312 Comments

1. myna:

Let us ask Ayers and Obama where were the 160 million dollars went?

Oct 4, 2008 - 3:49 pm 2. Herb:

Any other American politician’s pasty associations would be examined. Substitute “David Duke” for Ayers and examine the effect. What is so worrisome is that there is no curiosity about this. The media is all over Palin’s allegedly going after an assaultive state trooper and some bogus stuff about rape kits in Wasilla, but Obama’s (pbuh)associations with a number of admitted and convicted terrorists meet with shrugs. Instapundit got an email from a reporter at a Major Media Outlet (9:22 29Sep 08) how incurious they were about anything negative re The One, but massively concentrating on Sarah.
What happens when the Elect(pbuh) is in fact elected? How will the mavens deal with the collapse when 200 or 300 billion is taken out of the economy for “fairness” and the cost of rebuilding the middle class? How will the American public deal with the inevitable hardships of a major economic downturn? What happens when the USGovt hasn’t the resources to cover the “needs of the suffering people”?
This will not be pretty>

Oct 4, 2008 - 4:24 pm 3. Henry H:

“Barack Obama loves the future because that’s where all his accomplishments are.”

What a great quote.

Oct 4, 2008 - 4:34 pm 4. Lifeofthemind:

The pivot point is Chicago and to an extent Columbia. Frank Davis is in Chicago on the South Side during the 1930’s to 40’s, Saul Alinsky takes classes at the Unversity of Chicago and is doing Community organizing in the South Side of Chicago neighborhoods that suround the University starting in the 1930’s – 1960s, William Ayers comes from outside of Chicago and returned to the city in 1968 with the SDS, his now wife Bernadine Dohrn spent the years from 1961 to 1967 at the College and Law school at the University of Chicago. Are there any clear links between Alinsky and Ayers? Ayers father had connections with the wealthy and liberal trustees at both the University of Chicago, Northwestern and the Law firm that employed Sidley Austin that employed both Bernadine Dorn and Michelle Obama.

It is possible that Obama’s mother was the 14 year old girl that Frank Davis bosted of seducing. Ten to fifteen years later young Barry (as he then was) is looking up to “Uncle Frank” as a mentor. He goes straight from Columbia, where he lived only blocks from Ayers, to Chicago where he joins an Alinskyite organizing effort, then he goes to Harvard and returns to Chicago where he joins Ayers in dispensing millions of dollars in support of further radical organizing.

Oct 4, 2008 - 4:40 pm 5. F:

It is no longer remarkable that newspaper and TV journalists are so openly uncurious about Obama but will pursue the thinnest of leads regarding either McCain or Palin. At some point, this campaign will be a case study in J-schools on how not to cover partisan politics. In the meantime, I remain surprised at how passive the McCain/Palin campaign is; why not take off the gloves and publicize the huge contributions to Obama from the principals at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? Or remind voters of Obama’s association with Wright and Ayers? Experts like to say negative campaigns don’t work — they should look at Obama’s Senate campaign in Illinois, where his opponents were smeared by their previous (and less scandalous) life. At this point, there seems little to lose by going negative on Obama, andd I’d certainly rather see it made public now than 3 years from now, when the Russians have had their chance to blackmail Obama with sttuff from his early years. F

Oct 4, 2008 - 4:47 pm 6. vanderleun:

Jack Cashill argues in a 3-part series that Ayers was Obama’s ghostwriter:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75528

I don’t think he effectively argues it at all, but there you go.

Oct 4, 2008 - 4:52 pm 7. wretchard:

I would stay clear of Obama’s parentage for two reasons: one is that we are unlikely to prove anything definite one way or the other on that score and second because a man can choose his friends but not his relatives. But having said that, the argument should cut both ways. Obama should not be able to claim lineage as a point in his favor just as one should not use it against. More to the point, if a man can choose his friends but not his relatives then the question of his association with Ayers becomes not only relevant but vital.

Rick famously asked Ilsa in Casablanca, “Why, of all the gin joints in all the world did you have to walk into mine?” Similarly, whoever Obama’s dad was or wasn’t, why, of all the political advocacy shops in all of the United States did Barack have to walk into Bill and Bernardine’s? BHO can justifiably say ‘it is no business of anyone who my daddy was’. Fair enough. But I don’t think he can say, ‘it is no business of yours who my friends are.’ Maybe he is entitled to associate with whoever he pleases at that, but not while he simultaneously asks for a vote to become Commander in Chief and hold the power of life or death over hundreds of millions. A man might want to be buddies with Willie Sutton, but not if he wants to be a bank manager.

Oct 4, 2008 - 4:56 pm 8. OldSalt:

Common sense and logic would dictate that if a man aspires to an executive level position, and he has several years of executive level experience as a Board Chair of a $160+ organization, he would present and promote that experience as qualification for the job, early, often, and repeatedly. The fact that BHO has evaded and essentially buried this experience, and has even accused his opponents of demagoguery when they raise it, suggests that his association with the Annanberg Challenge could hurt is Presidential prospects. Or put simply, there is something he’s hiding.

Oct 4, 2008 - 4:57 pm 9. Lifeofthemind:

@F,
The problem is how to get the information out? You can post videos on Youtube, until Google yanks them down, or post on a Pajamas Media blog that is read by a few thousand people (sorry Wretchard) but the MSM can laugh at that. Eventually Obama’s friends will criminalize even this and come after us. 90% of the people have not heard and will not know until long after it is to late. When the Times refused to print McCain’s Op-ed and got away with it you could see they knew the fix was in.

Oct 4, 2008 - 4:57 pm 10. Lifeofthemind:

@Wretchard,
The question isn’t about his marxist polygamist father but about his mother. She is the probable connection to his politics and friends in Hawaii. Is there a bright line between his associations in Hawaii and his associations in Illinois? Remember the Chicago motto is “Nobody wants nobody that nobody sent.” Why did he go there and was he sent?

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:02 pm 11. Lifeofthemind:

For crying out loud Wretchard can you get the technical propellor heads to either ban the trolls and mobys or give us an Ignore feature?

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:04 pm 12. Habu:

Some will cheer, some won’t care. That’s the way it should be.

I’m finiished posting here. Wretchard is a hard work’n guy, bright, but too overweening an overseerer for my taste. I’m not an Wretchard acolyte and I very much get the feeling he needs that comfort. I can’t provide that.

Buddy, maybe I’ll see ya ’round.

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:16 pm 13. Zim:

Christopher Buckley, son of the “father” of the modern conservative movement William F. Buckley, has written that he may vote for Obama. Buckley jr. says (in essence) that he read Obama’s books and that anyone who writes that well can’t be all bad and must think very deep thoughts.

I think the only real racist around are the ones who think Obama is a blank slate. What kind of person would presume such things onto another, what kind of person would allow them to?

What is the distance between thoughts that projecting lofty things on another because they are a different color and thoughts that project negatives onto a person because of their color? Not much, I think.

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:21 pm 14. Leo Linbeck III:

The Annenberg Challenge was a well-intentioned effort on the part of a very wealthy philanthropist to try to improve public education. But it failed because it was based upon a false assumption: a monopoly can be changed from within.

Never, in the history of mankind, has a monopoly reformed itself from within. When reform has happened, it has always been because an external threat, a mortal competitor, spurred the necessary change.

In my experience, the education reform movement within a city is a tight club. Everyone knows everyone else, and they work closely together. Maybe it was different in Chicago in those days.

But what Ayers saw in Obama was simple: a young man of color who was articulate, ambitious, and dedicated to reform. Ayers – the rich, white, unrepentant terrorist – was limited in what he could do. But Obama, well he could go places Ayers couldn’t go, win over people Ayers couldn’t work with, champion issues Ayers couldn’t champion. He was a tool.

What Obama saw in Ayers was simple: an older white man who was connected, rich, and passionate about reform. Obama – the articulate, driven black man – was limited in what he could do. But Ayers, well he could get Obama into places he couldn’t get into on his own, introduce him to people he wanted to meet, and get appointment to leadership positions of organizations he could later use when he entered politics.

In short, a marriage of convenience. My bet is that it’s unlikely that Ayers and Obama share a lot of core beliefs, if for no other reason that Obama only appears to have one: he is destined to be the first African-American POTUS.

L3

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:23 pm 15. Derek:

>I remain surprised at how passive the McCain/Palin campaign is

Every barb or attack from Obama has a half-life of two-three weeks. Every barb and attack from McCain has a half-life of two hours. This is the battle ground shape, nothing McCain can do about it. The only thing you can do about it is recognize and adapt.

Why haven’t they started attacking yet? 5 weeks. If they had started bringing this stuff out in september, it would be forgotten, and old news wasted when few were watching.

Derek

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:24 pm 16. wretchard:

Ok. I got rid of the American Muslim post. He’s made his point and seems to simply copy and paste the same one into each thread. So that qualifies as spam. Those who want to know his message can refer to one of many nearly identical postings in previous threads, and I’m including his latest FYI below:

Do you people really believe that your hatred, racism, and Islamophobia can prevail in this struggle?

The entire world demands that Barack Hussein Obama be the next President of the United States. You must cease your opposition to his triumph or suffer the consequences of your actions.

Time grows very short for the unbelievers. Embrace Islam now and live in peace in submission to the will of Almighty Allah (swt).

Your grandchildren will be Muslim.

Allahu akbar!

But to return to Ayers, the real import of the NYT’s article is that the gatekeepers have ruled the issue admissible. One of the most powerful prerogatives of the old media was the ability to rule something in or out of bounds. This power largely depends on making an intimidating assertion to authority on no particular basis. One wonderful example is Ward Churchill’s assertion that anything which impugns his dignity is protected by the 9th Amendment which overrules the First Amendment. Until recently, many media outlets have simply dismissed Ayers as “irrelevant”. Structurally that argument rests upon an assertion. One of the nice things about Ward Churchill, like ‘American Muslim’ is that they are schooled enough in the customs of political correctness to make an argument, but not good enough to make it convincingly, thereby making their arguments a good teaching tool.

Again we can use Ward Churchill as a teaching tool to illustrate what the gatekeepers do when they declare Ayers ‘irrelevant’. Here is Ward Churchill dodging the question of his American Indian-ness, claiming it is “irrelevant”. Later, he says that his basis is self-identification, a fancy way of saying he is an American Indian because he says he is. For a while now, some media outlets have asserted Ayers is irrelevant because they say it is. What’s interesting about the NYT piece is that the subject is on the table. So let’s talk about it.

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:27 pm 17. heather:

the whole MSM malice/stupid process is playing itself out, this time lying about Stanley Kurtz:
CNN/NYT Bias Contest [Stanley Kurtz, at NRO Corner]:

“A CNN article on Sarah Palin’s criticism of Barack Obama’s relationship to unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers actually cites National Review as one of the publications supposedly debunking Palin’s point. How CNN can cite National Review this way is a mystery to me. Maybe we’ll have to set up an NR “truth squad.”

I was very briefly on CNN immediately after the McCain campaign called for me to be given access to UIC library. A CNN reporter interviewed me, and almost every question was an attempt to challenge the significance of the Obama-Ayers link. I answered every query in detail. When the report finally aired, my points about the significance of the Obama-Ayers connection were cut. And now, CNN is actually claiming NR as an ally in its effort to undercut Palin. Incredible.

10/04 07:18 PM”

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:32 pm 18. wretchard:

heather,

I don’t want to overstate the case but the bailout and the current campaign have to some degree created a crisis of confidence in the status quo. What the media has not explictly realized is that the crisis of confidence includes them — as well as politicians on both sides of the aisle and the financial professionals in particular.

The psychological contest is to see who can claim the Reformer’s mantle. BHO is having a hard time grabbing that crown because the media is in the tank for him. In a sense the media hurt him by association, though I don’t they quite realize it, being accustomed to believe their attentions are a flattering privilege when bestowed on anyone. The Ayers connection threatens to introduce the lesser players of the aristocracy onto the stage. Ayers is to some, a hated symbol of all that is wrong in academia. So in the Ayers-Obama-Media chain is the entire Unholy Trinity of the day. The politically correct academia. The politician with friends in dubious places, including Wall Street. The shills. I don’t think they quite realize how loathesome they have become to many people. They will be the last to know.

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:44 pm 19. The Anti Jihadist:

It’s the homestretch of this forever campaign, and Obama is likely to win–he’s consistently ahead in all the polls in the places that matter the most. Even if one counts the polls as biased or inaccurate (which is possible), the Messiah has the edge over The Old Man. I think most people have made up their minds by now, and Ayers is simple below the radar for most voters at this point.

As far as Ayers is concerned, I can only see apathy and ignorance in the electorate at large. They don’t want to hear, or they don’t care. I can see the Daily Koz now–Ayers is merely misunderstood, being wrongly linked to The One, or only being ‘taken out of context’ at the ‘right-wing echo chambers’.

I shudder at the thought of the next 4 or 8 years under Obama, but I am outnumbered by the ‘hope & change’ crowd.

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:53 pm 20. programmer:

It just occurred to me that if it is permissible to ask for DNA testing on Sarah Palin’s baby, why isn’t it permissible to ask for DNA testing on Barack Obama? He has a supposed brother in Kenya, nicht wahr? Does their DNA match? Inquiring minds demand to know.

Oct 4, 2008 - 5:57 pm 21. Patriot Front:

The damage will be everlasting. A colassal “health care” bureaucracy will never be undone; the Supreme Court replenished with fresh moonbats; devestating military cuts; CIA sent further into the realm of useless. The Old Man had better be downright brutal on Tuesday.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:02 pm 22. Leo Linbeck III:

It’s possible that the NYT article on Ayers and Obama spells the end of this issue for this election.

Arguably, no one is going to change their mind on who to support because of Ayers. The association will either confirm your view that Obama is not fit to be President, or it will be viewed as “small beer” that isn’t really that important relative to hope and change and the dangers of a third Bush term.

For NYT readers, this article now closes the book on Ayers. Bottom line to them: he’s just a guy in Obama’s neighborhood, just like the One said.

One of the most valuable aspects of the Ayers story had been that it clearly demonstrated MSM bias. Conservatives could say “The MSM has reported on Palin’s friend’s next-door neighbor’s barber’s subscription to High Times but has never done a story on Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist who was one of Obama’s mentors.”

But now that they have reported on it – even though it appears to be (surprise!) biased – this issue will no longer be as useful. Now, instead of saying “Who cares about Ayers?”, Obama supporters will say “yeah, I read the NYT article, and it’s no big deal.”

So, with its primary usefulness – a clear demonstration of MSM bias – now gone, l’affaire Ayers is may well die a slow death. Which is too bad, because it should make a difference, and in a saner period would.

L3

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:07 pm 23. E. Nigma:

Having read some of Christopher Buckley, I think it can be safely said that he is being extremely subtle and sarcastic.

Having said that, I think that the notion that the Media can be turned at this moment is pretty far-fetched. I have not idea how, at this late date, doubt can be planted in the minds of the “undecided” as to what the Annenber Challenge was or who exactly Bill Ayers is. Who is Rezko? Who is Auchi?

Blank out.

And just a brief correction: Ayers is on the faculty at the Univerity of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), not the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago has a little more rigor and standards than to allow that to happen.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:09 pm 24. Mike Sylwester:

There are two issues that should be separated:

1) Barack Obama delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund Bill Ayers’ radical education projects.

2) Bill Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground.

If a judge were conducting a trial of Barack Obama’s past actions, the judge would not allow the prosecutor to introduce any mention of the second issue before the jury. The second issue indeed should be dismissed as inflammatory and prejudicial.

I think it’s legitimate to criticize Obama’s apparent support for educational policies that are radical and stupid. And I think also that it’s possible to do so without even mentioning Ayers.

Speaking of education, today I finished reading Charles Murray’s new book “Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality.” I highly recommend it to anybody who is interested about our country’s education policy.
amazon.com/Real-Education-Bringing-Americas-Schools/dp/0307405389

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:12 pm 25. fred:

What is the payoff for the mainstream media for being relentlessly, shamelessly, and thoroughly biased – completely determined to make sure Barack Obama is in the White House? I’ve never in my lifetime seen anything like this. What’s more, it appears that only a minority of Americans seem aware that this is happening. How did THAT come to be?

Based on what the polls are saying today, McCain is done. Finis. The projected electoral votes are nearly double for Obama. It’s a slaughter nearly on the order of what Reagan did to Carter in 1980.

I find this stunning, given Obama’s lack of solid credentials and very brief tenure in the Senate.

I mean, this one is like being blindsided on the side of the head with a sledgehammer.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:20 pm 26. outa my league:

Hopefully some sizzle may develop as a result of Hannity’s expose on Barack to be aired tomorrow night (Sunday) on the Fox News Channel.

However, I’m afraid the US electorate is sufficiently gullible at this point to endorse any slick ticket that Soros and the MSM proposes, even were it Obama-Ayers instead of Obama-Biden.

The MSM is worshipful of Obama to the point of nauseous, flatulent saturation. A sane, rational and “devout” observer might be excused for making Antichrist comparisons, except for the tire gage mentality IQ factor. The AC would be insulted.

I’m praying for a miracle of divine, sovereign power to stub and void this ticket.

I hope UR2.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:23 pm 27. whiskey:

Wretchard, with all due respect, I think you have fundamentally misread an important sector of the electorate, that is women, particularly single women, with respect to Ayers.

Far from being a turn-off, he (Ayers) is a turn on. A guy who wanted to kill people. Wealthy. Connected. A radical. Obama being connected to him is bonus, since it ups his credibility as “tough” in the way that counts — counter-culture rebel.

The media fawning has helped cement Obama’s (17 point lead according to Time) strength with women as have the celebrity fawning. Because now Obama appears as the “Big Man.”

I too used to think that this would hurt Obama — but it helps him. If you spend any time around sites where women write freely — TMZ or Dlisted or what have you, you’ll see this dynamic clearly. Celebrity worship? I was just flat out wrong on that — a net plus for Obama since it cements him as the Big Man. Just as the Media fawning, and Ayers make Obama both the cool, fashionable guy and the guy who is the “dangerous/edgy” rebel. He’s Dexter and the guys from Mad Men and Big Love come to life (or insert various “edgy/hip” TV show with large female followings here).

What we don’t understand is how profound the shift to a single mother society has been — making short-term minimizing of risks, emphasis on JFK like fashion/fads (I used to laugh at Dems obsession with JFK, no more), and the frisson that single women have for the bad boy [watch any Gangsta Rap video]. According to the US Census, in 2006, 41% of births were to single mothers. It really is our future.

Go to TMZ or Dlisted to see where our electorate is headed. You won’t be confident.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:29 pm 28. programmer:

outa my league states:

I’m praying for a miracle of divine, sovereign power to stub and void this ticket.

programmer responds:

I have a friend who is a true believer. In a moment of doubt, I asked him what he thought of events. He smiled and said, “programmer, I have read the book. I know the ending. Our side wins.”.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:31 pm 29. Konyok:

Regardless of the results of the presidential election, it is vital that we reclaim the cultural space in the United States.

For the last month I’ve been circulating a petition among alumni of my alma mater demanding that books written or edited by William Ayers be taken off of the required reading list for courses in the Education department. I’ve gotten 83 signatures so far.

Ayers, like Ward Churchill before him, is the low hanging fruit. Even progressives feel queasy when they learn how much influence the man has on American education.

Small steps in the right direction …

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:32 pm 30. Cannoneer No. 4:

Let not your heart be troubled. The gloves are off and the heels are on. The bail out was The Messiah’s October Surprise, but it detonated prematurely. Sarah Barracuda probably has Hillary’s oppo research and will be ripping great gashes in the curtain behind which the man pulling levers we are not supposed to pay attention to hides. It will be her well-manicured hand on the clacker that sets off McCain’s October Surprise, probably on the Thursday or Friday before Election Day. She’ll be the Bad Cop driving the nutroots to hilarious paroxyms of spittle-flecked rage, leaving the calm, dignified, Presidential-sounding Good Cop to woo the undecideds with reasonable ideas for Teddy Roosevelt-style reform and soothing promises for reach arounds across the aisle.

Trick or Treat, baby!

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:37 pm 31. Lifeofthemind:

Bernadine Dohrn, convicted felon, is hired by a law school. William Ayers is hired by a state university school of education. The Judiciary should announce that they will refuse to admit to practice before the bar any graduates of Northwestern Law while she is on faculty and school boards should reject the credentials of graduates of the University of Illinois at Chicago while Ayers is on faculty.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:41 pm 32. fred:

whiskey,

The thing that I cannot understand is WHY young women would want to be single mothers. Why the attraction to the bad boys, when the good boys are much better fathers and long term bets for a long relationship? If I were a young woman today, I would be repelled by the bad boys. They are abusive, creepy, unreliable, manipulative, and intellectually shallow.

We now live in a culture where women, and some men, are now overtly attracted to evil. Everything has broken down at all levels.

I was born in 1955 and grew up during the sixties and on into the seventies, when the libidinous licentiousness really broke out. But even back then there was still something left of the traditional Catholic and Christian culture to help people to make better assessments of character: their own and that of others. Now, it’s all come unglued.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:43 pm 33. NahnCee:

*sigh*

Whiskey telling us what single women want. Again.

Obsession, thy name is Whiskey.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:46 pm 34. jbuz:

The MSM is the opiate of the masses. They are out in front of the Repub talking points. The only thing that I see more detrimental to the Country than an Obama presidency is some dumbass popping a cap in O’s ass.The Alaskan Hunting Guide Assoc. would get blamed and cities would burn.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:51 pm 35. Zim:

My take, women go for men that remind them, in ways, of their father. Men, go for women like their mother. These are the people that impacted them the most as children so it’s not hard to see why. Now add in the breakdown of the family. Fathers not around, or if they are they are many times remote and it’s easy to see why women go after “bad-boys” because they remind her of dad.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:53 pm 36. Mike Sylwester:

The Republicans in general and McCain in particular have spent far too much effort talking about personalities and far too little effort talking about big issues.

McCain was a POW. Obama was involved with Ayers. Palin is a hocky mom. Such has been the trivial focus of way too much talk from the Republicans and McCain for the past year.

Imagine that the Republicans had taken, say, half the effort they have spent talking about Bill Ayers and had redirected that same effort to talking about differences between the education policies of the Democrats and Republicans.

What’s the difference between the Democrats’ and Republicans’ proposals for the reform of our country’s medical-insurance policies. If I had to understand that difference from listening to the Republicans’ political advertisements, I would have practically no concept in mind. But I would know from those advertisements that Obama had some kind of association with a guy named Ayers, who bombed the Pentagon thirty years ago.

The Republicans and McCain have had the entire US public’s attention for the past year. That full attention is rare, but it does exist for a few months every four years. They could have used that attention to educate the public about what the Republicans and Democrats will do differently and why the Republicans’ course will be better.

Instead, though, the Republicans and McCain have squandered that opportunity. They imagine that the public will vote for McCain and Palin simply because they fancy themselves to be mavericks, who will ignore the Republican Party and its base and will do whatever might come into their individual minds to do.

To a great and foolish extent, McCain’s campaign has been a preaching of a cult of the individual — a mirror of Obama’s cult of the individual.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:54 pm 37. E. Nigma:

I think that Whiskey (whiskey?) has nailed that. The majority of commenters at the Belmont Club, for years, have been men. We have all been blind to the change in the demographic of this country. There has been a profound shift that has happened right under our noses. Obama is the effect, not the cause. He is “the one they have been waiting for”. It’s just not the one we have been waiting for, or ever expected.
Although men can be sociable, etc., most men at one point in their lives have known what it meant to be an outsider to the group, or resisted the group in the name of their own sense of individuality or self-respect.
Most women fight that notion. They hate to ever be “outside” anything. The herd has been running for Obama for months, and every chance to deflect them or slow them down seems to work at cross purposes. The twist of Stanley Kurtz own article used against Palin by CNN, cited above by Heather.
It goes on and on.

There may or may not be a day of reckoning, or even of regret for this election outcome, but the change (and trend) in the demographic of the US means that we will be in for a real strange trip for years to come.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:54 pm 38. NahnCee:

Fred, I don’t think that young women want to be single mothers. What I’m seeing is that (1) young men do not want to be tired down, either to a wife or a baby; (2) young women are told that they should be powerful enough to stand on their own feet and they want a baby, so why not; and (3) women simply don’t want to put up with the bullshit a man brings along with him just to have a kid.

Men can be abusive in so many ways and they don’t even know that that’s what they’re doing (can you imagine what it would like to live with an obsessive Whiskey 24/7?). Men need to think about it when, as it currently stands, if women are given a choice between going it on their own with friends, family and government behind them, and hooking up permanently with a man to share in the burden of being a family, many many women are choosing the man-free option. And *that* is with American men who are arguably the most concerned and civilized of the species on earth. I keep wondering what would happen in Saudi Arabia if they *did* allow their women the right to drive … right on across the desert and out of that allah-foresaken shithole.

But again, I think a big part of the equation is that men aren’t willing to settle down and lose their “freedom” either. The grass is greener and paying for the milk that you can get for free syndrome.

As far as Obama goes, *if* young women are lusting after him enough to vote for him, that is just what it is: sex appeal. Logic and planning for the future gots nothing to do with it, so just mark it down as part of their personal development and learning curve … that unfortunately may affect all the rest of us, too … and quit trying to channel and control it.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:56 pm 39. fred:

NahnCee,

The demographics behind Obama’s support show a very high percentage of young women under 30 supporting Obama. Whiskey’s just tossing it in the ring, asking the question, “What the hell is happening in the culture?”

The numbers for males under 30 still show strong support for Obama, but the margin is tighter. So, it does invite the question: what is it about Obama that attracts the female vote? It’s a legitimate question.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:57 pm 40. steveaz:

The NYT reporter skewed his report because the sample of opinions used for the report is skewed.

One can assume that anybody that “knows both men” will also “downplay” the “closeness” of their connections. I mean, come on! The NYT couldn’t be more solicitous, even if it was reporting on the Chicago Mob in the thirties with a gun held to its editor’s head. In this case, though, they’re only investigating Obama.

BTW: They’ve done the same thing with Saddam Hussein’s ties to Islamic terrorists in their pages for the past 6 six years. They’ll go out and “interview” a couple of Columbia professors like Juan Cole and Edward Said and then conclude, based on these interviews, that Saddam had “no ties to terror.”

Signs are the NYT is only playing at journalism these days.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:59 pm 41. Lifeofthemind:

@whiskey
@fred
My guess is that young women have been socialized into adapting the mores of the gay subculture. They can either reject that in response to teh responsibilities of parenthood or become even more stridently alienated from traditional society. In this there is a peculiar linkage that has developed between two communities that have violently clashed. Urban youth Black culture has become highly atomized, matriarchal and unsupportive of stable family units or self denying capitalist values. The feminist hedonism whiskey decribes has similar results. Obama given his mother’s values stands at the intersection of these two subcultures. Given that the highly traditional appearance of his life with Michelle and his daughters is all the more interesting.

Oct 4, 2008 - 6:59 pm 42. Leo Linbeck III:

whiskey,

Very interesting thoughts. My only real worry for the future of the US is the single mother problem. It is a cancer that is metastasizing, first in low-income areas, but threatening to spread to the middle class. It brings in its wake poverty, loneliness, crime, and disease.

What I’ve always wondered what will become of men when half of the women are raising children without them. That would be as much as 25% of the population who would have no role in childrearing. I think about my own life and think what I’d be like if I didn’t have kids. I’m sure I wouldn’t be as happy, although I suppose many feel the opposite.

If your assessment of the power of celebrity is correct, however, it may indicate a way out. If it starts to become “cool” to get married and help raise kids that are not your own, there could be a big push back toward 2-parent families. There are early signs of this in the impact of celebrity adoptions and Bill Cosby. And, ironically, Obama is actually a pretty good family role model.

I still have hope for this election. One month is a long time, and McCain should have been toast a year ago when his campaign staff melted down. Plus we still don’t know who is really going to vote, and the swing states are still very much in play.

But I also admit that the amount of MSM filtering has reached Pravda levels. What I don’t know, since I live in Texas, is how much paid media is making an impact in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and the other key states.

I hope that things will change.

L3

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:03 pm 43. joe buzz:

The MSM is the opiate of the masses. They are out in front of the Repub talking points. The only thing that I see more detrimental to the Country than an Obama presidency is some freak popping a cap in O’s ass.The Alaskan Hunting Guide Assoc. would get blamed and cities would burn.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:05 pm 44. Cannoneer No. 4:

Palin Criticizes Obama’s ‘Terrorist’ Connection

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:05 pm 45. Fausta’s Blog » Blog Archive » The NYT writes about Ayers & Obama:

[...] Stanley Kurtz comments on the article. Crossed paths [...]

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:07 pm 46. whiskey:

fred — It is because you are a man. Any woman, if she is being honest, will tell you that a bad boy gives her a thrill. He’s violent, dangerous, bad, and filled with testosterone. Nice guys are “boring” and far less preferable. Theodore Dalyrmple in “Life at the Bottom” notes how all the women in the hospital, patients AND Nurses, preferred abusive bad boys to nice guys.

Women have nothing but contempt for nice guys. Who lack the testosterone and danger of the bad boys.

As for single motherhood, for most women it is an excellent short-term bargain: no tying oneself to a single man, instead you can have whatever bad boy comes around, leave child-raising to whoever and whatever. Catch as catch can. The Village etc. Or the Welfare State. Or in the case of single mother by choice, Minnie Driver, the nannies and maids.

Nahncee — It is what it is … regardless of political correctness. I think my view that the drift hard-leftward in all Western nations cannot be understood without reference to the rise of single motherhood as the dominant nature of parenting is correct on the evidence. You could draw a one-to-one correspondence to the rise of single motherhood in Britain (now the dominant share) to how hard-left it became with PC/Multiculturalism (a mostly female phenomena). Married women depend partly on the success of their husbands. Single mothers not. THAT is a huge shift in politics.

[Single young women are notoriously hostile to non-dominant, "nice guys." And tradition, which they see as limiting THEIR opportunities, military service, patriotism, etc. They also like to live in "edgy" urban centers. Older women, particularly retired ones, have radically different views but they come from another planet in what social attitudes they inherited.]

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:07 pm 47. Mike Sylwester:

One reason that men and women vote differently is that women normally are family care-takers. When the children become sick, Mom takes the children to the doctor. When the grandparents become so old and feeble that they have to come live with their adult children, Mom will take care of the grandparents too. Therefore, women are much more interested in problems of our country’s system of medical care.

Also, women are more likely to be shut out of opportunities to buy health insurance through their employers. Women work fewer hours for less money in lower positions. The company where I work employs about 2,000 women as home health aides. Very few (I would estimate about 5%) are enrolled in our company’s medical-insurance program. An employee has to work 30 hours a week regularly for three months to in order become qualified to enroll and then continue working 30 week in order to continue their enrollment. Few of the aides manage to qualify and stay qualified, because the employment is irregular.

Even if the Democrats had nominated an old White man instead of Obama and even if the Republicans had nominated George Clooney, the overwhelming majority of these women still would vote for the Democratic candidate, because the Democrats are promising to make basic medical care available to everyone.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:15 pm 48. trangbang68:

The single women attracted to Ayers synopsis is indeed pretty lame.
Dohrn’s video is chilling . Anyone who spent any time around 60’s radicals and crazies can recognize the lingo. She is an utterly unrepentant revolutionary. She admits it in the speech. They are still fighting the fight. Of all things she references Kent State and Jackson State. In the radical lexicon, those are dates when the blood ran. This is a dangerous woman. That Obama hung out with these folks and didn’t share their views is about as believable as he sat in Wright’s church for 20 years and didn’t know he was a racist.
What will they play at the Inauguration?

“Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin’
Four dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago…”

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:15 pm 49. Tcobb:

Obama’s popularity owes a great deal to the MSM’s turning a blind eye toward his past and present associations. But I wonder–does this not present a case of the “prisoner’s dilemma” for the MSM? Consider, if you will, just let one of the MSM’s major outlets decide to publicize and probe the past of the great “O”–not only would their ratings (and hence the value of advertising with them) go up, but it would also make their competitors look incompetent or dishonest by contrast. So–do they all stick together or does one of them decide that the benefits of betraying the liberal orthodoxy outweigh the Coming of the Obamessiah? And besides, they can trust their competitors to do the right thing for the great cause and not sell out for forty pieces of silver, right? Because if their competitors do, they are going to screwed.

The next few weeks will be interesting.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:15 pm 50. fred:

whiskey,

My wife married a nice guy, not a bad boy. My mother married a nice guy. But, in my family and in others I’ve seen women who preferred bad boys. My youngest brother is an OUTSTANDING GUY. He’s good looking, educated, talented, hard working, and, like me, a quiet guy. His first wife found him boring, and then proceeded to have an affair that ended the marriage. My youngest sister’s first marriage was to a bad boy, and he then cheated on her and ripped her off. She learned, and then met and married a good guy.

Do you think the socialists/Marxists have succeeded in one of their aims to destroy the family and sow the legitimacy of hedonism?

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:19 pm 51. Leo Linbeck III:

NahnCee,

I think you’re right, but the pathology of men is the B-side of the same record. Assigning causality is impossible at a societal level. We just know that single parenthood is a losing proposition for a society.

The fundamental problem with single parenthood is that, on average, raising a child requires 1.5 people. To be sure, there are women who can handle it solo with the proper support, but there are also women who struggle with the task even when they’re in a committed relationship.

The most stable formula is still the traditional marriage. I hope that this experiment with single parenthood is just, paraphrasing you, a developmental phase, and we as a society will grow out of it.

Oh, and I enjoy reading your posts, even when we disagree.

L3

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:20 pm 52. fred:

tcobb,

The rumor is running around now that the MSM believes it will get its return on investment when Obama is POTUS and the Dems control both houses: the Fairness Doctrine and the gradual encirclement of the alternative media. This IS their last gasp to survive as businesses and ideological control centers. It’s high stakes for them. Winner take all. Or, as they see it. If they lose, they go down more rapidly. If they win, they get to exact revenge as they garner the spoils of war.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:23 pm 53. fred:

Mike Sylwester,

How is the nation going to pay for that government provided medical coverage?

With the recession setting in, the enormous bail out package, the very real possibility of Obama’s $800+ billions and then $85 billion annually going to the U.N., and other spending they want to do, HOW IS THE NATION GOING TO AFFORD IT? The people he wants to tap into for the moolah already pay at least 70% of the taxes.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:28 pm 54. programmer:

One of the interesting facets of these discussions (at least to me, anyway) is the fact that most of you are missing one really big issue. There are a snitpot of people who do not want another day of Republican government, not another minute, nor even a second. For each fear that we have about Obama winning, they have matching fears about the Republicans winning the presidency again. Most of them are not lunatic fringe, moonbats, or whatever other phrase is used to calmly let them know what we think of them, and oh, by the way, can we have their vote? These people see things differently than we do. And they have had twelve years to observe how we have handled being given the reins of government. As a practical matter, four years ago, they voted their agreement with how things were being handled. Then, two years ago, things changed. What changed? How the heck do I know? I’m a programmer, not a political analyst. But it was NOT the war. If I remember correctly (and I am sure someone will correct me if I’m too far off), the big issue was corruption and perceived corruption on the part of the Republicans. As I pointed out to someone much earlier, Ted Stevens is/was a Republican and a blatant, unrepentant “porker” with the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere”. We need more Tom Coburns. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. Minds are made up. Barring an absolutely devastating “reveal” prior to the election, Obama is going to win and the Democrats will have their turn in the limelight, with all that entails. Obama will NOT be able to part the waters, or even keep from getting the soles of his shoes wet. His strident supporters will gradually turn against him and the death of a thousand cuts will be directed at a new target, President Obama. And my guess is, it will be worse than anything directed toward President Bush, for it will be jilted lovers this time, not just liberals against conservatives. In some respects, I feel pity for Senator Obama. He is riding a whirlwind of emotion and eventually the wind will slacken and he will start his long fall back to earth. We love building heroes so that we can tear them down.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:33 pm 55. Cannoneer No. 4:

There’s a place in Hell for women who don’t support oter women

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:38 pm 56. Leo Linbeck III:

Tcobb,

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is an interesting thought, but I’m not sure the payoff structure isn’t right. A repeated PD should have a Nash equilibrium with all sides cooperating as you describe, but it’s not clear to me that the mutual cooperation payoff is higher than the mutual defection payoff. After all, right-leaning media sources might do better. Because of the uncertainty of the payoffs, the shadow of the future should be lower, and the game should convert to a one-shot Nash with both sides defecting in the hope they get the temptation payoff.

I think the MSM is left-leaning because that mirrors its consumer demographic, which as it has shrunk has become more left-leaning and blue state. Most conservatives that I know rarely consume MSM any more, and when they do it’s via the web and in small portions.

A more likely reason, therefore, is identity. MSM reporters and editors only hang out with liberals, so they’re liberal. It’s a tribal thing, not an economic thing. And you protect the tribe at all costs.

FWIW.

L3

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:39 pm 57. Mike Sylwester:

Fred:
“How is the nation going to pay for that government provided medical coverage? ”
————

Beat’s me. I’m voting for McCain and against Obama. I don’t think the Democrats will be able to pay for their promises.

I wish we Republicans had educated the public about this issue, and I wish that we Republicans were effectively proposing some possible reforms of our medical-care system.

Beat’s me why we Republicans have not done so. Maybe we should educate the public and propose some possible reforms in 2012. It’s obviously too late to start doing so in this election year.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:43 pm 58. Al Reasin:

Anyone who has written a resume’ knows that you accent the positive and not the negative. Mr. Obama would want executive experience on his resume’ when running for president, however the experience he has had was apparently with Ayers. Since his resume does not contain that executive experience, I have to conclude it is a negative; a negative because he was working with an unrepentant domestic terrorist.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:44 pm 59. Papa Ray:

I hate to depend on it, but the lawsuit by Berg against Obama had better produce the results we need to keep Obama out of the White House, because I don’t think Palin and McCain can do it.

I wouldn’t have said that a month ago. But with the Muslim and Black communities all behind Obama and the growing trend toward more voter fraud and the MSM lying and cheating for Obama…I just don’t know anymore.

And after the Congress screwing up big time this last week, we can’t look to them for our salvation for damn sure.

So, vote and drag everybody that can to the polls with you.

Papa Ray

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:47 pm 60. Tcobb:

fred
Perhaps I’ve not made myself clear. All of the MSM’s wet dreams will, or possibly will, come true if Obama is elected. But in order to do they must all act in unison. For if even one of the sharks exposes blood in the great Obama all the other sharks will come after the prey as well, and those that are last to heed the scent of blood will have little to feed upon, but the first shark to bite the Holy One will have a feast indeed.

Once again, I cite the prisoner’s dilemma:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner’s_dilemma

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:47 pm 61. Leo Linbeck III:

programmer,

Interesting comment. The parallels to Spain after its emotional response to the Madrid bombing are clear, and not a source of hope.

If your analysis is correct, the most important elections will occur in the Senate races. For if the Democrats get a filibuster-proof majority, it will be a lot easier for Obama to stay dry as he hydro-strolls.

That would make for a long eight years. But we’ll survive. I’m not sure how; it’s a mystery…

L3

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:47 pm 62. DJB:

Hi Winky,
You know, guilt by association would condemn us all.
Deanie

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:47 pm 63. fred:

Tcobb,

I understood what you had written. It’s just that the MSM behaves more like the collective or The Borg now, than competitors. But your scenario is interesting. However, my guess is that if the puppet master (Soros, and his fellow billionaires) ever got wind that something was in the works that would damage Obama fatally, full damage control would spring into action, including the check book that can handle the extra zeros.

Oct 4, 2008 - 7:59 pm 64. Mike Sylwester:

programmer:
“Then, two years ago, things changed. What changed? How the heck do I know? I’m a programmer, not a political analyst. But it was NOT the war. ”
———–

There are several reasons, and the war is a major one.

The Bush Administration’s credibility eroded. The public expected we would find weapons of mass destruction, but we didn’t. The public expected that the war would be easy, simple and short, but it turned out to be difficult, complicated and long. The public did not expect anything like the Abu Ghraib scandal.

George Bush was a good enough communicator to get elected to be US President and to get the USA to invade Iraq, but he has not been a good enough communicator to maintain political support the USA’s continuing military presence in Iraq. He has become largely irrelevant to the debate on the issue. The case for continuing the war has been made ten times more effectively by Internet websites like The Weekly Standard and individual bloggers like Michael Totten and Michael Yon than it has been made by President George Bush.

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:01 pm 65. joe buzz:

Sorry about the duplicate. Still getting through the learning curve on this crackberry.

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:09 pm 66. Tcobb:

Leo Linbeck III
In regards to your comments about mine, you may very well be correct. And maybe it is just a delusion on my part, but it seems to me that people of an Absolutist bent, whether on the Left or Right, have no problem about sticking a dagger in the back of their allies when it becomes expedient for them to do so.

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:18 pm 67. peterike:

Canonneer, way up in the thread. I think McCain/Palin lost their chance to go postal on Obama. It was the Palin debate. They will never again get that many people watching an UNFILTERED presentation. She had a huge chunk of the electorate watching, and she didn’t even mention how much money O got from Fannie Mae, didn’t once tag the Dems with the blame for it all. Instead, she talked only about “predatory lenders.” That’s fine, but it doesn’t make anyone vote Republican, because as everyone “knows” the Republicans are the party of “big business,” a reality that shifted many years ago but most don’t recognize.

McCain has his debates to go, but I think the viewership will now drop substantially, and he just isn’t tempermentally capable of ripping Obama a new one. Yes, McCain is famous for his “anger,” but that’s situational. He can’t bring it when he needs it.

The Palin selection almost pushed it the other way, but the MSM and their 24×7 smear campaign was too much, plus those truly dreadful interviews she did. I think that, more than anything, will be what lost the election in the end. She validated the smear campaign by seeming empty and befuddled.

The thing about Palin is that she’s not a political geek. She doesn’t sit around pondering issues (like we do around here) or reading Heritage Foundation white papers. But what she is, very clearly, is someone who just gets things done. Her talents are immediate and local. Indeed she’s a perfect type to be a governor.

The McCain campaign hasn’t been able to translate that talent of hers into a defineable role, partly because the VP office is such a non-entity to begin with. As I’ve said before, I think McCain has to target the people responsible for the economic mess — Wall Street, Democrats, Republicans, naming names as he goes — and repeat ad nauseum that these people WILL GO TO JAIL. Palin can be his point-person on this.

If McCain doesn’t mention Obama’s complicity in Fannie Mae at their next debate, then I give up. I’ve mostly given up already. We have little left to hope for.

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:26 pm 68. MarkJ:

Interesting comments. However, judging from them, I don’t think I’d invite most of you to my cocktail parties. Y’all would kill the levity and sparkling conversation quicker than Sarah Palin takes down a moose.

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:39 pm 69. Coyotl:

Question: How much money is Obama now bringing in from Wall St. and large corporate sponsors unhappy over the GOP truculence to pass the Bailout? The real money will never come from Ayers or his SDS comrades, they’re mostly smelly hippies living the bourgy-boho life of tenured radicals. The real money will come from Goldman Sachs, Buffett, Bill Gates and GE. Has the Dems backing of the Bailout tipped the coffers of corporate America their way?

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:43 pm 70. fred:

peterike,

The fascinating thing about the fact that Obama is picking up steam and opening up a big lead is how it is the female vote that is driving most of it, despite an attractive running mate who is bright and turned in a very good debate performance (lapses notwithstanding, and noted).

The women in American identify more with socialist economics and with post-modernist cultural Marxism, and that’s a trend going on for at least three decades, Ronald Reagan notwithstanding. American males are exposed to the same Gramscian indoctrination in school and university, but they don’t hew to socialism and post-modernism as strongly. They tend to grow out of it. But the women embrace it more deeply and hang on to it.

NahnCee is our current female member of the club who is an exception to that trend. Alexis too.

My wife deplores socialist economics (and she’s a medical professional) and post-modernist ethics. Her sister is opposite of that. Both of my sisters deplore socialist economics and post-modernist ethics. But for every one of these women I refer to there are dozens more in proportion who are pretty comfortable with the Leftist milieu now settling into our culture.

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:45 pm 71. fred:

Coyotl,

Those billionaires and millionaires are alright with much higher taxes coming their way?

Oh, I forgot. They will be clients of Soros’ money management firm in Curacao, because he does not have to pay any U.S. income taxes even while being a U.S. citizen.

So, those tax hikes will have to creep downwards quite a ways to gather in the money to pay for everything Obama wants to fund.

Typical Leftists. They want the rest of us to pay for the things they think should be dispensed by the government.

Yep, Wall Street execs for Obama want us to pay more in taxes.

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:50 pm 72. sigintel:

CNN is in every airport and bus lounge blaring out “Obamamania”. Newspapers promote the Obama myth and refuse to undertake “investigative journalism” to confirm on the details of Obama’s citizenship ie:was he really born in Hawaii or was it Kenya?, his US and Indonesian education, and finally his professional life (Annenberg Challange)and how he came to be married to Michele who works in Bernadine Dorn’s law office …who the hell is he? Where is he from? And the biggest question is how did he get to be the Dem’s candidate for POTUS? The Republicans have to tell the story because the NYT and the rest of the MSM are totally in the tank for Obama.

Oct 4, 2008 - 8:59 pm 73. Habu:

OK, I’m over my fit of pique…yes old men can get piquey.

It has not been mention but this scenario is entirely posible and politically smart of you are the Dems

First you win the WH. You take the Senate with 60+ anf you retain the house. Now you pack the Supreme Court first thing so that if i two years you lose the Senate you’ll have the Supreme Court to legislate through just like the entire past sixty years.

There won’t be any way to stop the SCOTUS from being enlarged to 19 judges with all the new ones young socialsts. You add two more Chief Judges both of whom are young socialists.

Repaet process at Appellate level and you control this country for the next 60 years.

Then you turn your attention to cases that challenge all aspects of the US Constitution. The outcome is preordained and bingo …a new Constitution minus the freedoms etc.

That is what they will do if they are smart and that is what is on the line. Forget everything else.

Oct 4, 2008 - 9:15 pm 74. Habu:

typos due to not composing on Word first and failure to proof.

a common problem for post pique’rs

Oct 4, 2008 - 9:17 pm 75. fred:

Habu,

I KNOW Konyok is going to renew his mockery of me for this. If the scenario you’ve described even comes to pass mostly intact, then we most certainly are headed for a civil war. You cannot reduce the Constitution to a moth-eaten tatters without serious consequences. I think it is probably too late to salvage this election. But I think Newt Gingrich has a vision of how to rebuild the base of conservatism in the country that merits consideration and I support it. I will do everything I can to help prevent the outbreak of war inside this country, but if it cannot be prevented my old fingers and eyes can still shoot straight.

Oct 4, 2008 - 9:30 pm 76. Habu:

And stare decisis won’t save any of the Constitution. Here are a few cases where the court did not follow stare decisis.

• Dred Scott v. Sandford (1856)h the Supreme Court ruled that, whether free or slave, Black Americans are not and can never become citizens of the United States — and that as non-citizens, they do not possess the right to sue in the courts, nor any of the other rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, such as the rights to free speech and to bear arms.
• Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the equal protection requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment could be met by “separate but equal” facilities, and that states had the right to require private companies to separate Blacks and Whites even if they didn’t want to.
• Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), and Korematsu v. United States, (1944), in which the Supreme Court ruled that it was perfectly OK for the President to impose a curfew, or forcibly evacuate all United States citizens “of Japanese ancestry” from the entire West Coast region.

Oct 4, 2008 - 9:35 pm 77. Habu:

Fred,

I have written on this on other sites for the past six months. This is THE ballgame. The disturbing thing is that the numbers the Democrats need to do this are well within reach and there is no doubt in my mind they will go after the Constitution like a hungry dog goes after a bone.

There will be no election that has value for sixty years because as I said they will simply legislate through the courts.

Oct 4, 2008 - 9:39 pm 78. fred:

Habu,

If they just legislate through the courts, by also including the statutes that foreign bodies and powers want to impose on us within our nation, then we will have a situation that is untenable. Either the Executive or the Legislative branches will have to act to depose and stop what the Leftist judges do. If they fail to do that, then we may just have war. But first let us resist with all the means we have at our disposal short of civil war.

But if it ever came to war, I am confident that most (not all)of the military would be on our side. I know some here think otherwise, but I think we can count on the men in uniform honoring their oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, if the issues are very clearly defined and the grievances grave.

Oct 4, 2008 - 9:48 pm 79. peterike:

Pigs fly. Or flew.

Back in June, CNN actually did a very powerful report on how Obama scammed his way into his state senate office. Unbelievable. Must have been a pro-Clinton mole at CNN.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3Ned5TQoW4

This man has used deceit and cunning in every step of his political career. His fund raising is full of fraudulent and likely illegal donations. But we know CNN’s report above was an abberation. Check out this tidbit:

“CNN recently sent a reporter to Little Diomede Island, the westernmost part of Alaska (2.4 miles from Russia) to determine whether Sarah Palin had ever been there to see Russia with her own eyes. But CNN – and the rest of the media – have been incurious about the Obama campaign’s fund-raising.”

Can you imagine? It’s just disgusting. I keep hoping someday, somewhere I run into one of these media types so I can spit on them.

Oct 4, 2008 - 9:55 pm 80. Mark:

L3 wrties:

“The Annenberg Challenge was a well-intentioned effort on the part of a very wealthy philanthropist to try to improve public education. But it failed because it was based upon a false assumption: a monopoly can be changed from within.”

Just so. It wasn’t a radical enterprise. It was ‘progressive.’ To conservatives, that’s radical, but to liberals, it’s not.

Coyotl writes:

“The real money will never come from Ayers or his SDS comrades, they’re mostly smelly hippies living the bourgy-boho life of tenured radicals.”

Ayers is from a wealthy and very well-connected family. That’s how he managed to organize the Annenberg Challenge. He’s radical, but rich. Again, one shouldn’t indulge one’s own tendency to cartoonize the Chicago political radical-progressive nexus. The reality is something probably very much worse.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:03 pm 81. Habu:

Fred,

Well I went to semi boil when SCOTUS ruled on Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, U.S. Supreme Ct. (1984) Author: Bram.
Basics: Several families owned most of one of the small Hawaiian Islands. Court ruled they couldn’t own that much land.
Then the burner got turned up when they ruled on Kelo, which was an abomination and a total prostitution of the eminent domain laws.
I do not believe I could sit in an easy chair and go quietly into the night if the scenario I have described comes to fruition. And within six months the entire thing could be in place and in motion. This country as we know it will vanish.
Just do the math. Obama is probably going to win the WH. They’ll easily retain the House and 23 Republican Senate seats and only 12 Democratic seats are in play. Getting to 60 Dem Senators is not out of the question at all. Currently it’s 49-49 with two independents. One of the independents Bernie Sanders votes Dem so they need 9 to 11 seats and it’s a done deal. The supermajority ,veto proof Senate.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:11 pm 82. fred:

Habu,

This might be a good question for a thread of its own, here on Wretchard’s blog or elsewhere. I’m not a legal scholar and am no lawyer, just a humble financial analyst.

How did we arrive at this moment when most of the law schools in this country are staffed by professors who consider the U.S. Constitution an artifact that has to be “gone beyond” ??? How can they just do that to something that is the foundational contract that the American people have with each other and with their government? It is breathtaking to see this happen, and I am stunned that it has bee intellectually defensible. Without our consent, I might add.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:17 pm 83. Elroy Jetson:

peterike:
My political instincts may be wrong, but I think the reason why neither Palin nor McCain went postal about the bailout situation was because the boondoggle was still pending. Like it or not, there was still some bi-partisan posing required. If either one of them had gone nuclear, the bill would have failed; Obama/Biden, the DNC and the MSM would have blamed the Republican ticket for injecting partican politics (unfair, but it wouldn’t have been surprising).
Result? Obama in a landslide.
In the age of YouTube, weblogs and the cellphone camera, the tide can be turned in a hurry. Look at the storm Palin kicked up today about Obama/Ayers.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:18 pm 84. buddy larsen:

“The Illinois state pension Fund is 44 billion in debt. That’s the worst in the country.”

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:18 pm 85. trangbang68:

Fred, you’re extrapolating from your own world. Most women in America don’t know what socialist economics and post modern cultural marxism are.
If they’re in the Obama camp, I’d attribute it more to Oprah.
Programmer nailed it that people are tired of Republicans. The media has beaten Bush mercilessly for so long that all the ills in the world must be his fault.
I think the crapstorm present and coming shows the futility of the political class. Obama is set up for a colossal failure. I hope he doesn’t pull us down with it.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:21 pm 86. Habu:

Mark,
If you will look at the book “Destroying Democracy”(1989) you will come to a chapter which discusses various meetings, names Dems who were there as they discussed the fact that the Democratic Party was using too many socialist words abd phrases. One of the decisions was to start using the word “progressive” to describe their socialist agenda. It also discusses ACORN and a host of other organizations…..in 1989.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:21 pm 87. buddy larsen:

If you’re in debt so deep you can see no way out, nor any way to slow the acceleration of ever greater insolvency, yet you can still borrow more, and borrowing more might just break the bank and force a system reset to zero, might you not (if able, with the help of a reliably compliant press, to blame it all on something else) just DO that?

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:28 pm 88. Habu:

Fred,

The SCOTUS has been like all institutions lead at various times very pooly, and there has always been schools of thought on “strict constructionists” verses the Constitution as “Gumby” or “Playdough”.

It really did take too long for the SCOTUS to get controversial either. The now taken for granted “judicial review” whereby five votes in one branch of our government can overturn a law passed by the Congress and signed by the President. That isn’t discussed today it’s just a given but how does that happen?

Well in part because the Executive branch historically has not gone back and told the Court to “stuff it” it’s the law and you’re out of line..Andy Jackson did. Jackson did nothing to make Georgia abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Worcester vs. Georgia in which the Court found that the State of Georgia did not have any jurisdiction over the Cherokees. Georgia ignored the Court’s decision and so did Andrew Jackson. In 1838-1839 Georgia evicted the Cherokees and forced them to march west.

It’s been a slow accretion of power outside of the SCOTUS Constitutional mandate that has placed the SCOTUS in positions it has no jurisdiction being in, but no one pushed back.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:39 pm 89. Habu:

Fred, let me give you another example of constitution verses custom.

Peoples , or at least the two parties talk about the President’s budget. Well Under the constitution governing the Executive the word budget doesn’t even appear.

It does appear only in the Constitution dealing with the Legislature. They have sole Constitutional authority. UNTIL they punted the authority to the Executive in the Budget Act of 1921. I can’t remember which fool president signed it inot law but there is a case of a fully CONSTITUTIONAL process being changed by a simple act , not a Constitutional Amendment which is required to make such a change.

Sometimes Aristotles sixfold classification of government is right on. We have the best of the worst and the worst of the best form of government.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:48 pm 90. Pascal:

Habu, get a grip.

There’s damn good reasons for my calling MSM by the Orwellian MinInfo. (I’m not trying to be glib as 3Case charged; I’m testing out words that might catch the imagination. Clearly I could use some help.)

An example you may remember where MSM was totally passing along the minimum of information was just before the GOP landslide election of 1994. Only in the week prior to the election did the pundits start to admit that Gingrich’s Contract with America was going to work.

The Friday before on the McLaughlin Group, even Eleanor Clift predicted as many as a 23 vote majority for the GOP, with Kondrake being the closest with 48.

The point is just don’t take anything that our Ministry of (mis)Information has to say, especially their polls.

McCain could very easily get elected simply because Americans, even those who the Left thinks they’ve totally indoctrinated, can smell a rat. There is a great vignette in the cartoon anthology Alegro Non Troppo that demonstrates this. Slavonic Dance.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:49 pm 91. Habu:

Buddy,

I don’t think anymore it’s possible to get into too much debt. You can pile it as high as you want. Uncle Sugar will fix it.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:50 pm 92. NahnCee:

Habu – you don’t think Bill and HIllary will have something to say about Obama’s take over of America as you’ve laid it out?

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:58 pm 93. Eggplant:

Pascal said:

“The point is just don’t take anything that our Ministry of (mis)Information has to say, especially their polls.”

I don’t trust the MSM. I’m convinced that much of the MSM (New York Times, CNN, etc.) will do everything in its power to advance the Messiah’s political agenda. Also, some polls are untrustworthy, e.g. Zogby, However I believe the RCP Average Poll at Real Clear politics is reliable, refer to:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html

I also believe the Gallup tracking poll is reliable, refer to:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110473/Gallup-Daily-Obama-48-McCain-44.aspx

Base upon these two polls, McCain needs to pull his finger out if he wants to beat the Messiah.

Oct 4, 2008 - 10:58 pm 94. buckets:

Fred,

The roots of much of what we see in the law today comes from a strange source. In an old case called Lochner v. New York, the Supreme Court struck down a law by citing the Constitution. Seems ok, citing the Constitution, trying to respect the Constitution, but it led to the idea that the Court was pretty free to ignore Congress. The doctrine from Lochner was called “Substantive Due Process,” and has led to things like Roe v. Wade and previously unknown constitutional rights emanating from penumbras.

Only in America, right? Citing the Constitution eventually leads to an undermining of the Constitution.

Oct 4, 2008 - 11:01 pm 95. Habu:

Pascal,
. Great point . I think there’s a possibility McCain can win. The old political saying that a day in politics can be a lifetime is valid. Who knows what will happen in the next month.
My “nightmare” scenario at this point in time is looking highly plausible. The number of exposed Republican Senator seats are the second greatest number ever exposed for election. Obama has the usual money metro areas in his pocket and the corrupt machines in those cities. The dead in Cooke County, Ill. will be voting in legions. The press is highly vested in Obama. He holds all the winning cards. It is going to take some very damning stuff to defeat him at this point, very damning. And then I’m not sure he wouldn’t still make it.
No it doesn’t take a weatherman to see which way the wind blows and it is at his back, big time.

Oct 4, 2008 - 11:02 pm 96. NahnCee:

trangbang – my favorite from that era:

“There’s something happenin’ here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Tellin’ me I got to beware.

There’s battle lines being drawn.
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line,
the man come and take you away.”

I always liked the part about paranoia the best. But looking back, who did the man actually come and take away when they stepped out of line? And exactly what civil liberties has Bush taken away in his past eight years as President? No one ever seems to be able to answer that.

Oct 4, 2008 - 11:03 pm 97. Benj:

Confronted with the classic conspiracy-thinking of a poster who proposes that Obama’s father might have been Frank Davis, Wretch doesn’t suggest the poster needs his head examined – might lose an acolyte (as per the insight of Habu) – Wretch oh-so-gently gives the notion credence (twice) in the course of oh-so-gently steering folks in a slightly more rational conspiratorial direction – i.e. the Ayers Connection.

WRETCH – “I would stay clear of Obama’s parentage for two reasons: one is that we are unlikely to prove anything definite one way or the other on that score… [!! Jesus Christ! - We KNOW who O's parents were.]

ONE MO TIME: “Rick famously asked Ilsa in Casablanca, “Why, of all the gin joints in all the world did you have to walk into mine?” Similarly, whoever Obama’s dad was or wasn’t[SO NICE WRETCH DID IT TWICE!!!!], why, of all the political advocacy shops in all of the United States did Barack have to walk into Bill and Bernardine’s?”

Look guys – I’ve edited a tabloid of “the radical imagination” for about 10 years. Two or three issues into this amateur enterprise, Ayers wrote something for us. Nothing all that STRANGE about the hook-up. He knew somebody who knew somebody who knew us. Ayers writes books about education directed at left/liberal audiences and he’s a prof so he can afford to write for nothing (though I think he’s parenting a big brood)! The piece he did for us wasn’t for the Ages. I didn’t ask him again until years later when I found out that “leftists” in the Academy had disinvited him from some lame education colloquium BEFORE inviting him. In other words – they contacted the guy in order to tell him they were NOT going to invite him. True P.C. horseshit. My response (when I heard about that) was to ask Ayers to contribute to a roundtable on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. His piece was pretty standard Bush-bashing. But it certainly was not an apology for Islamist terror (or for his own past politics of Deed). He is on the margins of American political life, but he’s not a Nazi or a member of a Communist sect. (He has explicitly disavowed Leninism.)

Ayers’ line on Our Time has very little in common with my own (or with those of the liberal/radical/conservative voices that I respect). But I’ll say again – what I’ve said before here. Ayers is MORE willing than some people (on both the left and right) to argue respectfully with people who disagree with him. Anyone who can’t see through Chavez (as Ayers apparently can’t) is not a natural-born democrat, but his argufying instincts are more citizenly than some Clubbers. I’ve disagreed with Ayers in a public setting – we had a pretty good back and forth about the movie “The Deerhunter” which he (predictably) hated. He vehemently disagreed with my opinions and it was HIS crowd. But he didn’t play to it. He let me have my say (and a come-back)- no ad hominens.

His discourse on that score looks pretty good when I think back to what happened here a couple threads back. I noted something pretty un-controversial about Thomas Jefferson. Stormrider – who LOVES J. and disagreed with my angle on his fave – immediately insisted I was LYING (though I hadn’t misqoted Jefferson or said anything particulary novel about J.!!) Stormrider could learn something from Ayers about about respectful argufying. A. has learned a lot since his days as a vanguard partier. That’s probably why he was able to deal not only with Barack at the Wood Foundation but with Dick Daley’s son and with that Conservative college president – Northwestern, right? – who was all up in the Woods Foundation with Ayers and Barack. That college pres wasn’t won over to Barack’s side. He’s voting/contributing to Johnny Mac. But he hasn’t been rumor-mongering about the DANGERS of the Barack/Ayers connection. An honest man believes in honest disagreents…

@Konyoke – Been reading your responses to Clubbers who wannabe starting something. Reminds me of advice that a writer named Scott Spencer gave to doomy leftists in a FIRST roundatable on 2004 election…Almost word-for-word (though poop poor pitiful leftists tended to threaten to take off for Paris rather than frantasize about taking up arms)..It’s on the FIRST site – “Choosy Beggars”

Oct 4, 2008 - 11:03 pm 98. Habu:

NahnCee:
They might but they have shown how impuissant they are now.

Obama will act quickly seeing that he has the numbers and his popularity…especially if he is elected a majority president not just a plurality president. Bill Clinton never won a majority but was elected on a plurality both times.
No, I don’t think Obama can be stopped if he wants to pack the court. He’ll have a highly plausible argument to do so. The court hasn’t increased in number in like forever while the country has grown tremendously and litigation is feverish. He could easily say it’s not for him but for the good of the country. After all, justice delayed is justice denied.

Oct 4, 2008 - 11:09 pm 99. Habu:

Benj

Curiouws you would have Ayers comment on 9-11 given that two of his targets were the Capitol and the Pentagon, both AQ targets on 9-11 one of which was hit.

Look, it’s not cool in my book to try and make Ayers into a resonable guy who is just a professor publishing and debating calmly. He got off on a technicality, but please save the smoke and mirrors he’s an OK Joe for someone else. I’d have hung the bastard.

Oct 4, 2008 - 11:18 pm 100. Habu:

2:25 in the East..bedtime

Oct 4, 2008 - 11:22 pm 101. J B:

Yo — if B.O. workerd for the law firm of Bill Ayers’ father, he knows Bill Ayers. end of story — a story now w/ close to a 20 year history. That makes Ayers 40-something, not an old man.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:01 am 102. wretchard:

As a practical matter, four years ago, they voted their agreement with how things were being handled. Then, two years ago, things changed. What changed? How the heck do I know? I’m a programmer, not a political analyst. But it was NOT the war. If I remember correctly (and I am sure someone will correct me if I’m too far off), the big issue was corruption and perceived corruption on the part of the Republicans.

I think that’s correct. Corruption sank the Republican Party. That anger was reflected in the 2006 midterm elections, which gave both Houses to the Democrats, and as a result the incumbents are an amalgam of Democrat and Republican, albeit in different branches of government. The Wall Street fiasco showed that both sides are replete with enough scumbags to make a choice between them equivalent to a selection between debateably lesser evils. Let’s punish the Republicans by electing the party of Barney Frank. How’s that for a plan? No good. Try it the other way around and its no good either.

But if there’s an anger that needs to be sated, if somebody’s got to pay and since it doesn’t matter which end of the hall you get started on, some will argue that it might just as well be a Republican as anyone else. No offense Mr. Republican it’s just that we’re doing things in reverse alphabetical order today. Maybe there are voters who will decide their choice on the basis of a ouija board or flip of the coin. And to some extent you have accept the wages of rage. But.

The best choice is to clear the crooks from both parties out. Otherwise you’re just taking a break from the rigors of the noose by sitting down in the restful electric chair. And to clear the crooks out requires the emergence of a reform movement led by a relatively credible individual. The challenge is to find the kernal of that reform movement, to elect people who could be the future leaders of a cleanup inside the current electoral cycle. Failing that, one ought to at least aim to elect candidates who might make it possible to bring in more reformers in 2010, in a kind of positional billiards where you don’t have a shot but place to get one later down the track.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:27 am 103. j-damn:

*The numbers for males under 30 still show strong support for Obama, but the margin is tighter. So, it does invite the question: what is it about Obama that attracts the female vote? It’s a legitimate question.*

You want the real answer? People are STUPID, that’s the answer. People under 30 have no idea what it was like to grow up in the Cold War world and have no idea what good and evil are. They were educated by idiots and have become idiots.

As for why bad girls fuck bad boys and produce more bad kids, Jesus, turn on your damn television for five minutes–nothing but retarded filth on all fucking channels. The United States is finished, Obama will drive the last nail in. Bring your flashlights, the dark ages are coming back.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:31 am 104. Tess Tosterone:

whiskey:

Women who find Obama to be a mild aphrodisiac as far as the media phenomenom that is Obama is concerned don’t get up til 7:45 pm in the first place and if they can’t vote on they cell phone, then they can’t be bothered. They also know that sexy inferences get most men to sit like a dog and wait for treats. Its the only shot they have at dominating the conversation. Oldest trick profession in the book.

Women who actually wake up early in the morning to go to work, whether at home or elsewhere, will kick Obamas rented mule butt all day long on Nov. 5. By the millions. Cheap tarts always know that cheap and easy is the only intellegence they’ve got. How many of those do see at a disrtict polling place? At least there won’t be caucussing.

Obama is about as sexy as driftwood. He’s no Urkel, but he’s tryin. I saw this picture that I can’t find anymore back in January, and the two in it looked like a picture of a drag queen and a little boy sitting in a bar at a table. I didn’t recognise the princpals, but after a few seconds, I realize that it is them. Barry ands Shelly

I do agree with wretchard. At first I was nauseous when I read the article thinking they had the nerve to present Ayers in this innocuous way, as though we just need to “talk to the terrorists”, and we would see that they are calm and thoughtful, educated, and from good families…(kinda like Mohommad Atta…), and “see? Ayers didn’t talk like someone to be frightened of? He didn’t set off a bomb under my chair? Now did he?”, etc. But its been enough just to get the media to even mention the existence of Ayers. With most newspaper readers, its enough to get the thought of Ayers and his past, and Obama into their heads at the same time, if the media didn’t preface it by saying- “Simon says…cut and paste Obama and Ayers into the same thoughtframe.”

Maybe they paniced a little bit. I sure hope so.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:33 am 105. Cannoneer No. 4:

Reprinted Here For Maximum Dissemination

. . . the dominant public information gathering places, television news, major metropolitan newspapers, radio, wire services, magazines, Hollywood, …which shape our views based upon the reliability of facts being separated from opinion…and more importantly, facts being separated from intentionally misleading screeds of a particular political persuasion…is a quasi public trust.

These trusts have been violated. In a manner and with a depth that is dangerous and at times, treasonous to our own country.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:24 am 106. Pajamas Media » The Media Discovers the Obama-Ayers Relationship:

[...] Read the entire post here. [...]

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:51 am 107. rickl:

Tess:

Voter turnout is expected to be large this year, and in an effort to avoid congestion at the polls, the Federal Election Commission has issued a directive that Republicans will vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov 5. Pass it on.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:58 am 108. wretchard:

Dohrn’s video is chilling . Anyone who spent any time around 60’s radicals and crazies can recognize the lingo. She is an utterly unrepentant revolutionary. She admits it in the speech.

Listen to Dohrn’s speech very closely. She is making the argument that Martin Luther King was transitioning from a civil rights figure to a revolutionary. In Dohrn’s narrative, King was moving away from the churches and beginning to see America as the greatest source of violence in the world today, in other words becoming the sort of person she and her husband were. Dohrn uses the familiar device of recasting an historical figure into a precursor of the current revolutionary millenianism. In this way Christ is made into a proto-Marxist. Similarly, Dr. Martin Luther King is turned into a proto-Weatherman or Black Panther. The theme of the unfulfilled prophet is a very familiar revolutionary narrative. And the usual point to stories of this kind is that someone has arisen to pick up the fallen torch; a new Martin Luther King who will go all the way; who will complete the journey.

One of the things the Left is very good at is speaking in code. Dohrn wasn’t simply talking about the unfulfilled revolutionary promise of Dr. Martin Luther King in an idle way. She was engaged in the practical political task of preparing the way for MLK’s successor. Dohrn was probably hinting in so many words to her audience that new Dr. Martin Luther King may be at hand. And the balance of probability is that the audience, listening to her words in November 2007, knew who Dohrn was referring to.

Of course it is balderdash. Barack Obama probably has his own reasons for doing things, not fulfilling one of Dohrn’s fantasies. But it wouldn’t be unreasonable to conjecture this is what Dohrn hopes Obama will be: a fulfillment of her own twisted version of history. Why hang out with these people?

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:23 am 109. wretchard:

WRETCH – “I would stay clear of Obama’s parentage for two reasons: one is that we are unlikely to prove anything definite one way or the other on that score… [!! Jesus Christ! - We KNOW who O's parents were.]

Please read the comment carefully before distorting it. I clearly said that Obama’s parentage is not be discussed because it is irrelevant. This was in response to an earlier comment suggesting that Obama’s real father was someone else. I rejected the relevance of that line of argument. Repeat, rejected it. The text on this comment thread will show that with absolute clarity.

You are turning my comment into it’s complete opposite: into a suggestion that Obama’s parents are someone else. I despise Obama for his beliefs. But who his parents are are none of my business. Can you read? Benj, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but you are not entitled to manufacture false meanings at your whim.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:52 am 110. RattlerGator:

Wretchard, Benj clearly believes he is entitled to manufacture false meanings at his whim.

And he had done it consistently. He can’t help himself. That’s what they do and your Dohrn comment immediately preceding your admonition to Benj proves it. As does the black liberation theology adherents like Reverend Wright and Barack Obama who insist they believe in Jesus Christ.

Absurdities.

Oct 5, 2008 - 3:15 am 111. Marina:

“He was only 8 years old, when Hitler started the Holocaust! Now they are pals, so what? Stop this “guilt by association” bull…t! It wasn’t Barack, who killed Jews! It was just his pal!”.

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:24 am 112. David Thomson:

“Listen to Dohrn’s speech very closely. She is making the argument that Martin Luther King was transitioning from a civil rights figure to a revolutionary”

This is half true. MLK by the end of his life was becoming more politically radical. Nonetheless, he remained a convinced pacifist! King never advocated violence. It was utterly alien to his core beliefs. Moreover, King was more consistently pacifist than even Mahatma Gandhi.

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:54 am 113. Lifeofthemind:

@Wretchard,
Nothing in my post indicated a question as to who Obama’s Farther was. His Mother went to Hawaii for the Summer, returned to the mainland to finish High School and then went back to Hawaii where she apparantly met Barack’s Father in short order. The character and beliefs of his parents matter because they shaped him. So do the beliefs of the other people he grew up around, Davis etc. People are free agents and can react against their upbringing. There is no evidence Obama has.

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:04 am 114. 3Case:

Bushitler

“What kind of person would presume such things onto another, what kind of person would allow them to?“

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:12 am 115. Ken Besig:

Apparently all of you who fail to support Barack Obama and accuse him of having dangerous associations with radicals like Ayres, anti Semites and America haters like Farrakhan and Rev. Wright weren’t there when Barack multiplied the fishes and the loaves after he walked on the Sea of Galilee. If you had been, there and seen the miracles he performed, then you would be standing in line to shake Obama’s hand, and give him all the money you have. Indeed, Barack Obama himself would clearly explain that the real problem for people who don’t support him is that they have failed to understand his words and explanations, that they cannot see that Ayres, Farrakhan, and Wright are good and decent people, unfairly maligned by a vast Right wing conspiracy and used by that same conspiracy to smear the most wonderful human being ever born since Jesus Christ, and that is, Barack Hussein Obama. Obama’s wife Michelle, would of course wonder aloud how anyone can criticize Barack, and if they do, they should be ashamed of themselves and immediately arrested and silenced.

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:25 am 116. Al_Batross:

“You want the real answer? People are STUPID, that’s the answer” –
j-damn.

I have to agree.
Hard times tend to work against the survival of the hard-core stupid, and to encourage the more numerous fringe-stupid into fringe-smart behaviour.
Good times tend to allow the stupid to flourish, and so change the balance of society. The bucket of stupid begins to outweigh the bucket of smart, and so tilts society off the path of moderation.
Hard times encourage the values of hard work, family, real friendship, and prudence in all aspects of life.
Good times, especially such delusional ones as we have been living through, encourage recklessness in all aspects of life, giving the fringe-stupid all the wrong incentives (borrow this, spend that, etc), and disheartening the fringe-smart.
Real thought about real consequence has been discouraged for so long that, if the MSM is to be believed, a large part of the US population is now eager to vote for a man about whom they really know very little and about whom they should be asking many questions.
What I fear for the USA is that things will proceed as they have done in the UK under “new” Labour, with a triumph of style over substance and such a significant shift in the smart-stupid balance of the UK’s population that national recovery may now be impossible.
Perhaps the MSM is wrong, and there is enough smart left in US society to save the day. Or perhaps I am wrong and Obama will make a truly outstanding POTUS. Otherwise, I have to fall back on the hope that the hard times which lie ahead will allow the forces of natural selection to do their relentless work to get the buckets back in balance.

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:47 am 117. Mike Sylwester:

Benj:
“[!! Jesus Christ! - We KNOW who O's parents were.] ”
———-

I think that when Wretchard said we should “stay clear of Obama’s parentage” he was referring to a somewhat larger set of questions about the circumstances of Obama’s birth — whether Obama actually was born in Hawaii, whether his birth certificate was altered, whether he ever was a citizen of Kenya, etc.

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:52 am 118. wretchard:

whether Obama actually was born in Hawaii, whether his birth certificate was altered, whether he ever was a citizen of Kenya, etc.

That’s fair game because the Constitutional natural born rule is there for a reason. But whatever Obama’s mom did or whether his dad did this or that — that’s not Barack’s fault. Who Barack chose to be his friends, however, is entirely relevant. His relationship with Ayers, according to archives examined by Stanley Kurtz, are substantive. Obama calls Ayer’s acts terrorist acts reprehensible. Yet the Ayers he associated with, whose foundation he chaired, never repudiated his earlier acts. Ayers gloated over his attacks. “Guilty as sin and free as a bird.” Dohrn is unrepentant. Listen to her video. Listen to her words. This is the Dohrn Obama knew. Therefore, while he cannot be associated with the Ayers of the 1960s, he can be associated with the Ayers of 2008. And is the 2008 version of Ayers and Dohrn any better?

Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers weren’t merely associates. They were long time collaborators. Partners in his political enterprise. Rezko helped by his house. Wright was his self-described mentor for 20 years. Ayers according to Kurtz, was his ally in the educational politics of Chicago. If these people are irrelevant to the character of Barack Obama, then who could possibly be relevant? So for Obama to say, these are just people I met along the road of life, is an insult to intelligence.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:14 am 119. Mike Sylwester:

Speaking of Barack Obama and money, Andy Martin is raising some questions about donations to Obama’s Presidential campaign from mysterious sources.

contrariancommentary.com/community/Home/tabid/36/mid/363/newsid363/276/Default.aspx

[excerpt quote]

Is the money coming from Islamic supporters? Kenya collaborators? African dictators? Middle East sources? The American people have a right to know where a quarter of a billion dollars is coming from. We aren’t talking chopped liver.

Obama has received money from ‘names’ that are obvious fictions and represent a transparent attempt to criminally corrupt the campaign finance system. Who are ‘Good Will, Doodad Pro and NY Nando?’ There is overwhelming circumstantial evidence of a criminal conspiracy to violate federal campaign laws, certainly more than necessary to open a grand jury investigation. Obama has received an endorsement from Moammar Gadhafi. Is this who we want funding our campaigns?

[excerpt unquote]

I also recommend that everyone read Andy Martin’s excellent criticism of McCain’s disasterously inept performance in the first debate with Obama.
contrariancommentary.com/community/Home/tabid/36/mid/363/newsid363/275/Default.aspx

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:25 am 120. Cascajun:

“Until recently, many media outlets have simply dismissed Ayers as ‘irrelevant’.”

And I suppose it would be just as irrelevant were we to learn a candidate for President had launched his/her political career at a fund raiser hosted by Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, right?

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:38 am 121. john from cinncinati:

i think the survey says: the teacher appears when the student is ready…Ayers/Obama. the people who influence a man to become what he is. it forms his character and that stays with a man forever. John Mccain was formed by the Vietnamese, i forget that was a long time ago. my father was a ww11 vet and that formed his character big time. Ayers did these things when Obama was 8, but he was in his sphere of influence when he was much older, what were his lessons to learn?
survey on women and why they date bad boys and want to marry good guys. i think that most guys see this and portray bad boys when it suits them. seems to be 3 kind of guys: players, who get whatever they want and have no need to change.
boyfriends, guys who are tired of the game, and want something steady. and last the marrying kind, those are guys who are the nice guys and want to have families. the fathers who have quiet dignity and go to work every day for 30+ years. those are the boring ones. the women will complain about the players, but they get what they want.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:52 am 122. Wadeusaf:

Wretchard, “The psychological contest is to see who can claim the Reformer’s mantle.”

McCain’s task, as I see it is to paint “OH”-Biden as unrestrained tellers of untruths. Using their own words seems appropriate as the lies are lies and a matter of public record. For “Oh” it is not the association with the Ayer’s that I objected to, but the rather obvious lengths to which “Oh” went to deny the relationship existed at all. Kurtz documents very well the relationship was much closer than just a guy in the neighborhood sort of stuff. “Oh” wasn’t lying to protect Ayers, so why lie if there was nothing to hide about a friendship with an admitted terrorist who wishes he could have set off more bombs.

Same same with the Rev. Wright. the Reverent Rezko and the River-end Auchi. Why did “Oh” feel it was necessary to lie about these relationships if there is nothing to hide. What or who was he trying to protect? For that is the only noble reason for lying about a relationship. Why so noble?

Cannoneer No. 4, the CCN report on the Chicago way is today the acceptable way to keep ballot measures from the ballot. It is a very democratic inspired method used by the state of Oregon to even criminalize those who would gather signatures, for failing to print where printing is required or putting copies on the correct sized sheet. There are a number of other rules all designed reasonably to ensure that signatures gathered for one petition are not submitted for another. But it does get really irritating if a whole sheet of signatures is tossed out due to a problem with one line.
That kind of nit picky is necessary but an imaginitive Sec of State can really put the lights out on the initiative process. Which makes the gathering enough signatures (rule of thumb was 120% of legal requirement, and now due to the legal challenges is twice or more the number of required signatures) just about impossible what with folks hired by those opposed to the measure purposefully making the kinds of mistakes “oops” that get the whole sheet tossed, or duplicating signatures to throw off the counts. Thanks in large part to Acorn among others.

So was “Oh”s association with Acorn especially helpful to our political process? Or just a means of forwarding an Ayers like revolutionary political agenda through non-violent means. (Thank the lord Bill gave up on Lenninism! Cough)

“Oh” is not a mirror, nor a medium for any substantive change. The thing politicians see in “Oh” is little more that a “this space for sale” sign. that his core principals and fundamental beliefs have been evolving on so many subjects, is due to the shifting audience and the numbers of dollars there to pay tribute also known as a shake down, extortion or bribe. “Oh” is going to deliver change alright. The Daily tribe (machine) will finally get what the Kennedy’s never delivered. A president in their pocket.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:52 am 123. Lifeofthemind:

@Wretchard,
But whatever Obama’s mom did or whether his dad did this or that — that’s not Barack’s fault.
Of course it isn’t his fault but I think it is relevent. If a person is an orphan then the character and beliefs of their parents usually does not matter. Given his Father’s abandonment of the family Obama was close to an orphan and it could have been left at that. However Obama choose to title his first book “Dreams of My Father.” If that relationship is so important to him why shouldn’t it, and the man behind it, be important to us? Similarly if Obama reacted against the beliefs and prejudices of his Mother that would be important and so I think is the fact that he has not. Character counts and it is formed by the family you grow up in. Obama was raised by or deeply influenced by people with a strongly left wing ideology and a deeply racialist view of the world. If you think the subject is wrong for your blog then I will drop it.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:53 am 124. jeff:

Ayers and Obama are really close. I know that Bill Ayers has babysat the Obama children. He said so at a cocktail party that I was at in 2006.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:53 am 125. Lifeofthemind:

Darn, didn’t close the italics, wish we had a Preview button.

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:55 am 126. Lifeofthemind:

@jeff,
Please email that to, well to everybody. Fox and McCain.com and Instapundit and Pajamas Media and the NY Post or Wall Street Journal. Please get the facts out. Don’ look in the mirror in 5 years and say “I warned some bloggers.”

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:58 am 127. Wadeusaf:

Confronted with the classic conspiracy-thinking of a poster who proposes that Obama’s father might have been Frank Davis, Wretch doesn’t suggest the poster needs his head examined – might lose an acolyte (as per the insight of Habu) – Wretch oh-so-gently gives the notion credence (twice) in the course of oh-so-gently steering folks in a slightly more rational conspiratorial direction – i.e. the Ayers Connection.

Wretchard, Benj objected that you didn’t spank that question of “Oh”s parentage harder.

It is your garden party, You can’t please everyone, so, you got to please yourself.
Nat-in-nad-da-da,

The reformer to pick up from the last thread ought to have some reforming credentials. So where “Oh” can point to one (prison reform and video taping of confessions bill), significant item in his state run, McCain and Palin both have made a career of standing up for what was right. McCain’s evolution from Keating five to writing a bill to reform fanniemac and fredamae, is genuine and shows how close to being swallowed up by the lobbists he came. I have visions of Job as I read McCain’s history. He is honest, he has been tested, and even if you don’t like what he stands for he is willing to at least listen to your side.
A reformer that can get things done, as in delivering maybe 60 of 64 republican votes on the Tarp issue of the buyout package alone. What did “Oh” do, according to Biden he warned about the trouble with Fredamae and Farquar in 2004. I wouldn’t know about that, I was looking for the citation and could not find it, perhaps the Senator got confused about it like he did with all the other statements he made.

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:29 am 128. Self-hating boomer:

Long thread, and somebody’s probably already said this, but I’d hardly call that NYT whitewash “scrutiny”. More like damage control.

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:29 am 129. Ex-fetus:

I think you’ll are putting waaay to much weight into the polls. Wait until the 1st of November. If Obama bin Biden is still leading ( his advantage is greater then the margin of error) then you might have something.
The ‘natural born citizen’ thingie is very important.
Either we are a nation of laws and are subject to the Constitution or we are not. If the Constitution can be ignored by one party, then it can be ignored by another. Then we are no longer a nation of laws.
Let me take you back to the days of yesteryear. In 2000, when they were counting chads in a Florida office, the guy in charge, a democrat, ordered some non democrat, non-officials, just regular voters, to leave the room. They refused. Being larger and more numerous then the Democrats, they decided to stay. The Democrat in charge turned to the cop standing there and told him to make them leave. The cop said ‘NO’. That is why we had an honest count at that one station.
Cops in general are a lot more conservative then anyone posting here. I bring this up because if the Left chooses to ignore the eligibility requirements of the Constitution, then why shouldn’t the right ignore the term limits of a constitutional amendment? Just like in the Civil war, the police and Army will support whoever they decide has the better claim.
Skipping all the propaganda, in 1861 the two views of America that created the Civil War were closer together then the two views of America that are splitting us apart today.

McCain is NOT going to drive the wedge any deeper then it is now. I think that is why he is being so gentle in his handling of Ohhhhh…..BAAMA. Not sure if that is the correct approach, but it is the one he has chosen. I might have his reasons wrong, but his actions speak loud and clear. The Left is on a do or die mission. No compromise from the left and we don’t know if they will take prisoners. So the right has to decide if we will fight for what we believe in. The Left will and is. If the right fights, we will win. ‘ourse, there might not be much left to win when it’s over.
Then there is the ‘house divided’ problem.
Rome fell because they were to busy fighting among themselves to prevent outsiders from taking the whole thing. Just like the 1st Civil War became inevitable once Lincoln was elected President, so will Obama being elected produce a civil war. Only this time we won’t have the luxury of the rest of the world standing aside.
It’s better to be shot down like a dog then to live in a Socialist Workers paradise.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:20 am 130. Richard:

The press exists to critisize the government. If Obama is elected, he becomes the government, and it won’t take long for everyone to turn on him. How he responds is why he is so dangerous. He won’t make it four years without doing significant damage to this country. Think about it. In your formative years you were saying the pledge of allegience to the flag. In his, he was studying Islamic doctrine. Yes we can? We had better not!

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:21 am 131. Soflauthor:

In the early 1970s, ABC television released a feature length cartoon entitled “The Point”. A synopsis from The Cartoon Database:

In the town of Point, a land where everyone (and everything!) has a point, the birth of a pointless boy throws the kingdom into an existential crisis that is temporary resolved by banishing the youngster, round-headed Oblio, to the Pointless Forest with his pet (and accomplice) Arrow. On their journey, Oblio and Arrow meet a bizarre stable of characters. Furthermore, they discover that just because someone or something seems to have a point doesn’t mean that they do, and that sometimes, the most seemingly pointless things are the most integral to human existence.

I can remember watching the cartoon and still recall the money quote: “People see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.”

During this final month of the campaign, there simply aren’t enough undecided’s left who have the desire to explore the complex relationship between Ayers and Obama, and more importantly what it says about a man who may be President. They will watch and listen, but see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear.

The Ayers story, as damning as it is, won’t matter. Three months ago it may have, but now, what’s the point?

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:27 am 132. steveaz:

Wretchard and guests,
Beware the “Women VS Men” voting dichotomy.

It is crucial that the Democrats dent the appeal that Palin has for female voters in these final weeks before the election. As such, the meme that suggests that women are flocking to the Democrat’s candidate in double-digit numbers – the foundation for which is just another (hic!) poll – is the only arrow left in the meme-makers’ quiver.

Of course, you’re free to repeat it if you like, but know its effects up front.

Futhermore, every word written that supposes an individual’s vote is somehow genetically or, by extension, hormonally controlled is vandalistic in a free society: for a more rank twisting of classical Liberalism, and a denial of individuals’ powers of self-determination, the late 30’s Eugenics movement and its serial atrocities are good didactic examples.

Tread carefully here!

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:32 am 133. Cannoneer No. 4:

Who is Barack Obama, and can he lead the country in these difficult times?

. . . the campaign will work to remind voters of Obama’s “corrupt” associations with Tony Rezko and with “the terrorist William Ayers.” There has been no decision made as to whether the campaign will directly raise Obama’s relationship to Reverend Jeremiah Wright. “Rezko and Ayers are clearly in bounds,” says a top McCain adviser. “McCain has said he doesn’t want to talk about Wright. If others do, then it’s a topic of conversation and we can join that conversation.”

Sarah will talk about Wright, along with Auchi, Davis, Alinski, Chicago, Odinga, Indonesian passports, teenage visits to Pakistan, and the songs Rezko is singing. She’ll bring attention to things Obama and his media lapdogs have obscured. And she’ll do it all with a smile and a wink.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:40 am 134. Cannoneer No. 4:

. . . there’s reason for McCain-Palin supporters to worry, there’s no reason to despair.

Despair is what the Obama campaign is hoping and working for. If a campaign can convince supporters of the other candidate that the race is effectively over, the enthusiasm and volunteer efforts drop off–as does, ultimately, their turnout on Election Day. Just as important, undecided and loosely affiliated voters become persuaded there’s no real contest and lose any incentive to look closely at the candidates. This explains the efforts of the Obama campaign–aided by a colluding media–to sell the notion that the race is over, that McCain supporters should give up, and undecided voters should tune out.

You can choose to be a victim of political warfare PSYOP Morale Operations, or you can chose to resist. Choose wisely.

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:01 am 135. trangbang68:

Back to Dohrn, in the speech she bemoans our prosperity because in her Khmer Rouge mind it is at the expense of the noble savages. She also says that her great concern today is “Empire”. That is the great concern of Chomsky and Howard Zinn and the rest of the unreconstructed Stalinists of the Left.Maybe they’ll put acid in the punch bowl and play the Jefferson Airplane opus, “Blows Against the Empire” at the Inauguration of The Beloved Leader. Right after the “Internationale”

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:01 am 136. rickl:

Cannoneer No. 4:

Here’s an interesting website I found the other day which analyzes polling data:

Stolen Thunder

Scroll down and look at previous entries. It’s some interesting reading.

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:08 am 137. Konyok:

I was really glad to see Programmer’s context setting comment. Surrounded as I am by bumpersticker sporting, Change and Hope poster brandishing Obamatrons, I get lots of opportunities to hear their opinions. Their generic animus for Republicans far outweighs their enthusiasm for The One. (I’ve given up trying to convince them, now my efforts are to nudge them to Nader, the only “honest man” in the race.)

Perceptions of Republican corruption are certainly an important part of that sentiment, though I think the significance in 2006 was more to suppress conservative/independent voters in 2006.

I think that the central cause of this animus is Albert Gore jr’s cynical recount strategy in 2000. What had nominally been a close race between a moderate “compassionate conservative” Republican and a moderate-moving-leftward DLC Democrat mutated into a hyperpartisan contest beyond traditional electoral politics. I believe that was the moment when respect for authority, and for “normality,” began to plummet on all sides. In the aftermath of 9/11 we experienced a brief period of solidarity, but, again, Albert Gore jr. made it respectable to question the legitimacy of a wartime president.

Habu’s right that SCOTUS is the prize. He nicely lists the fears of conservatives, but the left also has a grab bag of paranoia. The “selected, not elected” meme that inevitably resulted from Gore’s Florida gambit weighs heavily on the left. Coupled with a primal fear of an overturn of Roe v Wade, this is felt as an existential threat.

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:39 am 138. Insufficiently Sensitive:

But what Ayers saw in Obama was simple: a young man of color who was articulate, ambitious, and dedicated to reform. Ayers – the rich, white, unrepentant terrorist – was limited in what he could do. But Obama, well he could go places Ayers couldn’t go, win over people Ayers couldn’t work with, champion issues Ayers couldn’t champion. He was a tool.

The above is perfectly true, but there’s a huge omission which makes the value of the tool much higher. That omission is liberal guilt, among the older generation, and includes the righteous conviction among the younger generation that affirmative action makes this one ‘Obama’s turn’. Those add up, among those who practice political correctness or can’t avoid being swept along with it, to an inability to see any white opponent of His Glibness as worthy of any respect or consideration at all.

Ayers could recognize these effects as irresistable jiu-jitsu in the contest between boring old Anglo-American democracy and the victory of the righteous over colonial evil.

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:44 am 139. Old Chief:

Fred said: . . . I think we can count on the men in uniform honoring their oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, if the issues are very clearly defined and the grievances grave.

Despite the wiggle room of clearly define issues, let me disabuse this group about this bit of nonsense. Every officer swears to ‘defend the constitution,” true. Enlisted people do not; they swear to obey orders. If anyone wants, I will publish the two oaths here. They are very different.

I have had hundreds of officers in my graduate level Military Ethics classes. I have never had one who had read the document they had sworn to defend, much less were qualified to define the defense thereof. While most officers have a more highly developed sense of ethics then most enlisted, they will, in the event, do what the boss tells them to do, for the boss controls the rewards and punishments, the beans and the bullets, the promotions and the perks.

It is a common myth that the U.S.Army would not, on principle, move into the civilian population and collect small arms. When I was on active duty, I looked to my superiors for guidance; personal feelings had very little to do with my behavior.

If I had been ordered to suppress civilian disorder by recognized authority and provided the means to do so, it would have been done!

Few people understand the force our military, even the local National Guard, can bring to bear on the street.

And they would.

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:21 am 140. Leo Linbeck III:

Insufficiently Sensitive,

Excellent addition, and spot on.

More speculation. Ayers understood the power of having a black man deliver his message to the two critical audiences he needed: poor blacks and rich whites. The first saw the reincarnation of Malcolm X, the second saw Martin Luther King, Jr. The fact that these two visions are incompatible was what made Obama so attractive to Ayers.

Likewise, Obama needed to reach these audiences. He needed a sponsor for each. For the first, he relied on Jeremiah Wright; the second, Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko. He saw them as means to his primary end: political power. If he was Ayers’ tool, these three were his socket wrench set.

The nice thing about a socket wrench is that you can swap out the socket when you no longer need it. You don’t have to throw the old socket away; you can simply store it under the bus, bringing it out later when you need it.

L3

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:46 am 141. AlexinCT:

The one item I do not see anyone address here is that it is obvious that the MSM has assumed the role of kingmaker. Americans should be horrified and angered that people that claim to be providing us with unbiased news have done anything but. Their shameful shilling for Obama and anti-McCain campaigning is just the start of something much more dangerous. I fear America is destined for some dark and ugly time no matter who wins because the MSM now sees its role as that of burning down what America has been to have it be reborn into their socialist vision, with them as an integral part of the elite leadership, from the ashes. I am afraid the ravages that happened in the USSR or China during the rise of communism in those nations will end up looking like a day at the park compared to what we will get here. And I am being generous and not painting the real depth of the pit that now looms ahead of us for anyone that thinks I am exaggerating. No wonder Putin is pissed the USSR collapsed. Had it held out another 2 decades it would have easily absorbed the US considering where we are politically headed now.

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:58 am 142. Believer:

The McCain Campaign MUST connect the dots with these associations. Obama has a history, a record — and it needs to see the light of day. This has been his greatest fear throughout the campaign.

Let’s look at Obama’s FAILURES – by OUR standards – as he has implemented his/his radical associates’ changes to our society. Most disturbing is that these may well be SUCCESSES by THEIR standards:

HOUSING:
–Rezko’s failed projects. Grover Parc, etc. This crook got richer.
–Subprime loans that have imperiled our economy. BO was lawyer early on who sued Citigroup to force these loans. F/F execs. are his advisors. This plan of theirs – in the hands of corrupt friends – has brought us our present crisis.

EDUCATION:
–CAC with Ayers. $160million NOT improving Chicago’s education – funds funneled instead to radicals(ACORN) and muslim terrorists (or was that thru Woods Fund – with Ayers again?)
–Recent creepy videos of a Kansas City school receiving federal funds (one at ‘gatewaypundit.blogspot.com’ – scroll down to The Obama Youth) that is reportedly a failure academically, but as you can see a success in chanting Obama’s greatness – especially his government programs. Is this the ‘civilian military’ he’s promised us?

HEALTHCARE:
–The Obama Youth chant about what good BO will bring them with his healthcare plans. He already had a chance to show he cared to my thinking: When his wife was on the Board of Univ. of Chicago Hospitals. She said NOTHING as they billed the poor, uninsured up to 500% over costs. Now they’re sending these poor to other hospitals, turning them away, and instead accepting wealthier, white patients whose needs are more PROFITABLE (pricey tests) for this NOT-for-profit hospital. All this while BO earmarked a million bucks for this hospital as one of his first moves as U.S. Senator – and magically raising his wife’s salary from @$100K – over $300K/yr.

I could add what disturbs me most as a Christian. He and his mentor, Wright, have perverted the salvation message of Christ. They both encourage bitterness and anger instead of forgiveness. Hardly the language of unifiers. He divides people instead. His actions are far more subtle, and clever, than Wright’s. But every bit as poisonous.

BO has a record. It’s all failure — by our standards. But to his mind, he may very well be achieving his goals. We just have to decide if we share them.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:14 am 143. Jeff:

People, here are the facts about Barack Obama and William Ayers—

1) When William Ayers was a radical leftist who co-founded the Weatherman, committed heinous terrorist acts against the United States Capitol building and the Pentagon, his radical history was between 1968-1972. Here is his life story in Wikipedia below —

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

2) Between 1968-1972, Barack Obama was between ages 7-11 years old and did NOT know William Ayers. He was TOO YOUNG. Here is his life story in Wikipedia below —

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

3) Obama did not meet Ayers until 1995, 23 years after Ayers radical history. Obama was introduced to Ayers by Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer, as her chosen successor since she is stepping down from the Illinois state senate and running for Congress. Here is the story of the meeting in the link below —

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html

In closing, all these propagandas are false. Obama did not meet Ayers until 1995, as they ALL want to make people believe. Please do your own research before believing these propagandas. Obama’s proposal of “Change” for the better is a HUGE threat to some people. They are incapable of “Change” or even the slightest chance of accepting it. So here is my wisdom for everyone –

***Conservatism is the tired old need to hang on to the past while liberalism is a need for change for a brighter future.***
As an added note, if Obama had even the slightest chance of establishing a bad alliance with Ayers, with any bad intentions or motives toward America, the Feds would be on to him quicker than anyone could blink an eye, less allowed him to even run for the Presidency. Why has the Feds not looked into any of this? The answer is that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. You cannot persecute someone merely by association. Should we condemn and persecute all the family members of the likes of Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, etc.? These family members are all associated with these serial killers but are they evil?

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:22 am 144. Konyok:

Believer,

In a rational world you would be right.

Sadly, the criterion of success for politics is managing the perceptual space. (Hence the critical influence of the media and Hollywood.) Obama has been wildly successful in branding himself as the great healer.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:25 am 145. Nicholas Fitzgerald:

[...] him on his past associations with people like Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. It seems that relationship has a lot more to it than Obama would like people to know about. Of course the MSM is doing their [...]

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:30 am 146. Believer:

Bottom line: BO doesn’t share our values.

What BO plans to teach our children is what he learned from Alinsky. (See The Obama Youth video and read about Obama Camp). These are not values the ‘normal’ American shares. Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” was dedicated to Lucifer. But BO has said Alinsky was his most effective instructor.

It’s nothing less than insanity we’d be ushering in with an Obama presidency. The destruction of our society.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:40 am 147. Pascal:

AlexinCT: The one item I do not see anyone address here is that it is obvious that the MSM has assumed the role of kingmaker. Americans should be horrified and angered that people that claim to be providing us with unbiased news have done anything but. Their shameful shilling for Obama and anti-McCain campaigning is just the start of something much more dangerous.

Which reminded me of Fred’s question yesterday: What is the payoff for the mainstream media?

The leaders in MSM are all hoping to be inner party members of the coming Ministry of Truth. Nobody there wants to be in Winston Smith’s position — a clerk who’s job it is to dispose of old truths all while knowing their retaining that knowledge is a thought crime. O’Brien was free to keep that knowledge, Winston was tortured for it.

They believe the payoff comes from being good little apparatchniks.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:41 am 148. Believer:

Konyok — I agree with your point – but I haven’t given up hope that we can still break through. I’d never forgive myself if I hadn’t tried with everything in me.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:44 am 149. Konyok:

Believer,

The high profile battle is pretty discouraging. (Part of our opponents’ strategy, I think, is to demoralize us.)

But, I think the real battle is on school boards and city councils, state legislative seats and congress. We need to become conservative/libertarian community organizers.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:53 am 150. Believer:

I just heard Peggy Noonan suggest it wasn’t “good” to bring up these associations. Can’t remember exact words cuz I was typing.

But this ignorance on her part – and so many other ‘bright’ people – is frightening.

“My people die for lack of understanding.” I know God was speaking of spiritual things. But it can be applied to this earthly world as well.

We HAVE to be able to recognize evil. In ourselves as well as others. Especially those who presume to lead us. BO is a man who has tried for nearly TWO YEARS to hide who he is and what he has done!

Does this mean NOTHING to you?! Would you go out on a date with someone so secretive, so deceptive — much less put the security of your nation and your children – in a time of war – in the hands of such a person?

I’m speaking to citizens still undecided — please take care with your vote. It may be the last one you get.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:53 am 151. NahnCee:

I saw a picture of Noonan recently and was astonished at how young she looks. From her ditzy hysterical sky is falling prose, I had been thinking of her as elderly and with the first toe dipping into Alzheimer’s. She really needs to get a job as a columnist at the NY Times, so everyone would know up-front how much credence to give her.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:56 am 152. Believer:

Yes, Konyok, you’re probably right. And I’ve been remiss there. A good friend of mine involved me in the successful campaign of the first Repub. governor of this state (HI) – and I’ve turned my attention away from local politics since. She’s still trying to engage me in more of it. I may do it once this election is over. But this is HI, afterall…

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:57 am 153. Believer:

THat was first Repub. since statehood, sorry.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:58 am 154. Konyok:

I fear that Peggy is worried about getting invited to the right dinner parties.

I firmly believe that we need to draw a dazzingly bright line bounding what rhetoric is acceptable and what is not. But, I think that it is insane to politely ignore the character of our opponents. Hit ‘em and hit ‘em hard! Just stay focused and don’t fire wildly.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:03 pm 155. Believer:

2nd correction – Bill Quinn, Rep. was our first – at statehood – she’s only our second since then…

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:03 pm 156. Pascal:

NahnCee, Believer.

Maybe Noonan is angling for an inner party slot. Don’t forget that O’Brien was allegedly the head of the resistance. That subterfuge served him well.

But wait! She seems to have blown her former cover so that none of us trust her now. So maybe her “suggestion” that we drop the inquiries is a desperate “see, I can still be useful!”

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:05 pm 157. Konyok:

Pascal,

Doesn’t the “inner party” map exactly to the “A” dinner party list?

Our opponents are not so much doctrinaire socialists as indoctrinated socialites.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:14 pm 158. Believer:

Yes, Konyok — and tone is so important too.

I’m not sure Palin today – at least the clips I heard – brought the best tone to the seriousness of these associations (ayers, in this case).

It can’t be a flippant, easily dismissed thing – which the Dems are working like crazy today to do.

We have to point out the failures attached to these associations. For those who won’t accept the legitimate character/judgment issue(!), they might understand at least how it ultimately affects them: badly.

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:18 pm 159. Konyok:

Despite their best efforts to sanitize the Obama-Ayers connection, the very fact that the NY Times feels compelled to cover the story is a setback for The One.

Senator Obama gave us a “speech for the ages” to put the Reverend Wright behind us, and to heal our racial divisions. The only thing most people remember now is that he threw Granma under the bus. The doubts among working class whites are still in play.

The association with Ayers is different. He doesn’t have membership in an aggrieved minority to excuse him. He didn’t just say crazy things, he is unapologetic about conspiring to terrorize his fellow Americans.

Every time his snotty mug shot is shown, Obama loses votes among most the most likely of voters – people over 50.

Also, the more that his name is mentioned, the easier it will be to oppose the influence of Ayers in American education. (Do the teachers colleges in your state use books by, or edited by, Ayers in their courses? They are more afraid of adverse public pressure than you might think … )

Oct 5, 2008 - 12:33 pm 160. TedM:

The question I have been asking is “why
did Ayers pick Obama as HIS associate?”
What was it about Obama which made him
appealing to Ayers and Khalidi and Rezko?

Rezko invests in buying people hoping for a political favor in the future..

Could the same be said of Ayers and Khalidi?

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:01 pm 161. Chris in Toronto:

This is an honest question: Why is everyone, everywhere, assuming the Dems will win both the House and the Senate?

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:08 pm 162. Night Owl:

If women-bashing is a regular past-time in this comment section, it’s not really surprising to me that so few women post here.

Those of you who relish basking in the glow of your new found status of victim to the “evil-loving” woman, take a moment to reflect on the following: Such thinking plays into the hands of those who want nothing more than to divide us into disgruntled factions fighting amongst ourselves. Some people apparently are ready for a civil war. How many aggrieved groups does it take before the trigger is pulled? As the victim-think and consequent demonization of our alleged persecutors spreads, the rot from within will be more deleterious to our society than any enemy without.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:33 pm 163. Pascal:

Konyok: “Doesn’t the “inner party” map exactly to the “A” dinner party list?”

Yes.

Konyok: “Our opponents are not so much doctrinaire socialists as indoctrinated socialites.”

I like your word formation; however, I’d like to suggest a change.

But first let us agree that Socialism is nice sounding label that provides a cover for power seekers who pose as centrists in a world where Marxism is still useful (i.e., useful to the power seekers).

That is not too complex a “conspiracy” is it? A symbiosis really wherein one parasite provides us the “service” of protecting us from the more virulent parasite. Socialism handily addresses that envy and guilt complex I brought up a couple days ago; it looks oh so middle of the road by comparison.

At any rate, as any rational person must conclude from history, buying off envy is akin to paying extortion. The hunger is never sated and the payments lead to greater demands. What men ultimately covet is the happiness they perceive in others. That is simply not something the state can take from the happy in order to give to them. So covetousness must lead to destruction of those who remain happier than those who are envious of them.

Is that too hard a concept to share amongst my friends here?

I wonder what would happen were McCain to throw that line at Obama? What am I saying? I wonder what would happen were conservatives to throw that line at statists?

Now back to your line.

I really don’t think any A list socialite is legitimately socialist or they won’t stay on the list for long. Double-think (PC) is a staunch requirement for membership. Here is how I’d like to reword your line.

“Our opponents are not so much doctrinaire statists as indoctrinated socialites.”

Most of those socialites may not remain at that level either unless they are willing to behave ruthlessly. Which reminds me of when I see Republican leaders acting their toughest. No, no. Never do they snarl back at Democrats on the Left or even then extreme left. They reserve their snarls for upstarts within their own party — the “outer members of the party” if you will. That is for whom the old bulls reserve their greatest fire.

You should always recall (at least I do) when a comparisons are made to 1984 that O’Brien’s party was not socialist but statist. No socialist party has as for its vision of the future “A boot stomping on a human face, FOREVER.” Not even Ayers will state that off the record.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:36 pm 164. Tess Tosterone:

In the weeks and months prior to his assassination, Dr. King and his advisors were mapping out plans for new political strategy and an agenda that included consideration of some more socialist style reform since the success of civil rights legislation had paradoxically left him in a bit of eddy. These considerations were built of the fact that more radical elements and personalities were emerging to try and steal away the rally flag from King. People such as Stokley Carmichael, Bobby Seal, and others because, while they were perfectly ready to surf in Kings wake, they considered him a has been, and his political persona hackneyed. And they were prepared to cast him aside in favor of more romantic “in your face” revolution.
With his assassination, Dohrn and Ayers, and Jesse Jackson for his part, tried to co-opt Kings momentum and get the spot light on themselves like grave robbers in time for the Chicago convention. Just as Castro did with Ernesto ‘Que?’ Guevara”s “martyrdom” because Cuban revolutionaries who weren’t vain peacocks from such a pampered background as Guevara (as were Ayers and Dohrn also) just plain could not stand the pretentions of the happless Ernesto.

Castro made lemonade from Guevara’s lemon. And just as Wretchard pointed out, political opportunists such as Dohrn who are narcissisists start rewritin the narrative to advance their own “carrers”.

Oct 5, 2008 - 1:55 pm 165. jean:

Wish the national television networks had the intergity to report this. However; since they are all “in the tank” for Obama, little chance of that.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:12 pm 166. SAF:

The most disturbing part of all of this to me is:

Obama is a smart guy and he obviously knew that both his relationship with Ayers and Jeremiah Wright would be troubling in the general election. Yet he pursued them anyway and they have really been little to no trouble. So he somehow figured out it wouldn’t matter and that the benefits he got from those associations more than outweighed the negatives.

I guess he figured out how the MSM would react and played it brilliantly.

So as someone on this thread correctly pointed out that a republican with a David Duke Association would be drummed off the ticket while Obama has gotten virtually zero flack.

Makes you wonder.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:21 pm 167. Cletus:

Better that this issue receives air time in October, there is less chance of it being swept back under the rug before election time than if it came out back in July

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:22 pm 168. Konyok:

Pascal,

I really enjoyed your Henry Hazlitt link the other day. Right on the head, and also relevant to my recent about the “revolutionary condition.”

The 1984 allusion shines some light, but Orwell wasn’t writing a predictive novel. He put it in a future English setting to make the 1948 situation in the Soviet Union for accessible for his readership.

I like the purity of statist – lord knows how aggravated I sometimes get at the promiscuous use of “socialist” and “marxist.” Still I like the alliteration of “socialist” and “socialite.”

Quibbles aside, I think we’re on the same page …

(I guess that means we don’t need to worry about getting our dinner jackets pressed any time soon.)

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:27 pm 169. Tess Tosterone:

To: Chris in Totonto

‘This is an honest question: Why is everyone, everywhere, assuming the Dems will win both the House and the Senate?”

I wonder the same thing. I keep hearing that “factor x + developement y = Obama in a landslide” or “Democrats poised to win more seats in House and Senate…” and “…Best opportunity in years for Democrat’s to run away with election…” or “…Republican challenger has trouble with turn out of his base…” and so on and so on.

I mean really, would the media share with you, that maybe the Obama bubble in fact popped as far back as April?

So where are the coat tails.

The average Joe has been hammered with this meme 5 times every hour, that if don’t vote for Obama your racist/homophobe/sexist/bigot trash. So what if he goes in to vote, and in the privacy of the booth decides to let the other guy try and absolve himself of that racism trope, in an act of secular Obama piety?

And Baldwin, maybe he had his moment when he went ballistic on Letterman, and now he steers clear of the hyperbole. Baldwin criticised those responsible. There are minor and major blessings a long the way.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:30 pm 170. buddy larsen:

have to interject an appeal to watch the replay of the tv I watched earlier today: “Saving Our Economy”. It’s on Fox, with David Asman the host. It replays tonight at 9 EST. I think most everyone here on this board savvys what has happened, but in light of the fact that the Obama campaign & Dem congresspersons are striving so mightily to hang this mess on the other party, the fact of how much of it is directly the doing of the Democratic party becomes breathtakingly galling and should be countered in every way possible.

One way to counter it this very day is to email or phone every one of your you-know-whos and tell them to please catch this show –it’s well-done, with as much detail as warranted in a tv show –and clearly describes what has happened.

ok, end personal appeal. return to topic.

Oct 5, 2008 - 2:38 pm 171. Ed Wallis:

Of note on this matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-45A6I-N5I

Oct 5, 2008 - 3:31 pm 172. fred:

Old Chief,

If the men in uniform cannot at all be relied on to protect the people and their contract with each other and the government, then all they are are paid mercenaries who make their oaths to the legion and to Caesar. Hate to put it so crassly, but there it is. It is what it is. There is NO difference between the Ninth Legion and the 3rd Infantry Division.

If all our officer corps and the nco’s care about is whether or not the tyrant pays them well, what does that say about you guys?

After November this country is going to change dramatically in many ways. It will not be the same country. The first couple of months of a total Democrat domination of White House, Senate, and the House will see legislation and investigations that will bring us a lot closer to Western European soft socialism.

And if our men in uniform (now praetorian thugs) come for my guns, they won’t find any in the house. They’ll be buried deep in the woods somewhere inside oiled bags and tarps under a lot of dirt.

Oct 5, 2008 - 3:41 pm 173. wretchard:

If all our officer corps and the nco’s care about is whether or not the tyrant pays them well, what does that say about you guys?

I think it would be a mistake to bring the military in this discussion in any substantive form. This is a problem for civil society and the buck cannot be passed. If civil society cannot maintain itself as a democracy, one should not rely on armed men to restore it. In this political fight everyone must be out of uniform.

The challenge of course is that the Left is quasi-military in culture and orientation. They are a hive. It took 14 years to bring down Marcos. The point is it takes a long time to bring about deep social change. But one can always start now. Then every day will bring it closer.

Oct 5, 2008 - 3:54 pm 174. cedarford:

The overrarching problem for Republicans is not that X,Y,or Z with ties to radicals, support Obama and, IF ONLY this can be properly communicated, Obama will be defeated and 8 more years of Republican bliss awaits…

No, it is that the country is moving away from Republicans on fear of religiously intolerant theocrats attempting to impose their will, the collapse of Reagan economics as a fraud, and the idea of endless war to spread “democracy” (as long as it is democracy that LOVES corporate cronyism and conservatism).

Fukiyama writes: Like all transformative movements, the Reagan revolution lost its way because for many followers it became an unimpeachable ideology, not a pragmatic response to the excesses of the welfare state. Two concepts were sacrosanct: first, that tax cuts would be self-financing, and second, that financial markets could be self-regulating.

Prior to the 1980s, conservatives were fiscally conservative— that is, they were unwilling to spend more than they took in in taxes. But Reaganomics introduced the idea that virtually any tax cut would so stimulate growth that the government would end up taking in more revenue in the end (the so-called Laffer curve). In fact, the traditional view was correct: if you cut taxes without cutting spending, you end up with a damaging deficit.

The Terri Schiavo fiasco taught a new generation of women, not thrilled by feminists, that there WAS reason to fear fanatic Right-to-Lifers.

The “no too high a price in American lives and treasure to save foreign democracy-hungry freedom-lovers!!” philosophy? The cancerous Reagan-neocon sentiments foundered on the democratically elected Putin, Chavez, Hamas, Hez leaders as well as watching “democracy in action” in Iraq and Afganistan.

It’s not just Bush II is the President held in the most contempt since Truman, surpassing even Carter. (Nixon was hated but also viewed by even his enemies as powerful, intelligent, and competent)…

It’s the failure of Republicans to deliver since 1994, being corrupt, being mired in failed dogma .

It’s not just McCain that looks likely to go down…it is solid, gifted Republicans in Congress that will go down this year…and nothing about Bill Ayers!! Terrahist Evildoers!! Or Love of Israel above even America, will save them..

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:04 pm 175. USorThem:

Obama refuses to admit his relationship with Ayers was more than as being just a couple of guys living in the same neighborhood.

Now, according to an Obama spokesman on FOX Friends this morning, the is nothing to the Ayers-Obama relationship BECAUSE THE NYT and the WA-PO said so!

That’s it. No rebuttal with facts. Nothing help explain why the relationship appears to be more than Obama says, and, of course, no admission of being misleading.

So now we have it. Whatever the NYT and the Wa-Po conclude, it is gospel and accepted fact and Obama need not explain anything else to explain himself.

Disgusting.

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:07 pm 176. Gary Rosen:

“Or Love of Israel above even America, will save them..”

See, Buddy, I told ya C-fudd can’t stay away from the Jew-baiting, he’s addicted. He’s got less self-control than a dirty junkie crawling through the gutter for a fix of cheap heroin. He’s so knee-jerk I can always tell which threads he’s going to spout off on.

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:17 pm 177. Ari Tai:

Are we making this too hard?

Reading between the lines, this has all the indications of being a classic “only the ends matter” Alinsky agit-op. What Mr. O. can’t have out in public view is that he was the token recruited to get the grants. The Alinsky types have no reluctance to play the system for maximum benefit to their cause (the “use their naivete and good-intentions against them” jujitsu). Why vault to (the appearance of being at the) top? Because he was a good looking, earnest, semi-literate (when well prepared) face of the type that would pull at the heartstrings more than heads of the granting agencies and foundation. This is how the system was then and is now corrupt. The meritorious need not apply

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:38 pm 178. Cannoneer No. 4:

fred, you’ll need more than oiled bags and tarps under a lot of dirt to conceal your arms cache from airborne magnetic anomaly detection.

Your diahrrea of the keyboard on subjects of insurrection, military support for anti-Obama coups and assorted other topics best kept within your 3-man Leaderless Resistance Cell is being monitored. You’re beginning to sound like the FBI agent provacateur at the militia meeting.

And fred, nobody is going to mutiny on your account.

“The fact that even though the military is generally held in high regard by the bulk of the population, the people closer to the fringes believe we’re mindless automatons ready to trample the Constitution at the drop of a Presidential hat. Those who defend us when we’re off fighting under a Republican President weren’t always so sure of us when we were sent off to fight under a Democrat President, and vice versa. Those who would shoot us for disobeying an order of “their President” now and again encourage us to disobey the orders of “the other guy’s President,” and seemingly can reconcile the dichotomy without their heads exploding. Apparently, we in the Services are capable of making these vast cultural reversals the day of the Inauguration. Mind you, the Left is probably more consistent in their mistrust than the Right, but it’s still there, and it’s still bemusing. Of course, the Left is more likely to view us as simple mercenaries, who will do anything for pay, so it’s probably easier for them to reconcile the difference.

What they don’t get is… we don’t belong to either party. We’re not the Sturm Abteilungen of the National Socialists nor are we the Red Guards of the Weimar Communists. We’re a creature of the Constitution, and we serve that above the individuals who occupy the positions of authority from day-to-day. I’m not a fool, we have politics, lord knows.

But it really isn’t the kind of politics as practiced by the politicians and the parties. But when you live and breathe politics, I guess it’s hard to understand that.” — John Donovan

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:42 pm 179. ridgerunner:

Re the question of what women want, it depends upon whether they are peri-ovulatory or not. See Randy Thornhill’s recent book on human female sexuality. Women are evolutionarily programmed to prefer insemination by high testosterone, alpha male types when they are more likely to be ovulating, and yet to prefer the more normal, steadily providing male at other times. What Obama has going for him is that he fits both profiles. For women, he truly is The One.

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:47 pm 180. fred:

So, Cannoneer No. 4, you and your praetorian cohorts would happily agree to take my meager collection of guns if the tyrant so wishes?

Do you have any idea of how fundamentally immoral your views are?

I’m not fomenting revolution here. I’m merely suggesting that it is entirely within the realm of possibility that a Leftward drifting country can so shred the Constitution and detract from our liberties that the country is no longer what it was intended to be. And do some reading up on the views of some of the Founders on the WHY of the 2nd Amendment.

As for inviting me to leave the blog for good, I respectfully disobey your order to do so. STFU.

Oct 5, 2008 - 4:52 pm 181. Lifeofthemind:

Isn’t fred supposed to be busy explaining to God Country Fox News and the black helicoptor squad that Bill Ayers took him of all people into his confidence about his close ties to Obama and their plan to Take Over the World? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYj1nkwMp4k

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:11 pm 182. Pascal:

Konyok.

Yes, your alliteration was excellent and I didn’t like runing it. I’m glad you agree that statism is the better word. So I’ve labored to restore your alliteration.

Our opponents are not so much doctrinaire statists as they are the stately who’ve been indoctrinated.

Not yet satisfactory; but I think I’ve moved closer.

Here’s what stately brings to the meme. It is a word, as is opulence, almost lost since there is so little difference in America between the living conditions of the middle and upper classes save for the desire to work and excess.

Done right, stately will connote statists. Recall that Hazlitt highlighted how the “levelers” most always want to level down and not up.

stately (adjective)
Inflected Form(s): state·li·er; state·li·est
Date: 15th century

1 a: marked by lofty or imposing dignity b: haughty , unapproachable

2: impressive in size or proportions

The first meaning captures much more than socialite the meaning of elite.

The second meaning suggests the wall the stately wish to see between themselves and the hoi polloi, the “little people.”

Inner party membership is THE privilege sought, a desire Democrats claim is dreadful. They certainly don’t want their most naive followers to notice. And now you came along and shed some light. Damn you Konyok!

Does not stately add a twist of contumely to they who wish to be socialites? There is guilt in they who seek self-adulation, and it is ripe to be exploited. As we see, such self-serving is never brought up by MSM, themselves being wannabes, so that spotlighting now becomes our duty. Like I warned earlier, forget getting help and only opprobrium from the old bulls of the GOP.

More. There’s justice too. Since our levelers have so often laid guilt at our feet, they have earned to get it back in spades did they not? Hence I think stately in our new formation highlights shortcomings of seeking socialite status. They want to be beyond reach? Let us belabor them with the thought that in India the lowest cast are the Untouchables.

Your turn.

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:11 pm 183. fred:

Very funny, Lifeofthemind.” You should try amateur night for stand up comedians.

My statements and positions have been caricatured by certain members here, and because I have the temerity to protest I invite further mockery. My positions were more nuanced than you realize.

At least Wretchard’s response to me was measured, intelligent, and did indeed make perfect sense to me.

Some people are incapable of shame.

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:23 pm 184. Pascal:

I know, I know. But it only looks like I used stately as a noun. The phrase is elliptical. the word –persons– is the missing word. I’m an engineer struggling to learn rhetorical construct, something outside my native skill set. It’s dogged determination and ingenuity — perhaps the former more than the latter — which I have in abundance.

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:33 pm 185. Pascal:

Someone tell me. Is that “Obama Obey” poster from their camp or is it from the Right? If it’s theirs, wasn’t that once untouchable?

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:42 pm 186. Lifeofthemind:

fred.
For what is worth I agree with much of what you say, certainly not all of it, and look forward to reading many more of your contributions, but you do veer off into showing a thin skin at times. Just give yourself the same advice you’d give another who invites unneeded mockery. Most people here are adults, reasoned stands do not constitute temerity. Flamboyant assertions should I’d think be best used to illustrate a point or they become static noise.

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:57 pm 187. Benj:

Wretch said in (high dudgeon) that I distorted HIS response to a poster who had suggested O’s father might have been Frank DAvis – Here’s Wretch apology for himself:

“I clearly said that Obama’s parentage is not be discussed because it is irrelevant. This was in response to an earlier comment suggesting that Obama’s real father was someone else. I rejected the relevance of that line of argument. Repeat, rejected it. The text on this comment thread will show that with absolute clarity.”

So here’s what Wretch said:

I would stay clear of Obama’s parentage for two reasons: one is that we are unlikely to prove anything definite one way or the other on that score and second because a man can choose his friends but not his relatives.

Look again at the first reason W. gave re O’s pop – - “we are unlikely to prove anything definite one way or another.” That is to say he allows that it’s an open question. Too open!! No time to come to a definite answer so best to “steer clear.” THEN he offers another reason why he wouldn’t go there. But. The quickest and surest way to stop such talk is to say that such speculation is ridiculous, wothy of nut-jobs and conspiracy thinkers. Wretch didn’t say that. WHich is why I wrote…

Confronted with the classic conspiracy-thinking of a poster who proposes that Obama’s father might have been Frank Davis, Wretch doesn’t suggest the poster needs his head examined – might lose an acolyte (as per the insight of Habu) – Wretch oh-so-gently gives the notion credence (twice) in the course of oh-so-gently steering folks in a slightly more rational conspiratorial direction – i.e. the Ayers Connection.

I can read YOU like a book Wretch. You’re running down my country man…

Oct 5, 2008 - 6:33 pm 188. Pascal:

Okay, maybe you can explain this Benj.

Obey Obama?

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:08 pm 189. Cannoneer No. 4:

Your guns are safe from me, fred. And I don’t have any praetorian cohorts. I don’t recall inviting you to leave the blog for good, fred, but far be it from me to talk you out of leaving if you’ve a mind to go.

I haven’t the faintest clue of how fundamentally immoral my views are. Why don’t you enlighten me? Providing you with more opportunities to beclown yourself is mildly amusing.

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:14 pm 190. buddy larsen:

”I can read YOU like a book Wretch. You’re running down my country man”

Benj, what’s with the relentless baiting?

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:26 pm 191. Konyok:

@fred
I’m sorry for mocking you, I know that you are worried sick. You seemed to be giving moral support to others spreading some pretty nasty ideas. When I see my fellow Americans referred to as a “target rich environment” I get angry. I really don’t think that you want to be associated with those kinds of ideas, not from other things that I’ve seen you post here. This is the time to use the system that we have. That said …

@Cannoneer
Thanks for the backup, man. These fellers keep putting the wagon and a long string of trailers before their poor miserable little donkey. There is a time and a place for everything. Now is the time to defeat Obama. I think your morals are just fine, mate!

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:35 pm 192. Konyok:

Pascal,

It seems to be a perverse kind of noblesse oblige.

I’ve been calling the ideology “zen socialism,” ie. vaguely socialistic ideals without any doctrinal basis expressed as an aesthetic code.

Strictly speaking, it isn’t really socialism, let alone marxism. There is no ideology or theory to give it a backbone, it is squishy and fits into any space that will hold it. It is bake sales to save the rainforest and neighbors gathering to make films of their children singing for Obama.

It has its roots in Rousseau and Marie Antoinette’s Hameau in the Petit Trianon.

All of the best people are voting for Obama, don’t you know?

Oct 5, 2008 - 7:49 pm 193. buddy larsen:

Konyok, what deft, economical, and lyric comments you’ve made lately.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:02 pm 194. Wadeusaf:

OBEY is a clothing outlet, specializing in leftist theology screen prints. That is an advertisement your freaking out about.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:13 pm 195. Konyok:

Thanks, buddy.

That means something, coming from you …

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:19 pm 196. buddy larsen:

Benj, what do you think of Herbert and Marion Sandler?

How would you square their harming –devastating the futures of –hundreds of thousands of our poorer and less-educated citizens, hundreds of thousands more pensioners and pensioners-to-be, in order to make fortunes for themselves, fortunes which they then share out (in small portions) to ‘progressive’ causes and Democratic political campaigns?

This is a legit question –i often wonder about these things, and you’re a good person to ask for some light on the subjek.

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:27 pm 197. Pascal:

LOL. One might say I kinda freak out about the death culture to which so many give a wink to, but hardly this.

I asked for an explanation because neither that nor the same image turned up at all in an internet search.

You’re saying this poster at the freeway entrance is an advertisement for screen prints? As in an attempt by that firm to gain name recognition by exploiting Obama’s themed of his image underscored by single words?

Seems pretty bone-headed to me; perhaps something of which you know more. (Splendid pinch hitting there Wade.)

Oct 5, 2008 - 8:58 pm 198. Konyok:

Pascal,

It looks like they’re doing double duty.

I saw something similar at a movie yesterday: the turn-your-cellphone-off message was actually an ad for a new TV show.

Indeed, it captures the functional aesthetic of the Obama phenomenon perfectly.

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:23 pm 199. Pascal:

Thanks Konyok. That leaves the question open as to why this poster isn’t more widespread. Why isn’t it even featured at the website? A sort of subliminal advertising for their favorite candidate? Seems awfully foolish to risk public recoil from the very idea.

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:40 pm 200. fred:

Konyok,

I appreciated the way in which Wretchard dealt with my musings on the extreme end of political conflict that could occur. I never stated that we should just go out and do such and such. I did speculate, perhaps wrongly, that the military would take a dim view of allowing our founding contract to be either moth eaten or put into the shredder.

Anyway, Wretchard had a deft touch. I did not appreciate the sarcastic and insulting approach that Cannoneer took towards me. I got the message from Wretchard well enough and I understood where he was coming from. It makes sense.

To Cannoneer I would say: I’m an Army veteran and a good citizen. I’ve never committed a crime and would just as soon cut off my hand than to do so. I don’t own any assault weapons and am not seeking one. I won’t catalog what I do have, but two of them definitely would be gone after by Obama and his Party, if they had their way. The only threat I am to is to criminals and tyrants (again, a hypothetical). I have a right to own them and the government has no right to take them from me if I have committed no crime. And I would have other ingenious ways to hide them (and those I will not divulge). I don’t hate the Army or the military, but they have to understand that, in the final analysis, even if they take an oath of loyalty to the President if they think that morally he is the ultimate authority they are sadly mistaken. No offense, but if the Army has to obey orders and confiscate our arms, they can s**k s**t out of my **s.

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:44 pm 201. Konyok:

fred,

Keep your powder dry.

Posse comitatus prevents the military from conducting such law enforcement operations.

Believe me, your local police are probably some of the most conservative members of your community. As long as you are obeying the laws, the chances of a visit approach zero.

Even in New Hampshire, there is a critical mass of people that simply wouldn’t allow that to happen. (Yes, you are one of us.) As Yamamoto discovered, there is a sleeping giant best unawakened.

Meanwhile, intemperate rhetoric only attracts unnecessary attention. Capisce?

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:57 pm 202. Konyok:

fred,

You would be amazed at how many of the real unreconstructed left would be on our side if things came to that. I’m dead serious.

Oct 5, 2008 - 9:58 pm 203. fred:

I would like to apologize to Cannoneer, Wrechard, and all for my intemperate suggestions and remarks. I probably did deserve to be smacked upside the head by Cannoneer, but Wretchard seemed to get clear to my thinking. I am not normally this way. It will not happen again. Thank you for your patience.

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:23 pm 204. buddy larsen:

Chagrin & bear it, as they say –

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:26 pm 205. Bob Smith:

“American males are exposed to the same Gramscian indoctrination in school and university, but they don’t hew to socialism and post-modernism as strongly. They tend to grow out of it. But the women embrace it more deeply and hang on to it.”

If you look at who benefits, and who pays, under socialism it should be obvious why women embrace socialism.

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:39 pm 206. Marc Malone:

Habu – You’re missing the obvious. They don’t have to overturn the Constitution. A Dem Prez plus a filibuster-proof Dem senate means EVERY FOREIGN TREATY WILL PASS. Treaties are the law of the land regardless of the constitution. That’s my take. Let me know if I’m wrong on the law, but I don’t believe the SCOTUS has any say on treaties.

They can make us part of the EU if they want. Then our own government will be as impotent as all the other Euro governments. Can you say President of the world?

Oct 5, 2008 - 10:43 pm 207. Evil Pundit:

There’s some interesting, more optimistic analysis of polling here. Worth a read.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:15 pm 208. Marc Malone:

Old Chief – I don’t know whether to agree with you or not about the use of the military.

There are those who understand about not obeying an illegal order. They can sway those whose common decency will give them enough pause to listen. There is, believe it or not, a certain amount of cussedness in Americans that is reflected in the military. I knew many guys who had no fear of their officers or cared about getting kicked out of the military. But then, I was in Military Intelligence.

On the other hand, most are indoctrinated. They don’t know enough to disobey, and are too conditioned to question authority. Others go along to get along.

I was a cussed type, being simply literally smarter than everyone else, and thus contemptuous. I did not get along. I often called my leaders on their B.S. After awhile, they sent me out on training missions every week… because I played havoc with their system. It only took one or two guys like me to upset the applecart.

That said, I am from a different generation. I just don’t know about this one. I just wouldn’t count on being able to use the military. It goes against the one thing that was hammered home: This is not a Banana Republic. We stay out of politics.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:39 pm 209. Wadeusaf:

Pascal,

thy this web site

http://obeygiant.com/

Konyok, ironic, isn’t it called capitalism?

The ultimate irony (my son agrees), Andrew Jackson on a twenty dollar bill.

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:42 pm 210. Wadeusaf:

It’s the failure of Republicans to deliver since 1994, being corrupt, being mired in failed dogma.

Seder-ford, if the failure of the repbulicans is to not deliver since 1994, what do you consider the failure of the democrat party? What have they delivered since 1974? Oh yeah thats right they delivered the Iraq Policy bill that stated regime change was the official US policy toward Iraq. Bad policy? I think not. Better than what they gave us in 1974, better by far than that. Selective memory and selective history like selective resume items or selective issues to stonewall and turn from a means of helping the poor to a means of fleecing the poor and the government at the same time. If you keep lying people will believe you eventually, right. How many millions died because of 1974’s delivery. How many millions more will die if the Democrat party has their way in Iraq? In Iran? In Georgia? In Denmark? In Pakistan? In Egypt? In Jordan? In Lebanon? In India? In Thailand? In Mylasia? In Canada? In Columbia? In Mexico? In the United States? That is an awful lot of blood to wash off ones hands? Are you sure you are up to it?
If

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:59 pm 211. Benj:

Sorry Buddy re “relentless” – you’re a voice of reason. But. Look it’s late so I’m going to flow and go to bed – When I asked Wretch a couple weeks back if he might want to disassociate himself from Clubbers (like Rod Reilly) who had announced their readiness to rumor-monger re O, he wouldn’d disavow their deeply un-American approach. Have to go back and look, but I think it was Storm who said, hey guys, lying is not a good way to go! So that episode was in my mind when I call Wretch on his latest readiness to pass on saying NO in THUNDER to conspiratorial garbage. So gets up on his high horse – but the record speaks. Even LOUDER after his own defense. Just think on that line from his (unwitting) confession – He allows he “DESPISES” Obama. But that’s just madness. I don’t hate Johnnny Mac. And electoral politics in a democratic society should NOT be about stirring up that sort of hatred. When you do that, you get Ken-Dolls and ex-seminarians like Fred counting their weapons. MADNESS!!! The idea that somebody who doesn’t even LIVE in our country is encoraging his CLUB to roll with that sort of contempt is appalling (it’s pretty funny too but – where are the Coen brothers when we need em!) Unless, of course, we’re talking about someone running as a fascist or a red totalitarinan. And on that score, the only person who comes close to qualifying is Ms. Palin. Hell she’s one who QUOTED a fascist approvingly. SEems strange to me that the only person in the Club who seems to have thought twice about that – even though he did his damedest to convince himself it didn’t matter! – was WADE…That’s because he’s an honorable man. A thousand thought-miles and moral universe away from our anti-American friend Wretch…

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:28 am 212. Marc Malone:

Ridgerunner – I like your point about the pre-ovulatory woman. Interesting, but I have a bit different take on this whole thing.

Men in this culture have been emasculated. Their traditional views have been marginalized. White men in particular have no voice. Look at young guys today, and there’s a certain femininity to them. They’re kind of… submissive. So, I think that women are being single mothers, because down deep, they don’t respect the PC men… nor should they.

I disagree about Obama being bad boy/good guy. Michelle rules that roost. He does very poorly among men. I see his slight body and slack stance, and I see weakness. He’s simultaneously narcissistic and self-loathing. I see him as the type to look for cover when things get physical. I just don’t see him as a leader of men. Men WANT to follow a strong leader!

I just think that women today have forgotten what a true Alpha Male looks and acts like, until they actually run across one of these rare beasts. A rare Hollywood example is Bruce Willis. Every woman I’ve ever met drool over him, and he ain’t pretty. They might get excited over some of the other stars, but HE makes them want to breed. You know what he used to do for a living? Bouncer at a bar.

Fact is, the nice guy these days is the Alpha Male. It takes real strength of conviction (read: balls) to stand up for traditional values. Problem is, so many women think so little of men, that they insist on running the show. The men give in, and that leads women to not respect them. Women are taught not to want to follow their guy; not let him take charge. Then, they’re miserable with him when he gets all passive on them. Thus, all the single moms.

The converse is also true. Most strong men I know would just as soon not have an American woman. Who wants to fight with his woman all the time? Mail-order brides is big business, and it’s not because men can’t handle strong women. We like strong women. Guys LOVE Sarah Palin! Todd’s the luckiest guy in the world! We just don’t want insecure, indoctrinated, domineering women. So, more single moms.

These single women then look to the government for the security they’re supposed to get from their men. Obama promises all this. He’ll take care of you. Guess what? He’s the kind who’ll leave you. He’s in it for him. Wham, bam, thanks for voting ma’am!

So many women today have such lousy taste in men. That’s the real reason the white birthrate is down to just replacing the numbers. The foreigners plan to displace us by sheer numbers. They’re plain outbreeding us.

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:50 am 213. Bob Murphy:

@Whiskey
“Married women depend partly on the success of their husbands. Single mothers not.”
Quite right. Most of them depend on the taxpayers to support them.
That’s real liberated. On someone else’s tab.

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:08 am 214. ridgerunner:

Marc, I agree that many men have bailed out of the real point of life: family. The problem is that easy contraception and welfare support combine with the double game that natural selection programmed into the human female. The tendency to seek those stealth inseminations presumably worked for women back in the Pleistocene, but now it leads to unstable or nonexistent relationships.

As for Obama having an alpha male personality, I agree that he doesn’t, but I suspect that many uninformed young women believe otherwise. He certainly is narcissistic. I have known two male malignant narcissists and both folded in a crisis. A result of the insecurity at the base of this personality disorder, I suppose. Certainly frightening in terms of national security if Obama were POTUS.

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:55 am 215. ridgerunner:

Wretchard,
If you ever feel the urge to ban Benj from the forum, you should follow through on it.

Oct 6, 2008 - 3:01 am 216. Ed Wallis:

This is a 6-part series, starting here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_HZMD97nMw

I believe it isi part 2 or 3 which deals with Ayers.

Oct 6, 2008 - 3:30 am 217. Bob Murphy:

@Benj
Of course Bill Ayers was more or less respectful to you.
The stakes weren’t high.
Get in the way of the big picture he envisions and see what happens.

Oct 6, 2008 - 3:45 am 218. ReCon USMC:

What bothers me more than anything is …. Every Single person in Obama background(ACORN , This Church of 20 YEARS , (Black Liberation Marxist in Kenya )Friends , Mentors , those he worked with have a great hate of Capitalism and a devout Love of Socialism –> Marxism .
THATS AMERICA’S PROBLEM WITH A DEVOUT PROVEN RACIAL SOCIALIST……. OBAMA .

Oct 6, 2008 - 5:33 am 219. Wadeusaf:

Watching and listening to what Dorn and Ayers addressing the MSU SDS reunion I am struck at how yes, they do not like what they call the imperialism, they do not like the capitalism, they do not like the system they do not control. What do they prefer? Well not something that can be readily identified as a failed system (ie socialism or marxism or leninism) not even a sliver of an idea of what would be better except that the present system is evil and must be brought to an end.

These are the sophisticates that “Oh” looks to for mentoring, and they seek “Oh” to mentor. Are they really that obtuse? Or do they publicly not reveal what they really believe for fear of the retribution of Tom Cruse and H. Ron or L Ron or they do run Ron Hubbard?

Beats the heck outta me.

BTW Benj, by the standards you seek to set, such U Tubers as these nuts record would never achieve fruition. It matters, but you protest too much the too little protest of an advocate of protest. Perspective, it isn’t running us down.

Personally I am amazed that Berg’s bit of civil lit still finds standing. Only in America I suppose.

Oct 6, 2008 - 6:30 am 220. Benj:

Well Damn Buddy – after my Testimonial, Wade goes and makes WRetch look like a piker and me sound like a fool!!!

AS per W (?) above…

“How many millions more will die if the Democrat party has their way in Iraq? In Iran? In Georgia? In Denmark? In Pakistan? In Egypt? In Jordan? In Lebanon? In India? In Thailand? In Mylasia? In Canada? In Columbia? In Mexico? In the United States? That is an awful lot of blood to wash off ones hands? Are you sure you are up to it?”

“Where’s the outrage?” – Hell – maybe Obama WILL win this in a landslide. Ya’ll are certainly LOSING it…

Oct 6, 2008 - 7:32 am 221. Mike Sylwester:

Steve Sailer has an interesting post speculating that Bill Ayers wrote Barack Obama’s autobiography.

isteve.blogspot.com/2008/10/did-bill-ayers-ghoswrite-obamas-memoir.html

The post’s opening paragraphs:

———-

Jack Cashill, author of the fine book What’s the Matter with California?, speculates that terrorist and Obama colleague Bill Ayers ghostwrote Dreams from My Father based on stylistic similarities between Obama’s memoir and Ayers’s own memoir Fugitive Days, especially in the more literary flourishes.

Cashill counts up a lot of nautical verbiage in both books, which makes sense for Ayers because he had once served in the Merchant Marine. Perhaps, though, Obama just read a lot of Melville and Conrad (He read Heart of Darkness at Occidental.)

Having read a few pages in the excerpt of Ayers’ book available on Amazon, Cashill’s idea sounds less crazy than I first thought. Cashill underrates the literary quality of other things Obama has written. Moreover, most of Obama’s paying jobs have been writing related — copy editor at a newsletter shop, briefwriter at his civil rights law firm. Obama’s tests for his law school classes were extremely lucid.

Still, I could imagine there is a connection between the two memoirs. Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not, but it’s a possibility.

Still, Ayers’s prose style tends to be breezier and easier to read, while Obama’s is more consistently verbose and poetic/pompous. ….

Oct 6, 2008 - 7:36 am 222. buddy larsen:

Benj, distilled, you’re saying that wretchard should shutup re USA internal affairs. Hear this, my friend –there ARE NO USA internal affairs. There’s the free world and there’s the other world, and that’s about it.

However, as you well know, the word “free” still leaves plenty of room for the so-inclined to try try try to push the thing a little this way or that.

Speaking of which, are you consciously aware of the fact that the domination showdown you seek with this blog host is emulative of the very nuance that has always troubled so many (of the sort that write here) about the leaders of ‘the movement’? In this case beginning with, as per Alinsky: you ‘chose’ your target (he didn’t choose you) and are now trying to meet the personal-and-personalized challenge to ‘freeze’ that target?

I could dig socialism a lot more if it hadn’t killed and miserablized so many folks over the last century. You should think about that some. This ain’t no party –this ain’t no disco –this ain’t no foolin’ around.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:06 am 223. Mike Sylwester:

Jack Cashill has several interesting articles speculating about the relationship between Obama and Ayers.

http://www.cashill.com/articles_all/recent.htm

He speculates that they knew each other at Columbia University in the early 1980s. They both seem to be acquaintances of Edward Said. Obama attended one of Said’s classes at Columbia. Said later wrote a blurb for Ayers’ autobiography.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:12 am 224. Konyok:

Benj,

I would hope that nobody is ever banned from the Belmont Club. (Shoot, I even miss American Muslim a bit. What a card!)

I also hope that BDS is not replaced with ODS.

It would encourage me no end if even one articulate Obama supporter were to express an understanding that the combination of press bias (In my paper’s TV section this morning the blurb for tomorrow’s debate says: “… expected to be much like last week, without the winks or You Betchas!”), Obama’s PC force field (Yes, AP is suggesting that Palin’s remarks about Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers carry a “racial tinge.”) and the personality cult around Senator Obama combine to form a pretty scary composite picture of the Democratic candidate to conservatives. In ways, many of us feel as you did after the Supreme Court decision in 2000, except we see it coming for months!

Senator Obama promised a “new kind of politics.” What does this mean? He certainly has a way of invoking principles that unite us all, but then stamps them with his logo. (Remember how you felt about “family values?”) Behind the candidate stand a motley crew of character assassins ready to to deal humiliation and slander on anyone timorous enough to criticize the post racial, post partisan uniter who offers us Hope and Change.

Sure, I understand that Democrats don’t want to be “swiftboated” again. But, are you blind to the sinister implications of a candidate with pretensions of higher moral standing, who is shown to have some questionable associations and explains them away as the beam in the eye of the viewer, and then allows his supporters and surrogates to literally smear the opposing vice presidential candidate. (Oh, yeah. That’s right – she quoted a Fascist!! Well, she quoted somebody who quoted somebody who expressed some antisemitic opinions and wasn’t quite enthusiastic enough in denouncing Fascism.) Don’t you see that all of these demands for special treatment of Senator Obama will catch up with him and with you some day? Ultimately none of this protects your candidate and when the tide turns it will be worse for him than it has been with Bush.

You see, Bush, and McCain are pretty transparent characters. Obama is opaque, what with all of that self reflection from his audience going on. Unless the stars all align perfectly and he really does prove to be the political genius of the century, his coalition of promises will not survive the tidal forces of the crises ahead. You progressives will then be in much the same situation as conservatives after Nixon.

I know that you really want to ascribe this perception to Wretchard. I assure you that is not the case. Personally, I have been dealing with this since seeing Obama in February. Maybe I’m more acclimated than most, or maybe I’ve watched it long enough to see that some of the edges are a bit tattered and torn. I don’t know.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:14 am 225. buddy larsen:

a must read –evil pundit’s link above –it’s a really excellent look at these polls by which apparently we live or die. Here it is again:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2008/10/the_numbers_gam.html

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:17 am 226. Konyok:

Benj,

You really should consider voting for Ralph Nader. He is the ONLY honest man in this race.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:23 am 227. buddy larsen:

Amen, Konyok. Secrecy is sinister –all by itself. It forms the question “why?”

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:27 am 228. buddy larsen:

Re Mike S above: if Obama has a relationship wirth Edward Said, and has kept it a secret, this should be dynamite for Jewish Democrats –”going soft” on the Israel alliance would be the BEST outcome.

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:36 am 229. Konyok:

“What if … ?” is usually a sterile exercise. But, in this case it might just help put things into perspective.

If the US presidential race had developed as everybody expected a year ago and the candidates were Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mitt Romney, would this be a continuing topic on this forum and what would people be saying?

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:58 am 230. pegpond:

Why doesn’t anyone ask Obama about Rezco a notorious slumlord and one of his his top Campaign contributors the person who’s wife purchased the land next to Obamas home in Chicago a purchase that allowed Obama to acquire the VERY NICE HOUSE he now owns. Why don’t they ask him why he didn’t pick up the phone and call Rezco and say hey Tony you’ve got the people who elected me living in third world condiditons what are you going to do about it, or is Rezco someone he just knew but wasn’t really friends with like Ayres. Ayres who Obama sat on a board who’s very group espousing to improve the conditions of schools in Chicago but whose true mission was to radicalize the students they espoused to help.
Why doesn’t anyone ask about Obama who worked as a Lawyer and trainer for Acorn, about Acorn, a radical group who espouses the teachings of Saul Alinsky who’s idea was to infiltrate the Government and destroy it from within. As a lawyer he represented Acorn in a lawsuit instrumental in the forcing of banks to write bad loans.
Acorn forced banks to give risky loans to uncreditworthy people with no money down, ie no vested interest. People with no real vested interest buy property increasing the price of real estate creating the housing bubble, and while artifially inflating the value of real estate which also increased your property tax. The republicans fought over and over for more regulation and oversight, but Andrew Mozillo, Countrywide/ Raines & Johnson of Fannie Mae along with their Counterparts and reciepients of the largest campaign contributions who are supposed to work for you the people not Fannie Mae, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, in fact all the Democratic Memebers of Congress voted against it. So Fannie sells these worthless mortgages to the Stock market and now we have a Crisis. The bad loans that should not have been made are being forclosed on and those foreclosures have now driven down the value of your property. Who wins Jim Johnson/Franklin Raines who made millions from Fannie Mae & The recipients of campaign contribushions , Dodd , Obama, Frank, Angelo Mozilo owner of Countrywide who did his bailout by selling his stock before things really got bad THEY SHOULD ALL BE IN PRISON. Who are the losers, You the American Taxpayer who has to pay for the Bailout that the Dems not only rushed to push through, (Jeez they wanted to help a Lame Duck Republican President) .We can blame it on Wall Street Greed like any one who buys an investment they bought it in droves because they were led to believe it was sound and insured . And now your Retirement Fund your 401K is not worth S***, So when you open your earnings report and go to vote in Nov. remember who got you into this mess. Loosers Americant Taxpayers who elected theses idiots.

I have heard Obama described as the Manchurian Candidate I see him as a Trojan Horse.

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:14 am 231. pegpond:

Oh and if anyone wants to cut & paste my Questions about Obama and write to the local newspaper, CNN or any other of the leftist media who has felt free to promote Obama Feel free you might also Question his relationships to Rev. Wright, Father Flager, Farakhan, etc.
I wonder if anything will come of the challenge to Obamas Citizenship?

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:23 am 232. buddy larsen:

You got it, pegpond. Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act mandating a certain amount of bad lending, and a political culture letting the bad paper steep hidden in the DC petrie dish until the plague broke out onto the world.

Yes, the Democrats are the mad scientists but who can be proud of the GOP not sounding Klaxon horns every minute of every day for the last few years since the quarantine (economic growth) starting breaking down?

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:50 am 233. fred:

Thanks, Buddy, for that link above. Went to it on a work break this afternoon and I feel more encouraged and hopeful.

The DJIA today reflects looming crises of liquidity in foreign markets and countries. I crunch the numbers of the BANKS and retail companies I follow, and right now the price to free cash flow numbers are astonishingly a bargain. Anecdotally, I cannot see around me signs where I live that people are jumping down into bunkers. More than anything else what has really caused the economic slowdown is ENERGY PRICES. Yes, there is a definite backlog of homes up for sale and have been for more than a year. But I think New Hampshire is less hard hit than some other parts of the country. Will we have a recession? I do think we will. Will we have a depression? No. There are factors which mitigate this that were not in place in the early 1930’s. There is no Smoot-Hawley Act. There is no gold standard preventing the Fed from injecting adequate liquidity into the system. We have FDIC.

Europe, on the other hand, is in big trouble. They have high interest rates, strong currencies, and falling exports. In several countries there have been housing bubbles too, which are in earlier stages of being put on the wall.

Asia has a problem with inflation. In China, for a long time there has been almost an insatiable demand for precious metals. That happens when people lose confidence in the worth of their currencies and/or banking systems.

Above all else, it has been the enormous tax of energy prices that has put the global economy in a weakened condition. It eats into discretionary income like nothing else, save the government take on your earnings. There have been too many unexplainable reductions in oil production in places like Russia and Venezuela simultaneously for me to pass that off as an unrelated event. I have my own thoughts about what it really was, what it means, and its purpose.

Could it be that extremely wealthy Russians put some of their money into the oil futures markets to juice things up a bit? Get it going and then get out when the party starts to heat up? The aim: make the economy a big factor in the upcoming U.S. election? The big prize: a POTUS who, with his party, will end the ballistic missile defense program.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:29 am 234. veracious:

All,

Sorry, I think the Ayers connect is small potatoes compared with the hundreds of billions of foreign dollars which have come into Obama’s campaign. His FEC filings continue to hide this and push it downstream.

Why is there no exposure of this outrageous rupture of the law? It is as if law has no meaning again, in the very land where the law is to be supreme. Nobody above it?

How about the serious question of whether Obama is even eligible to be president, ie. a native born American? Why is the law not enforced? not discussed? irrelevant? even in such intelligent forums as this one…

What has happened is that law has again lost its authority. We’ve relativized it all.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:30 am 235. veracious:

Must correct! My just previous should have been hundreds of millions. His campaign has garnered nearing a billion total.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:31 am 236. fred:

If John McCain pulls out a miracle, surely with all the enormous effort, the connections, the money, the Big Media, and the networks of socialists all working very hard to get power and to come up short would be a disaster for them of major proportions. One can only imagine how those people are going to cope with THAT.

George Soros is not getting any younger. He probably called in almost all of his chips to get this one. If he loses, it will suck to be him, as he faces the falling curtain on his life and with little to show for it.

Oct 6, 2008 - 11:49 am 237. buddy larsen:

Fred, they HAVE managed to make sure that the growth of private wealth won’t run them short of voters, or that the stock market will be a better place for our savings than the social security system.

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:13 pm 238. Konyok:

Is this the end of the EU?
Germany announces its intention to go it alone with a “national financial shield,” not participating in EU wide measures.

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:44 pm 239. buddy larsen:

Konyok, why does that bring to mind the Molotov/von Ribbentrop Pact?

Oct 6, 2008 - 12:56 pm 240. Konyok:

Just atmospherics, my friend. I just hope it isn’t a harbinger of Smoot-Hawley …

Oddly enough, the dollar is surging and the price of oil is plummeting. If we get back on the pony, we might just make it through this yet …

Oct 6, 2008 - 1:28 pm 241. buddy larsen:

Sometimes i say dumb stuff. But –the map & the natural resources problem make it better than even that the big Eastern neighbor will get his way and scramble the EU superstate before it gets far out of the cradle.

Oct 6, 2008 - 1:28 pm 242. Mike Sylwester:

Here’s an article from a newspaper published in 2002 reporting that Barack Obama worked as a community organizer in New York City (3rd paragraph):

http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/020110/mlk.shtml

That must have been when Obama was attending Columbia University in the early 1980s.

(Hat tip to TexasDarlin.WordPress.com

Oct 6, 2008 - 1:35 pm 243. Konyok:

Ah, but the neighbor never fully recovered from his serious, possibly fatal illness. He’s got a stabilization fund, but the oil income is drying up faster than anybody anticipated, plus he’s stuck with a whole lot of toxic US mortgage backed securities. His stock market has crashed and his people still keep their savings under the mattress. He will suffer a relapse and it will not go well with the current crop of oligarchs.

Oct 6, 2008 - 1:40 pm 244. fred:

Exactly my thoughts, Konyok, about what is happening in Russia. Aside from natural resources, one of which they engineered a falling production of, what does Russia have? A weapons industry that extends credit to failing states that might not be able to make the payments.

Oct 6, 2008 - 2:19 pm 245. Wadeusaf:

Benj,

In context, that was addressed to C4d, (and Biden too I suppose) more about withdrawing from the GWOT as was done in VN. Think either one will read it? I’ll never know.

Oct 6, 2008 - 4:46 pm 246. Ed Wallis:

Why all of my posts here with numerous links have been deleted I do not know.

Should the following already be referenced above, pardon. I consider the information in the fine 6-part series (Ayers highlighted in part 3, I believe) valuable to the discussion:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9F8A48061A962CDD

Oct 6, 2008 - 5:09 pm 247. Mike Sylwester:

Here is an an article from a 1997 newspaper article about how Michelle Obama invited Bill Ayers to participate in a panel discussion about the juvenile-justice system. Another of the discussion panel’s members was Barack Obama.

sweetness-light.com/archive/michelle-obama-had-ayers-speak-in-1997

Oct 6, 2008 - 8:08 pm 248. buddy larsen:

Now Barney Frank is saying that complaints about the FanFred global catastrophe are…ready? …“racially motivated”.

What in the world is wrong with this guy? The anger is not over the 20 trillion and counting that has evaporated from the wrecked & shattered global financial system (and the lives of the people who comprise it), no, that’s not it at all –the anger is over black folks getting mortgages. Yeah, Barney.

When it comes to lies, why not the most corrosive possible?

And BTW, thanks, Massachusetts, for Barney. And good luck with your state budget bailout appeal to the federal gov’t. You and the other liberal bastion, California. Hmmm…any similarities here, Mass & Cal both busted and needing the taxpayers to bail them out? What bad luck, doggone it!

Oct 6, 2008 - 8:25 pm 249. buddy larsen:

The Barneys of the world, so sanctimonious in their heapings of race guilt on all & sundry, in truth create the anger and distrust that then acts to validate their “help”.

Sick, destructive people, the white-collar government poverty-pimps (to borrow Bill Cosby’s immortal phrase).

Oct 6, 2008 - 8:36 pm 250. buddy larsen:

See Acorn, Send Acorn

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:10 pm 251. Ty1984:

What is truly frightening is how quickly the mainstream media and Obama supporters are to look over their Obama and Ayers) intimate relationship – even going so far as to make excuses. Should Obama win the election, this nation is doomed. We’ll be ushering in the era of Soviet America, lead by Glorious Leader Barrack Obama. Obama already has his brownshirts threatening riots in the streets if he isn’t elected, and the politicians and legal workers have already initiated gestapo tactics, preparing to bring suits against anyone who criticizes the man.

Obams is the personification of Machiavelli’s ‘Il Principe,’ ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ (though he seems to be complicit), and Saul Alinski’s collected works

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:31 pm 252. Travis B:

Once, Barrack Obama’s time as a ‘community organizer’ was compared to that of Jesus Christ. Yet Obama’s life story as a community organizer seems much more in line with a few other people who started their political careers as’community organizers:’ Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin, Mao

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:40 pm 253. buddy larsen:

The site –classical values –upthread, the link to the info on the polls, has in the comments a couple of remarkable URLs this HotAir on Ayers and this: “If you thought you were alone, you’re wrong.”

Oct 6, 2008 - 9:52 pm 254. Wadeusaf:

Buddy,

Did you see the opening of the Lehman Brothers CEO opening hearing? Henry Waxman grilling Mr. Fuld not about what happened or why, but about his compensation. I’m a little irritated about that tact. See wasn’t it the under President Clinton that CEO salarys were limited in the amount of cash awarded (to me an unconstitutional intrusion in and of itself) and that limiting forced the offering of stock options and other means of compensating the best and brightest, regardless of their performance.

That is another example of government tax and IRS interventions backfiring.

Also Waxman forcing the gent to move on in his oral recommendations and descriptions of the problem because it is in his written and submitted statement. Time constraints…maybe, understanding not at all.

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:00 pm 255. Benj:

Buddy, K and WAde – posted a response but it doesn’t seem to have taken – Too tired to re-up all of it now – So Quick –

@ Bud – Life during WArtime? That’s my prob – Mac vs. O is politics. It’s not war by another means…Since you’re a COen bro fan – look out for RAlph Stanley’s bluegrass pro-O ad – playing in VA – Oh Brother Where art THou?

@ K- praised your conservative skepticism to the skies but no time for that now!!! – my pillow’s calling so here’s the point I wanted you to consider — Think of your own past as a Trot – Your own CONNECTION to Ayers – the fellow VAnguard PArtier – I can honestly say, I NEVER went there – Always believed in Demos (for real). So did O. Never a vanguardist – always All-American. And on that score – just think what a contrib the guy’s made to his country. He’s pretty much singlehandedly DESTROYED the politics of race-based ressentiment (on the black-hand side). Done more in this campaign for our country than a thousand Tom Sowells could EVER do…ANd this is a pol that Wretch “despises” – Damn – he knows zip about the felt life of this country…

You’re taking Pegler down MORE than a peg. HE called JEWS GEESE!! He called for Bobby’s assassination. He ID’ed with White Citizens’s Councils – Ok – So you want to give Palin a pass for invoking this racist’s line on the moral superiority of the provinces. Then you should BOW DOWN to O for criticizing the racial provincialism of WRight AND for imagining form within (w/o contempt) the race-based movements of mind of some “local” white w.c. people – C’mon – his moral imagination is functioning on another plane than Palin’s. She don’t SCARE me. But do you really think she comes out well when you compare their responses to varieties of American racialism/provincialism?

WADE – I’m not feeling like Lady Macbeth – and I don’t mean Cindy- I’m not alone in believing with absolute sincerity that an embodiment of worldliness and liberal-mindedness like O is going to do a better job of pursuing the culture war against Islamist totalitarians than Mac (or W.)

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:25 pm 256. buddy larsen:

Wade, yes –i saw some of the hearing. Waxman is one of the reasons the 2006 election was such a total disaster for the free world –not to mention the aesthetic world. Anyhoo, i caught Rep. Chris Shays being ruled out of order for his protest that no witness would be allowed to discuss Fannie & Freddie –yes that’s right –no discusssion of F & F, Wade, in any of the five hearings scheduled –because Henry Waxman says so. The hearings are about the origins of the melt-down, and F & F are going down the memory hole, before the fact.

repeat: The hearings are about the origins of the melt-down, and F & F are going down the memory hole, before the fact.

Oct 6, 2008 - 10:52 pm 257. tanarg:

The only thing to do if the traitor is elected is to refuse to cooperate, in any way we can. How about a refusal down the line to pay the government a dime? Unrealistic? Well, what’s a better way to resist and get rid of a monster who’s hypnotized his way into the White House?

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:48 am 258. Konyok:

Benj,

To quote Dylan: I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.

Indeed, I was a vanguardist, banged my head against “false consciousness” until I realized that just maybe the working class knew something that the theorists didn’t. I think I understand Ayers fairly well, and I agree with Wretchard that he and Dohrn were and are serious.

As to Pegler, I don’t even remember his name until you bring it up again. From what you’ve told me, I would suppose that he was a garden variety reactionary without much lasting influence. (It may be solipsistic of me, but, I do consider myself a minimally literate person and I have never heard of him before reading your first post on this topic.) I guess that this establishes that Sarah Palin is not a serious literary critic. I’ll grant you that one …

As to Senator Obama’s contribution to this society, you’re gonna need to flesh that assertion out a little bit. Unless you mean in a simple McLuhanesque sense that he’s a “clean and articulate” black man. A Colin Powell candidacy would serve the same function. I just don’t see anything Barack Obama specific.

Indeed, what I do see is a danger in putting into place a chief executive with a racial anti criticism force field. One of the progressive concerns about the Bush presidency has been the unbalanced growth in executive branch discretion. In the context of what promises to be a protracted economic crisis, are you really comfortable with a president possessing the comparative advantage of dismissing his critics as *racist?* This may advantage policies that you like in the short run, but it sets a precedent that your opponents can use in future cycles.

Oct 7, 2008 - 8:31 am 259. Konyok:

Benj,

If you don’t mind me commenting on your point to Wade. I think that you are right in so far as Senator Obama does project a worldly, pluralist image. However, I think that it goes farther than that he could become anew incitement for jihadist terror. By strict interpretation of Islamic law, Barack Obama is required to identify himself as a muslim under pain of apostasy. That he chooses not to is considered an act of apostasy. Given that one of the primal grievances of islamists is the penetration of the ummah with infidel ideas and the danger of subsequent apostasy, an Obama presidency would be an existential threat to them. This would be a clear message to all that Islam is not quite as binding and all encompassing as thought. Further, that it is an acceptable path to de-muslim oneself in order to join the western world. I think that a first consequence of the inauguration of an Obama administration would be a flurry of fatwas and a great renewal of the jihadi cause which would now have a specific face to put to the threat they perceive against them.

Oct 7, 2008 - 9:56 am 260. buddy larsen:

several solid points, there, Konyok. hope the Binge is thinking ‘em thru.

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:39 am 261. buddy larsen:

I hope some curricula evidence of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and perhaps some interviews with past students, will surface in the news. Public needs more info than “…a program to radicalize children”.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:00 am 262. Konyok:

buddy,
One of my projects is circulating a petition among alumni of my alma mater demanding that books authored or edited by Bill Ayers be removed from required reading lists of courses in the Education department. I now have 86 signatures.

I don’t demand that they be removed from the library or that they not be discussed. I simply don’t think that the works of a one time terrorist who has not convincingly recanted be mandatory material for future teachers.

I got a real hoot out of “Teaching Science for Social Justice,” by Angela Calabrese Barton et al, William Ayers, ed. It makes creationist science look downright rigorous …

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:10 am 263. buddy larsen:

I’ll bet. Maybe you could quote us a para sometime, for giggles & gasping.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:42 am 264. buddy larsen:

Never a thought about prepping innocent, gullible, and malleable children for the rigors of making a living in the marketplace, I’m sure. Such thoughts being SO booj-wa.

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:45 am 265. Aristide:

Steve Diamond, in his Global Labor and Politics blog, exposes the NY Times white wash attempt.

The Sulzberger family has been in the newspaper business for a very long time. When they decide that they want to shape public perception they know how to do it.

Theirs is an important, even awesome, power in a mass society like the United States but it is a delicately balanced power – if they abuse their power they can lose their legitimacy and thus their power. That happened most recently to the Times when they promoted the idea that, indeed, Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. That helped lay the groundwork for a war the Times now believes was a mistake.

Thus, when they decided recently that the relationship between Bill Ayers and Barack Obama (a candidate already advocating another dangerous war!) was too important to ignore, yet at the same time so critical for their political purposes to debunk, their method had to be pitch perfect.

How did they do it?

More: Ayers/Obama Update: The David Blaine Award Goes to … The New York Times Magic Act!

Oct 7, 2008 - 11:59 am 266. Konyok:

That would be

Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness.”

The 8th point of the Black Values System still posted on Trinity United Church of Christ’s web site.

(I know Benj, we are diverting from the issues … )

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:04 pm 267. Aristide:

Mike Sylwester,

“Here’s an article from a newspaper published in 2002 reporting that Barack Obama worked as a community organizer in New York City”

Obama worked for NYPIRG around ‘84-’85′ after he left Business International and right before he went to Chicago.

Oct 7, 2008 - 12:17 pm 268. Benj:

@K. – Ed Lutwack pushed the point about O’s apostasy. But I think it’s a bit of a shuck. Isn’t the notion Islamist mad-men need new causes to fire em up the sort of nonsense that leads the dim left (and Hugh Hewitt) to tell us no-one should’ve published those Danish cartoons. And if Islamists do cite O’s apostasy, can we agree to agree that millions more Americans will be ready to say Bring It On. ALl Good from your pov if you can get past your feeling for (the BASE-IS-ALL) Bush and look toward a unified America fully up for confronting the Islamist threat…

Obama’s presence will underscore America’s promise to/in the World. And, as it happens, he’s a genuinely worldly guy. I’m pretty amazed at how folks here trust Johnny Mac’s instincts over O’s. It matters that this guy lived in Indonesia, spent real time in Pakistan and Kenya. Not as an above-it-all pol but as an ordinary person/traveler – His instincts are likely to be better than Mac’s all down the line…

PS As for Pegler – He’s a rather more significant figure in American history than, ah, Bill Ayers. It’s my understanding – dervied chiefly from George Trow who knew more about the history of American media templates than any modern culture critic – that Pegler is the originary model for the our current generation of right-wing populist blowhards – the Hannitys, O’Reilly’s, Rush. (Not that they know it, though Pat Buchanan certainly does.) … Pegler got lower than they can go because certain kinds of outright racism/anti-semitism are no longer acceptable but Pegler is the Peg…He’s anything but an insignificant figure and clarity about his example should probably inform analysis of the caricature that Palin has allowed herself to become…

PS Buddy – Haven’t looked at that Ayers antho you invoke – probably pretty bad – but, FYI, I don’t believe his book on Juve Justice is an anti-bourgie tract. As I recall, the book is shot full of A’s understanding – maybe there’s something to be said for living underground for a few years? – that getting some schooling, a steady job and STAYING OUT of the joint is not nothing. Not a book that I’d recommend exactly – doubt anyone could read it through! – but it’s better than you’d think. (Certainly a helluva lot more humane – and real! – than Late Pegler.)

Your line on that TEACHING book reminds me of something that happened when I had to help organize an academic tribute to my pop after he died – At one point some tenured radical type (a real doofus!) proposed to invite a critic who it turned out had trashed my pop’s writing. (COME ON DOWN – Piss on my pop’s grave!) I batted that suggestion away but his follow-up was to propose inviting a P.C. pedagogue who had once made a case for Ebonics adn a hair-style curriculum for black girls…I could just see my pop getting up from the dust to protest…Anyway – There is a LOT of nonsense spread by “progressive educators.” Trust me, I come from a fam that’s had many run-ins with p.c. orthodoxy. Not an expert on the Annenberg Challenge – but O certainly hasn’t encouraged “self-esteem” building curriculums in recent years. He’s come down hard against that b.s. – See the Father’s day speech – See his dis of “easy” High School voc ed in LA…If you’re interested in a Pres who’ll mount the bully pulpit to push for excellence in Ed in America /(though he won’t confuse that with teaching to the test!), I’d worry more aobut the in-curious creationist Palin than that cat who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law…

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:13 pm 269. Benj:

@ K – re COlin – No way me and my (younger ) cohort would have been, ah, “inspired” by Colin Powell. Aside from a few interviews allowing that Reagan was clueless about race and a willingness to speak – no, whisper – on behalf of Affirmative Action back in the day – Powell had nothing to offer liberals. Hiskid Michael is a straight-up conservative ideologue/apparatchik…The Powell Doctrine is not “The Audacity of Hope.” So. Powell gets no heavy white vote at the top. And the Brothers and Sisters see no reason to believe in American sweetness and light. Tried nad true dems rule (with a side-dish of ressentiment eaten hot). But things done changed now. Others can and will dance now. But – give credit to O – He swung first. I always value a genuine conservative’s refusal to be rolled by the Next Big Thing. (See those on the Right who have resisted the lure of Palin.) But sometimes – especially in America – you run into something truly orginal. Conservatives tend not to have a real good nose there…What the hey K. – Why don’t you trust me! I read My Life when I was a kid but I had the sense never to get the Trots!!!

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:49 pm 270. buddy larsen:

your dad was a public figure, benj?

Oct 7, 2008 - 1:57 pm 271. Konyok:

Ah, Benj.

I think that perhaps I made a couple of interesting points, but your response is mostly press release stuff, replete with ad feminae …

Ayers is much, much more influential than this Pegler guy, whatever his ur-influence on populist windbags. (Now, I have heard about Father Coughlin … ) Ayers was vice-president in charge of curriculum development for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) up until his name began to be mentioned in connection with Barack Obama. (I kid you not, Ayers disappeared from the roster about 5 weeks ago.) His works are used in a majority of Education departments in the United States. As you might recall, Bill Ayers was a conspirator in plots to set bombs likely to kill civilians. Surely more germaine than a quote of a quote, dontcha think?

I hear words coming from the senators mouth about education reform. Words. I see neither assertion nor proof of significant success stemming from the Annenburg Challenge, I don’t even hear any talk of lessons learned. All that I have seen and that you have seen is a very sincere and serious looking Barack Obama repeating the same platitudes and anecdotes that we’ve heard for years. (If he could get away with it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he winked. Maybe tonight?)

The Ayers influence has been in the educational mix long enough that we could expect to see some kind of success touted to justify the association. Ayers remains unrepentant and Obama must downplay everything.

I don’t think that the possible fatwas against a president Obama are a disqualifier. I do think that it is a datum that the American people ought to know before voting, don’t you? (I understand that it’s a subtle point. Senator Obama identifies himself as a Christian and I myself wince at the “secret muslim” crap.) I would be more comfortable with this if he and his campaign had public opinions about the Danish cartoon issues. I could see an Obama presidency as part of a cultural offensive against the fundamentalists, but, I have to squint really hard to see it. So far, Obama has proven pretty cowardly about taking any difficult stands. He reliably sticks to safe talking points. (Do you believe for a moment that Barack Obama is comfortable with an individual right interpretation of the 2nd amendment?) It seems more plausible to me that this is just another thing that they hope nobody asks them about.

It all adds up to a pattern of lots of perceptual bandwidth used to convey images and impression, but very little to communicate linear information. The iconography is pastel and pretty. The oratory is stirring and dignified. The spokespeople have a kind of Stepford people quality. (I get the daily e-mails from Plouffe et al., I see the same points repeated throughout the media and on forums … )

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:04 pm 272. Konyok:

Benj,

You’re … breaking … up … into …. incoherence.

Actually, you are revealing more than you intend. It’s becoming clear that your support of Senator Obama is on an aesthetic/emotional basis and not thoughtful analysis.

BEEP!
Thanks for playing.
You may take your seat with Storm-Rider.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:11 pm 273. buddy larsen:

Stepford people is soooo right –it’s subtle but it’s there. From Austan Golsbee’s practiced shucksism on down, these folks are role-playing about two times normal.

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:23 pm 274. Konyok:

buddy,

I think that I’m going to play Obama Bingo tonight. I’ll take some snippets from the Black Value System and the Communist Manifesto and make some cards. Every time The One alludes to one, make an x. Four in a row and Bingo!

Any suggestions for more sources of quotes and memes?

Oct 7, 2008 - 2:42 pm 275. buddy larsen:

If you can reduce it to 3×5s, you could do the Reagan Endearing Debater meme –the head-tilts & comic quizzicals, the jack benny timing, the genially amused friendly condescension –?

Oct 7, 2008 - 3:09 pm 276. Konyok:

Extra points if he manages a wink?

Oct 7, 2008 - 4:20 pm 277. Wadeusaf:

Benj,

Revisit Konyok’s points about pull. Pegler was no DeMott. But his views, good bad black and grey, are a part of the American as well as the human subconscious. Better to face ourselves then let stuff slip out Polly Freudianna like.

Your overreaching is more egregious then mine.

Wright preached to “Oh” for twenty years, Palin I dare say probably never heard of Pegler prior to the speech. Wright formed a community based political and social aliance with “Oh”, Palin and “Oh” weren’t even out of diapers when Pegler was dismissed from Hurst for outrages. America can dismiss a guy’s crazy thoughts but appreciate insight and even wisdom which notions do not rely on good or evil.

Hell Ayers and Wright are still fighting for air time and “Oh”s ear.

Oct 7, 2008 - 5:23 pm 278. Benj:

@ K re O and Islamism – Maybe I’m reading too much into O’s words but you’re not listening at all. Before the Wright/race speech Mickey Kaus explained how O HAD to have a Sister Souljah moment EARLY in the talk…O refused that cynical Clinton-era counsel. But NOT entirely. He did need to focus on a live enemy – an exemplar of evil. So his speech wouldn’t be all excuses. So who did he nail? – Not the Brother bearing the weight of the 400 years – but the “perverse” ideology of Islamists – Worked the point in beautifully in the course of embracing our “stalwart” ally Israel. (Words matter!)…O has a moral sense of who Americans might unite to fight! Sure, he has a tactical impulse too – Never said he wasn’t a pol!

Realize the graph above might be hard to read through. So I’ll make this one crystal clear. You’re absolutely WRONG re the relative significance of Westbrook Pegler and Bill Ayers. Pegler shaped “popular” American opinion for 30 or 40 years. He was one of the “men who made up our minds” – to use Walter Lippman’s phrase. It was his STYLE as well as his odious opinions that had weight that you can still feel if you’re fully alive to the flow of American history. Ayers’ writing has never mattered outside of the Academy. ANd when it came to Weatherman – read any history – Miller’s ” Democracy Is In the Streets” Hayden’s “Reunion” Gitlin’s “YEars of Hope, Days of RAge,” Sales’ “SDS” – OR just recall Murph the Surf’s testimony here at the CLlub – DOHRN mattered – Hot legs! Ayers was a follower…

@ Wade – the…ah BOOK and a couple issues are in the mail – Parcel Post so it MIGHT get there before the election!!

Oct 7, 2008 - 10:27 pm 279. veracious:

Meanwhile, back to a fraction of those hundreds of billion dollars of foreign influence, that being the hundreds of millions of them funding Obama. Atlas Shrugged provides some information at:

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/obamas_foreign_contributions/

Does anybody doubt that hundreds or thousands of millions of dollars cannot find a way to squeeze through $200 crevices, into campaigns?

How about into key political decisions, institutions and corporations via denominations large or small, directly or likely distant proxies all? Given the amount of money available and the value of the prize, it seems like the question might be why _wouldn’t_ this be taking place? Are those dollars stupid; unable to buy advice…?

Oct 8, 2008 - 6:27 am 280. Habu:

I have perhaps 95% of the post of today. One theme sticks out.
The number of contributors that waant someone else’s contribution s banned , or in the case of Benj Banned totally and the “suggestion” of W on What is acceptable to write about.

Secondly there has been a wholesale purging of my asking W what my offense was…he will no answer. That is not baiting , that is attempting to find out what was so terrible as to have me banished.

Add it all up and you get a very tightly constricted flow of ideas between the contributors with the overriding threat that if you do not conform you will be ban from the site.

Nahnsee last evening asked me to leave, usurping W’s preogative but you dont seee that today. George agreed with Nanhcee. W, while banning me without explaination then goes on to ask my patience and understanding about that which he refuses to tell me about.

Where I come from that is called bull shit. If he is so threated as to guide the thread down a narrow path then the free speech and the free flow of ideas means nothing to him.

And then to sanitize my questioning as to why I was banned, which was up long enough for many of you to see is mind boggling in that so many of you are so willing to accept it.

Niemöller had it right.

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

Now whether you like or dislike what I have written is totally beside the point .. some day he will come for you.

Oct 8, 2008 - 7:57 am 281. Konyok:

Benj,

Discussing politics with you is like debating evolution with a creationist.

Your cliched, stereotypical responses to every question about Senator Obama betray a religious fervor inconsistent with intellectual curiosity.
The creationist points to the flood of Lake Missoula (carving Grand Coulee in months instead of the expected millenia) as positive proof of a 9000 year old Earth, hence a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. It is their gotcha point. Presented with other evidence, the beleagured creationist simply repeats his point about Lake Missoula, with greater emphasis and force each time.
You behave in exactly the same manner. You profer your wellworn Pegler pebble like a magic talisman. And, of course, we’ve learned what a splendid chap your dad was. Bless his heart, it sounds like he was honest and courageous. But, his memory does not buy you an indulgence for incoherency. When that doesn’t work, you resort to childish ad hominum. (”You were a Trotskyite, so there!!”)
I find it fascinating that you and your, uh, *cohort* reject Colin Powell, a man of universally acknowledged accomplishment, as insufficiently *authentic* because he didn’t adopt the cultural stance that your critical theory sensibilities demand. That is the whole debate in a nutshell.
You have a religious worldview that is intolerant of different perspectives. I am a scientist and always persuable that my theory does not fit the facts or contains a fatal contradiction. Your babbling has not persuaded me.
You have had several times at bat and consistently bunted with tangential silliness, but always demand the respect due to a serious person.

Like I said, thanks for playing.
You may now take your seat with Storm-Rider to amuse each other with Pegler anecdotes and framed quotations.

Oct 8, 2008 - 9:21 am 282. geokster:

Konyok:

I have followed closely a number of online forums like talk.origins for years, and not only do the political leftists adopt the rhetorical style of the “creationists” they claim to abhor, they also have a liplock on their debate methodology as well. It even has a name – the “Gish Gallop”, named after Duane Gish, the fraud who developed it.

It works like this -
- when it’s your turn, you rattle off every one-liner you can fit in the time allowed that even remotely supports your position. It makes no difference whatsoever if these are true or hoax, have been thoroughly refuted decades ago, or make no sense whatsoever. Each one may take a hour to debunk, and your opponent in his minute has to refute dozens of specious claims.
- never defend your own positions with facts, scholarly analyses, documentation and evidence, of which you have none anyway. Therefore, simply act as if you had never heard your opponent’s question, just throw out another batch of one-line falsehoods when it comes to your turn again.
- “quote mining”, another unique concept developed by creationsists, is taking the words of famous proponents of the other side, and twisting them beyond recognition until they support your position. Pull words out of sentences to reverse their meanings, pull sentences totally out of context to make them say the opposite of what the author obviously meant.
- only debate in front of friendly audiences; creationists will only debate in religious venues and then pack the house with supporters (in politics we have the left-wing media in charge of the henhouse).
- only debate in formats that favor your methods. Avoid any debate that allows opponents to question each other or require evidence to back up your own statements. Therefore, always avoid written debates.

In this way, creationists spouting absolute nonsense can rightly claim that they have “won” every debate, even against top-notch scientists, because they were all rigged to begin with.

These tactics are only used by Young Earth Creationists (YECs), a tiny % of evangelicals, who are mainly against evolution and all that it implies.

Palin, by contrast, whose father was a science teacher, has stated that she believes that evolution should be taught as scientific fact, an opinion considered outright heresy by YECs.

Oct 8, 2008 - 10:13 am 283. Habu:

Another piece in the puzzle of Barack Obama has been revealed, greatly strengthening the picture of a man groomed by an older generation of radical leftists for insertion into the American political process, trading on good looks, brains, educational pedigree, and the desire of the vast majority of the voting public to right the historical racial wrongs of the land.

The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within. The party only lasted until 1998, when its strategy of “fusion” failed to withstand a Supreme Court ruling, but after, but the membership, including Barack Obama, continued to move the Democrats leftward with spectacular success.

Erick Erickson, editor of RedState, explained fusion in a Human Events article:

the remainder over at The American Thinker

Oct 8, 2008 - 11:09 am 284. Habu:

How does he do it?

He posts.

RF spemds somebodies time deleteing. far out dude

Oct 8, 2008 - 11:11 am 285. Konyok:

geokster,

You are a gentleman and a scholar, sir.

I’ve seen it in action and now I can give it a name.

cheers!

Oct 8, 2008 - 11:17 am 286. Konyok:

Habu,

I vaguely remember a polite little buzz about something called “The New Party.” When I checked it out it just seemed silly, so I zoned it out.

You’re right about this, it is the critical nexus of The One’s candidacy. Fusion is the condensate of zen socialism.

Oct 8, 2008 - 11:20 am 287. Habu:

Pascal,

This is one of the very few areas, venues, however one chooses to characterize it where you are charge with and offense but the prosecutor will not allow you to know the charges. I believe that happens in totalitarian countries and back when witches were burned at the stake.

All I have asked W from the beginning was to tell me what I had done wrong, He refuses.

Yes, yes, I know all about it being his blog etc, but one would assume that a man of his intellect would have no qualms about outlining the specifics of the offense which put me under the guillotine. And even more fantastic is that not one of you will ask him. Some of you in the past have said, hey ,Habu , good point, but not one of you is willing to risk your position to ask W what is normal in all equity , that being what was his offense. You are all willing to bend you knee to him to post on his blog.

I hear a good deal of talk the talk, but no one so far has walked the walk. And yet many will shout out what a fearsome foe America would be. Well, you couldn’t prove it by this groups collective silence. Wait until you cross some line you didn’t know existed, ask where the line was and be met with imperious silence. Then you might understand.

Oct 8, 2008 - 11:46 am 288. Habu:

Pascal,
Perhaps a bit of history of the Belmont Club is in order.

About five or six years ago it was the salon to be read and to contribute to. It was a hit. The Wretchard closed it, many say because it got too folksy. It was reopened but not before The Elephant Bar Blog had opened and everyone had gone over for free and open discussion.

W’s contributors fell to 5 to 10 per thread.. Sometimes none. They stayed there for years.

Meanwhile the Elephant Bar Blog was growing and growing. They have some great contributors and despite my locking horns with several of the alpha contributors in very contentious ways the owner has never barred me. Never. They talk the talk and walk the walk. There’s a female contributor over there who has taken every blow a person could take but she dusts herself off and comes back with her say. She is very bright and one of the most effective Platonist questioners you’ll ever encounter.

The owners writing has grown very, very good equaling anything on the internet,. And he is a successful businessman with other full time duties. His main contributor is a formidable debater, another highly , and I’m not using hyperbole, successful businessman, loaded with facts and when necessary a sharp tongue, but used judiciously (usually on me, we’re not tight friends).

The point is this is W’s modus operandi. Imperious behavior, no explanations ever offered, simply bend you knee and genuflect. I was never asked to do any of that at The Elephant Bar. And if it comes to foul language or other ad hominem attacks, yes you’ll get warned , usually by the contributors that you are out of bounds. But you always know where you stand.

Oct 8, 2008 - 12:27 pm 289. buddy larsen:

“Zen socialism” is a case of their throwing a pebble at you so that you won’t see the totalitarian cannonball coming right behind.

Oct 8, 2008 - 1:17 pm 290. buddy larsen:

Would a link to Eric Erickson’s article be difficult to post –? Hate to be so lazy –but obviously i don’t hate it all that much –

Oct 8, 2008 - 1:24 pm 291. slade:

RE: the New Party

Soros and others funded and organized the Democracy Alliance in 2004 that (allegedly) resulted in Democrats winning seats at state and federal levels. Stephanie Power, ex- adviser to Obama on foreign policy, is a member, as is Brzenzski. Money talks.

Oct 8, 2008 - 1:55 pm 292. Benj:

@ Habu – You probably don’t want me on your side – but of course I’m interested to know the reasons why your stuff was un-posted…I lost a post or two along the way – but always figured it was just tech reasons, should I wonder?

@ Konyok – yesterday your tone was pretty different – you asked for example – “If you don’t mind me commenting on your point to Wade…” One day later, I’m suddenly unworthy of your wisdom? Wha’ppen? …I’m guessing my tone was off when I invoked your days as a Vanguardist. I really wasn’t aiming to score a point! Consider that I’d just praised you to the skies – am I then going to resort to ad hominens a sec later? I was actually trying to get you to think through Obama’s own refusal of sectarianism back in the day when you’d given in. Sorry if my jocularity fell flat as Mac’s last night.

Sorry too re refs to my pop – I figured the thread was all but exhausted and nobody was listening cept a few folks whom I got personal with before. My bad.

Realize you might have tuned me out now – but, ah, Honor (?) calls so…

1. I have a different sense of Pegler’s significance (and I know from Ayers a bit). You noted before that you were a geologist – For better and (chiefly) worse the history of cultural criticism – and radical politics – in Europe/America may be my only area of expertise. Is it possible I may know something you don’t on that front?

2 Re Powell – Surely I’m not alone in believing that Obama is a singularly gifted political communicator and a pretty charismatic guy. And surely you’ll allow that COlin Powell doesn’t have a record that would be particularly appealing to people who identify with the traditions of American liberalism. I don’t know why you’re so upset about me pointing out that fact except that it makes it harder for you to diminish O’s achievement. (BTW – If you check Kanan Makiya’s account of Powell’s negative relations with Iraqi democrats – See “INside the Whale” at the FIRST website – you’ll understand why I’ve been particularly skeptical of Mr. P. in recent years. Though I didn’t bring all that up as the subject wasn’t my personal angle on Powell – but how Obama connected with (big D) Democrats in a pretty unique way.) I don’t know why I’m persona non grata for arguing O brought something to the game that Powell couldn’t. And the possibility of O changing thAt game depended on him being able to vitalize a liberalism (which had been left for dead for DECADES), infusing it with a personal narrative and facts of feeling. You claim that I repeat myself, but I hear you claim that O’s “opaque” – over and over. To me – and to David Brooks! whose no ideological friend of mine – Obama’s politics have been remarkably consistent. O leans left but he aims to underscore his liberal-mindedness rather than a correct political “line.” He’s not a sectarian. At the risk of being accused of hitting you below the belt – I figure YOU should give him some for that, no?

Oct 8, 2008 - 2:20 pm 293. Habu:

Benj,

And just to claify;initially this entire thing must have begun with something I wrote. The result of that “something”, the nexus of my protest is that with no warning at all I could no longer pull up the subsequent threads in the normal fashion.

I asked W if he had pulled the switch. In a poetic way he said yes, but would not tell me why. I pursued the cause to no end. He is stone silent on what I did to deserve being cut off. I am only here through a back channel; his intent was to shut me off.

So that is where it is. It is his way. It is not a way most any person but one with an imperious attitude would take, but he has shown this behavior before.

I have pointed out that if it can happen to me it can happen to any of you at any time and you will probably have no idea why.

People set blogs up for all sorts of reasons and those that take comments should expect to receive them. I know I had not used abusive language or consistently attacked any one poster so I am in the dark as are all of you.

And my point about how much courage it would take for the contributors to ask, “what did Habu do? isn’t the same as fighting in a firefight or serving with General Custer, but not ONE person has asked him. Some have courage and others do not. Some need the validation they get here, others do not. But the group dynamic of not a single soul asking why strongly suggests that this is a group of sycophants in desperate need of validation. In horror many of you look on at my continued attempts to get an answer and come to the conclusion that I must be a brigand to pursue an answer when the king has made it apparent that he will not give one. I say how puling a group has gathered to look on and say nothing.

Oct 8, 2008 - 5:11 pm 294. Habu:

Benj

I appreciate the words. I really don’t know your writings or philosophy but thank you.

And just to claify;initially this entire thing must have begun with something I wrote. The result of that “something”, the nexus of my protest is that with no warning at all I could no longer pull up the subsequent threads in the normal fashion.

I asked W if he had pulled the switch. In a poetic way he said yes, but would not tell me why. I pursued the cause to no end. He is stone silent on what I did to deserve being cut off. I am only here through a back channel; his intent was to shut me off.

So that is where it is. It is his way. It is not a way most any person but one with an imperious attitude would take, but he has shown this behavior before.

I have pointed out that if it can happen to me it can happen to any of you at any time and you will probably have no idea why.

People set blogs up for all sorts of reasons and those that take comments should expect to receive them. I know I had not used abusive language or consistently attacked any one poster so I am in the dark as are all of you.

And my point about how much courage it would take for the contributors to ask, “what did Habu do? isn’t the same as fighting in a firefight or serving with General Custer, but not ONE person has asked him. Some have courage and others do not. Some need the validation they get here, others do not. But the group dynamic of not a single soul asking why strongly suggests that this is a group of sycophants in desperate need of validation. In horror many of you look on at my continued attempts to get an answer and come to the conclusion that I must be a brigand to pursue an answer when the king has made it apparent that he will not give one. I say how puling a group has gathered to look on and say nothing.

Oct 8, 2008 - 5:16 pm 295. buddy larsen:

Habu, old friend, i for one have no earthly idea what you’re talking about in this latest instance. I don’t fine-comb these threads and actually skip many of ‘em just due to time constraint. However. You gotta admit –this sort of squabble between you and various blog hosts is not news anymore –it’s standard activity and expected –it’s you working the territory that interests you –the First Amendment angles, the exposure of double standards (if any) angles, the anti-authority angles against blog owners, etcetera. It’s your role –and you’re usually right about the principles involved –but you can hardly expect to gin up grass roots rebellions anymore, due to the familiarity of the cause celebre. It’s interesting to see you work the issue –but we understand by now that you’re doing it as if a defense attorney in a courtroom, dramatizing to draw in the jury. But don’t stop –just remember where the line is –don’t over-agitate the jury IOW –my .02 cents –

Oct 8, 2008 - 6:40 pm 296. Habu:

Buddy,

Dicky Fernandez just blocked me from the blog one day for a reason he won’t tell me. At the time I was on my best behavior which is passable. I’m getting in through the back door to post.
I’ve been trying to get him to say what cause the black out but I’ve known since the first sentence he’d never deign tell so I attempted , and I am satisfied I did, make people think of him in a new light….as the ass he can be. Which in this case he is.

You know darn well that I’ve never given a hoot about being popular but I usually get my facts straight and that’s better than 99% of the “opinions” I read.

All I asked for was a reason. I get silence.

I have learned from my experiences and I can assure you, and I did not provoke the matter although something moved Dicky to bounce me.

His modis operandi is well known too for doing just what he did five years ago. Just slam the door on everyone and kick them out..we all went to the Elephant Bar. There I was never kicked out I left because I couldn’t agree with DR on anything and I knew he had all the support.

I’ll be outta here. Not a soul will miss my input which will cause me, I promise you , no grief at all.

Oct 8, 2008 - 8:44 pm 297. buddy larsen:

well, i’ll miss you. i’ll never forget how hard you tried to warn us about the coming banking collapse, way back nearly a year ago was it?

Oct 8, 2008 - 9:04 pm 298. buddy larsen:

anyhoo, Dale Carnegie would answer your grievance with a suggestion that you avoid putting a respondent in a position where to answer you is to demonstrate submission. But that takes away the duel of intellects –which at any rate others may not be always at the ready and in the mood fer. But you know that –

Oct 8, 2008 - 9:11 pm 299. Benj:

@ Buddy – a quickie – I missed your ask earlier in the thread re those financiers. Don’t sound like my cup of tea! But I think I should add that the American Think piece’s instinct to treat Soros-ish 527s as if they were wholly in the flow of O’s campaign won’t quite do. One thing O did early on – before he started campagning – was to make a point of criticizing (gently but pretty rigorously) a basic thesis of Kos/Move On type activists. (He did this at the Kos site.) Their analysis – echoed by thousands of dem party “activists” – was that the Dem party wasn’t partisan enough. They wanted (w/o going to Weatherman extremes) to heighten the contradictions and read the impure out of “their” Party (which, as that Move On guy claimed, they assumed they owned due to their fundraising). But O. understood the challenge facing the Out party VERY differently. He wanted to draw clear lines (on economic matters especially). But he wanted to switch the template from “activism” (i.e. our ideas are morally superior) to organizing (i.e. let’s OPEN this process up)…Since O’s stress is on recruitment – purity and correct lines are NOT his thing. Soros and his type are top-downers. Their idea of politics is fundamentally elitist. O’s criticism of the activist-net-roots-single issue ‘leftists’ ” on the left bank of the dem party was originally just words. But. When he elevated his net-based fundrasing game, his argument took on a new weight. Once he did that – the need for Move On and Kos and Soros and his kind became LESS significant than the prospect of registering that mass of new black voters in, say, North Carolina…I’ve talked process here before – but it really is NOT divorced from O’s policy/philosphy. It goes to the heart of his politics.

If you’ll permit another personal comparison – out of proportion of course but… (and hey I’m not invoking fam ok!)… – When me and my boys started trying to find funders for the newspaper we put out – I had a chance to get One Big Donor early on. Realized if we went that route, we’d be at his mercy. ANd I wanted to be absolutely free to print ANYTHING. So no go. WE held out for a mix of funders and aimed for a steady revenue stream that wasn’t tied to any one individual (or lobby). That way we weren’t under any One Thumb. And when 9;11 went down , we turned out to be the only rag on the left that said No in Thunder to the conventional left thinking re the Roosting Chicks, AFghan and Iraq etc. We ALSO published more standard left critiques of Bush policies – And that was in part about REcruitment – bring in the pc. readers and Confront w/ a better argument! …We might not have been ABLE to stay free of conventional wisdom if we hadn’t minimized our obligations to any single money-man. On an infintely grander scale, that’s what O has managed to pull off. It’s one of those instances where process frees him up to be something other than an ideologue even though he’s obviously on the left side of the dial. I KNOW O has been fully conscious of what his campaign has done on this front. It’s one of the reasons why I think he’s more than wind – And more than a member of the fucking lucky club…

@Habu – Might let me know WHEN – and in what thread – you started having your most recent probs with W. – Best, b.

Oct 8, 2008 - 10:02 pm 300. PolitioStan:

“The New York Times looks at the relationship between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. It concludes that Obama may have downplayed his relationship with Ayers, but believes the relationship between the two was not close.”

Well if the NYT says it thats all I need. ~)

Both sides are trying to dissect and quantify a Obama and Ayers relationship.
I Don’t Care.
“a Obama and Ayers relationship”
That is the Issue!
If you knew Bill Ayers’s history was would you knowingly walk into the same room with him?
What you visit his house?
NO & NO
The fact Obama has knowing associated with a known terrorist should legally disqualify him from running for office. PERIOD

~Stan

Oct 8, 2008 - 10:08 pm 301. venividivici:

If there was ever a face that demanded the butt-end of a rifle or a jackboot be forcibly applied to it multiple times, surely that face is William Ayers’. May I some day have the privilege.

Oct 8, 2008 - 10:28 pm 302. Wadeusaf:

Benj,

Pegler was like gas, he takes whatever shape the container allows, and impresses only as much as volume is limited. He was not a shaper of thinking, as much as a looking glass of thought and to an extent emotion. It is fitting that the container that most shaped him was the Hurst press. Still his writing could on occasion put down some stirring and lasting sentiment. Like that Palin quoted. Yo would judge her by association with a thought, when there is other more valid and valuable measuring devices handy.

I (along with some large millions of Americans) am seeking some means to measure “Oh”, can only observe to tell how he acts and reacts under pressure and under the magnifying glass, as nearly all other evidence of existence it seems is being withheld, or is non existent. Your insightful interpretation of “Oh”’s words, are a tribute to your own skills, you elevate “Oh”’s words to a place where they nearly take on the significance of a deed in and of themselves. But the reality is, “Oh”’s words have not inspired to greater good or unity, for mixed with the deeds done in this election season, they have laid out a divisive trail. We are learning that “Oh”’s sentiments have inspired and trained various activities of Acorn, whose ties with both the subprime lending scams and voter registration fraud, makes them potentially the most wanted of all the pictures posted in the post office. Fraud and corruption already proven in multiple elections (with convictions) has it appears not slowed the activities of Acorn. The CAC record of distributing funds to Acorn and other frauds only serves up more doubt about “Oh”s deeds and intentions. The larger slap in the face of monies marked for Acorn in the bill to rescue lenders of sub primes, is more than a patient man should be asked to accept. These are “Oh”’s actions, “Oh”’s deeds and not just “more words”. I think another speech is in order, but I doubt there is enough prime broadcast time available to explain or distance or challenge our better angles er angels.

“Oh” lied about his association with Resko.
“Oh” lied about his association with Ayers.

I see the lies and have grown to expect more of the same,
“Oh” lied about his association with Wright.
“Oh” even lied about the beliefs of Otis.
So is should come as no surprise to anyone that he lied about father Pfleager too.
And bonehead doesn’t explain the behavior anymore. And it certainly doesn’t explain the relationships or the ties to so many shady creatures in his inner circle of friends. One good deed, among a growing recognition that there is a pile of not so good deeds. There is a pattern of suppression of fact, a pattern of manipulation this is not just any ordinary politician. He has the talent and touch to be a greater crook by far than Tammany or Daily had ever imagined.

Well he lectured on Constitutional law, I suppose we will learn very quickly if his class was worthwhile.

Oct 8, 2008 - 11:50 pm 303. vivo:

Who gives a damn about Ayers?

Oct 9, 2008 - 3:25 am 304. buddy larsen:

well, kudos for your loyalty & perseverence, benj, no matter right or wrong –

Oct 9, 2008 - 1:04 pm 305. Sally Frinddly:

The Ayers family picked and groomed Obama for political office. Obama and Ayers shared similar socialist, Marxist views and Ayers gave Obama credibility. Without the Ayers connections there would be no Obama in politics.

Questions that need to be answered and the Obama campaign is not giving any:

- How did Obama get into Harvard Law School? (What were Obama’s grades at Columbia University?)

- Who sponsored Obama or got him into Harvard Law School? (Friends or associates of the Ayers?)

- How did Obama pay for his tuition and living expenses at Harvard Law School? (Friends or associates of the Ayers?)

- How is it that Obama got a summer job during Harvard Law School with the Chicago legal firm Sidley Austin the same law office that Bill Ayers wife and terrorist, Bernadette Dohrn, worked at? (This is also the law firm used by Tom Ayers, father of Bill.)

- In mid-1988, Obama traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his Kenyan relatives for the first time.
Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988.
How did Obama pay for that 8-weeks of travel to Europe and Africa then also pay for Harvard (plus living expenses??? All on a low-paid Community Organizer pay check? Who was sponsoring Obama??

Oct 9, 2008 - 2:59 pm 306. buddy larsen:

So we have an expert on the American Constitution emerging from a Marxist/terrorist milieu to become President of the United States? Bet he got really pissed at Hugo Chavez the other day for saying that America needed a new Constitution. Like “Jeez, Hugo –shhhhhh!”

Oct 9, 2008 - 3:19 pm 307. Wadeusaf:

“As for O’s “lying” re Rezko, A and Wright – That seems overwrought to me…”, No, it is a matter of record that is not overwrought.
You do have a point about his first instinct, but I think it is one that would only serve to cause far more trouble than any good amount of counter punching could resolve. His first response is dangerous, just as the first impression of him is also a danger, to him and potentially to us.

Just an aside While I am aware that it is a few bad apples, it is the positioning of those apples in the barrel that spoils the lot. The vote is not a right, but an obligation of responsible citizenship. IMO. Willy nilly abrogation of election law using fraud is not just a felony, it is an act of treason, a break of trust and a defilement of the constitution on which this country was founded. If a town wants to let guest working temporary citizens vote on dog catcher or even mayor is that towns decision. But voting for national office is reserved for those who are legal residents over the age of 18 and not felons. What acorn does is bend the law, knowingly, in favor of illegals by means of multiple exchange of ids until a valid one exists to say they are a citizen. We do not need a border fence or law to provide the kinds of id which is being used successfully in Iraq, and is being introduced in Europe, which is now viable in determining for this nation who is and is not a resident of the US. I only know that the lack of such law aids and abets the voter fraud, aids and abets foreign students over staying visas and aids and abets the running of drugs and other objects of illegal black market and sex trade.

Even without the biometrics a data base is easily attainable, but for the objection of the Democrat party.

Because of the objection of the Democrat party, there is a laundry list of stuff that has been left unattended, needs tlc, and just a little common sense.

Because of the objections of the Democrat Party leadership, I have no hope that any real efforts to reform will be undertaken in an “Oh” presidency,

Oct 9, 2008 - 6:02 pm 308. Gaffe Prices:

Since the motto of Democrat Party is ‘Quid pro quo’, then there are policy questions concerning their relationship. Would Ubama appoint Ayers to be Sec. of Education? And what about uberstormfuhrerin Dohrn? Sec. of Homeland security?

Oct 10, 2008 - 3:30 am 309. obama fails in chicago, dodges questions with the help of the media « Flesh & Spirit:

[...] or small change. A fresh way to look at the Obama/Ayers connection was stated by a commentor, but Richard Fernandez gives a good summary: One of Glenn’s [Reynolds] readers has flipped the question and argues that [...]

Oct 10, 2008 - 6:28 am 310. Sensible Voter:

Some of the CAC money went to Rev. Wright’s church (I think through the Woods Foundation, a secondary foundation Obama was on the board of in addition to the CAC board. Some also went to an organization that Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers wife, worked on – oh, BTW, Dorhn and Michelle Obama worked for the same Law firm at some point – so the Obama and Ayers relationship is possibly MUCH deeper than people imagine or than Obama would have us know.

Check out the You Tube video of one of the victims of Ayers groups bombings… I’m putting part 2 on here because that is where the information is.

John Murtagh speaks to Greta Van Sustern – Pt. 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx1OhB5ooUM

Factcheck anyone? Oh, I forgot – Factcheck.org is an arm of the Annenberg Foundation… the same one owned by Walter Annenberg who gave 100 million to the city of Chicago, where the $49 million came from to fund the Annenberg Challenge. Can they be unbiased? Maybe… but they are a bunch of “journalists” straight out of the left fork of the Main Stream Media River… Let’s see how honest they are and ask them to factcheck this info or see if it is there already.

Oct 13, 2008 - 8:45 am 311. Expressions:

There shouldn’t even be a relationship. The fact remains there is terrorist association, and the left-wing illuminati are saying this is okay. Then the media gets upset when it is discussed. The truth needs to be told.

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Nov 5, 2008 - 12:17 am

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