This is from one of my favorite authors, writing about a woman who wants to be First Lady
Barack Obama's Bitter Half
By Michelle Malkin
May 7, 2008
Are you ready for hope and change? Barack Obama better hope his bitter half has a change of attitude if she expects to assume the title of first lady in November. She's been likened to John F. Kennedy's wife, what with her chic suits and pearls and perfectly coiffed helmet hair. But when she opens her mouth, Michelle O is less Jackie O and more Wendy W -- as in Wendy Whiner, the constantly kvetching "Saturday Night Live" character from the early 1980s.
When last our world views collided, back in February, the other Michelle was expounding on her lack of pride in America. I gave her myriad reasons to cheer up -- from America's role in the fall of communism to our unparalleled generosity to our nation's superior economic system, cultural resilience, entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity. But since then, Mrs. Obama has dug in her $500 Jimmy Choo heels and solidified her role in the 2008 presidential campaign as Queen of the Grievance-Mongers.
In one of her few (unintentionally) funny moments during a recent sit-down with comedian Stephen Colbert, Mrs. Obama claimed, "Barack and I tend to look at the positives." That's a side-splitter. As National Review's Yuval Levin put it, Michelle Obama is "America's unhappiest millionaire." And she has the audacity to extrapolate her misery and her husband's alleged victimization to the "vast majority of Americans."
In South Carolina, she called America "just downright mean" and bemoaned "a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day." And in case you hadn't heard enough of her carping about how hard it is for a seven-figure-earning family to pay for ballet lessons and piano lessons and pay off college loans, Mrs. Oh-Woe-Is-Me was at it again on the campaign trail in Indiana and North Carolina before Tuesday's primary.
On the stump, she warmed up (or rather, berated) supporters by complaining about how her husband is an underdog even after he keeps winning primary and caucus after primary and caucus. With a scowl etched on her face, she bellyached that "the bar is constantly changing for this man." Call the waambulance, stat.
Barack Obama, the missus explains, is Everyman who has ever been put down by The Man. And "understand this" (a condescending verbal tic shared by both Obamas): Mrs. Obama is here to make sure you feel their pain. Which is really your pain. Because the hardships of a privileged Ivy League couple are "exactly" the same as the travails of miners or service workers or small-business owners: "So the bar has been shifting and moving in this race," she grumbles, "but the irony is, the sad irony is, that's exactly what is happening to most Americans in this country."
Don't tell Miss Michelle about the Great Depression or the Carter Malaise. "Folks are struggling like never before," she seethes.
Well, yes, gas prices are up. Some food prices are rising. And borrowers who bought more housing than they could afford are underwater. But "struggling like never before"? Didn't they teach her about Hoovervilles and stagflation?
In Mrs. Obama, the fear-mongering pot meets the angst-stirring kettle: "Fear," she froths, "creates this veil of impossibility and it is hanging over all of our heads."
But what Mrs. Obama lacks in pride for her country and its promise she more than makes up for with bottomless pride for her husband. Her standard campaign speeches include at least a dozen references to how "proud" she is of him. And of herself. And of everyone who has overcome The Man and pierced the "veil of impossibility" to get to the polls and vote Obama. An online MSNBC report on a joint appearance by the Obamas on the "Today" show in the wake of the Jeremiah Wright debacle included this tellingly narcissistic passage:
[Mrs. Obama]: "'I'm so proud of how he has maintained his dignity, his cool, his honor.'
"Obama gently tried to interrupt, admitting to being embarrassed by the praise.
"'But I am proud of you,' she said.
"'I know,' he replied."
We all know. So get over yourself already, haughty spirit. Pride doesn't photograph well. And bitterness leaves frown lines. Which means Botox bills. Which "struggling folks" like you and your husband simply cannot afford.
Try smiling for once. It's cheaper.
---
Michelle Malkin is author of "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
SAME CRAP, DIFFERENT DAY
Newsmax.com
Newsmax/Zogby Tracking: Hillary Gains in Final Weekend
Sunday, April 20, 2008 8:23 PM
The final weekend before Tuesday’s important primary election in Pennsylvania was good for New York’s Hillary Clinton, as she made a definitive move toward victory over rival Illinois’ Barack Obama, a fresh Newsmax/Zogby daily telephone tracking poll shows.
She gained two points over the past 24 hours as Obama lost one point, and she now leads 48% to 42%, the latest polling shows. Meanwhile, the undecideds dropped by two points. Her edge was three points yesterday but had wobbled within a tight margin. Clinton’s advantage is still within the margin of error, but she is close to getting beyond it as Election Day looms.
The two-day tracking survey, which was conducted April 19-20, 2008, included 11% who were either undecided or supported someone else.
The telephone survey, conducted using live operators working out of Zogby’s on-site call center in Upstate New York, included 602 likely Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania. It carries a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percentage points. The Newsmax/Zogby polling in the Keystone state will continue through Monday evening, with the final release issued early on Election Day.
Pollster John Zogby: “A big one-day of polling for Clinton. If a 10-point victory is the pundit-driven threshold she needs on Tuesday, it looks like she can do it. This does not look like a one-day anomaly – undecideds dropped to only 5% in this latest single day of polling, and they are breaking Clinton’s way. As I suggested yesterday, if white and Catholic voters, who still are the biggest portion of undecideds, actually vote, Clinton will have her double-digit victory. Just today alone, she polled 53% to Obama’s 38%.
“She had big pickups of support in the western region, among voters 50-65, and among women. She has tightened Obama’s lead among men and she maintains her Catholic base. For the first time in our poll, Clinton climbs into double digits among African Americans.”
While Obama continues to lead in eastern Pennsylvania by a 53% to 37% margin, he lost ground in the central part of the state – Clinton now leads there by 16 points, up from eight points in earlier polling late last week. Clinton also expanded her edge in western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh, and now leads there, 56% to 33%.
Clinton has made steady progress among Pennsylvania men, and now trails Obama among the demographic by just three points – 45% to 42%. Meanwhile, she has maintained a big 53% to 40% lead among women.
A key demographic battleground in this race has been among those age 35-54, the single largest age demographic group in the state. Two weeks ago, Clinton lead among those voters, but by last week, Obama had an edge. For the first time in our latest tracking poll leading up to tomorrow’s election, Clinton has regained the lead of these voters and now leads among voters age 35-54, 49% to 44%.
As has been the case in other earlier voting states, Obama holds a big lead among voters younger than age 35, while Clinton leads among voters age 55 and older. After Florida, Pennsylvania has the oldest voters in the nation.
Clinton leads among Catholics, 63% to 25%, reflecting a small gain for Clinton. But Obama continues to lead among Protestants by a 52% to 40% margin, though he continued to lose a small amount of support. The two religious demographic groups are roughly the same size in Pennsylvania.
Among the very liberal Democratic Party voters, Obama expanded his edge to 29 points, a big jump since yesterday. However, Clinton has expanded her lead among mainline liberals, and now holds a 50% to 43% advantage. She also leads by larger margins among moderates and conservative Democratic primary voters.
The economy continues to be the most important issue to voters, and they continue to favor Clinton over Obama in terms of choosing a candidate who would both help their personal financial situation, and help the U.S. economy at large. As has been the case since the beginning of the Newsmax/Zogby daily tracking, Clinton was also seen as the candidate who better understands Pennsylvania – by an almost two-to-one margin.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Newsmax/Zogby Tracking: Hillary Gains in Final Weekend
Sunday, April 20, 2008 8:23 PM
The final weekend before Tuesday’s important primary election in Pennsylvania was good for New York’s Hillary Clinton, as she made a definitive move toward victory over rival Illinois’ Barack Obama, a fresh Newsmax/Zogby daily telephone tracking poll shows.
She gained two points over the past 24 hours as Obama lost one point, and she now leads 48% to 42%, the latest polling shows. Meanwhile, the undecideds dropped by two points. Her edge was three points yesterday but had wobbled within a tight margin. Clinton’s advantage is still within the margin of error, but she is close to getting beyond it as Election Day looms.
The two-day tracking survey, which was conducted April 19-20, 2008, included 11% who were either undecided or supported someone else.
The telephone survey, conducted using live operators working out of Zogby’s on-site call center in Upstate New York, included 602 likely Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania. It carries a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percentage points. The Newsmax/Zogby polling in the Keystone state will continue through Monday evening, with the final release issued early on Election Day.
Pollster John Zogby: “A big one-day of polling for Clinton. If a 10-point victory is the pundit-driven threshold she needs on Tuesday, it looks like she can do it. This does not look like a one-day anomaly – undecideds dropped to only 5% in this latest single day of polling, and they are breaking Clinton’s way. As I suggested yesterday, if white and Catholic voters, who still are the biggest portion of undecideds, actually vote, Clinton will have her double-digit victory. Just today alone, she polled 53% to Obama’s 38%.
“She had big pickups of support in the western region, among voters 50-65, and among women. She has tightened Obama’s lead among men and she maintains her Catholic base. For the first time in our poll, Clinton climbs into double digits among African Americans.”
While Obama continues to lead in eastern Pennsylvania by a 53% to 37% margin, he lost ground in the central part of the state – Clinton now leads there by 16 points, up from eight points in earlier polling late last week. Clinton also expanded her edge in western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh, and now leads there, 56% to 33%.
Clinton has made steady progress among Pennsylvania men, and now trails Obama among the demographic by just three points – 45% to 42%. Meanwhile, she has maintained a big 53% to 40% lead among women.
A key demographic battleground in this race has been among those age 35-54, the single largest age demographic group in the state. Two weeks ago, Clinton lead among those voters, but by last week, Obama had an edge. For the first time in our latest tracking poll leading up to tomorrow’s election, Clinton has regained the lead of these voters and now leads among voters age 35-54, 49% to 44%.
As has been the case in other earlier voting states, Obama holds a big lead among voters younger than age 35, while Clinton leads among voters age 55 and older. After Florida, Pennsylvania has the oldest voters in the nation.
Clinton leads among Catholics, 63% to 25%, reflecting a small gain for Clinton. But Obama continues to lead among Protestants by a 52% to 40% margin, though he continued to lose a small amount of support. The two religious demographic groups are roughly the same size in Pennsylvania.
Among the very liberal Democratic Party voters, Obama expanded his edge to 29 points, a big jump since yesterday. However, Clinton has expanded her lead among mainline liberals, and now holds a 50% to 43% advantage. She also leads by larger margins among moderates and conservative Democratic primary voters.
The economy continues to be the most important issue to voters, and they continue to favor Clinton over Obama in terms of choosing a candidate who would both help their personal financial situation, and help the U.S. economy at large. As has been the case since the beginning of the Newsmax/Zogby daily tracking, Clinton was also seen as the candidate who better understands Pennsylvania – by an almost two-to-one margin.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
"Silence in the face of evil is always on the side of the aggressor."
April 16, 2008
Obama: Silence in the face of evil
By Peggy Shapiro
"Silence in the face of evil is always on the side of the aggressor."
- Elie Wiesel
Barack Obama, the eloquent speaker who mesmerizes the media, the man whose orations make women swoon, the candidate who promises to embrace dictators and terrorists in conversation, falls strangely silent when his words are needed to stand up against evil, intolerance or injustice. In a dangerous world with evil regimes aspiring to destroy the United States and the values we represent, the silence of an American President would be an
unthinkable disaster.
We know that for over twenty years, Obama listened attentively to his pastor's diatribes against the United States and Israel and said nothing. Confronted with outright lies that the United States created the AIDS virus to destroy Africa and imports harmful drugs to destroy African Americans, Obama was silent. When the church website and newsletter carried the message of Hamas, labeled as a terrorist group by both the U.S. and the E.U., Obama maintained his silence.
Obama has not availed himself of other opportunities to speak out against injustice. When his words have taken take a stand on behalf of human decency and not be empty platitudes, Obama chose silence. Take the case of the anti-Islamist Muslim journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, who was imprisoned and tortured by Bangladeshi authorities when he requested a visa to attend a conference in Tel Aviv. Securing his release became a bi-partisan issue. Richard L. Benkin, who is spearheading efforts to release Choudhury, notes "Democratic, Republican, left, right, moderate; you name it. And every one of them reacted with support; every one of them, that is, except one. Who was the one lawmaker that took a pass on saving the life of an imprisoned US ally and opponent of Islamist extremism? That's right, my own Illinois Senator Barack Obama."
Obama's record in the Illinois legislature established his reluctance to take a courageous stand. In 1999, he was faced with a difficult vote to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults. Voting "yes" would help create the image of a man who is tough on crime, but many in the African-American community opposed the law. Faced with a moral dilemma, he did what was most comfortable: nothing. He sidestepped this issue and 130 others by voting present. "If you are worried about your next election, the present vote gives you political cover," said Kent D. Redfield, a professor of political studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. In the United States Senate, where there are no "present" votes, Obama consistently sought the safety of voting 96.7% of the time with the majority of Democrats. That is, when he voted. He has missed 39.3% of the votes during the current Congress.
Obama has found a comfortable spot straddling the fence on any potentially controversial issue. At a town hall in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Obama, was asked about U.S. policy toward Tibet and Darfur (the site of ongoing genocide against the Christian population), especially in light of the forthcoming Olympics in Beijing this summer. He equivocated, "It's very hard to tell your banker that he's wrong...And if we are running huge deficits and big national debts and we're borrowing money constantly from China, that gives us less leverage. It give us less leverage to talk about human rights, it also is giving us less leverage to talk about the uneven trading relationship that we have with China." Obama never once mentioned Tibet or China's relationship with Sudan.
This week when history demanded his voice, Obama once again opted for silence instead of courage. Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders have strongly condemned Jimmy Carter's planned meeting with Khaled Mashal, head of the Hamas terrorist organization. Both Democrats and Republicans demonstrated their leadership in a bipartisan letter to the former president entreating him to refrain from using his stature to undermine U.S. policy and negotiate with Hamas. (Hamas is committed to the complete eradication of Israel and has forsworn any negotiations in favor of violence.) Among Democrats speaking out on the House floor was Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), "In light of Hamas' continuing violence and calls for the destruction of the State of Israel, I strongly urge President Carter to reconsider his decision." Others warned that meeting with Hamas would not only undermine U.S. policy and the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, but lend legitimacy to the group that thwarts all efforts for peace.
Obama, stunningly, declined to take a moral stance and instead chose silence. He said it was not his place to criticize former President Jimmy Carter... "I'm not going to comment on former President Carter. He's a private citizen. It's not my place to discuss who he shouldn't meet with," Obama (Reuters April 11, 2008)
If Obama wants to be President of the United States, it is his place to speak out for what is true, what is in the interest of the nation, and what is morally right (even if it costs him a few votes). It is called leadership.
Posted by me Thursday, April 17, 2008
April 16, 2008
Obama, CEO Pay, and the Politics of Class Envy
By Lee Cary
Populism uses the politics of discontent. Barack Obama's recurring comparisons between CEO and average worker salaries is a class-warfare play on resentment with just enough truth to make it work with many voters.
Senator Obama has made frequent reference to the spread between CEO compensation and average worker pay. For example:
1. January 20, 2008, "The Great Need of the Hour" speech on MLK Day
"We have a [moral] deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months."
2. Radio ad in the Texas primary race
"Some CEOs make more in 10 minutes than some American workers make in a year."
3. April 11, 2008, REUTERS article quoting Obama in Indianapolis
"Some CEOs make more in one day than their workers make in one year."
The parameters for Obama's comparison continue to drift, but few notice. His is not an exercise in mathematics. It's an appeal to voter discontent.
When a politician bemoans the salary-disparity on the Jay Leno or David Letterman Shows the crowds applaud. Never mind that Jay makes $123,000 and Dave $154,000 for each show - considerably more than the average U.S. worker makes in a year. Entertainers, including sports figures, are exempt from salary comparisons. They have talent. And never mind that Obama has leveraged his support from Oprah Winfrey to gain votes. At an annual income of $260,000,000, The Oprah makes a million dollars per weekday.
Obama's floating pay equations have generally been specious. Here's how.
Let's start with the average annual salary (AAS) for a U.S. worker as computed by the San Francisco Chronicle using U.S. Department of Labor statistics: $39,795.33 (Q1 2005). We could use CNN's computation of a 2006 AAS of $29,544, but they relied on the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy; that lower figure factors in both full- and part-time salaries. Therein is a challenge with computing comparative salaries; not only do the numbers lag behind the calendar, but some sources spin the numbers to support their policy agenda. In October 2005, a third source put the ASS at $40,409. We'll use $40,000 as the ASS to test Obama's equations.
Forbes placed the aggregate pay for the CEOs of the top 500 U.S. companies at $5.1 billion, or a CEO average of $10.2 million. Another source notes that the range of 2005 CEO pay is from $10-15 million. We'll use the higher number - $15 million.
In all of Obama's equation he uses the word "some." It's a word that baths generalizations in the warm waters of perceived accuracy. If, for example, you own twin pug dogs that are the only canines that ever learned to play checkers, you could rightly say, "Some dogs play checkers." But, truth be told, most dogs don't. Obama has said this,
1. "We have a [moral] deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months."
Here's the math: The 2005 AAS for 10 months was $33,333.33. Based on a 40 hour week, a CEO making more than $33,333 in ten minutes ($3,333.33 per minute) would have a weekly (2,400 minutes) salary of about $8 million and an annual salary of about $416 million. How many CEOs met that qualification? The answer is (drum roll here) - none. According the Forbes, the highest CEO salary for 2005 was Yahoo's Terry Semel at $230 million. (He's right there in Oprah territory.)
2. "Some CEOs make more in 10 minutes than some American workers make in a year."
Oops. This equation pushes the "some" CEOs annual salary up to nearly $500 million. That's equivalent to about what the top three highest paid CEOs made in 2005 combined. So this equation is clearly bogus. Then, finally, Obama lowers the numbers.
3. "Some CEOs make more in one day than their workers make in one year."
Okay, now Obama is into reality with his math, although he was careful not to put the word "all" before "their workers." But, some CEOs do make $10.4 million a year. In fact, as we've seen, that's about the average for the top 500 companies. Some Obama supporters do even better, including Steven Spielberg, who makes $110 million a year; George Clooney, $25 million; Matt Damon, $24 million; Will Smith, $31 million -- and good for them. CBS News reportedly gave Katie Couric a five-year contract making $46,149 per evening news broadcast. So Ms. Couric receives more for 20-odd minutes of teleprompter reading than the AAS of U.S. workers. You suppose CBS News has aired any stories on the disparity between CEO compensation and worker pay?
Where's Senator Obama going with all these sliding comparative equations? The answer is that he's appealing to class envy.
It's not as though the spread between CEO compensation and worker pay isn't already under considerable scrutiny. For a review of proposed and passed legislation pertaining to executive compensation see here. And, for a comprehensive overview of the issue you can read "Excessive CEO Pay: Background and Policy Approaches," a February 2007 publication of the Congressional Research Services (CRS). Here's a summary from that report describing how the government has been addressing the issue.
"There have been two general approaches to executive pay reform. First changes to securities laws and regulations have attempted to strengthen the bargaining position of shareholders by (1) requiring more complete and comprehensive disclosure of CEO pay, (2) making boards more responsive to shareholder interests, or (3) requiring direct shareholder approval of executive pay packages. Some of initiatives are the result of regulatory initiatives, while others are or were legislatively based. Second, Congress has tried to restrain the growth of executive pay by eliminating the tax deduction for compensation paid in excess of specific caps." (p. CRS-3)
So it's not as if Senator Obama is doing the nation a public service by surfacing an issue that's been ignored. No, he has another agenda.
Quote #1 above came from Obama's MLK Day speech wherein he said, "Unity is the great need of the hour. Unity is how we shall overcome." But exploiting class envy is not a unification tactic. It's a divisive tactic and represents the same old liberal politics of discontent. It offers no vision for the future of the nation except friction and stridency.
In the wake of Senator Clinton's attempt to exploit Obama's recent statement about small town Pennsylvanians clinging to guns and religion, Obama said, "Shame on her." In this case, it's shame on him.
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April 14, 2008
Obama Chic
By James Lewis
Geraldine Ferraro wasn't quite right: It's not just Obama's race that has made him the frontrunner on the Left. It's his chic-ness.
It helps that Senator Obama is "international" and half black, but don't ignore his youth, his sonorous voice and skinniness: He's the fashion icon of the age. Shortly after Obama announced, he captured the gay vote with one photo op in a bathing suit.
If Senator Obama looked and talked like Charlie Rangel he would not be adored by millions of lovelorn liberals.
Have our greatest presidents have been chic just like Obama? There is George Washington with his wooden teeth, Abe Lincoln with his ole' prairie lawyer drawl, and Ronald Reagan with this 1950s haircut.
Still, there is something about Obama that casts a magic spell over those of a certain mindset. At Salon magazine, Walter Shapiro gushed,
"Unlike most presidential Dems in recent memory, the Illinois senator is at ease with himself -- even while bowling gutter balls in Pennsylvania."
Even flubbing a couple of bowling ball tries reflects on the man's cool. This man can do no wrong.
I have a friend who ran into Bill Clinton in the 90s one day, shook hands with the great man for a few seconds, and came away transformed. I asked him what came over him. "You don't understand!" he said. "He loved me!" So my friend voted for the Slick One, and wouldn't listen to a critical word in spite of all the scandals. True story. That's what a celebrity handshake and five seconds of sincere vibes can do to certain folks when dealing with a charismatic pol.
I thought it was degrading to be so easily suckered by an flaming con artist. But maybe that's the secret of the Democrats: they know their followers are looking for love. Like any good sales outfit they play to whatever their customers dream about: I care for you, yes you, personally, it's love, baby, sitting in front of your TV with 200 million other viewers. It's like the old radio preacher asking all the listeners to place both hands on their RCA Victor, bow their heads, and pray with him in person, one to one. Bill Clinton made "I care for you" work at the polls. Obama is doing it right in front of our eyes. Hillary doesn't have the mojo, no matter how hard she tries.
You have to admit that black Democrats have a point. If you are looking for a crowd charmer to mesmerize millions of gullible folks, why not choose a black guy? After all, could Obama be worse than Bill?
With the New Media finding out more about the real Obama, we are learning a lot that doesn't quite fit the manufactured image. Such as Senator Obama's notion of compassion toward white small-town Pennsylvanians and their well-known racial rage and hatred.
"... So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations..." (italics added)
Oops.
When Hillary and McCain promptly jumped on that remark as showing contempt for and ignorance about the voters, Obama dug himself a deeper hole:
"No, I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania, I know what's going on in Indiana, I know what's going on in Illinois," Mr. Obama said, his voice rising. "People are fed up, they're angry, they're frustrated, they're bitter and they want to see a change in Washington. That's why I'm running for president of the United States of America."
It's funny, those are feelings a lot of average Americans may have never noticed themselves --- it's unconscious racism, you you --- but the libs are sure that everybody is a racist out there. It's a miracle how Obama can read all those typical white minds with absolute, metaphysical certainty.
"I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania, I know what's going on in Indiana, I know what's going on in Illinois."
Call it omniscient mind-reading. It's a liberal faith that surpasseth human understanding. They and only they can see right through false consciousness of the masses.
If the media have their way, Obama chic will put all those oddities to rest. The elites yearn for an avatar of human perfection, and Hillary is just so Nineties, and simply not slender. Recognizing a great opportunity, they have switched from Slick Willie to Slick Barry, and are hammering poor Mrs. Clinton for just a few of the old lies -- while letting Obama get away with a bumper harvest of whoppers. Senator Clinton is correct. It's not fair!
Given that the Dems are now wedded to Obama, the new line is that "experience" doesn't matter to for a president. With Obama's brilliance, three years in the Senate is plenty of time to learn how to govern America in a time of war and economic fever. If you were hiring a Starbucks manager you'd look for experience. But President of the United States? Commander in Chief? Captain of the Ship of State? Leader of the Free World? Who cares about experience?
(Am I the only one who thinks that's certifiably insane?)
Even Camille Paglia has fallen for Obama chic. Normally one of the most level-headed people on the Left, she now thinks Obama's magic outweighs any doubts about his substance, character, or racially charged Leftism. Paglia is making the case for Obama's purity of heart is what really matters.
"... I plan to vote for Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary because he is a rational, centered personality who speaks the language of idealism and national unity. Obama has served longer as an elected official than Hillary. He has had experience as a grass-roots activist, and he is also a highly educated lawyer who will be a quick learner in office. His international parentage and childhood, as well as his knowledge of both Christianity and Islam, would make him the right leader at the right time. And his wife Michelle is a powerhouse.
"The Obamas represent the future, not the past."
Senator Obama is very slick indeed, a Bill Clinton for the 21st Century. Like Bill, he is good at prettifying his dubious personal associations, politicians and influence peddlers who helped him get where he is today. He is also dexterous in skating through tricky questions.
But Obama has stumbled repeatedly on basic foreign policy knowledge, where he is absolutely Carteresque. Not exactly a man for the times, as Carter's most famous foreign affairs blunder, letting Ayatollah Khomeini overthrow the Shah of Iran in 1979, is now leading to nuclear panic all over the Middle East. Carter himself is adding a new catastrophe to all the old ones by promising to shake hands with Hamas. Is this a foretaste of Barack Obama's compassionate foreign policy? He has certainly not criticized Jimmy Carter's newest desperate grab for the spotlight.
Still, we're not supposed to be looking for flaws. Let's all pretend we didn't hear Senator Obama's off-the-cuff idea of invading nuclear Pakistan, or his notion of trying to charm A'jad out of his race for nukes by being really, really nice to him. We know how susceptible the Mullahs are to sweet reason. Carter showed us how that works in 1979.
Freud said that love is a kind of madness -- you're totally convinced that your adored one makes the world go 'round. Well, liberals have done it again. They fell in love with Adlai Stevenson; they tumbled head over heels for JFK, and then Bill Clinton. Now it's Obama's turn. The only question is, how many voters will surrender to the celebrity parade? That may decide the presidential election.
It all goes to show that Finley Peter Dunne's Mister Dooley had it right: God protects orphans, drunkards, and the United States.
At least, we better hope so.
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/obama_chic.html at April 16, 2008 - 11:04:34 PM EDT
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April 15, 2008
Further clarification of Obama's remark
Thomas Lifson
Barack Obama has had several things to say about his "cling" remarks (the cling part is much worse than the bitter part, as several others have noted). But I just read (via Ed Morrissey) some other remarks in the speech. The context clarifies Obama's now-famous words: [emphasis added by Ed]
Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by - it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism.
Obama is calling the clingy folks racists. The crowd's laughter is the key, as Ed notes. These were rich San Franciscans sharing a chuckle over the crude provinciality of their fellow countrymen. The kind of people who give America such a bad name among the overseas elites. It was Obama pandering to the prejudices of his crowd. These people congratulate themselves on their own enlightenment when they support an Ivy Leaguer raised by a white grandmother in the best schools who happens to have black skin. The more open-minded of them acknowledge a certain charm to rural Appalachian culture manifested in folk arts like clog dancing.
This is the secret to the potency of this incident. Message loud and clear: Obama's friends are laughing at the majority of Americans. That is the very definition of elitist.
According to Mayhill Fowler, the blogger who broke the story, and whose crude recording of Obama's words is the only version so far available, there were other video cameras running during the speech. Somewhere, out there, there may well be another version of the event recorded in greater fidelity, and with pictures. Will one surface? Or will class solidarity among the rich prevent the proles in Pennsylvania from seeing the candidate's statement about them and judging for themselves?
Bob Herbert of the NYT thinks Obama knew what he was saying, but didn't go far enough:
Senator Obama has spent his campaign trying to dodge the race issue, which in America is like trying to dodge the wind. So when he fielded the question in San Francisco, he didn't say: "A lot of folks are not with me because I'm black - but I'm trying to make my case and bring as many around as I can."
I rarely agree with Bob Herbert, but I do wish the man who called for a national discussion would be honest and lead a conversation from his heart and soul, not from his carefully manufactured public persona. Actually, I should say personas, for the man seems to behave differently with different crowds. I bet he doesn't talk the same way at Trinity United Congregational Church as on Billionaire's Row in San Francisco.
So Barack Obama should tell us about their false consciousness, and maybe invite his former south Chicago neighbor Thomas Frank to tell them What's the Matter with Kansas, Midwestern and Pennsyslvanian small towns, and pretty much most of flyover country.
Hat tip: Ed Lasky
illustration by Otto Veblin
Posted at 01:35 PM | Email | Permalink
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/04/further_clarification_of_obama.html at April 16, 2008 - 11:07:04 PM EDT
Obama: Silence in the face of evil
By Peggy Shapiro
"Silence in the face of evil is always on the side of the aggressor."
- Elie Wiesel
Barack Obama, the eloquent speaker who mesmerizes the media, the man whose orations make women swoon, the candidate who promises to embrace dictators and terrorists in conversation, falls strangely silent when his words are needed to stand up against evil, intolerance or injustice. In a dangerous world with evil regimes aspiring to destroy the United States and the values we represent, the silence of an American President would be an
unthinkable disaster.
We know that for over twenty years, Obama listened attentively to his pastor's diatribes against the United States and Israel and said nothing. Confronted with outright lies that the United States created the AIDS virus to destroy Africa and imports harmful drugs to destroy African Americans, Obama was silent. When the church website and newsletter carried the message of Hamas, labeled as a terrorist group by both the U.S. and the E.U., Obama maintained his silence.
Obama has not availed himself of other opportunities to speak out against injustice. When his words have taken take a stand on behalf of human decency and not be empty platitudes, Obama chose silence. Take the case of the anti-Islamist Muslim journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, who was imprisoned and tortured by Bangladeshi authorities when he requested a visa to attend a conference in Tel Aviv. Securing his release became a bi-partisan issue. Richard L. Benkin, who is spearheading efforts to release Choudhury, notes "Democratic, Republican, left, right, moderate; you name it. And every one of them reacted with support; every one of them, that is, except one. Who was the one lawmaker that took a pass on saving the life of an imprisoned US ally and opponent of Islamist extremism? That's right, my own Illinois Senator Barack Obama."
Obama's record in the Illinois legislature established his reluctance to take a courageous stand. In 1999, he was faced with a difficult vote to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults. Voting "yes" would help create the image of a man who is tough on crime, but many in the African-American community opposed the law. Faced with a moral dilemma, he did what was most comfortable: nothing. He sidestepped this issue and 130 others by voting present. "If you are worried about your next election, the present vote gives you political cover," said Kent D. Redfield, a professor of political studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. In the United States Senate, where there are no "present" votes, Obama consistently sought the safety of voting 96.7% of the time with the majority of Democrats. That is, when he voted. He has missed 39.3% of the votes during the current Congress.
Obama has found a comfortable spot straddling the fence on any potentially controversial issue. At a town hall in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Obama, was asked about U.S. policy toward Tibet and Darfur (the site of ongoing genocide against the Christian population), especially in light of the forthcoming Olympics in Beijing this summer. He equivocated, "It's very hard to tell your banker that he's wrong...And if we are running huge deficits and big national debts and we're borrowing money constantly from China, that gives us less leverage. It give us less leverage to talk about human rights, it also is giving us less leverage to talk about the uneven trading relationship that we have with China." Obama never once mentioned Tibet or China's relationship with Sudan.
This week when history demanded his voice, Obama once again opted for silence instead of courage. Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders have strongly condemned Jimmy Carter's planned meeting with Khaled Mashal, head of the Hamas terrorist organization. Both Democrats and Republicans demonstrated their leadership in a bipartisan letter to the former president entreating him to refrain from using his stature to undermine U.S. policy and negotiate with Hamas. (Hamas is committed to the complete eradication of Israel and has forsworn any negotiations in favor of violence.) Among Democrats speaking out on the House floor was Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), "In light of Hamas' continuing violence and calls for the destruction of the State of Israel, I strongly urge President Carter to reconsider his decision." Others warned that meeting with Hamas would not only undermine U.S. policy and the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, but lend legitimacy to the group that thwarts all efforts for peace.
Obama, stunningly, declined to take a moral stance and instead chose silence. He said it was not his place to criticize former President Jimmy Carter... "I'm not going to comment on former President Carter. He's a private citizen. It's not my place to discuss who he shouldn't meet with," Obama (Reuters April 11, 2008)
If Obama wants to be President of the United States, it is his place to speak out for what is true, what is in the interest of the nation, and what is morally right (even if it costs him a few votes). It is called leadership.
Posted by me Thursday, April 17, 2008
April 16, 2008
Obama, CEO Pay, and the Politics of Class Envy
By Lee Cary
Populism uses the politics of discontent. Barack Obama's recurring comparisons between CEO and average worker salaries is a class-warfare play on resentment with just enough truth to make it work with many voters.
Senator Obama has made frequent reference to the spread between CEO compensation and average worker pay. For example:
1. January 20, 2008, "The Great Need of the Hour" speech on MLK Day
"We have a [moral] deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months."
2. Radio ad in the Texas primary race
"Some CEOs make more in 10 minutes than some American workers make in a year."
3. April 11, 2008, REUTERS article quoting Obama in Indianapolis
"Some CEOs make more in one day than their workers make in one year."
The parameters for Obama's comparison continue to drift, but few notice. His is not an exercise in mathematics. It's an appeal to voter discontent.
When a politician bemoans the salary-disparity on the Jay Leno or David Letterman Shows the crowds applaud. Never mind that Jay makes $123,000 and Dave $154,000 for each show - considerably more than the average U.S. worker makes in a year. Entertainers, including sports figures, are exempt from salary comparisons. They have talent. And never mind that Obama has leveraged his support from Oprah Winfrey to gain votes. At an annual income of $260,000,000, The Oprah makes a million dollars per weekday.
Obama's floating pay equations have generally been specious. Here's how.
Let's start with the average annual salary (AAS) for a U.S. worker as computed by the San Francisco Chronicle using U.S. Department of Labor statistics: $39,795.33 (Q1 2005). We could use CNN's computation of a 2006 AAS of $29,544, but they relied on the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy; that lower figure factors in both full- and part-time salaries. Therein is a challenge with computing comparative salaries; not only do the numbers lag behind the calendar, but some sources spin the numbers to support their policy agenda. In October 2005, a third source put the ASS at $40,409. We'll use $40,000 as the ASS to test Obama's equations.
Forbes placed the aggregate pay for the CEOs of the top 500 U.S. companies at $5.1 billion, or a CEO average of $10.2 million. Another source notes that the range of 2005 CEO pay is from $10-15 million. We'll use the higher number - $15 million.
In all of Obama's equation he uses the word "some." It's a word that baths generalizations in the warm waters of perceived accuracy. If, for example, you own twin pug dogs that are the only canines that ever learned to play checkers, you could rightly say, "Some dogs play checkers." But, truth be told, most dogs don't. Obama has said this,
1. "We have a [moral] deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months."
Here's the math: The 2005 AAS for 10 months was $33,333.33. Based on a 40 hour week, a CEO making more than $33,333 in ten minutes ($3,333.33 per minute) would have a weekly (2,400 minutes) salary of about $8 million and an annual salary of about $416 million. How many CEOs met that qualification? The answer is (drum roll here) - none. According the Forbes, the highest CEO salary for 2005 was Yahoo's Terry Semel at $230 million. (He's right there in Oprah territory.)
2. "Some CEOs make more in 10 minutes than some American workers make in a year."
Oops. This equation pushes the "some" CEOs annual salary up to nearly $500 million. That's equivalent to about what the top three highest paid CEOs made in 2005 combined. So this equation is clearly bogus. Then, finally, Obama lowers the numbers.
3. "Some CEOs make more in one day than their workers make in one year."
Okay, now Obama is into reality with his math, although he was careful not to put the word "all" before "their workers." But, some CEOs do make $10.4 million a year. In fact, as we've seen, that's about the average for the top 500 companies. Some Obama supporters do even better, including Steven Spielberg, who makes $110 million a year; George Clooney, $25 million; Matt Damon, $24 million; Will Smith, $31 million -- and good for them. CBS News reportedly gave Katie Couric a five-year contract making $46,149 per evening news broadcast. So Ms. Couric receives more for 20-odd minutes of teleprompter reading than the AAS of U.S. workers. You suppose CBS News has aired any stories on the disparity between CEO compensation and worker pay?
Where's Senator Obama going with all these sliding comparative equations? The answer is that he's appealing to class envy.
It's not as though the spread between CEO compensation and worker pay isn't already under considerable scrutiny. For a review of proposed and passed legislation pertaining to executive compensation see here. And, for a comprehensive overview of the issue you can read "Excessive CEO Pay: Background and Policy Approaches," a February 2007 publication of the Congressional Research Services (CRS). Here's a summary from that report describing how the government has been addressing the issue.
"There have been two general approaches to executive pay reform. First changes to securities laws and regulations have attempted to strengthen the bargaining position of shareholders by (1) requiring more complete and comprehensive disclosure of CEO pay, (2) making boards more responsive to shareholder interests, or (3) requiring direct shareholder approval of executive pay packages. Some of initiatives are the result of regulatory initiatives, while others are or were legislatively based. Second, Congress has tried to restrain the growth of executive pay by eliminating the tax deduction for compensation paid in excess of specific caps." (p. CRS-3)
So it's not as if Senator Obama is doing the nation a public service by surfacing an issue that's been ignored. No, he has another agenda.
Quote #1 above came from Obama's MLK Day speech wherein he said, "Unity is the great need of the hour. Unity is how we shall overcome." But exploiting class envy is not a unification tactic. It's a divisive tactic and represents the same old liberal politics of discontent. It offers no vision for the future of the nation except friction and stridency.
In the wake of Senator Clinton's attempt to exploit Obama's recent statement about small town Pennsylvanians clinging to guns and religion, Obama said, "Shame on her." In this case, it's shame on him.
Return to the Article
April 14, 2008
Obama Chic
By James Lewis
Geraldine Ferraro wasn't quite right: It's not just Obama's race that has made him the frontrunner on the Left. It's his chic-ness.
It helps that Senator Obama is "international" and half black, but don't ignore his youth, his sonorous voice and skinniness: He's the fashion icon of the age. Shortly after Obama announced, he captured the gay vote with one photo op in a bathing suit.
If Senator Obama looked and talked like Charlie Rangel he would not be adored by millions of lovelorn liberals.
Have our greatest presidents have been chic just like Obama? There is George Washington with his wooden teeth, Abe Lincoln with his ole' prairie lawyer drawl, and Ronald Reagan with this 1950s haircut.
Still, there is something about Obama that casts a magic spell over those of a certain mindset. At Salon magazine, Walter Shapiro gushed,
"Unlike most presidential Dems in recent memory, the Illinois senator is at ease with himself -- even while bowling gutter balls in Pennsylvania."
Even flubbing a couple of bowling ball tries reflects on the man's cool. This man can do no wrong.
I have a friend who ran into Bill Clinton in the 90s one day, shook hands with the great man for a few seconds, and came away transformed. I asked him what came over him. "You don't understand!" he said. "He loved me!" So my friend voted for the Slick One, and wouldn't listen to a critical word in spite of all the scandals. True story. That's what a celebrity handshake and five seconds of sincere vibes can do to certain folks when dealing with a charismatic pol.
I thought it was degrading to be so easily suckered by an flaming con artist. But maybe that's the secret of the Democrats: they know their followers are looking for love. Like any good sales outfit they play to whatever their customers dream about: I care for you, yes you, personally, it's love, baby, sitting in front of your TV with 200 million other viewers. It's like the old radio preacher asking all the listeners to place both hands on their RCA Victor, bow their heads, and pray with him in person, one to one. Bill Clinton made "I care for you" work at the polls. Obama is doing it right in front of our eyes. Hillary doesn't have the mojo, no matter how hard she tries.
You have to admit that black Democrats have a point. If you are looking for a crowd charmer to mesmerize millions of gullible folks, why not choose a black guy? After all, could Obama be worse than Bill?
With the New Media finding out more about the real Obama, we are learning a lot that doesn't quite fit the manufactured image. Such as Senator Obama's notion of compassion toward white small-town Pennsylvanians and their well-known racial rage and hatred.
"... So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations..." (italics added)
Oops.
When Hillary and McCain promptly jumped on that remark as showing contempt for and ignorance about the voters, Obama dug himself a deeper hole:
"No, I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania, I know what's going on in Indiana, I know what's going on in Illinois," Mr. Obama said, his voice rising. "People are fed up, they're angry, they're frustrated, they're bitter and they want to see a change in Washington. That's why I'm running for president of the United States of America."
It's funny, those are feelings a lot of average Americans may have never noticed themselves --- it's unconscious racism, you you --- but the libs are sure that everybody is a racist out there. It's a miracle how Obama can read all those typical white minds with absolute, metaphysical certainty.
"I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania, I know what's going on in Indiana, I know what's going on in Illinois."
Call it omniscient mind-reading. It's a liberal faith that surpasseth human understanding. They and only they can see right through false consciousness of the masses.
If the media have their way, Obama chic will put all those oddities to rest. The elites yearn for an avatar of human perfection, and Hillary is just so Nineties, and simply not slender. Recognizing a great opportunity, they have switched from Slick Willie to Slick Barry, and are hammering poor Mrs. Clinton for just a few of the old lies -- while letting Obama get away with a bumper harvest of whoppers. Senator Clinton is correct. It's not fair!
Given that the Dems are now wedded to Obama, the new line is that "experience" doesn't matter to for a president. With Obama's brilliance, three years in the Senate is plenty of time to learn how to govern America in a time of war and economic fever. If you were hiring a Starbucks manager you'd look for experience. But President of the United States? Commander in Chief? Captain of the Ship of State? Leader of the Free World? Who cares about experience?
(Am I the only one who thinks that's certifiably insane?)
Even Camille Paglia has fallen for Obama chic. Normally one of the most level-headed people on the Left, she now thinks Obama's magic outweighs any doubts about his substance, character, or racially charged Leftism. Paglia is making the case for Obama's purity of heart is what really matters.
"... I plan to vote for Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary because he is a rational, centered personality who speaks the language of idealism and national unity. Obama has served longer as an elected official than Hillary. He has had experience as a grass-roots activist, and he is also a highly educated lawyer who will be a quick learner in office. His international parentage and childhood, as well as his knowledge of both Christianity and Islam, would make him the right leader at the right time. And his wife Michelle is a powerhouse.
"The Obamas represent the future, not the past."
Senator Obama is very slick indeed, a Bill Clinton for the 21st Century. Like Bill, he is good at prettifying his dubious personal associations, politicians and influence peddlers who helped him get where he is today. He is also dexterous in skating through tricky questions.
But Obama has stumbled repeatedly on basic foreign policy knowledge, where he is absolutely Carteresque. Not exactly a man for the times, as Carter's most famous foreign affairs blunder, letting Ayatollah Khomeini overthrow the Shah of Iran in 1979, is now leading to nuclear panic all over the Middle East. Carter himself is adding a new catastrophe to all the old ones by promising to shake hands with Hamas. Is this a foretaste of Barack Obama's compassionate foreign policy? He has certainly not criticized Jimmy Carter's newest desperate grab for the spotlight.
Still, we're not supposed to be looking for flaws. Let's all pretend we didn't hear Senator Obama's off-the-cuff idea of invading nuclear Pakistan, or his notion of trying to charm A'jad out of his race for nukes by being really, really nice to him. We know how susceptible the Mullahs are to sweet reason. Carter showed us how that works in 1979.
Freud said that love is a kind of madness -- you're totally convinced that your adored one makes the world go 'round. Well, liberals have done it again. They fell in love with Adlai Stevenson; they tumbled head over heels for JFK, and then Bill Clinton. Now it's Obama's turn. The only question is, how many voters will surrender to the celebrity parade? That may decide the presidential election.
It all goes to show that Finley Peter Dunne's Mister Dooley had it right: God protects orphans, drunkards, and the United States.
At least, we better hope so.
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/obama_chic.html at April 16, 2008 - 11:04:34 PM EDT
Return to the Article
April 15, 2008
Further clarification of Obama's remark
Thomas Lifson
Barack Obama has had several things to say about his "cling" remarks (the cling part is much worse than the bitter part, as several others have noted). But I just read (via Ed Morrissey) some other remarks in the speech. The context clarifies Obama's now-famous words: [emphasis added by Ed]
Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by - it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism.
Obama is calling the clingy folks racists. The crowd's laughter is the key, as Ed notes. These were rich San Franciscans sharing a chuckle over the crude provinciality of their fellow countrymen. The kind of people who give America such a bad name among the overseas elites. It was Obama pandering to the prejudices of his crowd. These people congratulate themselves on their own enlightenment when they support an Ivy Leaguer raised by a white grandmother in the best schools who happens to have black skin. The more open-minded of them acknowledge a certain charm to rural Appalachian culture manifested in folk arts like clog dancing.
This is the secret to the potency of this incident. Message loud and clear: Obama's friends are laughing at the majority of Americans. That is the very definition of elitist.
According to Mayhill Fowler, the blogger who broke the story, and whose crude recording of Obama's words is the only version so far available, there were other video cameras running during the speech. Somewhere, out there, there may well be another version of the event recorded in greater fidelity, and with pictures. Will one surface? Or will class solidarity among the rich prevent the proles in Pennsylvania from seeing the candidate's statement about them and judging for themselves?
Bob Herbert of the NYT thinks Obama knew what he was saying, but didn't go far enough:
Senator Obama has spent his campaign trying to dodge the race issue, which in America is like trying to dodge the wind. So when he fielded the question in San Francisco, he didn't say: "A lot of folks are not with me because I'm black - but I'm trying to make my case and bring as many around as I can."
I rarely agree with Bob Herbert, but I do wish the man who called for a national discussion would be honest and lead a conversation from his heart and soul, not from his carefully manufactured public persona. Actually, I should say personas, for the man seems to behave differently with different crowds. I bet he doesn't talk the same way at Trinity United Congregational Church as on Billionaire's Row in San Francisco.
So Barack Obama should tell us about their false consciousness, and maybe invite his former south Chicago neighbor Thomas Frank to tell them What's the Matter with Kansas, Midwestern and Pennsyslvanian small towns, and pretty much most of flyover country.
Hat tip: Ed Lasky
illustration by Otto Veblin
Posted at 01:35 PM | Email | Permalink
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/04/further_clarification_of_obama.html at April 16, 2008 - 11:07:04 PM EDT
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
THE HOLLOW MEN
Barack Obama, The Big Talker, Is A Living Lie
By THOMAS SOWELL | Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2008 4:30 PM PT
An e-mail from a reader said that, while Hillary Clinton tells lies, Barack Obama is himself a lie. That is becoming painfully apparent with each new revelation of how drastically his carefully crafted image this election year contrasts with what he has actually been saying and doing for many years.
Sen. Obama's election-year image is that of a man who can bring the country together, overcoming differences of party or race, as well as solving our international problems by talking with Iran and other countries with which we are at odds, and performing other miscellaneous miracles as needed.
There is, of course, not a speck of evidence that Obama has ever transcended party differences in the United States Senate. Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show him to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate. Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation — or any other significant legislation, for that matter.
Obama is all talk — glib talk, exciting talk, confident talk, but still just talk. Some of his recent talk has stirred up controversy because it revealed yet another blatant contradiction between Obama's public image and his reality.
Speaking privately to supporters in heavily left-liberal San Francisco, Obama let down his hair and described working class people in Pennsylvania as so "bitter" that they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."
Like so much that Obama has said and done over the years, this is standard stuff on the far left, where guns and religion are regarded as signs of psychological dysfunction — and where opinions different from those of the left are ascribed to emotions ("bitter" in this case), rather than to arguments that need to be answered.
Like so many others on the left, Obama rejects "stereotypes" when they are stereotypes he doesn't like but blithely throws around his own stereotypes about "a typical white person" or "bitter" gun-toting, religious and racist working-class people.
In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification," when people react adversely to what was plainly said. Obama and his supporters were still busy "clarifying" Jeremiah Wright's very plain statements when it suddenly became necessary to "clarify" Obama's own statements in San Francisco.
People who have been cheering whistle-blowers for years have suddenly denounced the person who blew the whistle on what Obama said in private that is so contradictory to what he has been saying in public.
However inconsistent Obama's words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years. He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi.
Obama is also part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.
"The working class," said Karl Marx, "is revolutionary or it is nothing." That is, they mattered only insofar as they were willing to carry out the Marxist agenda.
Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw included the working class among the "detestable" people who "have no right to live." He added: "I should despair if I did not know that they will all die presently, and that there is no need on earth why they should be replaced by people like themselves."
Similar statements on the left go back as far as Jean Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century and come forward into our own times.
It is understandable that young people are so strongly attracted to Obama. Youth is another name for inexperience — and experience is what is most needed when dealing with skillful and charismatic demagogues.
Those of us old enough to have seen the type again and again over the years can no longer find them exciting. Instead, they are as tedious as they are dangerous.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
Obama's Rev. Wright Mythology
Sunday, April 13, 2008 7:33 PM
By: Ronald Kessler Article Font Size
In his speech on race, Barack Obama tried to explain away his longtime minister’s denunciations of America by saying that for blacks of his generation, memories of “humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away.”
But an examination by Newsmax of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s background reveals that Obama’s characterization of his upbringing is mythology.
Described by Obama as his sounding board and mentor for more than two decades, Wright was born in Philadelphia in 1941. He lived in a racially mixed section called Germantown, which consisted of homes on broad tree-lined streets in northwest Philadelphia. The owners then were middle-class families.
For 62 years, Wright’s father, the Rev. Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, was pastor at Grace Baptist Church of Germantown. He was one of the first blacks to receive a degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
Wright’s mother, Mary Elizabeth Henderson Wright, was a schoolteacher. She was the first black to teach an academic subject at Roosevelt Junior High, the first to teach at Germantown High, and the first to teach at the Philadelphia High School for Girls. She became vice principal of Girls High in 1968.
Rather than attend the more racially mixed Germantown High School at 40 East High St., Wright traveled a few miles to the elite Central High School at 1700 West Olney Ave., graduating in 1959. Opened in 1838, Central High has a distinguished past and admits only highly-qualified applicants who are privileged to attend from all over the city. It is comparable to the Bronx High School of Science and Boston Latin School, both public schools known for academic excellence.
When Wright attended Central High, the student body was 90 percent white, according to students who attended around the same time. At least three-quarters of the students were Jewish. Former students of the period say racial tension did not exist.
Bill Cosby, who attended the school until transferring to Germantown High, has referred to Central as a “wonderful” school. In contrast to Wright, Cosby has denounced blacks who take refuge in self-pitying victimhood and seek to blame whites for problems in the black community.
“Central High was a marvelous academic environment,” says Tod Mammuth, who graduated in 1965 and is now a Philadelphia-area lawyer. “You had to have high academic credentials to be accepted and a high IQ score. Many later said it was more rigorous than college. We had no racial friction.”
In college, “I was so far advanced from the normal kids, it was almost unbelievable,” says H. Yale Gutnick, who graduated from Central High in 1960 and is a Pittsburgh lawyer. “In my freshman year, I didn’t have to do anything. I had already read most of what we had to read in English class, and I was equally advanced in the other academic areas.”
The 211th class yearbook described Wright as a respected member of the class.
“Always ready with a kind word, Jerry is one of the most congenial members of the 211,” the yearbook said. “His record in Central is a model for lower class [younger] members to emulate.”
Saying Wright can be compared to the school handbook’s description of “an educated man,” the description said Wright was “the epitome of what Central endeavors to imbue in its students.”
Next to a photo of Wright wearing black-rimmed glasses, the yearbook listed seven extra-curricular activities, including junior varsity football, band, school orchestra, and swing band.
In contrast to Wright’s comfortable upbringing, Morton A. Klein, who also attended Central High around the same time, lived in a poor, virtually all-black section called West Oak Lane.
“Four times a year, we would go to get big boxes of used clothing that was our wardrobe for the year. I never resented it. I was thrilled with my clothes,” says Klein, who was an economist in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and is now president of the Zionist Organization of America.
“We never went out to eat,” says Klein. “We had no car. We did not go to summer camp or take vacations. I had dozens of black friends. We played in the street every day. I remember my childhood as wonderful, and it certainly did not breed hatred of America. I loved America.”
In contrast, the man Obama describes as being like an uncle has blamed America and whites for starting the AIDS virus to kill off blacks, training professional killers, importing drugs, and creating a racist society to oppress blacks.
“The government gives them drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, not ‘God Bless America’ — God damn America,” Wright has said.
In a similar vein, Michelle Obama has said she is proud of America for the first time. Last week, Obama said Americans in small towns are “bitter” and cling in frustration to “guns, or religion, or antipathy to people who aren’t like them...”
In his speech on race, Obama sought to evoke sympathy for Wright. He described a “lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family...”
Obama said this was “the reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted....Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Rev. Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years.”
In retirement, Wright will continue a life of privilege that dates back to Central High. As a retirement gift, Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ is building him a million-dollar home abutting Odyssey Country Club and Golf Course in the nearly all-white Chicago suburb of Tinley Park. The home sits on land the pastor purchased in 2004 for $345,000. In December 2006, Wright sold the land to his church, which took out a $1.6 million mortgage on the property. In April 2007, the church applied for a building permit for the brick and stone structure.
Wright’s new home has 10,340 square feet of space, about four times the size of a typical suburban house. It includes four bedrooms, an elevator, an exercise room, and a four-car garage.
Rather than being a victim of oppression of blacks, as Obama has claimed, Wright is a symbol of the American dream. Rather than meriting sympathy, he exemplifies what my friend Fox News contributor Juan Williams describes as black leaders who orchestrate support for themselves by manipulating blacks into seeing themselves as victims, creating a black “culture of failure.”
Obama’s attempt to excuse Wright’s hate-America rhetoric by deceptively describing his personal history and his failure to condemn him as a bigot speak volumes about the candidate’s own character and fitness to lead the country.
Fox anchors O'Reilly and Hannity fire back at Wright
Chicago Sun-Times
PALLASCH: Conservative Fox News talk show hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity hit back at Barack Obama's retired pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Monday for his weekend comments criticizing them at appellate Justice Eugene Pincham's funeral. "Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the church pews, Rev. Jeremiah Wright's back again," said O'Reilly. O'Reilly has bashed Wright since video surfaced three weeks ago of Wright's sermons criticizing American foreign policy as contributing to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, including such controversial quotes from Wright as, "God Bless America? No, God damn America!" O'Reilly and Hannity have blasted Wright as "anti-American" for those comments. "Come back on the program, Rev. Wright," Hannity dared. Coming out of his retirement Saturday to preside at Pincham's funeral Saturday, Wright said Pincham's faith wasn't the "you're either with us or against us" variety. "Fox News can't understand that. Bill O'Reilly will never get that. Sean Hannity's stupid fantasy will keep him forever stuck on stupid when it comes to comprehending how you can love a brother who does not believe what you believe," the Sun-Times reported Sunday. On his Monday night show, O'Reilly said, "I don't think he likes me very much . . . [but] I don't know what his beef is with me." O'Reilly's guest commentator Marc Lamont Hill of Temple University told O'Reilly that Wright's beef with him was that O'Reilly misrepresented his criticism of American foreign policy as criticism of America. "I have heard you say people [who disagree with you] don't love America," Hill said.
>> Read more at Illinois News Page
Obama hits back with sarcasm, makes fun of Clinton 'talking like she's Annie Oakley'
Chicago Sun-Times
Democrat Barack Obama lashed out Sunday at rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, mocking her vocal support for gun rights and saying her record in the Senate and as first lady belied her stated commitment to working class voters. "She knows better. Shame on her. Shame on her," Obama told an audience at a union hall here. The Illinois senator has spent three days on the defensive after comments he made at a San Francisco fund-raiser were disclosed that suggested working class people are bitter about their economic circumstances and "cling to guns and religion" as a result. Obama reiterated his regret for his choice of words at the fund-raiser but suggested they had been twisted. He said he'd expected blow back from GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain, but had been "a little disappointed" to be criticized by Clinton. Then, laughing along with the union audience, Obama noted that Clinton seemed much more interested in guns since he made his comments than she had in the past. "She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment. She's talking like she's Annie Oakley," Obama said, invoking the famed female sharpshooter. He continued: "Hillary Clinton is out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday. She's packing a six-shooter. Come on, she knows better."
>> Read more at Illinois News Page
By THOMAS SOWELL | Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2008 4:30 PM PT
An e-mail from a reader said that, while Hillary Clinton tells lies, Barack Obama is himself a lie. That is becoming painfully apparent with each new revelation of how drastically his carefully crafted image this election year contrasts with what he has actually been saying and doing for many years.
Sen. Obama's election-year image is that of a man who can bring the country together, overcoming differences of party or race, as well as solving our international problems by talking with Iran and other countries with which we are at odds, and performing other miscellaneous miracles as needed.
There is, of course, not a speck of evidence that Obama has ever transcended party differences in the United States Senate. Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show him to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate. Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation — or any other significant legislation, for that matter.
Obama is all talk — glib talk, exciting talk, confident talk, but still just talk. Some of his recent talk has stirred up controversy because it revealed yet another blatant contradiction between Obama's public image and his reality.
Speaking privately to supporters in heavily left-liberal San Francisco, Obama let down his hair and described working class people in Pennsylvania as so "bitter" that they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."
Like so much that Obama has said and done over the years, this is standard stuff on the far left, where guns and religion are regarded as signs of psychological dysfunction — and where opinions different from those of the left are ascribed to emotions ("bitter" in this case), rather than to arguments that need to be answered.
Like so many others on the left, Obama rejects "stereotypes" when they are stereotypes he doesn't like but blithely throws around his own stereotypes about "a typical white person" or "bitter" gun-toting, religious and racist working-class people.
In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification," when people react adversely to what was plainly said. Obama and his supporters were still busy "clarifying" Jeremiah Wright's very plain statements when it suddenly became necessary to "clarify" Obama's own statements in San Francisco.
People who have been cheering whistle-blowers for years have suddenly denounced the person who blew the whistle on what Obama said in private that is so contradictory to what he has been saying in public.
However inconsistent Obama's words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years. He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi.
Obama is also part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.
"The working class," said Karl Marx, "is revolutionary or it is nothing." That is, they mattered only insofar as they were willing to carry out the Marxist agenda.
Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw included the working class among the "detestable" people who "have no right to live." He added: "I should despair if I did not know that they will all die presently, and that there is no need on earth why they should be replaced by people like themselves."
Similar statements on the left go back as far as Jean Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century and come forward into our own times.
It is understandable that young people are so strongly attracted to Obama. Youth is another name for inexperience — and experience is what is most needed when dealing with skillful and charismatic demagogues.
Those of us old enough to have seen the type again and again over the years can no longer find them exciting. Instead, they are as tedious as they are dangerous.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
Obama's Rev. Wright Mythology
Sunday, April 13, 2008 7:33 PM
By: Ronald Kessler Article Font Size
In his speech on race, Barack Obama tried to explain away his longtime minister’s denunciations of America by saying that for blacks of his generation, memories of “humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away.”
But an examination by Newsmax of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s background reveals that Obama’s characterization of his upbringing is mythology.
Described by Obama as his sounding board and mentor for more than two decades, Wright was born in Philadelphia in 1941. He lived in a racially mixed section called Germantown, which consisted of homes on broad tree-lined streets in northwest Philadelphia. The owners then were middle-class families.
For 62 years, Wright’s father, the Rev. Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, was pastor at Grace Baptist Church of Germantown. He was one of the first blacks to receive a degree from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
Wright’s mother, Mary Elizabeth Henderson Wright, was a schoolteacher. She was the first black to teach an academic subject at Roosevelt Junior High, the first to teach at Germantown High, and the first to teach at the Philadelphia High School for Girls. She became vice principal of Girls High in 1968.
Rather than attend the more racially mixed Germantown High School at 40 East High St., Wright traveled a few miles to the elite Central High School at 1700 West Olney Ave., graduating in 1959. Opened in 1838, Central High has a distinguished past and admits only highly-qualified applicants who are privileged to attend from all over the city. It is comparable to the Bronx High School of Science and Boston Latin School, both public schools known for academic excellence.
When Wright attended Central High, the student body was 90 percent white, according to students who attended around the same time. At least three-quarters of the students were Jewish. Former students of the period say racial tension did not exist.
Bill Cosby, who attended the school until transferring to Germantown High, has referred to Central as a “wonderful” school. In contrast to Wright, Cosby has denounced blacks who take refuge in self-pitying victimhood and seek to blame whites for problems in the black community.
“Central High was a marvelous academic environment,” says Tod Mammuth, who graduated in 1965 and is now a Philadelphia-area lawyer. “You had to have high academic credentials to be accepted and a high IQ score. Many later said it was more rigorous than college. We had no racial friction.”
In college, “I was so far advanced from the normal kids, it was almost unbelievable,” says H. Yale Gutnick, who graduated from Central High in 1960 and is a Pittsburgh lawyer. “In my freshman year, I didn’t have to do anything. I had already read most of what we had to read in English class, and I was equally advanced in the other academic areas.”
The 211th class yearbook described Wright as a respected member of the class.
“Always ready with a kind word, Jerry is one of the most congenial members of the 211,” the yearbook said. “His record in Central is a model for lower class [younger] members to emulate.”
Saying Wright can be compared to the school handbook’s description of “an educated man,” the description said Wright was “the epitome of what Central endeavors to imbue in its students.”
Next to a photo of Wright wearing black-rimmed glasses, the yearbook listed seven extra-curricular activities, including junior varsity football, band, school orchestra, and swing band.
In contrast to Wright’s comfortable upbringing, Morton A. Klein, who also attended Central High around the same time, lived in a poor, virtually all-black section called West Oak Lane.
“Four times a year, we would go to get big boxes of used clothing that was our wardrobe for the year. I never resented it. I was thrilled with my clothes,” says Klein, who was an economist in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and is now president of the Zionist Organization of America.
“We never went out to eat,” says Klein. “We had no car. We did not go to summer camp or take vacations. I had dozens of black friends. We played in the street every day. I remember my childhood as wonderful, and it certainly did not breed hatred of America. I loved America.”
In contrast, the man Obama describes as being like an uncle has blamed America and whites for starting the AIDS virus to kill off blacks, training professional killers, importing drugs, and creating a racist society to oppress blacks.
“The government gives them drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, not ‘God Bless America’ — God damn America,” Wright has said.
In a similar vein, Michelle Obama has said she is proud of America for the first time. Last week, Obama said Americans in small towns are “bitter” and cling in frustration to “guns, or religion, or antipathy to people who aren’t like them...”
In his speech on race, Obama sought to evoke sympathy for Wright. He described a “lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family...”
Obama said this was “the reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted....Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Rev. Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years.”
In retirement, Wright will continue a life of privilege that dates back to Central High. As a retirement gift, Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ is building him a million-dollar home abutting Odyssey Country Club and Golf Course in the nearly all-white Chicago suburb of Tinley Park. The home sits on land the pastor purchased in 2004 for $345,000. In December 2006, Wright sold the land to his church, which took out a $1.6 million mortgage on the property. In April 2007, the church applied for a building permit for the brick and stone structure.
Wright’s new home has 10,340 square feet of space, about four times the size of a typical suburban house. It includes four bedrooms, an elevator, an exercise room, and a four-car garage.
Rather than being a victim of oppression of blacks, as Obama has claimed, Wright is a symbol of the American dream. Rather than meriting sympathy, he exemplifies what my friend Fox News contributor Juan Williams describes as black leaders who orchestrate support for themselves by manipulating blacks into seeing themselves as victims, creating a black “culture of failure.”
Obama’s attempt to excuse Wright’s hate-America rhetoric by deceptively describing his personal history and his failure to condemn him as a bigot speak volumes about the candidate’s own character and fitness to lead the country.
Fox anchors O'Reilly and Hannity fire back at Wright
Chicago Sun-Times
PALLASCH: Conservative Fox News talk show hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity hit back at Barack Obama's retired pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Monday for his weekend comments criticizing them at appellate Justice Eugene Pincham's funeral. "Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the church pews, Rev. Jeremiah Wright's back again," said O'Reilly. O'Reilly has bashed Wright since video surfaced three weeks ago of Wright's sermons criticizing American foreign policy as contributing to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, including such controversial quotes from Wright as, "God Bless America? No, God damn America!" O'Reilly and Hannity have blasted Wright as "anti-American" for those comments. "Come back on the program, Rev. Wright," Hannity dared. Coming out of his retirement Saturday to preside at Pincham's funeral Saturday, Wright said Pincham's faith wasn't the "you're either with us or against us" variety. "Fox News can't understand that. Bill O'Reilly will never get that. Sean Hannity's stupid fantasy will keep him forever stuck on stupid when it comes to comprehending how you can love a brother who does not believe what you believe," the Sun-Times reported Sunday. On his Monday night show, O'Reilly said, "I don't think he likes me very much . . . [but] I don't know what his beef is with me." O'Reilly's guest commentator Marc Lamont Hill of Temple University told O'Reilly that Wright's beef with him was that O'Reilly misrepresented his criticism of American foreign policy as criticism of America. "I have heard you say people [who disagree with you] don't love America," Hill said.
>> Read more at Illinois News Page
Obama hits back with sarcasm, makes fun of Clinton 'talking like she's Annie Oakley'
Chicago Sun-Times
Democrat Barack Obama lashed out Sunday at rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, mocking her vocal support for gun rights and saying her record in the Senate and as first lady belied her stated commitment to working class voters. "She knows better. Shame on her. Shame on her," Obama told an audience at a union hall here. The Illinois senator has spent three days on the defensive after comments he made at a San Francisco fund-raiser were disclosed that suggested working class people are bitter about their economic circumstances and "cling to guns and religion" as a result. Obama reiterated his regret for his choice of words at the fund-raiser but suggested they had been twisted. He said he'd expected blow back from GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain, but had been "a little disappointed" to be criticized by Clinton. Then, laughing along with the union audience, Obama noted that Clinton seemed much more interested in guns since he made his comments than she had in the past. "She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment. She's talking like she's Annie Oakley," Obama said, invoking the famed female sharpshooter. He continued: "Hillary Clinton is out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday. She's packing a six-shooter. Come on, she knows better."
>> Read more at Illinois News Page
Saturday, April 12, 2008
SLICK WILLIE, JR
Apr 12, 12:15 PM EDT
Obama concedes remarks were ill chosen
By JIM KUHNHENN and CHARLES BABINGTON
Associated Press WriterS
MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) -- Democrat Barack Obama on Saturday conceded that comments he made about bitter working class voters who "cling to guns or religion" were ill chosen, as he tried to stem a burst of complaints that he is condescending.
"I didn't say it as well as I should have," he said.
As Obama tried to quell the furor, presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton hit him with one of her lengthiest and most pointed criticisms to date.
"Senator Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch," she said, campaigning about an hour away in Indianapolis. "They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans."
At issue are comments Obama made privately at a fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. He explained his troubles winning over working class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
The comments, posted on the Huffington Post political Web site Friday, set off a storm of criticism from Clinton, Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain and other GOP officials. It threatened to highlight an Obama Achilles heel - the image that the Harvard-trained lawyer is arrogant, aloof and carries himself with an air of superiority.
His campaign scrambled to defuse possible damage caused with working class voters that Obama needs to win in upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
"Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois who are bitter," Obama said Saturday morning at Ball State University. "They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through."
"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country."
After acknowledging that his previous remarks could have been better phrased, he added:
"The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to.
"And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream."
But Clinton struck hard, calling Obama's comments "demeaning." The increased attack showed that Clinton is eager to hold on to her working class support and is looking to open new questions about Obama's judgment that would make voters and Democratic officials reconsider their support for the Illinois senator.
"I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies," she said. "Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith.
"I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich.
"Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe."
"People don't need a president who looks down on them," she said. "They need a president who stands up for them."
One of Clinton's staunchest supporters, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., acknowledged there was some truth in Obama's remarks. But Republicans would use them against him anyway, Bayh said.
"We do have economic hard times, and that does lead to a frustration and some justifiable anger, it's true," Bayh told reporters after introducing Clinton in Indianapolis. "But I think you're on dangerous ground when you morph that into suggesting that people's cultural values whether it's religion or hunting and fishing or concern about trade are premised solely upon those kinds of anxieties and don't have a legitimate foundation independent of that."
---
Associated Press Writer Charles Babington contributed from Indianapolis.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
Obama concedes remarks were ill chosen
By JIM KUHNHENN and CHARLES BABINGTON
Associated Press WriterS
MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) -- Democrat Barack Obama on Saturday conceded that comments he made about bitter working class voters who "cling to guns or religion" were ill chosen, as he tried to stem a burst of complaints that he is condescending.
"I didn't say it as well as I should have," he said.
As Obama tried to quell the furor, presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton hit him with one of her lengthiest and most pointed criticisms to date.
"Senator Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch," she said, campaigning about an hour away in Indianapolis. "They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans."
At issue are comments Obama made privately at a fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. He explained his troubles winning over working class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions:
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
The comments, posted on the Huffington Post political Web site Friday, set off a storm of criticism from Clinton, Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain and other GOP officials. It threatened to highlight an Obama Achilles heel - the image that the Harvard-trained lawyer is arrogant, aloof and carries himself with an air of superiority.
His campaign scrambled to defuse possible damage caused with working class voters that Obama needs to win in upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
"Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois who are bitter," Obama said Saturday morning at Ball State University. "They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through."
"So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country."
After acknowledging that his previous remarks could have been better phrased, he added:
"The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to.
"And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream."
But Clinton struck hard, calling Obama's comments "demeaning." The increased attack showed that Clinton is eager to hold on to her working class support and is looking to open new questions about Obama's judgment that would make voters and Democratic officials reconsider their support for the Illinois senator.
"I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies," she said. "Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith.
"I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich.
"Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe."
"People don't need a president who looks down on them," she said. "They need a president who stands up for them."
One of Clinton's staunchest supporters, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., acknowledged there was some truth in Obama's remarks. But Republicans would use them against him anyway, Bayh said.
"We do have economic hard times, and that does lead to a frustration and some justifiable anger, it's true," Bayh told reporters after introducing Clinton in Indianapolis. "But I think you're on dangerous ground when you morph that into suggesting that people's cultural values whether it's religion or hunting and fishing or concern about trade are premised solely upon those kinds of anxieties and don't have a legitimate foundation independent of that."
---
Associated Press Writer Charles Babington contributed from Indianapolis.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
CHAPTER NEXT
Dreams From My Father, Lame Excuses From My Grandfather
by Ann Coulter (more by this author)
Posted 04/09/2008 ET
Updated 04/09/2008 ET
Since a Chinese graduate student at Columbia University, Minghui Yu, was killed last Friday when black youths violently set upon him, sending him running into traffic to escape, I think B. Hussein Obama ought to start referring to the mind-set of the "typical Asian person."
As of Wednesday, police had no motive for the attack, and witnesses said they heard no demand for money or anything else. The Associated Press reports that the assailant simply said to his friend, "Watch what I do to this guy" before punching Yu.
Meanwhile, let's revisit the story about Obama's grandmother being guilty of thinking like a "typical white person." As recounted in Obama's autobiography, the only evidence that his grandmother feared black men comes from Obama's good-for-nothing, chronically unemployed white grandfather, who accuses Grandma of racism as his third excuse not to get dressed and drive her to work.
His grandmother wanted a ride to work at 6:30 in the morning because, the day before, she had been aggressively solicited by a homeless man at the bus stop. On her account, the panhandler "was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn't come, I think he might have hit me over the head."
Even Obama's shiftless grandfather didn't play the race card until pretty far into the argument over whether he would drive Grandma to work. First, the good-for-nothing grandfather told Obama that Grandma was just trying to guilt him into driving her, saying, "(S)he just wants me to feel bad."
Next, he complained about his non-work routine being disrupted, saying: "She's been catching the bus ever since she started at the bank. ... And now, just because she gets pestered a little, she wants to change everything!"
Only after Obama had offered to drive his grandmother to work himself and it was becoming increasingly clear what a selfish lout the grandfather was, did Grandpa produce his trump card. The reason he wouldn't get his lazy butt dressed and drive Grandma to work was ... she was a racist!
As Obama recounts it, on Grandpa's third try at an excuse, he told Obama: "You know why she's so scared this time? I'll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black. That's the real reason she's bothered. And I just don't think that's right." So I guess I'll be heading back to the sack now!
That makes sense. It certainly never bothers me when crazy white people harass and threaten me.
This is Obama's own account of what happened, which -- as anyone can see -- consisted of his slacker grandfather making a series of excuses to avoid having to drive the sole bread-earner in the family to work.
But Obama says, "The words were like a fist in my stomach, and I wobbled to regain my composure." (It was as if he had been punched by an aggressive panhandler at a bus stop!) And not because his grandfather's sorry excuse reminded him that he came from a long line of callow, worthless men, both black and white.
No, Obama swallowed his grandfather's pathetic excuse hook, line and sinker, leading Obama to a reverie about his grandparents: "I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears." That's true -- assuming his brothers and sisters were menacing people at bus stops.
How deranged would you have to be to cite this incident as evidence that your grandmother thought like a "typical white person" -- as opposed to your grandfather being worthless and lazy? For those keeping score, Obama is aghast at his grandmother's alleged racism, but had no problem with Jeremiah Wright's manifest racism.
If Obama is sent reeling by the mere words of an elderly white woman, how is he going to negotiate with a guy like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What if Ahmadinejad calls him "booger-face"? Will he run crying from the table?
Your grandmother wasn't a racist, Barack. Your grandpa was just a loser. Can we wrap up our national conversation about race now? I think we'd like to move onto questions about your stupid plan to hold talks with Iran.
Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Slander," ""How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)," "Godless," and most recently, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans."
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Copyright © 2008 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
by Ann Coulter (more by this author)
Posted 04/09/2008 ET
Updated 04/09/2008 ET
Since a Chinese graduate student at Columbia University, Minghui Yu, was killed last Friday when black youths violently set upon him, sending him running into traffic to escape, I think B. Hussein Obama ought to start referring to the mind-set of the "typical Asian person."
As of Wednesday, police had no motive for the attack, and witnesses said they heard no demand for money or anything else. The Associated Press reports that the assailant simply said to his friend, "Watch what I do to this guy" before punching Yu.
Meanwhile, let's revisit the story about Obama's grandmother being guilty of thinking like a "typical white person." As recounted in Obama's autobiography, the only evidence that his grandmother feared black men comes from Obama's good-for-nothing, chronically unemployed white grandfather, who accuses Grandma of racism as his third excuse not to get dressed and drive her to work.
His grandmother wanted a ride to work at 6:30 in the morning because, the day before, she had been aggressively solicited by a homeless man at the bus stop. On her account, the panhandler "was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn't come, I think he might have hit me over the head."
Even Obama's shiftless grandfather didn't play the race card until pretty far into the argument over whether he would drive Grandma to work. First, the good-for-nothing grandfather told Obama that Grandma was just trying to guilt him into driving her, saying, "(S)he just wants me to feel bad."
Next, he complained about his non-work routine being disrupted, saying: "She's been catching the bus ever since she started at the bank. ... And now, just because she gets pestered a little, she wants to change everything!"
Only after Obama had offered to drive his grandmother to work himself and it was becoming increasingly clear what a selfish lout the grandfather was, did Grandpa produce his trump card. The reason he wouldn't get his lazy butt dressed and drive Grandma to work was ... she was a racist!
As Obama recounts it, on Grandpa's third try at an excuse, he told Obama: "You know why she's so scared this time? I'll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black. That's the real reason she's bothered. And I just don't think that's right." So I guess I'll be heading back to the sack now!
That makes sense. It certainly never bothers me when crazy white people harass and threaten me.
This is Obama's own account of what happened, which -- as anyone can see -- consisted of his slacker grandfather making a series of excuses to avoid having to drive the sole bread-earner in the family to work.
But Obama says, "The words were like a fist in my stomach, and I wobbled to regain my composure." (It was as if he had been punched by an aggressive panhandler at a bus stop!) And not because his grandfather's sorry excuse reminded him that he came from a long line of callow, worthless men, both black and white.
No, Obama swallowed his grandfather's pathetic excuse hook, line and sinker, leading Obama to a reverie about his grandparents: "I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears." That's true -- assuming his brothers and sisters were menacing people at bus stops.
How deranged would you have to be to cite this incident as evidence that your grandmother thought like a "typical white person" -- as opposed to your grandfather being worthless and lazy? For those keeping score, Obama is aghast at his grandmother's alleged racism, but had no problem with Jeremiah Wright's manifest racism.
If Obama is sent reeling by the mere words of an elderly white woman, how is he going to negotiate with a guy like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What if Ahmadinejad calls him "booger-face"? Will he run crying from the table?
Your grandmother wasn't a racist, Barack. Your grandpa was just a loser. Can we wrap up our national conversation about race now? I think we'd like to move onto questions about your stupid plan to hold talks with Iran.
Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Slander," ""How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)," "Godless," and most recently, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans."
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Sunday, April 6, 2008
SSAME CRAP, DIFFERENT DAY
Below please find a special message from one of our advertisers, Grassfire. From time to time, we receive opportunities we believe you as a valued customer may want to know about. Please note that the following message does not necessarily reflect the editorial positions of Human Events.
Special Report:
How Congress, the President and the Candidates
are Destroying the Border Fence
It is now clear that if any of the current presidential front-runners have their way, virtually no fence would be built and the Secure Fence Act would likely be ignored altogether!
For example, Barack Obama -- who is steamrolling to the Democratic
Obama: "I will reverse" border fence policy. (view video)
nomination -- is an adamant opponent of the current border fence law.
During a recent debate, Obama sided with Hillary Clinton in flatly rejecting the border fence. "I will reverse the policy," Obama said of the Secure Fence Act's double-layer fence mandate.
Please click here to view the video.
++ Congress gutted the Secure Fence Act!
Even worse -- just before Christmas Congress totally gutted the Secure Fence Act. That's right -- buried in the omnibus spending bill was a little-known amendment that released our government from any legal obligation to build the double-layer fence mandated by the Secure Fence Act! (See Grassfire.org's expose.)
And now the Bush Administration is refusing to build a real fence while touting its bogus "virtual" fence that the GAO says is a total failure!
The fact is, the border fence we worked so hard for is being gutted, ignored and blatantly rejected by the White House, Congress and the presidential candidates. The only way we will ever see our borders secured is for you and I to act today.
+ + Immediate action needed to Save the Border Fence
Two courageous Congressmen -- Duncan Hunter and Walter Jones -- have stepped forward and drafted legislation to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act's specific mandates.
Grassfire.org has launched a petition in support of these efforts to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act.
In just a few days, 85,000 citizens have signed. Please click here to add your name to the petition to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act and build a real border fence:
Let's face it... "President Obama" will never build a fence. He is on record saying so!
And we can't expect "President McCain" to build a real fence when he authored and championed the massive amnesty bill.
We must force Congress to pass a bill immediately to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act.
We must take this battle into our own hands!
Please sign the petition so I can include your name in our next delivery to members of Congress.
Steve Elliott, President
Grassfire.org
P.S: We have a press conference with members of Congress scheduled on Capitol Hill and I need to know if you want your name included on this important petition to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act. Click here to sign.
Special Report:
How Congress, the President and the Candidates
are Destroying the Border Fence
It is now clear that if any of the current presidential front-runners have their way, virtually no fence would be built and the Secure Fence Act would likely be ignored altogether!
For example, Barack Obama -- who is steamrolling to the Democratic
Obama: "I will reverse" border fence policy. (view video)
nomination -- is an adamant opponent of the current border fence law.
During a recent debate, Obama sided with Hillary Clinton in flatly rejecting the border fence. "I will reverse the policy," Obama said of the Secure Fence Act's double-layer fence mandate.
Please click here to view the video.
++ Congress gutted the Secure Fence Act!
Even worse -- just before Christmas Congress totally gutted the Secure Fence Act. That's right -- buried in the omnibus spending bill was a little-known amendment that released our government from any legal obligation to build the double-layer fence mandated by the Secure Fence Act! (See Grassfire.org's expose.)
And now the Bush Administration is refusing to build a real fence while touting its bogus "virtual" fence that the GAO says is a total failure!
The fact is, the border fence we worked so hard for is being gutted, ignored and blatantly rejected by the White House, Congress and the presidential candidates. The only way we will ever see our borders secured is for you and I to act today.
+ + Immediate action needed to Save the Border Fence
Two courageous Congressmen -- Duncan Hunter and Walter Jones -- have stepped forward and drafted legislation to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act's specific mandates.
Grassfire.org has launched a petition in support of these efforts to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act.
In just a few days, 85,000 citizens have signed. Please click here to add your name to the petition to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act and build a real border fence:
Let's face it... "President Obama" will never build a fence. He is on record saying so!
And we can't expect "President McCain" to build a real fence when he authored and championed the massive amnesty bill.
We must force Congress to pass a bill immediately to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act.
We must take this battle into our own hands!
Please sign the petition so I can include your name in our next delivery to members of Congress.
Steve Elliott, President
Grassfire.org
P.S: We have a press conference with members of Congress scheduled on Capitol Hill and I need to know if you want your name included on this important petition to Reinstate the Secure Fence Act. Click here to sign.
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