51 Comments

1. Panday:

Alexander Tytler may or may not have said,

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.”

It’s a very perceptive statement, regardless of its origins.

Jul 4, 2008 - 5:40 am 2. Richard Fernandez:

I suppose one could argue that the Rezko housing projects were an improvement on places like the Robert Taylor Homes and Cabrini Green. Situational expectations.

Jul 4, 2008 - 5:59 am 3. Paul:

What’s in the article is nothing new. When I lived on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1960s and early 1970s it was a violent, corrupt, decaying place and had been that way for almost two decades. It was so bad that guys who came to the University from Harlem, then at its worst, were afraid to leave Hyde Park and go into the ghetto. In those days it was the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the precursor of the Reverend Wright, who was running the scams, though he was taking money from the do-gooders instead of colluding with them.

What’s most interesting to me is not what’s in the article, but the fact that it appeared on the front page of the Boston Globe, a paper that’s well to the left of the New York Times. I can’t tell if this means that they are slowly waking up to who Obama is, or if they are putting the information out so that come October is will be “old news” as the Clintons liked to say.

Jul 4, 2008 - 6:06 am 4. Patti:

What our presumptive democratic candidate for the United States of America has spent his entire life doing since landing on our Mainland is nothing short of a shell game(s). No different than going into a bank with a rag over the face and saying “stick ‘em up and give me all your money”.

It is a crying shame that Americans cannot follow the story or do not have the time to become informed of “His-Story”. It really is not all that complicated. The names are just a little too foreign and people get bogged down due to the vast shell game. It can be tiring and confusing to watch that peanut and where it is at any given moment.

His campaign “people” (read fellow-opportunists”) realized this long ago and that is why he has breezed through the primary. People have been voting in the dark since January 2008. Though he wrote two books on his importance as a person at age 34-35 with all the details, his theology didn’t come to light until March long after the majority of ballots being cast in the western States.

Senator Obama is an Expert at wheeling and dealing behind the scene. And this expertise is exactly what qualifies him to be the Executive of the biggest Board Room in the entire world.

Why has the American media outlets ignored this report? What is the big secret? It’s been around for a long time. Evelyn Pringle’s series has been shoved in the closet as well.

Jul 4, 2008 - 6:08 am 5. 3Case:

“Take a good cause, like providing low cost housing; persuade government to kick in money to subsidize it and turn the whole thing into a racket. Repeat as necessary.”

Translation: “Hi. We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” The astounding things that never gets asked is: Help whom and to what? Answers: Themselves and to your money. As long as government functionaries (pols, judges and their associated bureaucrats) are not responsible for what happens on their watch, we (as in all of us who are not of one of the governments’ many branches) are subject to their increasing benign neglect.

Jul 4, 2008 - 7:21 am 6. Daran:

I sense an excellent campaign commercial in there. ‘This is public housing (show pictures, show government money spend / housing unit). Are you ready for public health care?’

Jul 4, 2008 - 7:57 am 7. Chip:

My father told me the Hawaiians had an expression:

“The missionaries came to do good, but they did well.”

I can’t verify it, but it’s too good and appropriate here not to mention it.

Jul 4, 2008 - 8:33 am 8. Jamie Irons:

3Case,

Translation: “Hi. We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” The astounding thing that never gets asked is: Help whom and to what? Answers: Themselves and to your money…

Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man does a superb job of looking at this issue in the context of “The New Deal.”

Jamie Irons

Jul 4, 2008 - 8:43 am 9. fred:

It goes to show you that Obama trusts the wrong people and organizations. That means he will succumb to the scams of foreigners as well. I also think The Boston Globe probably put this story up front and center now so that it most certainly would be forgotten later. If anyone is paying attention at all to begin with. The media just want to get him to the church on time for the coronation in January.

Jul 4, 2008 - 10:00 am 10. JA:

Maybe one of the reasons (fittingly remembered on the 4th of July) that a republican democracy works better, on average, than an aristocracy is that it makes no special assumptions about the virtue of the rulers.

Actually, this is a first tier implication of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s “Logic of Political Survival”, which I strongly suggest you read. He builds testable theses out of the core axiom that politicians first and foremost want to gain power, and once there they want to keep it.

Jul 4, 2008 - 10:13 am 11. Charles:

Having lived near Harlem in NYC for many years and then done contract IT work at HUD HQ in washington dc and lived in the burbs there I can testify that it looks very much like the point of HUD is not to serve the people uninhabitable crime warrens but rather to give the administrators high paying jobs.

Jul 4, 2008 - 10:14 am 12. NahnCee:

1. Chicago politics sound like they’d fit in quite well with the UN’s way of doing business.

2. Obama’s concern with low-income housing mirrors Jimmy Carter’s. More and more and more, he sounds like a tanner version of the peanut farmer.

3. On the one hand, all of these housing projects have been abysmal failures across the country, where-ever they were built. On the other hand, according to the Atlantic article this month, if you take the project people out of their habitat, they take their crime with them, and start being predators to their new middle-class neighbors.

It does seem to me, however, that taking them out of the projects and funding them for an extremely limited amount of time (like the current welfare program is limited) is the better way to go. I don’t understand and don’t agree with providing poor, lazy, and/or stupid people with free housing for the rest of their lives.

And if that’s what Obama wants to do, then he needs to take his ideas to the UN.

Jul 4, 2008 - 10:21 am 13. Morton Doodslag:

The creation of servile constituencies within these deplorable leftist sinecures is an even more revolting aspect of leftist “do-gooders” such as Obama. Not only do these leftist victim pimps line their pockets, but they synergistically create armies of servile dog followers who seem to lack the sense to “just say no” to the communistic twaddle which seizes them. It amazes me to witness the slavish adherence most Blacks exhibit for the Democratic Party. To hear demagogues like Michelle Obama, or any other victim or race pimp speak of the matter, the plight of Americann Blacks has barely advanced in America since Jim Crow. If so, you’d think someone with half a brain among their Black constituency would eventually question the miasma of victimology, malfunctioning government “handouts”, and all-round decrepitude of the leftist world outlook which keeps them in their place. All liberal policies are not complete failures, but most of them are directly implicated in the perpetuation of poverty in America, such as it is.

Jul 4, 2008 - 10:28 am 14. MarkJ:

“I’m not against Barack Obama,” said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and a former public housing resident. “What I am against is some of the people around him.”

1938: “If only Comrade Stalin knew that innocent people were being arrested and shot, he’d put a stop to it. Beria is surely doing this behind our Leader’s back.”

1942: “The Fuehrer must be receiving bad advice from Goebbels and Goering. If he only knew what was truly going on in the East, he’d end it in a minute.”

1967: “Disloyal elements within the Party must be misleading Chairman Mao. He’d surely stop this Cultural Revolution insanity if he only knew how much the peasants were suffering.”

Jul 4, 2008 - 10:44 am 15. Benj:

The Globe piece is a killer. (Mickey Kaus rightly called it the most damming thing written on O.) Lived uptown in an area that’s been gentrifying in fits and starts for years so my fam knows exactly what sort of folks O has been in bed with. The problem is that shaming him on this front has been mixed up with a lot of silliness – take a bow Wretch – re Manchurian Candidate, closet islamist, mother-ridden anti-American, racist etc. THAT stuff was pathetic. This is the real deal.

So what does it tell us – in order to rise high as a pol in this country you compromise yourself. Dem or Pub – You don’t diss the rich guy you went to school with or the buppie with millions or the less-than-smooth operator with machine connections or the Foundation biggie…you cultivate them. (Remember Bush’s comic line to his GOP donors – Welcome to my base – “The haves and have-mores.” – A line that was met with huge enjoyment from his crowd.) If you’re coming from Outside like Obama your moves on this front may seem particularly egregious – though compared to biz-as-uusal Clintons (or Johhny Mac with his heiress)…

Wretch noted a couple posts back that rolling with O required a leap of faith – I came back today planning to say – you’re right as rain – and O himself once acknowledged that. Then I was going to point ya’ll to the Globe piece. Should’ve figured Wretch would beat me to it! Now – what the hey – why don’t you guys go back and read O’s speech on patriotism. Maybe you’ll be able to focus on what’s exceptional about Obama – the narrative gifts and sense of American possibility. Not just on the nasty stuff he shares with all ambitious pols. Where’s the love? – My guess is that O’s appeal to our better angels is no more of a shuck than Linc’s. Hell Abe was a corporation lawyer whose “ambition was an engine that knew no rest” (as per his friend Herndon.) I still think the key is in the stories. Who does Obama consistently celebrate? It’s not the money-men – it’s men and women of honor – everyday people who uphold common virtues and the idea of community – As DH Lawrence once said of American writers, Trust the tale not the teller.

Jul 4, 2008 - 10:48 am 16. Peterike:

“Who does Obama consistently celebrate? It’s not the money-men – it’s men and women of honor.”

And who has he associated with for decades? The men and women of honor? Or the money men?

“As DH Lawrence once said of American writers, Trust the tale not the teller.”

Well that’s certainly convenient when dealing with O! But then again, which “tale” do you trust? Today’s? Yesterday’s? Or tomorrow’s? Or, as in the case of most O-philes, whatever tale happens to float their boat.

And in regards to his patriotism speech, I like this line. “…that we could have the right to pursue our individual dreams but the obligation to help our fellow citizens pursue theirs.”

Obligation?? The obligation to help my fellow citizens pursue their dreams? Uh huh.

Jul 4, 2008 - 11:19 am 17. NahnCee:

Good Lord, Benj – you’re still referring us to the Messiah’s SPEECHS, for God’s sake, when he’s done nothing but contradict himself time after time after time for years now? You’re a blithering idiot if you take him at his spoken word over ANYthing, up to and including if he were to swear on the Bible in court.

Don’t you understand yet that you have to look at what he’s actually be doing, who he’s married to and what she’s actually doing, who he listens to on Sunday and what HE is doing? The time for words is long past.

If I ever thought about voting for B. Hussein, I’d want to be voting for someone that I was pretty sure had the moral and physical fortitude to face down Osama bin Laden and his minions, not to mention America’s unions and gangsters. I have seen absolutely nothing in Obama’s ACTIONS and reactions that would lead me to believe he’d be anything except a tea-sipping pinky-finger lifter in the mode of Neville Chamberlain and the late Duke of Windsor.

I simply do not understand the starry-eyed blinkered gaze of true believers like you, Benj. Luckily for the rest of us, you’re in a minority (and a pathetic and ineffectual minority at that), and usually end up sipping Kool-Aid with other starry-eyed followers of the latest cult guru, so you self-implode and can’t manage to overwhelm the species.

But I really resent it a lot that you think I should join you in your lemming-like rush to oblivion.

Jul 4, 2008 - 11:46 am 18. Alexis:

I don’t like what the Bush administration did with Halliburton and I regard the proposed contract with Dubai Ports World to take over a series of American ports as an impeachable offense. The Bush administration made some good decisions, but I am quite unhappy with its pattern of corruption. Considering how government corruption is a legitimate issue in this election and given Senator Obama’s record in Chicago, is Senator Obama really running for George W. Bush’s third term? And considering the corruption of the Clinton administration (remember the Loral missile contract with China?), is Senator Obama seeking a continuation of the worst practices of the Bush-Clinton era?

Let’s make no mistake – both John McCain and Barack Obama are tainted by corruption scandals from the past. The question is which man is less corrupted by our political system and by the power of money. The question is not whether America needs change, but whether the man we elect will bring the right kind of change or whether he will be seduced by the spare change of his wealthy contributors.

Jul 4, 2008 - 1:16 pm 19. whiskey:

Obama’s Achille’s heel is the desire to make money with guys like Rezko by demolishing Cabrini Green and other places, and moving Section 8 housing out to other, suburban neighborhoods. What this does is spread gangs and gang members to those neighborhoods making them unliveable and destroying housing values.

An effective campaign against him, showing this threat to suburban white homeowners, destroying their neighborhoods and schools, would be devastating. Let’s hope one runs. To hoist him by his own petard.

Jul 4, 2008 - 1:23 pm 20. 3Case:

“…servile constituencies….” Translation: slaves.

Jul 4, 2008 - 3:16 pm 21. hdgreene:

“I’m not against Barack Obama,” said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and a former public housing resident. “What I am against is some of the people around him.”

When I was in Spain in 1970 they would say the same thing about Francisco Franco. Frankie didn’t take criticism well, either. About the fiftieth time I heard that I thought, “You know, maybe they are not fond of Franco, either.”

Back in the US: The quickest way to put a neighborhood in terminal decline is to make it eligible for section eight.

A big problem are laws that favor “the least worthy” tenant or home buyer. They stop paying and it takes months to get them out. If they leave the plumbing behind, you’re lucky. I’ve seen houses gutted of anything that can turn a nickel in a matter of minutes. On some signal the scavengers would descend and there goes the cooper plumbing and wiring and woodwork. You could go to the store the scavengers may take half your aluminum siding while you’re gone — hey, they gotta eat, drink and be merry, too.

The Democrats have pretty much told people to stop making mortgage payments if they want to bust the deal. The new motto is “Live Free and Flee.” To the next house.

If you heavily tax work and employment, you’ll have less of it. If you subsidize poverty, you’ll have more. A lot of anti-social behavior is just a way of supplementing the government dole — and filling up the free time.

Jul 4, 2008 - 6:14 pm 22. Alexis:

Suburban homeowners are a key constituency in America. It’s too bad that certain McCain supporters seem to think that Chinese-American, Vietnamese-American, Korean-American, Hmong-American, and Sudanese-American homeowners who live in the suburbs aren’t worth talking to because their votes are just not wanted.

Any political campaign this year that regards white voters as the only people worth talking to is doomed to lose the election. Senator McCain has potential voter strongholds within many immigrant communities if his campaign actually seeks their votes instead of just assuming they will all vote for Obama. Hmong voters in Iowa, Sudanese voters in Minnesota, and Vietnamese voters in Louisiana may not seem to be important to certain pundits, but they do matter and they will vote if they see a good reason to do so.

As a rule, Sudanese-Americans (from southern Sudan) are hard working, frugal, pro-American, Christian, and conservative. They have a deep antipathy toward liberals who are trying to impose gay marriage onto their church. In terms of values, Sudanese-Americans would seem to be a natural constituency for Senator McCain. And yet, one cannot logically expect Sudanese-Americans to vote for any political candidate who relies upon anti-black hatred as the basis of his campaign.

In this election, every vote matters. When Senator Obama alienates entire groups of Americans because of his racist remarks and associations, let him reap what he sows. Let’s hope John McCain doesn’t repeat Barack Obama’s blunders.

Jul 4, 2008 - 6:53 pm 23. Peterike:

Here’s an interesting paleo-conservative take on O’s “patriotism” speech, complete with historical correctives. Sample tone:

“Only this country’s cultural pathology may account for the cult-like success of a nobody who came from nowhere, whose personal loyalties and cultural preferences are eccentric at best, and who preaches “change” as the way to turn intolerable being into perpetual becoming.”

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=657

Jul 4, 2008 - 7:24 pm 24. trangbang68:

Obama’s selling pixie dust. Take the Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples and Blackstone Rangers out of Cabrini Green and Robert Taylor homes and stick them in “affordable low income housing” and …why they’ll have hope! No the places they move will have dope and mayhem and squalor. Liberalism is the stupid choice that heaps bromides and sentimentalism on the ash heap of human depravity.It feels good and you can make a buck and a political career out of it too. What a country! as Billy Ayers would say.

Jul 4, 2008 - 10:09 pm 25. Mike Sylwester:

Barak Obama can’t become President anyway, because he was born in Canada.

Jul 4, 2008 - 11:57 pm 26. Doug:

Alexis:
McCain sees only one constituency worthy of perpetual pander:
Hispanics.
Other minorities and the majority be damned.

—
“I’m not against Barack Obama,”
said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and a former public housing resident.
“What I am against is some of the people around him.”

—
- On Campus, the ’60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire –

Why don’t those hillbillies like Obama?

Why Some of Us Don’t Like Obama

Jul 5, 2008 - 7:15 am 27. jrod:

“The haves and have-mores.”
Benj, that line was taken from the annual Al Smith dinner in NYC. It’s a fundraiser for Catholic charities, and Al Gore was there as well. BTW Al Smith was a democrat.

Jul 5, 2008 - 8:12 am 28. Doug:

Obama’s Racist Rant Against Whites

Laura at Atlas Shrugs investigated Barack Obama’s work and made some startling observations:
Obama probably did not think about the presidential office possibility when he wrote the book “Dreams From My Father” as it is laden with racist categorizations.

Obama catagorizes people according to skin tone, as some are olive, pale, walnut, etc. Almost to the point of being laughable, if it was not so pathetic and scary. The last person to be that race obsessed in power started freakin’ WWII and murdered millions of innocent people.

My husband and I sat down one night and began counting how many times Obama used racial catagorization or referred to race in his book Dreams From My Father.

There are racial references made 179 times in the first 110 pages.We got sick of counting at page 110 and sick of reading Obama’s racial trashing.

The results from their study are listed here.And, HERE is another lengthy compilation of the many racist attacks against whitey by Barack Obama.

In related news… Obama is less popular with democrats today than when he won the nomination a month ago.

Jul 5, 2008 - 9:02 am 29. Wadeusaf:

I think that our current active duty and recent veteran Marines and US Army personnel have better creds as community organizers than “OH”. I believe the results will be last longer to, unless “OH” gets hold of the purse strings.

Jul 5, 2008 - 11:34 am 30. Fresh Bilge » Dystopia:

[...] Dominion that was, is no more. And south of the border, we need only elect the wrong man this fall, and Americans will soon be saying, the Independence that was, is no more. Posted at 4:01 PM | [...]

Jul 5, 2008 - 1:01 pm 31. Doug:

Poll – Some Clinton supporters still not embracing Obama – CNN.com

Jul 5, 2008 - 5:52 pm 32. Benj:

Peter – Think Chron’s Tom Fleming is a big defender of the Confederacy/States Rights etc. Doubt he has much to offer on the subject of patriotism to, ah, Unionists…

Alexis – Do you know re Alphonso Johnson? – Bush’s HUD man – corrupt (I’m tempted to say of course since just about every Pub head of the HUD has ended up in jail or in disgrace recently) but Johnson was a trip. Beyond Brownie – Here’s the graph from the wiki entry –

Selecting contractors based on politics

On April 28, 2006, Jackson spoke at a meeting in Dallas and addressed the subject of government contracting. He recounted that a prospective African-American HUD contractor had made a “heck of a proposal” and was selected upon the basis of that proposal, but upon thanking Secretary Jackson for being selected the bidder, mentioned that he did not like President Bush. As a result, Jackson said, the bidder who had criticized Bush did not receive the contract: “Brother, you have a disconnect — the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn’t be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don’t tell the secretary.” Jackson asked the crowd, “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”[4]

Here’s a short thing re Alphonso – less “objective” but still pretty telling http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/03/7822_bushs_hud_secre.html

Hear you re fears – but Obama couldn’t do worse than W. on this front…

Nahncee – Just words? Look you’ve addressed me a dozen times now – always with utter contempt. Can’t pretend you got under my skin. But the fact that your insults are ineffectual doesn’t mean they’re not acts of contempt. Petty ones addmittedly but acts nonetheless. Now here at the CLub the audience for your acts (and mine) is pretty tiny. But Mac and O are public figures. They’re not like you (or me). Hell it matters when they scratch their asses. And when they give speeches, those are definitely speech-ACTS. O’s words aren’t nearly as cheap as yours and mine. (Though I’ll admit I don’t take mine THAT lightly!) The whole world is watching him.

Maybe that’s just because the world is full of celeb-mongering fools, but is it possible that O has some traction because he’s said things that seemed fresh to millions of Americans? Is it possible that he articulates a world-view that’s has more resonance than your own? On that score, figure you should know that you recently wrote a passage thatmight live in my head a little on down the line. Had to do with your pop at Xmas wondering at the fact he’d managed to hold a familial life together. What the hey – I was never on the bum/lam – but I can surely ID with that emotion. So what’s my point – You told a STORY. That’s what Obama does (often). I don’t believe his narratives or the emotions evoked by them are a con. The stories don’t have an immediate payoff (pace Wretch). Sure I’ll allow O’s anecdotes do usually point Americans in the right (liberal-minded!) direction. But you can hear what’s good in them w/o saying – Hell – I’m going to VOTE for this guy. The stories don’t trump policy. But if you’re listening, they should make it (almost) impossible for you to FEAR him…

Wade – When O became a pol he crossed a line. Did it w/ his eyes open. Bob Moses (that SNCC hero I’ve mentioned would have NEVER gone there.) But – just so you know, I backed the War AND the Surge knowing full well that Bush and the neo-cons knew zip about cultivating grassroots democracy. In fact – they came from a party/elite that had contempt for the whole idea of it!! So maybe you can cut me some slack when it comes to backing O who does KNOW the deal. What it is. As a leader of a massive liberal coalition – a large part of his job will be “fighting fires.” That’s to say – if there is going to be significant change – it’s going to come because O is PUSHED to do the right thing…

J-rod – thanks for the correction re Bush – Got that from F9/11 – Should’ve known not to trust Michael Moore. Here’s a link to a FIRSTer’s sharp critique of Moore – Fhttp://www.nypress.com/17/25/film/ArmondWhite.cfm

Cut and pasting an old piece re Bush et al that makes my other point more forcefully…

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

By Mike Rose

There was a remarkable moment in former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s speech at the Republican National Convention, a moment I keep turning over and over in my mind. It had to do with love. About half-way through the speech – after praising George Bush’s leadership in responding to 9/11 and before an affirmation of the Bush foreign policy doctrine – Giuliani offers the following scene.

Bush is visiting ground zero and is soon surrounded by “big, real big” construction workers. Their “arms are bigger than [Giuliani's] legs, and their opinions are even bigger than their arms.” Using language that Giuliani “can’t repeat”, one of the men begins speaking with deep feeling about the attackers to Mr. Bush, and then “embraced the president and began hugging him enthusiastically.” Giuliani completes the moment by observing this was an act of love.

I don’t know this worker, so I can only imagine what feelings must have been churning inside him, seeking some kind of meaningful expression. And suddenly here before him stands the president of the United States. At ground zero. Overwhelming.

What troubles me, though, what I can’t shake, is the use of that moment by Giuliani – and similar moments by other Republican strategists and speechwriters – to certify George Bush’s deep bond with working people. Giuliani describes the construction worker with genial humor, but if you think about it, the portrait is pretty stereotypical: the big, patriotic hard hat. Joe Sixpack. The working men and women I grew up with were strong, yes, and loyal to country, but they were much more. Smart and skeptical, for starters.

Think, for a moment, of all that you won’t see in these GOP portraits. You won’t see the female cannery worker with injured hands or the guys at bitter loose ends when the factory closes. You won’t see people, exhausted, shuttling between two (or more) jobs to make a living or the anxious scramble for minimal health care for their kids. And you sure won’t see people organizing to improve their working lives.

What a funny kind of love it is that undercuts unions, erodes workplace health and safety regulations, opposes increases in the minimum wage, changes overtime rules. The invocation of love at ground zero – and the replaying of the image – mystifies things terribly. Emotion trumps fact: the awful Republican record on working America. God forbid that the fellow embracing Bush develops, as so many have, serious respiratory disease. He won’t find the administration’s policies hospitable to his plight. He’d better seek instead the much-maligned trial lawyer.

American workers don’t need love from their government, especially this funky seduction. They need opportunity. They need an understanding of their struggles. They need an appreciation of the skill and intelligence they bring to their work. They need enough respect for that intelligence that they’re provided with facts rather than emotion. They need the protections of the secure workplace, of the fair wage, of the union contract. They don’t need a one-way romance, the administration taking the embrace, but returning a deadly kiss.

October 4, 2004

[Mike Rose is author of The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker (Viking, 2004) http://www.mikerosebooks.com.

Jul 6, 2008 - 1:00 am 33. Peterike:

“Peter – Think Chron’s Tom Fleming is a big defender of the Confederacy/States Rights etc. Doubt he has much to offer on the subject of patriotism to, ah, Unionists… ”

Indeed, Thomas Fleming is exactly that, except he didn’t write the piece I pointed to. Nice of you to dismiss it though without even looking.

And it’s curious that you seem to define “Unionists” as something antithetical to “states rights.” What do you suppose it’s a Union of, then, other than a Union of States? Which have their rights.

But then, state’s rights has nothing whatsoever to do with the “patriotism” of folks on the Left, like the Great Saint O. Rather it’s the rights of the ruling class that matter, and trump all. The right to tell the rest of us how to live. To quote once more from the article you didn’t read.

Towards the end of his speech, Obama reasserted his propositional creed… [quote from Obama]… You may love America (“the place on the map”) with all your heart, and you may care for your fellow Americans (“a certain kind of people”) before all others. According to Obama that does not make you patriotic, however, unless you also believe that “anyone” can and therefore at least in principle should become an American, on the grounds of his or her loyalty to the ideal of a multicultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional, tolerant, all-inclusive, diverse, anti-discriminationist, redistributionist America…
The Obama phenomenon reflects the hysterical temperament of a huge segment of the American public, temperament prone to adolescent over-excitability and willful self-deception bordering on self-hate.

Jul 6, 2008 - 11:23 am 34. NahnCee:

Benj – you are so committed as to be obsessive. Don’t you think that’s a little scary? Not to mention insane? What, exactly, would Obama have to do or not do to make you start to question your fealty?

If you say / admit that there is literally nothing he could do that would make you change your mind and not vote for him, then … what does that say about you as a human being with a conscience?

Jul 6, 2008 - 1:57 pm 35. Wadeusaf:

No, I won’t cut your man “OH” any slack. nor should you. The programs pushed by “OH” and taught about in how to fashion by countless post secondary schools across the nation, don’t work. They do not achieve the stated objectives. They don’t raise the standards for anyone but the standard of living for the contractors and pols pushing them. I will not insult your intelligence by accusing you of actually believing what you just said, other than the part about “OH”s eyes being open. Which says things about “OH” that only his confessor should know.

Where has he led the fight to restructure those programs to allow for real boot strapping, and a legitimate opportunity. That glass ceiling over “OH”s constituents heads has some wrought iron bars built in it seems, and a steering committee to say who can and who cannot rise above it. That is IMO, a form of discrimination that only an extreme amount of self delusion and willful deception would allow any human being to cling to. You call it cultivation?

I know where you stand, I also kind of, sort of, think I can say with certainty that your man “OH”, ah is um still committed to realizing a the strategic and non combative objectives of the UN as modified by the Iraq constitution and the road map for benchmarking progress in the solar system with the caveat that non of it conflicts with what he said yesterday. Or something to that general effect.

I don’t really know if President Bush stumbled into the idea of democratizing Iraq or not, or if the circumstance once on the ground proved the folly of the DoS’s and DoD’s ideas about it. I have opinions on it but not enough information to make even a qualified assertion.

Cultivation is what our troops have had to do. But no matter whose the plans were to start with. I think the thought and sincere effort of the troops on the ground are not tied to a political party so much as to making the thing work, whatever the thing at that moment. They’re making it work, guiding nudging and sweating along side the residents of Iraq to see the thing through. In my book just making the effort puts them ahead of your man for experience, because what they’re doing really works for the benefit of the whole community, and not just the chosen few.

Jul 6, 2008 - 5:18 pm 36. Benj:

PEter – I did read the piece you directed me to (quickly) – it didn’t speak to me. Abuse like this -”The Obama phenomenon reflects the hysterical temperament of a huge segment of the American public, temperament prone to adolescent over-excitability and willful self-deception bordering on self-hate.” – isn’t really worthy of a considered response. Any # of conservatives – more neos than paleos I’ll admit – have been wowed by O’s speeches in the past even if they wish now they’d been a little more circumspect in their praise. Are they all recovering hysterics?? Peter – there’s no argument here – just snotty attitude… So I thought I’d zero in on something which I could respond to – the mag/editor. You called “Chron” a paleo-con thingy. When I hear paleo-con, I think of, say, Robert TAft. I don’t think of celebrants of the Lost Cause. And when I hear the phrase “states rights” – I think Of George Wallace. Not humane traditions of popular sovereignty. Maybe that’s a generational thing. But, believe me – “states rights” has a very particular resonance to Americans who were around during the Civil Rights Movement. Just recalling something now – one of the most devastating measures of the intellectual left’s response to 9/11 was that it dovetailed pretty closely with David Duke’s. Do you know where Tom Fleming and Chronicles came down on the day after?

Nahncee – “To vote is to piss on someone’s shoes” some dead rocker once said. Not my pov exactly but my “obsession” as you call it with Obama goes beyond pulling the lever for him. If/when he stops incarnating liberal-mindedness, I’ll stop defending him here. Might still vote for him…Remember your pop? – Fam counts! Certainly worth a vote…

Wade – eyes wide shut. If you go into the Game, you KNOW your hands will be dirty. Did O cross the line to become a hack? – was he after that State Sen sinecure? Or was he thinking big. Figuring he might be the One -because of his one-of-a-kind background and sympathetic imagination to become the tribute of everyday people whose lives will not be transformed w/o a long-term NATIONAL campaign of reconstruction…I understand you don’t believe in such a campaign – but just take housing – check the recent history of the pub’s corrupt HUD man Jackson and then decide whether you want to call out the State Sen or the GOP’s great refusal of the idea of governance.

Re Iraq – Did you dig what O said about Petraeus/Betrayus? Why go for the gotcha – he’s jsut a “flip-flopper” etc. Look – he was AGAINST the war from the jump. He’s NOT the equiv of Hillary/Kerry who voted for it and then began to complain when shit got hard. Forget me – you should cut O some slack. Think back a bit, his national interventions have already spurred you to do some pretty serious thinking about your own personal history of the American dilemna. What other American pol has provided that sort of intellectual stimulus in your/our lifetimes. Don’t dismiss your own movements of mind. That’s just another version of narrowing of politics that O is trying to resist. We should all hold O accountable for failing to walk the hallways of those projects after he stopped organizing – or campaigning – there. He’s not a hero or a saint. Or a community organizer (i.e. a secular saint) any more. He’s a politician w/ an imagination. A rare bird. We’ll see if he’s a black swan…

Jul 6, 2008 - 11:25 pm 37. Wadeusaf:

“OH”, you better believe I do not cut the pubs any slack on governance.

What is it you want to accomplish here, Benj? I didn’t need “OH” to exercise my imagination, I’ve actually been down that road before, and stated the case as well. But what is said holds less value then what is being done to make a “change” and who is drafted to “change” it. Words have meanings, actions have consequences. For all the words, there is little consistent or corroborating action, (yeas and nays) for the actions and the actors generally belie the words. Not just about Iraq…etc.,etc.,etc.,

Slack is not an option when the presumed leadership of the free world is in the balance. Exact would be nice but not always possible, but there is little of that from “OH”, even where acceptable. For if all you are saying is true, “OH” is playing it by ear, with a notion of where he wants to take it, but no solid designs. All his positions are reshuffles and worn out from the abuse at that. His original (sort of) plans are actually weak attempts at in kind responses to others initiatives.

“One of a kind cat”, come on Benj, he’s an American. but he can’t or won’t admit to what that really means to him because his preacher for twenty years and his own wife, the potential first lady, hold that out as something obscene, performed by the bitter and illiterate unwashed. AND YOU WANT US TO CUT HIM SOME SLACK?

Come on, come clean Benj, your writing dark comedy, right?

Jul 7, 2008 - 5:44 am 38. Peterike:

Since Benj has gotten me into the habit of reading Obama speeches, I tried out his July 2 speech on “A New Era of Service.” Yikes! A new era of indoctrination is more like it. One of the most frightening things I’ve seen. Just one example.

“So when I’m President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year.”

Middle school?? Those are kids of 11 and 12 years old! And they are to be forced into “public service,” which in reality usually means “supporting a local liberal cause.” Which further means kids being under the thumb of activists who are going to preach Left politics to them.

This is really astounding. It’s the Hitler Youth for the Left. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg in this speech. Even the names he uses for his proposed organizations sound like Commie front groups. The “Social Investment Fund Network.” The “Social Entrepreneur Agency”. The “Energy Corps.”

Wow. That’s some audacity he’s got going.

The full speech is here.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/02/text-obamas-speech/

Jul 7, 2008 - 5:55 am 39. Benj:

Peter – you’re letting your fear run with you. Obama is HITLER…This is just madnesss…Look at what you wrote

One of the most frightening things I’ve seen. Just one example.

“So when I’m President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year.”

Middle school?? Those are kids of 11 and 12 years old! And they are to be forced into “public service,” …

Obama says he will “set a goal” – You say “they are to be forced” – How do you get from one to the other. You don’t except in your feverish imagination. Get real. There is nothing for you to fear here (unless you’ve got a jones for the Lost Cause)…

Wade – life is short – i’m not going to play gotcha with you…But I remember your response to O’s race speech. You knew it was not nothing. No reason to go back on your self.

“One of a kind cat”, come on Benj, he’s an American. but he can’t or won’t admit to what that really means to him because his preacher for twenty years and his own wife, the potential first lady, hold that out as something obscene, performed by the bitter and illiterate unwashed. AND YOU WANT US TO CUT HIM SOME SLACK?

O just spelled out a vision of his patriotism in public – Yet you insist you somehow KNOW better what America means to him. Are you that tight w/ him Wade? You know his dreams? You’re acting like a fantast. Obama understands from within the ambivalence many African-AMericans’ feel about this country’s history. How does that disqualify him to be president? Unless honesty is the deal-breaker.

Jul 7, 2008 - 7:27 am 40. Peterike:

Obama says he will “set a goal” – You say “they are to be forced” – How do you get from one to the other. You don’t except in your feverish imagination.

Oh really? From the mouth of O: “We’ll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we’ll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs.”

In the real world, that’s coercion. Because school districts are all quite addicted to federal funding. At least private schools may escape this.

And referring to “Hitler Youth” isn’t calling Obama Hitler. It is merely comparing programs. O’s plan strikes me as much the same thing: forcing kids into political indoctrination under the thin guise of something else (Service to the Fatherland, eh?). Sure, sure, he calls it “service,” but in the real world such things are dominated by Left activists and nearly always come along with big fat doses of propaganda.

I didn’t see anything in his speech about parental opt-out. What if I happen to object to my 12 year old being made to work at a homeless shelter or provide services to illegal aliens? Or pimp for Global Warming or other enviro causes? And that’s exactly the kind of thing these “service programs” typically entail.

And even beyond that, even if they would be politically neutral tasks, what the hell business is it of the federal government to threaten local school districts unless they comply? Gimme a break.

Jul 7, 2008 - 8:19 am 41. Benj:

“ITs’ Hitler youth for the left” – Nuff said…But isn’t your sort of over-the-top rhetoric a bigger prob than the namby-pamby “progressivism” you worried about…A good writer once summed up O’s ethic pretty well – “Be cool but care.” If conservatives stand up for the right to resist “service” – that’s all good. Kinda like standing up for the right NOT to say the Pledge of allegiance – Just don’t pretend what O is proposing puts us on the verge of fascism…

Here’s a piece by David Ignatius re O’s patriotism speech. Haven’t kept up with all of his stuff but Ignatius has been been pretty good on the War in Irag…Rather better (I’d guess) thn writers for Chronicles…Does he sound like a hysteric to you?

During the July 4th week, Barack Obama did something that’s becoming characteristic of his campaign: He took an issue on which he appeared to be vulnerable — in this case the cluster of themes lumped together as “patriotism” — and by going on the offensive in a powerful speech, he subtly changed the terms of the debate.

Obama delivered his patriotism address last Monday in Independence, Mo. (extra points for the campaign scheduler). This might have been the usual cliche-filled verbal waving of the flag, the sort of empty summer exercise that makes American politics so predictable. Such a speech would have reinforced the sense that Obama was on the defensive — that he was doing the rhetorical equivalent of kissing babies and eating corn on the cob in an attempt to placate skeptical voters.

But Obama doesn’t try to please everyone in these situations. When he decides he’s in trouble (and that sometimes takes him awhile), he goes to the heart of the matter — into territory that a more cautious and traditional politician would avoid. Knowing that millions of people have seen images on the Internet questioning whether he and his wife, Michelle, love their country, he went at the issue head-on.

“The question of who is — or is not — a patriot all too often poisons our political debates,” he said. Then he laid down his marker: “I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine.” He went on to paint a picture of his own American story, with personal vignettes that would have done Ronald Reagan proud.

You could almost hear the cheers from a generation of Democrats who have been savaged for their supposed lack of patriotism. They tried so desperately to wrap themselves in the flag — think of poor Michael Dukakis sitting idiotically in that tank in the helmet too big for his head, or the absurdity of John Kerry defending his war record against a Republican who didn’t serve in Vietnam. And here was Obama, not on his back foot but leaning forward pugnaciously and saying: Nobody questions my patriotism! Enough!

The patriotism speech reminded me of Obama’s celebrated March 18 address in Philadelphia on race in America. That came at a time when the Obama camp was reeling because of his long association with his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The Internet was boiling with footage of Wright railing against the U.S. government, and you could imagine that the Obama campaign might go under — pulled down, as if by a dead hand reaching out from a crypt.

But Obama stepped up to that demon. He didn’t duck the race issue, or sugarcoat it with happy talk, but went right at it, in a way that made you think that he could actually solve the problem. “I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas,” he said, weaving a narrative that explained who he was — and how he had come to sit in Wright’s church — without apologizing.

The speech produced intense debate, but it lanced the boil. When Wright later made more nasty comments at the National Press Club, Obama had a new chance to distance himself, and the issue began to recede. Jeremiah Wright no longer defines Obama.

What’s impressive about Obama are his political instincts and his toughness. Yes, the man gives a great speech, but that’s not why he defeated Hillary Clinton and is leading John McCain in the polls. He has a superbly disciplined campaign organization that has remained intact and confident, while McCain keeps switching strategists. Obama has mastered Internet politics by building an intense core of support and then letting the spontaneous process of social networking do the rest. David Plouffe, his campaign manager, understands that a modern campaign is an emergent, self-organizing phenomenon.

But Obama’s strategists and handlers wouldn’t make a dime’s worth of difference if the candidate himself didn’t have the gift we saw last week. Take your greatest weakness — the thing people whisper about you by the water cooler — and address it directly, without apologies or sweet talk. That’s Obama’s approach, and in a country where people increasingly seem to regard politicians as professional liars, no wonder people find it refreshing.

Jul 7, 2008 - 9:35 am 42. Roderick Reilly:

“”"”Now – what the hey – why don’t you guys go back and read O’s speech on patriotism”"”"”

He’s the only one of the two major Presidential candidates who HAS to make a speech on patriotism, just as he was the only one had to make one (or was it two?) on racism. A man running for office who has to keep explaining himself on a weekly basis in hopes of getting a pass is a pretty sorry schmuck.

Jul 7, 2008 - 11:16 am 43. Roderick Reilly:

Folks, can we cool it on the “Obama/Hitler” talk?

Can you hear yourselves? Have you already forgotten about Bush Derangement Syndrome?

Look, I get it that Obama is a bigger fraud than the average politician, an empty suit with a vapor trail for a resume, and that his two dopily-titled books describe a life and person less interesting that he thinks it is. I figured out I wouldn’t vote for him on a huge bet with a gun to my head long before any of the Chicago stuff started coming out. I don’t want him to win either, especially since he and the Drag Queen party he represents are hell-bent on recreating the 70s. But. He’s. Not. Hitler. For that matter, he’s not quite Hugo Chavez, either. He is Jimmy Carter with better clothes and a tan, though, and his wife is a motor-mouthed insufferable shrew. But he’s not Hitler, and Michelle is not Eva Braun or Ilse Koch.

Jul 7, 2008 - 11:27 am 44. Wadeusaf:

After the race speech I noted its flaws, and its positive aspects. But I also noted that these were expressions of ideas that I have expressed before, that all thinking men have grappled with, that we all know it is time to get past. The question to my mind is how. The answers that “OH” has given, or that I can infer from his speeches, web page and past are not workable, will not achieve the results you want. It is one thing to extol the nature of what it is to be American, it is another to pass off as American the result of plans that do not come close to matching what is in the heart of any patriot I have ever known. The question is still one of individual vs the state, the answer is not in bigger institutions but gets lost there in. The questions arise in the large efforts to achieve maximum efficiency, the answers are found in the most inefficient of ways mainly by individual ingenuity and individual will and effort. The herd tramples the individual mind and spirit. While I recognize that for certain efforts there “is no I in team”. For all efforts there are four different and distinct letters forming the word in team.

I wrote my reply above before his speech was uttered, yet I think that the substance of the man still belies the substance of his heart. Yeah he is a politician, but what has he done? Yeah he sounds neat, but what has he done?
I do not believe he knows what it is that makes America great, his speech confirms it.

Jul 7, 2008 - 5:30 pm 45. Wadeusaf:

“OH” and Benj, It isn’t gotcha so much as what cha got? Why would I want it, and what good is it. But I wouldn’t call it gotcha. What it is, is democracy calling a club a club, and not a bat. What it is calling a duck a duck, and not a swan. What it is, is calling a quack a quack and not Beethoven.

“Oh” hasn’t even attempted to run a business, hasn’t taken a stab at paying a wage for productive salable effort. What has he produced? What has he run, how big was the payroll? For what major state, city or even corporation has he been the executive?

NONE. He has not been tested by time, by pressure, or under fire. Heck he hasn’t even been taken to court. We do not know how good or bad he’ll be. We don’t even know if we want him. All the variables answered by experience are left unanswered. What the heck is the guy even doing in the race? All we know is that he talks very enthusiastically, he begs most effectively, and he is personable. No where in his books in his lectures or in his speeches do we get a clue as to how he will do under the microscope. No where is there a history to allow us to judge his judgment, but the lesser acts of his lifetime. Alas, “OH”s words and your projection of their possible meanings do not lend credibility to “OH” nor am i about to grant to you title as judge of my thoughts nor “OH”s qualifications.

Sitting in that church pew for twenty years does say something definite, meeting Ghadaffi and working with Farrakhan involved actions that allow us to judge the formation of his opinions and involve creeds of faiths that mock his profession of religiosity. The deeds of his associates say much about the man that “OH” is, and what ideals he keeps for company and in his bed.

Even if I agreed with his philosophy, he has not proven himself to be ready. Why is he in the race? You must be humoring us, there is no other possible logical answer to such dark folly. My conclusion is simple, you all must be barking MAD.

Jul 7, 2008 - 7:58 pm 46. Benj:

WAde – Cut and pasting one of your (unsolicited) resposes to O’s race speech (you had a few – none nego). Just wondering – no irony! – do you recall another Amerian pol who has offered a speech that was more intellectually stimulating to you? I’d argue that O’s acceptance speech and his recent address on patriotism were also pretty worthy. The one on volunteerism wasn’t bad either. I think O has often reached for a pretty high level of discoure over the past few months – Certainly higher that what I’ve come to expect from American pols. (Compare O to someone like Romney who consciously tried to seem dumber on the stump than he is.) I’m not expecting you to support O given his politics – he certainly does believe in a more activist government than you do and he’s going to aim to get out of Iraq quicker than McCain. But I’m wondering why you think it’s mad for someone with my politics to support him! Seems pretty obvious that he’s the most imaginative pol of our time. Consider that WaPo guy’s Ignatius’s response to O’s Patriotism speech – Iggy(as I mentioned) has been pretty good on Iraq, yet he sees what I see in Obama. And what you saw in March – “I’m impressed with his mettle,” you wrote then. And here’s Iggy today – “Obama doesn’t try to please everyone in these situations. [Thus the critique of the Betrayus ad - no comment on that Wade?] When he decides he’s in trouble (and that sometimes takes him awhile), he goes to the heart of the matter — into territory that a more cautious and traditional politician would avoid.” Given my biases toward writerly types, I’m certainly going to OVERESTIMATE the importance of O’s expressions. But am I mad to believe in his intellectual “mettle?” Were you and/or Iggy? O’s mind matters. It’s wrong to think a book – or a speech – can’t be as important as a Bill. (And, as it happens O has been responsible for a good book AND a good bill.) TR wasn’t wrong re the presidency being a bully pulpit. I’m not one of those folks who thought Bush was/is dumb. And he gave some speeches that mattered bigtime. That post-911 address on America’s traditions of religous freedom/tolerance was important. But the prospect of having a Pres with a mind as alive as O’s is pretty thrilling. Matters more to me than, say, his lack of biz experience. Truth is, I’d take his three years as an organizer over a thousand executive decisions. That’s just me of course, but if you want a live enactment of your first principle -”There’s no I in team…but for all efforts there are four different and distinct letters forming the word in team.” – Read Obama’s chapters on organzing in Altgeld project. But if your time is tight, just focus on the campaign Obama has overseen. The brilliance of that pretty much obviates the notion the guy can’t run t’ings. (If you read this month’s extensive account of that organization’s origins, you may be struck by O’s first line to staffers – “I want to run this like a business.”) A final note – Re Michelle – aren’t you getting a little overwrought there. She might be the “First Lady” – and so…It’s not as if this is two-for-one deal (like the Clintons). She’s the mother of O’s children – a Sister who represents a certain sort of possibility/respectability to a lot of beat-down folks. And, as First Lady she will…advise families to avoid foods with additives and get plenty of exercise…Getting exercised over her presence is more dim than mad. But it IS crazy.

BTW – I hear you re your wondering why I’m still Clubbing. May back off a bit now – There’s magic in repetition but…You mentioned below you’d be “montioring conservative dialog” re O. I ‘d urge you trust your first gut responses to what O says as you did in March. My pop once noted that intellectuals/academics often come up with “intelligent” excuses not to be moved. Didn’t believe in being a “fan” of any pol either. Hope you and me both can find our owm middle ground this campaign season…

HERE’S that old post of yours…

Having listened to Mr. Obama’s speech, and (noting the differences of political philosophy I have with his chosen party) That while I remain steadfastly unconvinced of his readiness to be President, I am impressed with “O”’s mettle.

Please note, the speech may have been initiated by conversations about his minister an his church, but the speech is about much much more. Mr. Obama may very well have enabled us to initiate the kinds of discussion necessary to move past the failed experimentations of racial politics and get on with being Americans.

It is a very dangerous position that “O” has started to carve out, because it is in many areas a direct challenge to the basic philosophy on with the Democrat party is currently campaigning. That is a hopeful sign, IMO. Getting past the Political Correctness and getting over the fear of Hate speech is necessary to even have the conversation. Invoking his Grandmothers statements and his ministers too, is required to shed the fetters that thought PC puts upon the nation.

I don’t know if Obama is for real, but this speech was a start. I do not yet trust his zeal, nor his zealots, but I am willing to watch as they present proof of their beliefs. I do not trust that a man whose home was paid for by “Saddam’s Bag Man” is presidential timber, but he may be someone who can help us determine the measure of government intervention in private lives, and the level of self determination required and expected of all citizens.

The speech itself is a maze of recognizing conflicting themes and conflicting passions and conflicting motivations. It is a plea to renew real debate, and recognize the flaw in us all. I will be watching the Dem response to the challenge. And monitoring Conservative dialog as well.

Jul 8, 2008 - 3:04 pm 47. Wadeusaf:

Sadly, I have seen no thoughtful response from either party. I suppose that will be a platform item, the kind that few read, fewer still act on.

But it is thrilling to hear you admit the truth of that lack of experience charge, seems that this is the first time “OH” has been tested. Which means he is making up as he goes along. Never said he wasn’t intellectually capable, as the lessons of being under pressure are certainly being learned. But how is the learning applied. Are we to watch his growth unfold or don’t you think it matters in a resume’ of qualifications for President of the United States? I don’t think we can or ought to settle for surprises.

As for Lady “OH”, I actually spent time going through her speeches, many of them echoing the same admiration for “OH” as you but always tugging on the racial always tugging on the balance sheet from that second set of books, pointing out what is owed. If she would be the first lady to all Americans, then as such I would expect her and “OH” to use the real figures and emphasize what has been earned. Her words divide and pour oil on the fires as fuel, where that oil should be used as a soothing balm. I don’t care that the speeches were made for Democrats, I don’t care that the thoughts were voiced before presumption of the MAD throne. The appeal was undignified and unapologetically racist in tone, the action called for was hateful and the dialog sparked was angry and thirsting for blood. Worse is the fact that her words contradict the message you claim her husband is trying to send, and support the message of his former pastor. It was not an appeal to get over the hate speech, it is hate speech. How is your man supposed to get past the beliefs of his own wife, without use of a muzzle, without resort to lying to cover up her out bursts.

As an influential figure in American Political discourse which “OH” is, it remains to be seen if OH will be able to change the thinking of the Modern American Democrat (MAD) Party , and its policies (imho) of Self Assured Destruction. The hint is there, in his talks to the NEA. But in his dance around issues of life, no clear signal have I yet discerned on where “OH” stands. The convention in Denver will if nothing else be enlightening on that. Will the delegates get a chance to vote on the platform first or will the crowning precede any real declaration of principals?

I still do not believe he is “yet” Presidential material for the reasons stated. He has a ways to go yet, but it is possible in the future.

An Benj, I was not asking why you were still here, but rather questioning your motivation for defending “OH”s words when works are the needed measure of the man.

Barking MAD

Jul 9, 2008 - 6:09 am 48. Benj:

Let’s hang in there Wade and we’ll hope the roof stays on. I’m betting America is in a much stronger position than fear-mongers suggest. O’s no coward and that’s all you really need to worry about cos his imagination gives him a deeper feeling for this country than most pols. I have a pic as a a screen-saver (by mistake) of O and Michelle and those two lively kids laughing with Dick C. Snapped about the time time it turned out Cheney and O come from the same gene pool…That’s America – love it and change it and protect it and LAUGH at it? No point in tightening up or locking down too much – the American people (for better and worse!) are always moving beyond any dogmatic left or right conception of them. Your last laught is to the point. Richard Pryor was more important than Ronald Reagan or Obama!

Jul 9, 2008 - 7:08 am 49. paul:

My Lord and Savior started out as a Community Organizer. Paul the apostle was a Community Organizer. The people who crucified him were “Mayors and Governers”.

Laugh at me now…i’ll just have to pray for you.

Sep 4, 2008 - 6:38 am 50. Marion Gallegos:

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Jan 9, 2009 - 7:00 am 51. Obama en The New Yorker »:

[...] que Obama no tiene ningún problema en dejar atrás a quien ya no necesita. Lo hizo en Chicago el community organizer Obama y lo está haciendo [...]

Jan 24, 2009 - 2:28 pm

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