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B.O. The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no gumption, nothing but abstract empty rhetoric devoid of real substance. He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya. Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively. What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it. Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves; he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah. It's something Hillary doesn't understand - how some complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the Dem nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond politics and reason. It is a true religious cult, whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white. Thus Obama has become the white liberals' Christ, offering Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain His candidacy is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by any thinking American.
And If Obama Loses? DENVER -- After the phony roll call vote was taken here to formally nominate Barack Obama -- a roll call that did not remotely reflect the true delegate strength of Hillary -- the media exploded in an orgy of celebration about the historic character of the moment to which they had just been privileged to be witness. "The first black presidential nominee ever of a major party in history!" was proclaimed. Coming on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Barack's nomination is being hailed as the last great step forward in the long march to equality and justice in America. The moral pressure to join the march of history is enormous. Nor is it unfair to say that some journalists here are obsessed with the issue of race in this campaign. There may be wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rising tensions with Russia, a falling regime in Pakistan, and reports of U.S. and NATO warships headed for the Persian Gulf, but here it is all about the first black ever nominated for president. During the primaries, Bill Clinton was charged with racism by liberal Democrats for saying that Barack's claim to being consistent on Iraq was a "fairy tale" and for implying that Barack's victory in South Carolina was no big deal because Jesse Jackson had carried the state twice. Here at the convention, the media watched Hillary and Bill's speeches with a commissar's care -- to ensure they not only embraced Barack but "validated" his credentials to be president. Should they not go all out for Obama, we are told, the Clintons are dead in the party. The psychic investment in Barack's candidacy is immense. So great is the moral pressure to conform that John Lewis, the young hero of Selma Bridge, buckled and recanted his endorsement of Hillary. And that act of disloyalty and betrayal, a capitulation to race solidarity, is regarded as praiseworthy. Black radio has become a cheering section for Obama. Every GOP ad mocking Obama is inspected for racial motives. Campaign books that portray Obama as a radical or phony are denounced by people who have not even seen them. The thought police are out in force. Michelle Obama's speech about her upbringing and beliefs -- crafted by Barack's hires -- is said to be the last word on what a mainstream patriotic woman she is. But why, then, would she have taken her two lovely daughters to be baptized by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and to listen on Sundays to his racist rants against America? Abroad, we are told, Europe and the Third World are awaiting the moment when America turns her back on her racist past and elevates this black man to the presidency. The subtext is that this is not just a political contest, but a moral test for America. Indeed, many have begun to see this election in solely racial terms, an issue of whether racism once again triumphs in America, or racism is buried one and for all. Questions arise. With this immense moral and emotional investment in a Barack victory -- by 94 to 1 in one poll black America is behind him -- what happens if the nation decides he is too radical, too inexperienced, too callow, too risky to be president? What happens if the American people reject their marching orders and say no to Barack and black America? What happens if all the hopes and dreams, hype and hoopla, end in disillusionment? Would the defeat of Barack Obama be taken as an affront to black America? Could we be in for a time of deepening racial division rather than healing? Could we be in for a long, hot autumn like the long, hot summers some of us recall from 40 years ago? One black preacher here suggested as much to me. Should that happen, the people who have framed this election as a contest between morality and racial justice on one side, and the clammy hand of America's racist past on the other, will bear the same moral responsibility as did the advocates of mass civil obedience for the racial riots of the 1960s that followed. Barack has just shot 6 points ahead of McCain. But he has not yet closed the sale. And to prevent his closing of the sale, the GOP must raise doubts in the public mind as to whether he is really a man of Middle America or the closet radical of the Rev. Wright's congregation who said of Pennsylvanians that they are bitter folks, who cling to their Bibles, bigotries and guns because the world has left them behind. No candidate has ever been nominated by a major party with fewer credentials or a weaker claim to the presidency, or more doubts as to his core beliefs. If Obama wins, the country could be in real trouble. And if he loses, the country could be in real trouble. What the media celebrate today, they may rue tomorrow. Changes in Politics One of the few political cliches that makes sense is that "In politics, overnight is a lifetime." Less than a year ago, the big question was whether Rudolph Giuliani could beat Hillary Clinton in this year's presidential election. Less than two months ago, Barack Obama had a huge lead over John McCain in the polls. Less than a week ago, the smart money was saying that Mitt Romney would be McCain's choice for vice president. We don't need Barack Obama to create "change." Things change in politics, in the economy, and elsewhere in American society, without waiting for a political messiah to lead us into the promised land. Who would have thought that Obama's big speech at the Democratic convention would disappoint expectations, while McCain's speech electrified his audience when he announced his choice of Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate? Some people were surprised that his choice was a woman. What is more surprising is that she is an articulate Republican. How many of those have you seen? Despite the incessantly repeated mantra of "change," Barack Obama's politics is as old as the New Deal and he is behind the curve when it comes to today's economy. Senator Obama's statement that "our economy is in turmoil" is standard stuff on the left and in the mainstream media, which has been dying to use the word "recession." Not only has the economic slowdown failed to reach the definition of a recession, the most recent data show the U.S. economy growing at a rate exceeding 3 percent-- a rate that many European economies would die for, despite our being constantly urged to imitate those countries whose end results are not as good as ours. Barack Obama's "change" is a recycling of the kinds of policies and rhetoric of the New Deal that prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s far beyond the duration of any depression before or since. These are the same kinds of liberal policies that led to double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates and rising unemployment during the Carter administration. These are "back to the future" changes to economic disasters that need repeating. Make no mistake, the political rhetoric of FDR was great. For those who admire political rhetoric, as so many of Barack Obama's supporters seem to, FDR was tops. For those who go by actual results, FDR's track record was abysmal. Although the Great Depression of the 1930s began under Herbert Hoover, unemployment during Hoover's last year in office was not as high as it became during each of the first five years under FDR. During the eight years of FDR's first two terms as president, there were only two years in which unemployment was lower than it had been under Herbert Hoover-- and not by much. World War II has been credited by some with getting the United States out of the Great Depression. What the war did was put an end to the New Deal, as national survival became the top priority and replaced FDR's anti-business and class warfare rhetoric. Senator Obama's rhetoric today is the anti-business and class warfare rhetoric that worked so brilliantly in a political sense for FDR in the 1930s. But Obama is following an opposite course from FDR when it comes to recognizing threats to American national security. Senator Obama has repeatedly tried to deal with national security threats with rhetoric. He tried to dismiss the threat of a nuclear Iran with because Iran is "a small nation"-- even though it is larger than Japan, which launched a devastating attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor. FDR had the good sense to begin urging greater military preparedness in 1940, more than a year before the United States was attacked. He said, "If you wait until you see the whites of their eyes, you will never know what hit you." Cutting the military budget and taking foreign policy problems to the United Nations are Obama's version of "change." That is change that we dare not believe in. It is the audacity of hype. Barack "The Silencer" Obama's Gangland Assault on Free Speech Where are all the free speech absolutists when you need them? Over the past month, left-wing partisans and Democratic lawyers have waged a brass-knuckled intimidation campaign against GOP donors, TV and radio stations, and even an investigative journalist because they have all dared to question the radical cult of Barack Obama. A chill wind blows, but where the valiant protectors of political dissent are, nobody knows. On August 11, I called the American Civil Liberties Union national headquarters in New York for comment about the Chicago gangland tactics of one of these groups -- a nonprofit called "Accountable America" that is spearheaded by a former operative of the Obama-endorsing MoveOn outfit. "Accountable America" is trolling campaign finance databases and targeting conservative donors with "warning" letters in a thuggish attempt to depress Republican fundraising. (You'll be interested to know that the official registered agent of Accountable America is Laurence Gold, a high-powered attorney for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) who has testified before the Senate complaining about the use of campaign finance laws to stifle the speech of union workers -- a pet cause of the ACLU.) The ACLU press office failed to respond to my initial call. On August 13, I followed up through e-mail: "I called on Monday requesting a statement from the ACLU about Accountable America's intimidation campaign against GOP donors. What is the ACLU's position with regard to such efforts? Waiting for your statement..." ACLU press officer Pamela Bradshaw e-mailed back: "Michelle, My apologies that I cannot be of more assistance, but we don't have anyone available. Thanks, Pam." My reply: "Pam -- Does this mean you don't have anyone available today, this week, or for the foreseeable future?" On August 20, after a week of silence, I forwarded the message again to the ACLU press office. No response. So, I won't bother asking the ACLU's opinion of the latest wave of speech-squelching moves by the Obama campaign: On Monday, Obama demanded that the Justice Department stop TV stations from airing a documented, accurate independent ad spotlighting Obama's longtime working relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama summoned his followers to bombard stations, many of them owned by conservative-leaning Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails to squelch the commercial. On Tuesday, the Obama campaign sent another letter to the Justice Department demanding investigation and prosecution of American Issues Project, the group that produced the Ayers ad, as well as Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who funded it. And on Wednesday, Obama exhorted his followers to sabotage the WGN radio show of veteran Chicago host and University of Chicago Professor Milt Rosenberg. Why? Because he invited National Review writer Stanley Kurtz to discuss his investigative findings about Obama's ties to Ayers and the underwhelming results of their collaboration on a left-wing educational project sponsored by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The "Obama Action Wire" supplied Rosenberg's call-in line and talking points like this: "Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse. ... It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves." Behind the glowing, peaceful facade lies Barack "The Silencer" Obama and his silent enablers on the left. While mainstream journalists schmoozed with liberal celebrities in Denver, practiced yoga with left-wing bloggers and received massages at the Google convention tent near touchy-feely Barackopolis, Team Obama was on an ugly, aggressive warpath sanctioned by Mr. Civility. While compassionate Obama prepared to stand before thousands of worshipers at Invesco Field, purporting to give voice to the voiceless, his Chicago-schooled campaign machine was working overtime to muzzle conservative critics. "We want it to stop," ordered one pro-Obama caller to WGN. Welcome to the future: the politics of Hope and Change enforced by the missionaries of Search and Destroy. 'Puff, the Magic Obama!' Last Thursday evening at the Democratic National Convention, presidential nominee Barack Obama tried to score a political touchdown on the 50-yard line at Denver's Invesco Field. Instead, he won the all-time governmental convention award for the best over-the-top political spectacle of sight, sound, speech and pyrotechnics -- complete with superstar performances, "Braveheart"-like epic music, and an Olympic-sized fireworks show. For a week prior to the event, newscasters, commentators and pundits were trying to guess what exactly that Greco-Roman column-structured stage backdrop was and what it was supposed to be representing and stating on behalf of Obama. Despite the fact that Obama's camp suggested that these Athenian columns were merely representative of the history of democracy, the entire visual felt more like a temple than a tenured politician's presidential platform. Even his podium looked more like a lectern or pulpit, rising and falling at will and out of sight beneath the stage. Is this the simple, substance-oriented, budget-cutting Obama we can expect if he's president? As I listened to Obama's speech, which mentioned "change" roughly 15 times, I thought, "I wonder how many of those 80,000 in attendance (and millions more watching on television) realize what type of change is really coming with Obama?" I'm not saying that change isn't needed. It is. I want changes in government, but not the type that will increase its role in our lives. I want changes with the goal to better adhere to the Constitution, but not the type that appoints liberal judges and justices who legislate from the bench. I want changes regarding America's relations with the rest of the world, but not the type that further compromises our national security. I want changes regarding America's role in the Middle East, but not the type that creates instability and gives al-Qaida the upper hand again. I want changes to our medical care, but I don't want more big government and billions of dollars in new taxes. I want changes regarding America's deficit, but not the type that increases it. I want changes at America's borders, but not the type that creates more holes for terrorists and other illegal transport. I desperately want changes in the tax code, but not ones that ultimately raise taxes. (Only a "fair tax" eliminates most.) But all those types of changes are exactly what Americans will experience if we elect Barack Obama to be president. Let there be no doubt about it: We will have change with Obama, but, America, I assure you that it is not the type of change we need or want. No way. No how. NObama. Now, more than ever, is the time to join the NObamaNation revolution. As with so many of you, I realized months ago that Obama can get away with just about anything because all that too many Americans seem to care about are charisma and the term "change." It doesn't matter if Obama plagiarizes speeches, who his pastor and spiritual mentor was for 20 years, that he has the most liberal voting record in the Senate, that he refused to wear the American flag as a pin, that he didn't place his hand over his heart during the national anthem, that his wife just recently has become proud of her country, or that he is sympathetic to Muslim terrorist groups, etc. Even a decade ago, most people never could have imagined appointing such a person to be county supervisor, let alone the president of the United States. So it seems those Greek pillars just may represent something after all, because in ancient Greece, people were more enamored by rhetoric and passionate presentations than by principled truths and pragmatic solutions. In modern America, these few millenniums later, nothing seems to have changed. I might not be the smartest man on the political block, but I know fluff when I see it (or is it Puff?). Obama conducted his version of a political David Copperfield magic show. Will Americans really not see beyond his illusory performance? America, we are being duped again by fluff and folly, glitz and glamour, and hype and Hollywood. It's time for America to wake up before it's too late! Reawakening our country and making necessary societal changes are the very reasons I've fully engaged in the culture wars with my new book (to be released Sept. 7), "Black Belt Patriotism," available for pre-order from Amazon.com. It is my battle plan for winning back America. But it's not just my plan; it's our Founders' plan, as I turn to them for their old solutions to our new problems. Bottom line: Obama's big-government solutions will cost us big money through increased taxes and increased national debt. In the third chapter of my book, "Stop America's Nightmare of Debt," I cite Thomas Jefferson, who gives some timely advice for such a prospective form of government: "What we need now more than ever is smaller government and lower taxes. Thomas Jefferson was particularly eloquent on the problem of government debt and taxes: 'To preserve (the) independence (of the people), we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.' (A prophetic statement?)" BARACK OBAMA SINKS TO A NEW LOW! Just when you think he can't stoop any lower, Barack Obama has sunk to a new low - mocking both the Bible and America's Christian heritage in a speech that you probably won't be seeing broadcast by the mainstream media. But we've got the footage and are about to give it airtime across the nation as part of an aggressive television advertising campaign. Our goal: to defeat Barack Obama's campaign for president. See the TV ad - "Obama Mocks America's Christian Heritage" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn-P3yAaAqI They say the truth hurts. In Barack Obama's case, it is simply devastating. Not surprisingly the Big Media have kept the American public blind to the truth about Obama, including... The fact that a corrupt Chicago Machine politician "made a U.S. senator" out of Barack Obama How Barack Obama won his first election by having his lawyers knock all his opponents off the ballot on technicalities Obama's support for a grotesque "infanticide" law that was too extreme even for Nancy Pelosi The Tony Rezko connection: "I've never done any favors for him," says Obama about convicted developer Tony Rezko. Oh, but he has... Stop the Cover-up of Obama's Terrorist Ties! Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant for their terrorist past. Ayers was pictured in a 2001 article for Chicago magazine, stomping on an American flag, and told the New York Times just before 9/11 that the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place "makes me want to puke." Although Obama actually launched his political career at an event at Ayers's and Dohrn's home, Obama has dismissed Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and "not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis." For his part, Ayers refuses to discuss his relationship with Obama. Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown? The problem of Barack Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers will not go away. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn were terrorists for the notorious Weather Underground during the turbulent 1960s, turning fugitive when a bomb — designed to kill army officers in New Jersey — accidentally exploded in a New York townhouse. Prior to that, Ayers and his cohorts succeeded in bombing the Pentagon. Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant for their terrorist past. Ayers was pictured in a 2001 article for Chicago magazine, stomping on an American flag, and told the New York Times just before 9/11 that the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place “makes me want to puke.” Although Obama actually launched his political career at an event at Ayers’s and Dohrn’s home, Obama has dismissed Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.” For his part, Ayers refuses to discuss his relationship with Obama. Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama’s account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama’s time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers’s own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest. With a writ to aid Chicago’s public schools, the Annenberg challenge played a deeply political role in Chicago’s education wars, and as Annenberg board chairman, Obama clearly aligned himself with Ayers’s radical views on education issues. With Obama heading up the board and Ayers heading up the other key operating body of the Annenberg Challenge, the two would necessarily have had a close working relationship for years (therefore “exchanging ideas on a regular basis”). So when Ayers and Dorhn hosted that kickoff for the first Obama campaign, it was not a random happenstance, but merely further evidence of a close and ongoing political partnership. Of course, all of this clearly contradicts Obama’s dismissal of the significance of his relationship with Ayers. This much we know from the public record, but a large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), is likely to flesh out the story. That document cache contains the internal files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The records in question are extensive, consisting of 132 boxes, containing 947 file folders, a total of about 70 linear feet of material. Not only would these files illuminate the working relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers, they would also provide significant insight into a web of ties linking Obama to various radical organizations, including Obama-approved foundation gifts to political allies. Obama’s leadership style and abilities are also sure to be illuminated by the documents in question.
Obama — the New Jimmy Carter Last week raised important questions about whether Barack Obama is strong enough to be president. On the domestic political front, he showed incredible weakness in dealing with the Clintons, while on foreign and defense questions, he betrayed a lack of strength and resolve in standing up to Russia’s invasion of Georgia. This two-dimensional portrait of weakness underscores fears that Obama might, indeed, be a latter-day Jimmy Carter. Consider first the domestic and political. Bill and Hillary Clinton have no leverage over Obama. Hillary can’t win the nomination. She doesn’t control any committees. If she or her supporters tried to disrupt the convention or demonstrate outside, she would pay a huge price among the party faithful. If Obama lost — after Hillary made a fuss at the convention — they would blame her for all eternity (just like Democrats blame Ted Kennedy for Carter’s defeat). But, without having any leverage or a decent hand to play, the Clintons bluffed Obama into amazing concessions. Hillary will get to play a film extolling her virtues produced by Harry Bloodworth Thomason. Bill will speak on Wednesday night. Hillary’s name will be placed into nomination. She will get to have nominating and seconding speeches on her behalf. And, on Thursday night, the last night of the convention, the roll call will show how narrowly Obama prevailed. So Obama gave away Tuesday night, Wednesday night and part of Thursday night to the Clintons. It will really be their convention. A stronger candidate would’ve called their bluff and confined the Clintons to one night on which both Hillary and Bill spoke (he would have outshone her). He would have blocked a roll call by allowing a voice vote to nominate by acclimation. He would have stood up to the Clintons and recaptured his own convention. If Obama can’t stand up to the Clintons, after they have been defeated, how can he measure up to a resurgent Putin who has just achieved a military victory? When the Georgia invasion first began, Obama appealed for “restraint” on both sides. He treated the aggressive lion and the victimized lamb even-handedly. His performance was reminiscent of the worst of appeasement at Munich, where another dictator got away with seizing another breakaway province of another small neighboring country, leading to World War II. After two days, Obama corrected himself, spoke of Russian aggression and condemned it. But his initial willingness to see things from the other point of view and to buy the line that Georgia provoked the invasion by occupying a part of its own country betrayed a world view characterized by undue deference to aggressors. We know so little about Obama. His experience is so thin that it’s hard to tell what kind of a president he’d be. While he nominally has been in the Senate for four years, he really only served the first two and consumed the rest of his tenure running for president and disregarding his Senate duties. So we have no choice but to scrutinize his current transactions and statements for some clue as to who he is and what he’d do. In that context, his reaction to the first real-time foreign-policy crisis he faced as a nominee leaves his strength in doubt. So does his palsied response to the Clintons’ attempt to make Denver a Clinton convention. Is Obama an over-intellectualizing Hamlet who is incapable of decisive, strong action? With Iran on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and Russia resurgent, there isn’t much room for on-the-job learning. Biden’s Ties to Pro-Iran Groups Questioned Sen. Barack Obama and his newly-picked running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, may have sparred during the primaries. But on one issue they are firmly united: the need to forge closer ties to the government of Iran. Kaveh Mohseni, a spokesman for the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, calls Biden “a great friend of the mullahs.” He notes that Biden’s election campaigns “have been financed by Islamic charities of the Iranian regime based in California and by the Silicon Iran network,” a loosely-knit group of wealthy Iranian-American businessmen and women seeking to end the U.S. trade embargo on Iran. “In exchange, the senator does his best to aid the mullahs,” Mohseni argues. Biden’s ties to pro-Tehran lobbying groups are no secret. But so far, the elite media has avoided even mentioning the subject. Just recently, Biden was one of 16 U.S. senators who voted against a bill that would add Iran’s Revolutionary Guards corps to the State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations, because of its involvement in murdering U.S. troops in Iraq. Rather than sanction those in power in Tehran, Biden and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel have argued that the United States should offer Tehran a greater role in Iraq’s domestic affairs. At a March 2002 conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the American-Iranian Council (AIC), Biden made the case for closer U.S. ties to the government of Iran. “I believe than an improved relationship with Iran is in the naked self-interest of the United States of America," Biden said. At that same meeting, top Bush administration official Zalmay Khalilzad – today, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations –poured cold water on Biden’s hopes. "We had hoped that after the 11 September attacks, the Iranian regime would end its support for terrorists", Khaliazad said. "But Iran did not stop its support for terror. Indeed, the hard-line elements of the Iranian regime facilitated the movement of Al-Qa’eda terrorists escaping from Afghanistan” and sheltered them in Iran. Biden offered to sponsor a meeting of Iranian and American parliamentarians in Washington - or any place else, if the Iranians had problems coming to the United States. No one in Iran ever took up his offer. Several Congressional Democrats attempted to travel to Tehran last December to meet with Iranian parliamentarians, but were denied visas by the Iranian regime, one of the Members of Congress involved in the initiative told Newsmax. While Biden has condemned the human rights abuses of the Iranian regime, his decision to address the American-Iranian Council and other pro-Tehran groups has angered many Iranian-Americans. “Biden has been too cozy with the supporters of the Iranian regime, which is anti-American, anti-Iranian, and has a horrendous human rights record,” said Sardar Haddad, an Iranian pro-democracy activist based in Texas. The American-Iranian Council was founded by Hoosang Amirahmadi, a Rutgers University professor of urban studies who tried to run for president of the Islamic Republic in 2005. Funded in part by oil giant CONOCO, which hoped to secure lucrative oil contracts, AIC has lobbied consistently to get U.S. trade sanctions on Iran eliminated. In a recent interview with the popular Persian-language netzine, Tabnak, run by the former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Amirahmadi complained that he wasn’t getting enough credit for lobbying Washington. "This is because the Iranians, instead of empowering the lobby supporting them, undermine it,” he said. Biden’s ties to the pro-Iranian regime lobby are not a haphazard affair, but a matter of conviction. Biden told Boston Globe columnist H.D.S. Greenway in 2005 that the United States should address Iran’s “emotional needs” and conclude a “nonaggression pact” with the Tehran regime. “Senator Joseph Biden said that even if Iran was a full democracy like India, it would want nuclear capability, like India. What the world needed to address was Iran's emotional needs, he said, with a nonaggression pact,” Greenway wrote. Biden hasn’t shied from asking wealthy Iranian-Americans with known sympathies for the Tehran regime for campaign cash. When Iranian-American pro-democracy activists learned that Biden planned to attend a fundraiser organized on his behalf by an Iranian Muslim charity in California, they phoned his U.S. Senate office to warn him about the group’s pro-Tehran sympathies. But the Delaware Democrat swept aside their concerns and attended the Feb. 19, 2002, event at the California home of Dr. Sadegh Namazi-Khah, which brought in an estimated $30,000 for his U.S. Senate re-election campaign. Several people who attended the fundraiser said that Biden delivered a sweeping condemning of President Bush’s recent State of the Union speech, which identified the Iranian regime as part of an “axis of Evil.” “He really impressed us by his grasp of world affairs," Namazi-khah told me at the time. "He encouraged us to make our views known and to get more involved in American politics." Biden also impressed many of those present with his friendly attitude toward Iran. The senator said that "Iran always wanted to be an ally of the United States and to have good relations with the U.S.," said Housang Dadgostar, a prominent lawyer who wrote Biden’s campaign a $1,000 check. "As Iranian-Americans, we don't want anything to happen to the Iranian government or to the Iranian people as a result of this war on terrorism," said Mohsen Movaghar, a Los Angeles businessman who also attended the event and contributed $1,000 to Biden. Both men belonged to the 70-member board of directors of Namazi-khah's Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN), which hosted the event. Namazi-Khah and other IMAN board members told me that the idea for the fundraiser came from Biden, who apparently learned about the group after attending an earlier event sponsored by the AIC. Both Namazi-Khah and Movaghar also belong to the Board of the American-Iranian Council, the Washington, DC-based lobbying group pressing for an end to U.S. sanctions on Iran. So does Japeh Youssefi, who traveled from Scotsdale, Ariz., with his wife to attend the 2002 fundraiser in California. Between the two of them, the Youssefi’s gave $4,000 to Biden’s U.S. Senate campaign, the legal limit at the time. “Mr. Youssefi has earned the reputation of being a vocal supporter of Iran-US rapprochement and détente,” a biographer on the AIC Web site reads. “In March of 2000 he created FAIRPAC — the Foundation for American Iranian Rapprochement, a political advocacy council — as a means of informing and educating interested persons everywhere of the benefits of improved U.S.-IRAN relations,” according to the bio. Another key Biden contributor is Hassan Nemazee, a New York money-manager who chaired Hillary Clinton’s finance committee, personally raising over $500,000 for her campaign. Nemazee also has served on the board of the American-Iranian Council, and more recently set up the Iranian-American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) along with a group of Silicon Valley billionaires, many of whom have close ties to the Iranian regime. Because of the controversy Nemazee and IAPAC members have generated within the Iranian-American community, the PAC’s Web site includes a bald disclaimer of any ties to Tehran. “IAPAC has no relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran . . . and is not focused on U.S. policy towards Iran, establishing ties with or legitimizing the government of Iran,” it says. Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his running mate “highlights the need to really investigate the web of Iranian influence in the United States,” Iranian-American political analyst Hassan Daioleslam told Newsmax. “What you have here is a group of people who have been working together through different groups and organizations for the past ten years” to promote the interests of the Iranian regime. “It’s deeply troubling to have a vice-presidential candidate raise funds from people whose ties to the Iranian regime raise such serious questions,” Daioleslam said.
Whitey Need Not Apply "Will race be an issue in this campaign?" Hearing the cable talk-show host solemnly pose the question, I could not suppress a belly laugh. For the anchor was fearful that some white folks might reject Obama because he is African-American -- even as a Rasmussen poll was reporting that Barack is beating McCain among black voters 94 to 1. What, other than race, explains how Barack rolled up 90-10 margins among black voters while running against Hillary Clinton, wife of the man novelist Toni Morrison dubbed "our first black president"? Indeed, so one-sided was the primary coverage in favor of Barack as the first African-American with a real chance to be president, even "Saturday Night Live" took to mocking the mainstream media. As for black radio, on "The Tom Joyner Morning Show," "Michael Baisden Show" and "The Steve Harvey Morning Show," which together may reach 20 million folks, there is "little pretense of balance," writes Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times. "More often than not the Obama campaign is discussed as the home team." Black Entertainment Television plans to carry Barack's speech to the Democratic convention live, but has no plans to carry McCain's. Barack's speech "is an historic occasion," says BET Chairman Debra L. Lee, "so that demands some special treatment from us." As the mainstream media have moved left and talk radio right, and cable is breaking down along political and ideological lines, there is something else afoot now -- the racial Balkanization of the newsroom. Consider. On Sunday, 6,800 folks showed in Chicago for the 2008 quadrennial convention of UNITY: Journalists of Color. McCain declined an invitation. Bush had been booed at UNITY 2004, while John Kerry got a standing ovation. Featured speaker: Barack. Major concern of the journalists running the show: that their colleagues would lift the roof off the McCormick Place convention center when Barack arrived. Said Luis Villareal, a producer of NBC's "Dateline," "I don't think it's such a bad thing if for 15 minutes you take off your reporter hat and respond to (Obama) as a human being at an event where you're surrounded by people of color and you're here for a united cause." And exactly what "cause" might the 10,000 members of UNITY be united behind? The hiring and advancement of journalists of color in all major news organizations in America. For, as its emblem depicts, UNITY comprises four alliances: the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association and the National Association of Black Journalists. "A New Journalism for a Changing World" is UNITY's motto. And the title of its July 22 press release reveals what the "new journalism" is all about. "Aim of New UNITY Initiative Is More Diversity in Top Media Management." "With more than 50 percent of the population projected to be people of color in less than a generation," says UNITY President Karen Lincoln Michel, "the nation's news organizations continue to generate dismal diversity numbers year after year. ... 'Ten by 2010' is a significant step in the right direction." What is Ten by 2010? UNITY is demanding that 10 major U.S. news organizations, by mid-2010, elevate to a senior management position in the newsroom at least one journalist of color and provide "customized training to help prepare them." The journalist may be Asian, African-American, Native American or Hispanic, which rules out journalists of Irish, English, Polish, Italian, German or Jewish ancestry, since they are white. Is this what we have come to 50 years after the triumph of the civil rights movement? Flat-out demands, by American journalists, for the hiring and promotion of colleagues based on race and color? Is there any evidence major news organizations in this country have engaged in systematic discrimination to keep out men or women of color this last half century? The reverse seems true. They have bent over backward to advance minority journalists. And if journalists have been hired and promoted based on ability and merit, why in the 21st century should these criteria be thrown out as the standards for advancement -- in favor of race and color? Isn't this what they did in the days of Jim Crow -- hire and promote based on race? What UNITY is calling for is a return to the old rules but with new beneficiaries -- blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans -- and new victims, all of whom will be white. On Sunday, McCain came out in favor of an Arizona civil rights initiative that would outlaw any state discrimination either for or against folks, based on race, gender or national origin. Barack said he was "disappointed" with McCain and told UNITY he favors affirmative action "when properly structured." The Arizona referendum banning preferential treatment based on race is also on the ballot in the swing state of Colorado. It won in California in 1996, in Washington in 2000 and in Michigan in the great Democratic sweep of 2006. It has never lost, and may just win McCain Colorado, and with it the nation. Letter to the voters My name is Joe Porter. I live in Champaign, Illinois. I'm 46 years old, a born-again Christian, a husband, a father, a small business owner, a veteran, and a homeowner. I don't consider myself to be either conservative or liberal, and I vote for the person, not Republican or Democrat. I don't believe there are 'two Americas' - but that every person in this country can be whomever and whatever they want to be if they'll just work to get there - and nowhere else on earth can they find such opportunities. I believe our government should help those who are legitimately downtrodden, and should always put the interests of America first. The purpose of this message is that I'm concerned about the future of this great nation. I'm worried that the silent majority of honest, hard-working, tax-paying people in this country have been passive for too long. Most folks I know choose not to involve themselves in politics. They go about their daily lives, paying their bills, raising their kids, and doing what they can to maintain the good life. They vote and consider doing so to be a sacred trust. They shake their heads at the political pundits and so-called 'news', thinking that what they hear is always spun by whoever is reporting it. They can't understand how elected officials can regularly violate the public trust with pork barrel spending. They don't want government handouts. They want the government to protect them, not raise their taxes for more government programs. We are in the unique position in this country of electing our leaders. It's a privilege to do so. I've never found a candidate in any election with whom I agreed on everything. I'll wager that most of us don't even agree with our families or spouses 100% of the time. So when I step into that voting booth, I always try to look at the big picture and cast my vote for the man or woman who is best qualified for the job. I've hired a lot of people in my lifetime, and essentially that's what an election is - a hiring process. Who has the credentials? Whom do I want working for me? Whom can I trust to do the job right? I'm concerned that a growing number of voters in this country simply don't get it. They are caught up in a fervor they can't explain, and calling it 'change'. "Change what?” I ask. Well, we're going to change America, they say. "In what way?” I query. "We want someone new and fresh in the White House", they exclaim. "So, someone who's not a politician?", I press. "Uh, well, no, we just want a lot of stuff changed, so we're voting for Obama", they state. So the current system, the system of freedom and democracy that has enabled a man to grow up in this great country, get a fine education, raise incredible amounts of money and dominate the news and win his party's nomination for the White House - that system's all wrong? No, no, that part of the system's okay - we just need a lot of change. And so it goes. 'Change we can believe in.' Quite frankly, I don't believe that vague proclamations of change hold any promise for me. In recent months, I've been asking virtually everyone I encounter how they're voting. I live in Illinois, so most folks tell me they're voting for Barack Obama. But no one can really tell me why - only that he's going to change a lot of stuff. Change, change, change. I have yet to find one single person who can tell me distinctly and convincingly why this man is qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation on earth other than the fact that he claims he's going to implement a lot of change. We've all seen the emails about Obama's genealogy, his upbringing, his Muslim background, and his church affiliations. Let's ignore this for a moment. Put it all aside. Then ask yourself, what qualifies this man to be my president? That he's a brilliant orator and talks about change? CHANGE WHAT? Friends, I'll be forthright with you - I believe the American voters who are supporting Barack Obama don't have a clue what they're doing, as evidenced by the fact that not one of them - NOT ONE of them I've spoken to can spell out his qualifications. Not even the most liberal media can explain why he should be elected. Political experience? Negligible. Someone who wants to unite the country? If you haven't read his wife's thesis from Princeton, look it up on the web. This is who's lining up to be our next First Lady? The only thing I can glean from Obama's constant harping about change is that we're in for a lot of new taxes. For me, the choice is clear. I've looked carefully at the two leading applicants for the job, and I've made my choice. Here's a question - where were you five and a half years ago, around Christmas, 2002? You've had five or six birthdays in that time. My son has grown from a sixth grade child to a high school graduate. Five and a half years is a good chunk of time -- about 2,000 days, 2,000 nights of sleep, 6,000 meals, give or take. John McCain spent that amount of time, from 1967 to 1973, in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. When offered early release, he refused it. He considered this offer to be a public relations stunt by his captors, and insisted that those held longer than he should be released first. Did you get that part? He was offered his freedom, and he turned it down. A regimen of beatings and torture began. Do you possess such strength of character? Locked in a filthy cell in a foreign country, would you turn down your own freedom in favor of your fellow man? I submit that's a quality of character that is rarely found, and for me, this singular act defines John McCain. Unlike several presidential candidates in recent years whose military service is questionable or non-existent, you will not find anyone to denigrate the integrity and moral courage of this man. A graduate of Annapolis, during his Naval service he received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross. His own son is now serving in the Marine Corps in Iraq. Barack Obama is fond of saying 'We honor John McCain's service...BUT...', which to me is condescending and offensive - because what I hear is, 'Let's forget this man's sacrifice for his country and his proven leadership abilities, and talk some more about change.' I don't agree with John McCain on everything - but I am utterly convinced that he is qualified to be our next President, and I trust him to do what's right. I know in my heart that he has the best interests of our country in mind. He doesn't simply want to be President - he wants to lead America, and there's a huge difference. Factually, there is simply no comparison between the two candidates. A man of questionable background and motives who prattles on about change can't hold a candle to a man who has devoted his life in public service to this nation, retiring from the Navy in 1981 and elected to the Senate in 1982. Perhaps Obama's supporters are taking a stance between old and new. Maybe they don't care about McCain's service or his strength of character, or his unblemished qualifications to be President. Maybe 'likeability' is a higher priority for them than trust'. Being a prisoner of war is not what qualifies John McCain to be President of the United States of America - but his demonstrated leadership certainly DOES. Dear friends, it is time for us to stand. It is time for thinking Americans to say, 'Enough.' It is time for people of all parties to stop following the party line. It is time for anyone who wants to keep America first, who wants the right man leading their nation, to start a dialogue with all their friends and neighbors and ask who they're voting for, and why. There's a lot of evil in this world. That should be readily apparent to all of us by now. And when faced with that evil as we are now, I want a man who knows the cost of war on his troops and on his citizens. I want a man who puts my family's interests before any foreign country. I want a President who's qualified to lead. I want my country back, and I'm voting for John McCain. At this point, I want to add that I don’t want a First Lady that has to be shown how to really love America. I want a First Lady who thinks more about people beyond herself and takes on tasks like Cindy McCain does. Have you read about her trip to Rwanda and Zaire? Look it up. She thinks far beyond herself and “her” people. Analyzing Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis Actors Brooke Shields and Dean Cain used their senior papers to write about the film industry. Actor David Duchovny wrote about Samuel Beckett. Future politician Bill Bradley wrote about Harry Truman. Ralph Nader explored Lebanese agriculture. But few senior theses have attracted as much attention as Michelle Obama's 1985 paper, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." Bloggers have been devouring the 96-page paper since its release. Their interest was heightened by Princeton's initial refusal to make the thesis publicly available. Politico.com posted the full thesis. Plenty of bloggers are posting their takes on the academic musings of a potential future first lady: From Will Offensicht, blogging at Scragged: From Mark Gardner, blogging at WhackyNation: Barack Obama and the Democrats should face reality. This senior paper dooms any hope of the Obama couple being elected to the White House. Posted by publicircus on 03/01/08 at 1:48AM After reading that, I said to myself "Gee if after all these years your goal is to get African Americans into the sciences, then you haven't gotten anywhere at all. The real goal should have said, "To get more students interested in the sciences". Is this Michele Obama? I hope not. Princeton Releases Michelle Obama's Senior Thesis Michelle Obama's thesis was released to the public by Princeton University Tuesday after several days of media scrutiny over its availability and content. The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), her husband, received criticism from conservative media and bloggers when the University restricted access to her senior thesis until after the presidential election in November. "A thesis can be restricted or unrestricted for a variety of reasons, including at the request of alumni," University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said in an e-mail. "It falls within the purview of alumni to discuss their academic work," she said. Analysis of the thesis' content, in addition to its restricted availability, has featured prominently in blogs over the last few days. Written under Obama's maiden name of Michelle LaVaughn Robinson and titled "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community," the thesis has come under scrutiny as the presidential campaign has advanced for its analysis of race relations. What's in the thesis? Obama, who concentrated in sociology and received a certificate in African-American studies, examined how the attitudes of black alumni have changed over the course of their time at the University. "Will they become more or less motivated to benefit the Black community?" Obama wrote in her thesis. After surveying 89 black graduates, Obama concluded that attending the University as an undergraduate decreased the extent to which black alumni identified with the black community as a whole. Obama drew on her personal experiences as an example. "As I enter my final year at Princeton, I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates -- acceptance to a prestigious graduate school or a high-paying position in a successful corporation," she wrote, citing the University's conservative values as a likely cause. "Predominately White universities like Princeton are socially and academically designed to cater to the needs of the White students comprising the bulk of their enrollments," she said, noting the small size of the African-American studies department and that there were only five black tenured professors at the University across all departments. Obama studied the attitudes of black Princeton alumni to determine what effect their time at Princeton had on their identification with the black community. "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before," she wrote in her introduction. "I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong." "Her thesis seems especially pertinent given the questions that have been raised off and on about the supposed 'tight-rope' of racial identity politics that some claim Senator Obama has to carefully navigate," College Democrats president Rob Weiss '09 said in an e-mail. "In using Michelle Obama on the campaign trail, the Obama camp has made her a figure, and therefore a factor, in the campaign," Stadler said. "Her opinions Politics as Usual At the beginning of this long political season - if there ever was a beginning, since campaigns are now nonstop with only the players changing - it appeared this one might, just might, be different. Barack Obama, the biracial candidate would be the trans-racial healer. He promised to seek common ground with Republicans for the betterment of the country. John McCain, too, was the reach-out candidate with a record of working with "the other side," to the consternation of many conservatives, but to the delight of independents who, say the experts, are essential to a McCain victory. For the doubtful, which are those of us who have observed politics for a few decades, it all seemed too good to be true. And now politics as usual has proved too true to be good. The pettiness, the tearing down and the irrelevance of the political dialogue resembles so many other distasteful presidential campaigns. Obama was the first to use the "race card," claims McCain. “No, he wasn't”, says Obama. “McCain was”. One wishes some adult would step in and say, "Children, go to your rooms." This is what passes for modern political discourse. Conservative says to liberal: "You're ruining America." Liberal responds, "No, you're ruining America." Conservative: "You're a communist." Liberal: You're a fascist." Conservative: "You're a secular humanist." Liberal: "You're a Bible-thumping bigot." Host of cable program: "We'll be back with more civil discussion after these messages." Do these guys really believe what they're saying about each other? If so, perhaps we need two different candidates. When McCain first proposed a series of town hall meetings with no journalists, Obama said it was a good idea. But then Obama, or his handlers, apparently thought better of it. His camp has agreed only to the three scheduled fall debates, presided over by journalists, many of whom see themselves as co-equal with the candidates. Apparently, the Obama camp thinks it can preserve its small lead in most polls by not giving McCain too many platforms. How does this conform to Obama's image of conciliation and working together? That image is beginning to unravel. The Weekly Standard reports on Obama's "lost years" as a state legislator, noting he was the antithesis of the cross-aisle conciliator. "Obama is bipartisan so long as that means asking Republicans to take incremental steps toward his own broader goals," writes Stanley Kurtz. "When it comes to compromising with the other side, however, Obama says ‘take a hike.'" "The real Obama: Fundamentally, he is a big-government redistributionist," says Kurtz, who offers examples of Obama's partisan Illinois legislative record. Included are his writings for and coverage by two Chicago publications, the Hyde Park Herald, Chicago's oldest community newspaper, and the Chicago Defender, once the nation's most influential African-American daily. Combing through the archives of those newspapers, Kurtz concludes, "What they portray is a Barack Obama sharply at variance with the image of the post-racial, post-ideological, bipartisan, culture-war-shunning politician familiar from current media coverage and purveyed by the Obama campaign. As details of Obama's early political career emerge into the light, his associations with such radical figures as Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, Reverend James Meeks, Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn look less like peculiar instances of personal misjudgment and more like intentional political partnerships. At his core, in other words, the politician chronicled here is profoundly race-conscious, exceedingly liberal, free-spending even in the face of looming state budget deficits, and partisan. Elected president, this man would presumably shift the country sharply to the left on all the key issues of the day, culture-war issues included. It's no wonder Obama has passed over his Springfield years in relative silence." Now there is substance worthy of debate. How does Obama's liberalism apply to energy, fighting terrorism, the economy, taxes, spending, health care and the proper role of government? And given Obama's past history of refusing to compromise on anything important, why should voters accept his "makeover"? As for McCain, who does have a record of compromising, on what issues would he hold fast and never compromise? These are important questions that ought to be at the center of the presidential contest. Unfortunately, they have been replaced with the silly, irrelevant and juvenile. This is not what the public was promised. Obama's Naive Berlin Speech To better understand Sen. Barack Obama, his speech before 200,000 Germans in Berlin is one good place to start. As we shall see, however, it does not leave one secure as to the senator's understanding of history, of America's role in the world, and what to do about evil, among other important issues. Obama: "At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning -- his dream -- required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West." Promised by the West? Or promised by America? It wasn't "the West" that Obama's father went to; it was America. During the Cold War, it wasn't "the West" that led the fight to preserve Western freedom; it was America. Obama concedes this point in his next sentence: "And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life." Obama's speech was a paean to the West and especially to Germany in fighting for freedom during the Cold War. Throughout his speech he equated the German contribution to defeating Communism with that of America Obama: "And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life." It is understandable and even expected that an American speaking in Germany will praise Germans. But even so, it is quite an exaggeration to state that the "only reason" he and they are standing in a free Berlin is because men and women from both countries sacrificed for that better life. Americans sacrificed far more than Germans. The sad truth is that, with some heroic exceptions, Germans on the right supported Hitler, and during the Cold War, Germans on the left fought the Unites States more than they fought the Soviet Union. When Ronald Reagan came to Berlin, tens of thousands of Germans -- many of them, one would surmise, of a similar mindset to those who came to hear Barack Obama -- protested his visit. Obama: "The size of our forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat would have allowed Communism to march across Europe." Isn't this exactly where we are regarding the retreat from Iraq that Obama and the Democrats have advocated? Wouldn't retreat from Iraq allow militant Islam to march across the Middle East and beyond? How is one to explain this? I have long believed that many liberals recognize evils only after the evil has been vanquished. Today, Democrats like Obama in his speech, regularly revile Communism. But from the late 1960s until the end of the Cold War they rarely judged Communism. They judged anti-Communists. Liberal Democrats routinely call Communism evil today, but when it was actually a threat, they reviled those who called Communism evil. Again, recall Ronald Reagan and the virtually universal liberal condemnation of his calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire." So, too, now, regarding today's greatest evil, to cite but one example, not one Democrat in any of their party's presidential primary debates used the term "Islamic terrorism." Obama: "Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in the way was Berlin." In his attempt to exaggerate the role of Berlin before his large Berlin audience, Obama made a claim that simply makes no sense. "Berlin stood in the way" of another World War beginning? How? If anything, Berlin was the flash point of East-West tension and therefore could have triggered a war. Obama: "People of the world -- look at Berlin! Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle." Germans and Americans "learned to work together and trust each other" only thanks to the fact that America and its allies vanquished Germany, overthrew its Nazi leadership, imposed democracy and freedom on Germans, and kept plenty of soldiers in Germany. Why does Obama not apply this lesson to Iraq? If Americans and Iraqis learn to work together and trust each other, it will also be thanks to America and its allies vanquishing the Islamic terrorists, overthrowing the Nazi-like regime of Saddam Hussein, imposing democracy and freedom on Iraqis, and keeping soldiers in Iraq for as long as needed. Obama: "Look at Berlin … where a victory over tyranny gave rise to NATO, the greatest alliance ever formed to defend our common security." Obama did not want to offend his hosts by inserting an element of reality here: Many of America's NATO partners have been largely worthless in confronting evils from Communism to al-Qaida to the Taliban. A few weeks ago, leading German newsweekly Der Spiegel reported that German forces in Afghanistan are under strict orders not to shoot any Taliban forces unless shot at first. As a result, they refused to shoot a major Taliban murderer whom they had in their sights because his forces had not shot at the Germans and therefore allowed him to escape. Obama: "People of the world -- look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." The wall came down because America stood strong, not because the world stood as one. What he said here is John Lennon-like fantasy, the opposite of reality, and as such, coming from the man who may well be the next president of the United States, a bit frightening. Obama: "While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history." Of all the lessons taught by the 20th century, that we share a common destiny is not among the top 10. It is not even among the top 100. It is actually untrue and meaningless. Just to cite one obvious example, did those who lived under Communism and those who lived under democratic capitalism "share a common destiny"? What is he talking about? If the 20th century did teach something, it taught that evil must always be fought. The speech reveals a man who has good will and noble desires, but who may be dangerously naive regarding the lessons of history and what to do about evil. Barack Obama's Naive Berlin Speech -- Part Two Sen. Barack Obama's recent speech in Berlin may have been a hit with American journalists. That, however, is due to most journalists' politics, not to the profundity of Obama's remarks. They were neither profound nor stirring. Indeed, a careful study of the speech should lead an impartial observer to be concerned about Obama's grasp of the world. I started my analysis last week; I conclude this week. Let me begin with that which was praiseworthy. Obama: "This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York." This was Obama at his finest -- defining the enemy and defining the task. Obama: "America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida." This, too, was important. Any American who calls on Europeans to fight is doing something courageous, as indeed Obama learned within a few days, when Europeans roundly criticized him for suggesting they contribute more to the war in Afghanistan. This only proves that with all his "global citizenship" talk, if he is elected, Obama will be no more popular in Europe than any other president who makes demands of Europeans. But nearly all of the rest of the speech was either meaningless or wrong. Obama: "The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow." In the seven years since 9/11, I have not seen a study that relates terrorism to poverty. And, as everyone knows, all of the 9/11 terrorists came from relatively wealthy homes. Obama's assertion is simply a statement of faith. That faith is liberalism -- increasingly a doctrine with more non-empirically based beliefs, i.e., dogmas, than most traditional religion: "Poverty causes crime"; "black incarceration rates are a result of racism"; "war is not the answer"; "capital punishment doesn't deter"; "tax increases on 'the rich' help the economy"; "more money for education" and countless others. Obama: "In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common." Obama is right that the view that "America is part of what has gone wrong in our world" is "all too common" in Europe. But one would hope that an American leader, especially one who may be the next president of the United States, would tell a European audience how wrong such a perception is, would tell them that whatever his or their differences with American policies, America has been and continues to be the greatest force for good on earth. Obama: "The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all." Obama is certainly right that Darfur "shames the conscience of us all." But he offers not one suggestion concerning what to do about it. Nor one lesson that he draws from it. Obama: "Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world…" Which Europeans? What new burdens? Where are they taking more responsibility? What new burdens have Spain, France, Norway or Sweden taken on? It seems to many of us that most European countries work hard to ensure that their welfare states prosper and, beyond that, do little to promote liberty on earth or even ensure their won security and values. Obama: "That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another." What new walls is he referring to? The wall America is erecting to keep people from illegally entering? The barrier Israel has erected that has reduced terror there to almost zero? It would seem that those are actually good walls. Or is he referring to the walls many Muslim immigrants to Europe build in order to insulate themselves from Western influences? One doubts it. But there is no way to know, since Mr. Obama again offers a platitude that means little. And as regards "the greatest danger of all," that remains, as it always was, acts and doctrines of evil, not walls or carbon dioxide emissions. Obama: "The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down." Those thoughts are lovely. But what matters is who is responsible for erecting these walls. For example, is it Christians or Jews or Muslims who today are erecting walls between "Christian and Muslim and Jew"? Obama seems to imply that all are equally responsible. Obama: "This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. … This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons." This naivete is frightening. A "world without nuclear weapons" is a foolish and dangerous fantasy. The problem with nuclear weapons -- as with all weapons -- is not that they exist; it is that evil men may obtain and use them. Those of us preoccupied with protecting the innocent want good nations to have the most powerful weapons on earth. We do not share Sen. Obama's goal of America and its enemies having the same weapons. Why a Black Artist Replaced the National Anthem Last week in Denver, almost all the values of the post-1960s left were exhibited in one act. It happened on the Denver mayor's most important day -- the one in which he was to deliver his annual State of the City Address. The day was to begin with the singing of the National Anthem by the black jazz singer Rene Marie. But Ms. Marie had, by her own admission, long had other plans. Instead of the National Anthem, she sang "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," a song written in 1899 and often referred to today as the Black National Anthem. What Marie did embodied a plethora of leftist ideals and characteristics: Ethical relativism, multiculturalism, the supremacy of feelings, and the belief that artists are above normal ethical standards and group victimization. We begin with ethical relativism. The left's opposition to Judeo-Christian values is first and foremost an opposition to objective, or universal, ethics. Ethics and morality are relative. There is no objective or universal standard of right and wrong. We are each the source of our own values. These lessons were learned well by Marie. The notion that lying to the mayor of Denver (a Democrat, as it happens) when she agreed to his invitation to sing the National Anthem was unethical or immoral is foreign to Ms. Marie. But how could she morally defend something so obviously immoral? That is what ethical relativism made possible thanks to a number of values of the left. One such leftist value is multiculturalism. Since the 1960s, a major goal of the left has been to weaken American national identity and replace it with other cultural, national, racial and ethnic identities (in effect, changing the motto of the United States from "From Many, One" to "From One, Many"). It has pursued this goal through bilingual education, election ballots in multiple languages, numerical guidelines in American history textbooks concerning the percentage of space allotted to given minorities, opposition to declaring English America's national language, and rendering the term "flag waving" a pejorative that implies quasi-fascist sentiments. One could well imagine a member of any number of other minorities substituting a different song for the National Anthem. The left has successfully taught millions of Americans to honor other national identities while either fearing or disparaging American nationalism. That lesson, too, was clearly learned by Marie. The idea of a Black National Anthem is a multiculturalist paradigm. A black freedom song, a black hymnal, songs that gave African slaves on American soil some comfort and hope in the midst of their suffering, and, for that matter, "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" -- these all fit perfectly into an American national identity. Indeed, all Americans should know such songs. But a Black National Anthem, when substituted for the National Anthem, means that there are two nations on American soil, a black one and an American one. The left's second contribution to Marie's value system has been its elevation of feelings above other values. For example, one determines right and wrong on the basis of how one feels (as opposed to, let us say, asking what one's religion, or God, or any moral law that transcends one's own feelings would say on a given matter). Now, the elevation of one's feelings above other considerations is generally viewed as a form of narcissism. And while narcissism is as old as humanity, until the 1960s it was generally regarded as a character flaw. Since the 1960s, however, it was more often heralded as a virtue. From recreational drug use to recreational sex, acting on one's feelings, actions of self-centered narcissism, has been glorified. The core of this attitude lies in the left's veneration of feelings. How one feels became all-important. It even determines morality, the rightness or wrongness of an action. Thus, a generation of young people has been raised with the question, "How do you feel about it?" not "Is it right or wrong?" Thus, Marie justified what she did in terms of feelings: "I want to express how I feel about living in the United States as a black woman, as a black person," she said. Her feelings were what mattered, and they were more important than elementary decency. A third contribution of the left's values to what Marie did is the elevation of the artist to the status of demigod. If the feelings of mere mortals can determine what is right and wrong, the feelings of an artist are even more important. There is no hubris like that of many contemporary artists. At some point in the second half of the 20th century the belief arose that artists formed a moral elite. Given the moral idiocies that have been more the norm than the exception among 20th century artists -- the countless artists who have glorified Communism, Fascism and Nazism -- facts alone render the idea of artist-as-moral-beacon foolish. But even in theory the idea has no merit. There is nothing in art that renders an artist more morally elevated than a sanitation worker. Sure enough, being an artist was Marie's justification for her dishonesty. Asked on her website, "Wasn't this dishonest?" she responded: "I can see how it may be perceived that way. But I looked at it a different way: I am an artist. I cannot apologize for that. It goes with the risky territory of being an artist." Marie also told the press, "I don't think it is necessary for artists to ask permission to express themselves artistically." Artists are above morality. While you and I should not deceive people, artists may. The fourth contribution of the left to the Marie episode is its constant reinforcement of a sense of victimhood among all Americans who are not male, white, heterosexual and Christian. The moral consequence of this is that the victim, like the artist, like the feelings-determine-morality individual, can do more or less whatever he pleases. It should be noted that many individuals on the left condemned what Marie did. And it is not for me to judge whether they did so out of conviction or political necessity; one must generally judge actions, not motives. But to the sincere liberal and leftist, I ask: Do you not see how left/liberal values made this episode possible? Individuals on the left may condemn what happened in Denver City Hall on July 1, 2008. But, in fact, it was a triumph of leftist values. Final note: If you do not now fear for America's future, please go on the Internet and watch the Denver city officials respectfully watch a woman substitute her own song for that of the National Anthem. Watch how not a single official stopped her, or even demanded that the National Anthem be sung afterward. And listen to the applause. Then you will fear for our country's future. Liberal Press Circles Wagons around Obama The liberal media are unhinged over John McCain's recent ad campaign against Barack Obama, which erased Obama's 9-point lead in the polls and tied the race. How dare McCain challenge their anointed one? Obama is not the only one convinced he is "the one we've been waiting for." The media are also annoyed they have to endure this irritating uprising from McCain, who is officiously intermeddling with the inexorable flow of history. Sunday show hosts, editorial pages, and both print and TV news stories this past weekend were pregnant with outrage over McCain's "negative" campaigning -- "negative" being defined as anything, truthful or not, that places Obama in a less favorable light than they require. Their attitude toward Obama is not unlike their approach to the global warming issue: They accept the environmentalists' edict that man-made, apocalyptic warming is occurring, and no one is allowed to dissent. So if McCain exposes Obama's policy inconsistencies, questions his character, highlights his presumptuousness, inexperience or superficiality, lampoons the media's crush on him, criticizes his injection of race into the campaign, or responds to Obama's attacks, the media yell "foul." Newsweek's Jonathan Alter is a good example. It's not just that McCain is using unfair tactics against Obama but also that he's straying from the liberal line that earned Alter's and other liberal journalists' favor in the first place. Coursing through Alter's entire piece "Where Have You Gone, John?" is the unwritten charge that McCain is crossing the line merely by staying in the race. But to confront Obama on issues that matter, that's downright heresy. What are McCain's capital offenses generating such media outrage? He has depicted Obama as a flip-flopper. He has accused him of arrogance and putting politics above the national interest in refusing to acknowledge the success of the surge and sticking with his demand for immediate withdrawal. McCain had the temerity to make light of Obama's pop celebrity by interposing Obama's image with those of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. McCain accused Obama of playing the race card when suggesting Republicans would attempt to frighten white voters by pointing out that he doesn't look like past U.S. presidents depicted on our greenbacks. McCain parodied Obama's messianic image in likening him to Charlton Heston's Moses parting the Red Sea. And he accused him of canceling his scheduled stop to visit wounded soldiers in Iraq allegedly because media cameras would not be available. Alter was livid, calling McCain "a surprisingly immature politician -- erratic, impulsive and subject to peer pressure from the last knucklehead who offers him advice." McCain's "lame" tactics, in Alter's opinion, are "out of sync with the real guy." The "real guy" is that Republican who endeared himself to the likes of Alter by attacking fellow Republicans, not superior liberal Democrats. He should be attacking corporate greed, not Barack Obama. This can't be the real John McCain. The real John McCain would put the final nail in the GOP coffin and concede the race. Surprisingly, The Washington Post's editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, put his finger precisely on the liberal mindset concerning Republican challenges to their Democratic rivals and their policies. Hiatt says it is "an article of faith among many Democratic believers … that Democratic policies are so obviously superior, and so much more in the interest of a majority of voters, that only some form of chicanery can explain Republican election victories. In this view of the world, Republican operatives … manipulate … issues … to deceive people to vote against their economic self-interest. Or they inflate security threats to frighten them into voting against their self-interest." Bingo and kudos. With the exception of the charge that Obama canceled his troop visit because cameras wouldn't be present, all of the other supposed McCain offenses listed above are anything but dirty politics. And Obama, by the way, did cancel his visit to meet the wounded soldiers, even if his reason wasn't photo op-related. McCain has a right to expose Obama, his flawed policies, flip-flops, hypocrisy, unfair tactics and character flaws. Indeed, he has a duty to do so. Campaigns are supposed to inform voters, and all questions should be on the table. It is not negative campaigning to enlighten voters about your opponents' positions on the issues, his qualifications or his character, so long as the information is truthful. Negative campaigning is smearing your opponent through lies and deceit. But while we're on the subject of honest campaigning, perhaps it is time for Obama to be truthful about who he is and what he stands for instead of scrupulously concealing those things. But the truth will come out eventually. And if you think the media are squawking now, just wait till the campaign proceeds to the point that Obama's policy and racial radicalism receive the exposure they deserve. Mr. Obama, Welcome to the NFL! Barack Obama just had the worst week since his beloved pastor, Jeremiah Wright, decided to expatiate on black liberation theology at the National Press Club. Coming off his royal progress through the Near and Middle East, Berlin, Paris and London, Barack had surged to a nine-point lead in the Gallup tracking poll. By Friday, he was back to a dead heat with a 72-year-old opponent with none of his natural skills, in a year when grocers are pulling Republican brands off the shelves. For all its gracelessness, the McCain campaign, given openings by Barack, stepped in and put Muhammad Ali on the canvas. The first opening was the clumsiness with which Barack dealt with a planned visit to wounded U.S. troops in Landshul, Germany. While the first half of his foreign trip, to Afghanistan and Iraq, was official, the European tour was campaign related. Yet, it was on this leg that a visit to wounded U.S. soldiers had been scheduled. As campaigning in a military hospital is prohibited, the visit was canceled. But, instead of going ahead and visiting the troops alone, without aides, press or cameras, Barack bailed out and flew on to Paris. This left the McCain folks an opening to paint Obama as a cold-hearted opportunist avid to visit a military hospital only if he could bring in press and cameras to record his compassion. Enraged Obama aides savagely accused McCain of running a dishonorable campaign. This reflex reaction, and the ugly brawl that ensued, made some Americans think less of Obama, but many more forget what a success his foreign trip had been. Then came the Paris-Britney ad. This opens with shots of the wayward blondes, then of Barack, presuming to equate the three as vacuous, insubstantial and aimless. Purpose: Disparage Barack's rock-star popularity and turn it into something laughable. While the ad seemed both defensive and non-credible, too much of a stretch to be believed -- even Republicans derided it as "childish" -- it apparently acted as something of a matador's cape snapped in front of an already tormented Obama. Stung, Barack retorted: "What they're going to try is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills you know” (a racist remark, but somehow it’s okay for a black to be racist, but not for people of other races). “He's risky". Barack was accusing the McCain campaign of implying he is risky because he is black in order to manipulate the non-thinking masses to respond in solidarity and emotionally in a knee-jerk fashion without thinking. The risk is due to his lack of experience, and having political and world views that are not in the best interest of America; his overriding interest in being a "citizen of the world" is to the detriment of America, and threatens to destroy the country our forefathers fought so valiantly for, spilling their blood so that we'd have the freedom to be different from what other countries dictated if we so chose. He also lacks a good grasp of history and the consequences of mistakes that have been made -- in particular: the dangers of Marxism; big government; separatism/multiculturalism rather than cohesive assimilation, integration, all working together and forgetting about our skin colors, religions, etc. to build a stronger and better America rather than constantly drawing attention to skin color, alleging racism and discrimination when there is none, and demanding entitlements or preferences based upon being different. This was the opening Rick Davis of McCain's campaign needed to deliver a vicious uppercut to Obama's jaw, charging him with "playing the race card ... from the bottom of the deck." Added Davis, this was "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong." McCain, sadly, agreed. With that, both benches cleared. Saturday, Bob Herbert of The New York Times charged McCain and the Republican Party with producing ads that are "slimy ... foul, poisonous ... designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women." Sunday, Gene Robinson of The Washington Post accused McCain of "running a desperate, ugly campaign." The Britney-Paris ad calling Obama "the biggest celebrity in the world" was an attempt to "turn Obama's popularity into a flaw." Now, undeniably, McCain's ad was designed to minimize and mock Obama's popularity as a modern form of Beatlemania. But what is wrong with that? On the weekend, the McCain folks released another ad. Called "The One," it features Barack's grandiose pronouncements about who he is, what he means to mankind and the marvelous miracles that await our messiah's arrival -- and twins him with Moses (Charlton Heston) parting the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments." The effectiveness of the ad is that people laugh with it, and so doing, laugh at the perceived pretentiousness of Barack Obama. In a week, Barack, an object of media homage on his trip abroad, has become an object of mockery in much of Middle America. Though his media allies may howl racism, most Americans tend more and more to dismiss this. That card has been played so often it's dog-eared. And Barack's raising the race issue anew seems suicidal. When one is winning the black vote 94 to 1, does it make sense to keep pushing into the face of the 87 percent of Americans who are Asian, Hispanic and Caucasian that the next president will definitely not be one of you (and make them more aware that Blacks are many times more as likely to pick a candidate based upon race than people of other races are)? It's time that all groups of people got over racism and realize that we're all Americans who need to assimilate to make this country strong again, and forget about devisive multicultrualism. A candidate should be picked based upon qualifications -- not skin color. My ancestors came to America after slavery was over, but all Americans living today did not have slaves and no present-day blacks were slaves, so it's about time we all got the chips off our shoulders and moved on, rather than wasting our lives with bitterness and hatred of other races. What made America so great in the past was that it was "The Great Melting Pot" where everyone came and tried to assimilate, learn America's language, customs and history and forgot about their differences. Today's multiculturalism is divisive and greatly weakens us. When JFK's polls showed him sweeping 80 percent of Catholics, he did not whistle-stop through the Bible belt, billing himself as our "first Roman Catholic president." He sent Lyndon and Lady Bird on a Dixie special to talk about JFK's war record and rake Richard Nixon. Thus he become our first Catholic president. If Barack wishes to be our first black president, he will tell his friends to stop bellowing and braying every day about it.
Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide Michelle Obama's senior year thesis at Princeton University, obtained from the campaign by Politico, shows a document written by a young woman grappling with a society in which a black Princeton alumnus might only be allowed to remain "on the periphery." Read the full thesis here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. The Obama campaign, however, quickly responded to a request for the thesis by Politico. The thesis offers several fascinating insights into the mind of Michelle Obama, who has been a passionate advocate of her husband's presidential aspirations and who has made several controvesial statements, including this week's remark, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." That comment has fueled debate on countless blogs, radio talk shows and cable news for days on end, causing her to explain the statement in greater detail. He Is Who He Is It's getting tricky to know how to refer to he who presumes to be the next president. It was made clear several months ago that mentioning his middle name is a forbidden act. (Pass out more eggshells.) Then, having nothing honorable to say, Obama warned his followers last week that Sen. McCain would try to scare voters by pointing to Obama's "funny name" and the fact that "he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills." Now, putting aside for the moment the racial component of His warning, what are we to make of the "funny name" reference? Many people have "funny" names. Some people think my last name -- being very close in spelling to the adverbial form for the absence of content -- is funny. Certainly, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's name is funny. Many on the left have had great fun with President Bush's last name. But we all have found our names perfectly serviceable and would expect people to call us by the names by which we identify ourselves. But He has made it clear that the mere use of His name would be freighted with coded innuendoes of something too horrible to say straightforwardly. One has to go back to Exodus 3:13-14 to find such strict instructions concerning the use of a name. Moses explained: "Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I Am has sent me to you.'" So perhaps we can call Him, for short, Sen. I Am (full code name: I Am who you have been waiting for). Another aspect of the now-infamous dollar-bill incident that has gone unmentioned is Sen. I Am's choice of the dollar-bill reference itself. He could have just said He doesn't look like other presidents. Ev |