visible on the national stage for far more years.
That's the good news. The bad news is that Barack Obama has been leading as much of a double life as Eliot Spitzer.
While talking about bringing us together and deploring "divisive" actions, Senator Obama has for 20 years been a member of a church whose minister, Jeremiah Wright, has said that "God Bless America" should be replaced by "God damn America" -- among many other wild and even obscene denunciations of American society, including blanket racist attacks on whites.
Nor was this an isolated example. Fox News Channel has played tapes of various sermons of Jeremiah Wright, and says that it has tapes with hours of more of the same.
Wright's actions matched his words. He went with Louis Farrakhan to Libya and Farrakhan received an award from his church.
Sean Hannity began reporting on Jeremiah Wright back in April of 2007. But the mainstream media saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil.
Now that the facts have come out in a number of places, and can no longer be suppressed, many in the media are trying to spin these facts out of existence.
Spin number one is that Jeremiah Wright's words were "taken out of context." Like most people who use this escape hatch, those who say this do not explain what the words mean when taken in context. In just what context does "God damn America" mean something different?
Spin number two is that Barack Obama says he didn't hear the particular things that Jeremiah Wright said that are now causing so much comment.
It wasn't just an isolated remark. Nor were the enthusiastic responses of the churchgoers something which suggests that this anti-American attitude was news to them or something that they didn't agree with. If Barack Obama was not in church that particular day, he belonged to that church for 20 years. He made a donation of more than $20,000 to that church. In all that time, he never had a clue as to what kind of man Jeremiah Wright was? Give me a break! You can't be with someone for 20 years, call him your mentor, and not know about his racist and anti-American views.
Neither Barack Obama nor his media spinmeisters can put this story behind him with some facile election year rhetoric. If Senator Obama wants to run with the rabbits and hunt with the hounds, then at least let the rabbits and the hounds know that.
The fact that Obama talks differently than Jeremiah Wright does not mean that his track record is different. Barack Obama's voting record in the Senate is perfectly consistent with the far left ideology and the grievance culture, just as his wife's statement that she was never proud of her country before is consistent with that ideology.
Senator Barack Obama's political success thus far has been a blow for equality. But equality has its down side. Equality means that a black demagogue who has been exposed as a phony deserves exactly the same treatment as a white demagogue who has been exposed as a phony.
We don't need a President of the United States who got to the White House by talking one way, voting a very different way in the Senate, and who for 20 years followed a man whose words and deeds contradict Obama's carefully crafted election year image.
--------
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
What Obama found irresistible, however, was not a mini-skirt or a bursting bodice, but the cult of Black racism and treason in Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Now he is telling his spiritual mistress of 20 years not to call him at work, and not to embarrass him in front of his new friends. But it's hard not to notice the lipstick on his collar.
Race and Politics
By Thomas Sowell
March 18, 2008
There is something both poignant and galling about the candidacy of Barack Obama. Any American, regardless of party or race, has to find it heartening that the country has reached the point where a black candidate for President of the United States sweeps so many primaries in states where the overwhelming majority of the population is white.
We have all seen the crowds enthralled by Barack Obama's rhetoric and theatrical style. Many of his supporters put their money where their mouths were, so that this recently arrived Senator received more millions of dollars in donations than candidates who have been far more visible on the national stage for far more years.
That's the good news. The bad news is that Barack Obama has been leading as much of a double life as Eliot Spitzer.
While talking about bringing us together and deploring "divisive" actions, Senator Obama has for 20 years been a member of a church whose minister, Jeremiah Wright, has said that "God Bless America" should be replaced by "God damn America" -- among many other wild and even obscene denunciations of American society, including blanket racist attacks on whites.
Nor was this an isolated example. Fox News Channel has played tapes of various sermons of Jeremiah Wright, and says that it has tapes with hours of more of the same.
Wright's actions matched his words. He went with Louis Farrakhan to Libya and Farrakhan received an award from his church.
Sean Hannity began reporting on Jeremiah Wright back in April of 2007. But the mainstream media saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil.
Now that the facts have come out in a number of places, and can no longer be suppressed, many in the media are trying to spin these facts out of existence.
Spin number one is that Jeremiah Wright's words were "taken out of context." Like most people who use this escape hatch, those who say this do not explain what the words mean when taken in context. In just what context does "God damn America" mean something different?
Spin number two is that Barack Obama says he didn't hear the particular things that Jeremiah Wright said that are now causing so much comment.
It wasn't just an isolated remark. Nor were the enthusiastic responses of the churchgoers something which suggests that this anti-American attitude was news to them or something that they didn't agree with. If Barack Obama was not in church that particular day, he belonged to that church for 20 years. He made a donation of more than $20,000 to that church. In all that time, he never had a clue as to what kind of man Jeremiah Wright was? Give me a break! You can't be with someone for 20 years, call him your mentor, and not know about his racist and anti-American views.
Neither Barack Obama nor his media spinmeisters can put this story behind him with some facile election year rhetoric. If Senator Obama wants to run with the rabbits and hunt with the hounds, then at least let the rabbits and the hounds know that.
The fact that Obama talks differently than Jeremiah Wright does not mean that his track record is different. Barack Obama's voting record in the Senate is perfectly consistent with the far left ideology and the grievance culture, just as his wife's statement that she was never proud of her country before is consistent with that ideology.
Senator Barack Obama's political success thus far has been a blow for equality. But equality has its down side. Equality means that a black demagogue who has been exposed as a phony deserves exactly the same treatment as a white demagogue who has been exposed as a phony.
We don't need a President of the United States who got to the White House by talking one way, voting a very different way in the Senate, and who for 20 years followed a man whose words and deeds contradict Obama's carefully crafted election year image.
--------
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Monday, March 17, 2008
JFK felt obliged to make a major speech during his 1960 presidential campaign when critics predicted that the Catholic Church would dominate the U.S. government under the Catholic Kennedy. He promised that no clergyman would influence his decisions in the White House, and most Americans found that convincing. As it turns out, there is some evidence that Francis Cardinal Spellman was unusually influential as to U.S. foreign policy, but this was no less true during the Eisenhower administration.
Obama has had the opposite errand until recently. Last year he was pledging his devotion to 20-year spiritual adviser Jeremiah Wright. This was in part to deflect accusations that he is a secret Muslim. Now he may wish he had identified himself as a Muslim, because his ties to Wright are proving controversial and embarrassing. Now Obama has to make a speech accounting for his devotion to a racist, divisive pastor and congregation.
If you missed the "Black Values" on Barack Obama's church's About Us page, it's too late.
The 160-word section has since been deleted from the About Us page, replaced by videotaped testimonials from church members vouching for Pastor Jeremiah Wright, including a white official from the parent denomination, United Church of Christ, who said she feels welcome at predominantly black Trinity.
“These black ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever blacks are gathered,” the original page said. But it was taken down, and Wright has gone into seclusion, unavailable for comment.
Obama is expected to deliver a speech today to clarify his views on the racially inflammatory, anti-American sermons that Wright has delivered at Trinity United Church of Christ during the two decades Obama has been a member.
Obama has had the opposite errand until recently. Last year he was pledging his devotion to 20-year spiritual adviser Jeremiah Wright. This was in part to deflect accusations that he is a secret Muslim. Now he may wish he had identified himself as a Muslim, because his ties to Wright are proving controversial and embarrassing. Now Obama has to make a speech accounting for his devotion to a racist, divisive pastor and congregation.
If you missed the "Black Values" on Barack Obama's church's About Us page, it's too late.
The 160-word section has since been deleted from the About Us page, replaced by videotaped testimonials from church members vouching for Pastor Jeremiah Wright, including a white official from the parent denomination, United Church of Christ, who said she feels welcome at predominantly black Trinity.
“These black ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever blacks are gathered,” the original page said. But it was taken down, and Wright has gone into seclusion, unavailable for comment.
Obama is expected to deliver a speech today to clarify his views on the racially inflammatory, anti-American sermons that Wright has delivered at Trinity United Church of Christ during the two decades Obama has been a member.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
JFK had Spellman; Obama has Wright
Like Barack Obama, JFK was close to a churchman, Cardinal Francis Spellman. Spellman was alleged to have been complicit in the coup against South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem, himself a Catholic, which led to Diem's assassination by Buddhist forces.
Spellman was a fierce anti-Communist who was very influential in U.S. foreign policy, and was occasionally dispatched by the Vatican to represent Catholic interests with national leaders, including Eisenhower and Kennedy.
Obama, too, has close ties to a churchman with foreign policy interests and strong opinions about the illegitimacy of American society. Obama's confidante, United Church of Christ preacher Jeremiah A. Wright, laid out his view of America in a YouTube sermon described below by Newsmax.com correspondent Ronald Kessler.
Obama Minister's Hatred of America
By Ronald Kessler
In a sermon delivered at Howard University, Barack Obama’s longtime minister, friend, and adviser blamed America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs, and creating a racist society that would never elect a black man as president. The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, gave the sermon at the school’s Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel in Washington on Jan. 15, 2006.
While snippets from the sermon have appeared in a few magazines, no news outlet has previously run the entire text of Wright’s diatribe. An audio recording of the sermon appears on YouTube.
Raising his voice in rage, Wright began his sermon by saying, “Fact No. 1: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college. Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body.”
Omitting fact No. 2, Wright thundered on: “Fact No. 3: America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. We invaded Grenada for no other reason than to get Maurice Bishop [a Grenada revolutionary who seized power in 1979], invaded Panama because Noriega would not dance to our tune any more. We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers. We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Qaddafi.”
Wright continued: “Fact No. 4: We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.
Fact No. 5: We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-semitic.”
His voice rising, Wright was on a roll: “Fact No. 6: We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. They’re just finding out about that. We care nothing about human life if the ends justifies the means.
Fact No. 7: We do not care if poor black and brown children cannot read and kill each other senselessly. We abandoned the cities back in the '60s when the riots started and it really doesn’t matter what those nations do to each other; we gave up on them and public education of poor people who live in the projects . . .”
Wright went on: “Fact No. 8: We started the AIDS virus, and now that it is out of control, we still put more money in the military than in medicine; more money in hate than in humanitarian concerns. Everybody does not have access to healthcare, I don’t care what the rich white boys in the Senate say. Listen up: If you are poor, black and elderly, forget it.”
Concluding, Wright said: “Fact No. 9: We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty.
And fact No. 10: We are selfish, self-centered egotists who are arrogant and ignorant and betray our church and do not try to make the kingdom that Jesus talked about a reality. And — and — and in light of these 10 facts, God has got to be sick of this s***.”
Meeting with Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Feb. 24, Obama described Wright as being like “an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with.” He rarely mentions the items of disagreement.
Obama went on to explain away Wright’s anti-Zionist statements as being rooted in his anger over the Jewish state’s support for South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. As with a previous claim that his church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan because of his work with ex-offenders, Obama made that up out of thin air. Wright’s statements denouncing Israel have not been qualified in any way.
As for Wright’s repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks, Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be “provocative.” Hearing Wright’s venomous and paranoid denunciations of this country, the vast majority of Americans would walk out. Instead, Obama and his wife Michelle have presumably sat through hundreds of similar sermons. Indeed, Obama has described Wright as his “sounding board” during the two decades he has known him.
Obama has said he found religion through Wright in the 1980s and consulted him before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Wright before announcing his candidacy last year. Aside from showing poor judgment, it’s difficult to imagine that Obama could be so close to Wright without agreeing with at least some of his views.
In light of Wright’s perspective, Michelle Obama’s comment that she feels proud of America for the first time makes perfect sense. (In a second iteration, she said she feels “really proud” for the first time.)
Wright’s blame-America mentality also fits in neatly with many on the left who support Obama’s weak approach to national security and dealing with foreign dictators. To date, the Obama-loving media have largely ignored the senator’s close association with Wright. The question is whether the blackout will be lifted before voters decide whether they want to entrust Obama with America’s future.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.
Spellman was a fierce anti-Communist who was very influential in U.S. foreign policy, and was occasionally dispatched by the Vatican to represent Catholic interests with national leaders, including Eisenhower and Kennedy.
Obama, too, has close ties to a churchman with foreign policy interests and strong opinions about the illegitimacy of American society. Obama's confidante, United Church of Christ preacher Jeremiah A. Wright, laid out his view of America in a YouTube sermon described below by Newsmax.com correspondent Ronald Kessler.
Obama Minister's Hatred of America
By Ronald Kessler
In a sermon delivered at Howard University, Barack Obama’s longtime minister, friend, and adviser blamed America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs, and creating a racist society that would never elect a black man as president. The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, gave the sermon at the school’s Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel in Washington on Jan. 15, 2006.
While snippets from the sermon have appeared in a few magazines, no news outlet has previously run the entire text of Wright’s diatribe. An audio recording of the sermon appears on YouTube.
Raising his voice in rage, Wright began his sermon by saying, “Fact No. 1: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college. Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body.”
Omitting fact No. 2, Wright thundered on: “Fact No. 3: America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. We invaded Grenada for no other reason than to get Maurice Bishop [a Grenada revolutionary who seized power in 1979], invaded Panama because Noriega would not dance to our tune any more. We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers. We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Qaddafi.”
Wright continued: “Fact No. 4: We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.
Fact No. 5: We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-semitic.”
His voice rising, Wright was on a roll: “Fact No. 6: We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. They’re just finding out about that. We care nothing about human life if the ends justifies the means.
Fact No. 7: We do not care if poor black and brown children cannot read and kill each other senselessly. We abandoned the cities back in the '60s when the riots started and it really doesn’t matter what those nations do to each other; we gave up on them and public education of poor people who live in the projects . . .”
Wright went on: “Fact No. 8: We started the AIDS virus, and now that it is out of control, we still put more money in the military than in medicine; more money in hate than in humanitarian concerns. Everybody does not have access to healthcare, I don’t care what the rich white boys in the Senate say. Listen up: If you are poor, black and elderly, forget it.”
Concluding, Wright said: “Fact No. 9: We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty.
And fact No. 10: We are selfish, self-centered egotists who are arrogant and ignorant and betray our church and do not try to make the kingdom that Jesus talked about a reality. And — and — and in light of these 10 facts, God has got to be sick of this s***.”
Meeting with Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Feb. 24, Obama described Wright as being like “an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with.” He rarely mentions the items of disagreement.
Obama went on to explain away Wright’s anti-Zionist statements as being rooted in his anger over the Jewish state’s support for South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. As with a previous claim that his church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan because of his work with ex-offenders, Obama made that up out of thin air. Wright’s statements denouncing Israel have not been qualified in any way.
As for Wright’s repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks, Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be “provocative.” Hearing Wright’s venomous and paranoid denunciations of this country, the vast majority of Americans would walk out. Instead, Obama and his wife Michelle have presumably sat through hundreds of similar sermons. Indeed, Obama has described Wright as his “sounding board” during the two decades he has known him.
Obama has said he found religion through Wright in the 1980s and consulted him before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Wright before announcing his candidacy last year. Aside from showing poor judgment, it’s difficult to imagine that Obama could be so close to Wright without agreeing with at least some of his views.
In light of Wright’s perspective, Michelle Obama’s comment that she feels proud of America for the first time makes perfect sense. (In a second iteration, she said she feels “really proud” for the first time.)
Wright’s blame-America mentality also fits in neatly with many on the left who support Obama’s weak approach to national security and dealing with foreign dictators. To date, the Obama-loving media have largely ignored the senator’s close association with Wright. The question is whether the blackout will be lifted before voters decide whether they want to entrust Obama with America’s future.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.
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