What's Wrong With Senator Obama?
I’ve been trying to stay away from more discussions concerning His Eminence, but the following articles leapt out at me. All through the presidential campaign we have been watching Senator Obama change and refine previously stated positions on patriotism, on Reverend Wright, on his grandmother, on bombing Pakistan, on his relationship with Rezco, etc., etc., etc.; but for the past few weeks we have been showered with position changes on everything from public financing to Iraq to gun control to FISA. What’s going on?
Some, like Bob Beckel in the article below (Beckel is a very long-term Democrat strategist and spinmeister), are trying to put across the idea that this is a very normal movement to the center – reflective of Obama’s true positions on important matters. I disagree. Nothing in Obama’s background or voting record would suggest anything other than a far, left-wing belief system. He has simply not taken moderate positions on anything in the past. From previous comments, his earlier refusal to honor our flag and long associations with the likes of Reverend Wright and the bomber, William Ayers, I believe that he and his wife are hate-America liberals, and that these new positions are essentially lies being told to fool that large segment of the voting public who have not really been paying attention yet – that they (the Obamas) are really very moderate in their views.
It's up to those of us who have been paying attention to make sure the truth is known to the voters before November, not by sending out e-mails full of false charges, but with the TRUTH - just as the Swift Boat Veterans did duing 2004.'What's Wrong With Senator Obama?'
By Bob Beckel July 11, 2008 Real Clear Politics (Excerpt)
"My 14 year old son loves Barack Obama. He plays the "Yes We Can" music video by will.i.m so often he can recite Obama's New Hampshire speech (from which the video was made) word for word. Obama gave his 'Yes We Can' speech after losing the New Hampshire primary to Hillary Clinton. That refrain, meant to encourage his supporters after the loss, quickly became the mantra for Obama's campaign.
Far from needing encouragement, his supporters were energized by the New Hampshire defeat. My kid kept bugging me to get behind Obama. I tried to tell him as a political analyst for Fox News I had to stay neutral. He wasn't buying that and reminded me that his grandfather (my dad) had been involved in the civil rights movement and "if granddaddy was still around he would be for Obama". That was followed by "you're a wuss".
So I was a little surprised last week when my son asked me, "What's wrong with Senator Obama?" I asked why. "Because he sounds different", he says. Thinking the kid was referring to Obama's recent moves to the center on some issues I tell him every candidate for president repositions for the general election. My son gives me one of those teenage 'what planet are you on' looks and says, "never mind."
It took awhile but I realized my point about Obama's repositioning on Iraq, FISA, etc meant nothing to my kid. All he knew was that the "Obama of Summer" was somehow different than the Yes We Can "Obama of Winter" - and it bothered him. To my kid it wasn't a question of issues, but a perception that somehow Obama had changed. As Barack Obama learned this week it is a perception shared by thousands of his supporters who do understand the issues and, unlike my son, can vote.
So being an astute political analyst I went to YouTube in search of a clue to my kids concerns. I bring up the Yes We Can video which I hadn't seen for several months. I play it once and I'm moved. I play it twice and I must confess I get a bit emotional. For comparison I watch the video of Obama's press conference last week in North Dakota in which he tried to clarify an earlier statement about perhaps "refining" his position on Iraq after a trip there later this month.
Listening to both videos I get it. Obama did sound different. He was defensive, and I sense a bit annoyed that he was forced to explain himself in North Dakota. But the reaction from the press and many of Obama's supporters seemed to me shrill and politically naïve. After all, Obama, on this and other issues, was only repositioning for a broader electorate, something every presidential candidate before him had done.
Sure Obama appeared to be modifying his issue positions a lot lately, but most presidential candidates lock up their nomination early, allowing the art of repositioning to be more subtle. In Obama's case the protracted battle with Hillary Clinton did not allow him the luxury of time to be subtle. Apparently his supporters and some in the press just didn't get that point.
But the amount of angry internet traffic to Obama's website suggesting he was abandoning his positions apparently hit a nerve. In a town hall meeting this week Obama was forced to address the charges and to defend his progressive credentials. He blamed the criticism from "my friends on the left" and "some of the media" on their preoccupation with assuming a political calculation is behind every move he makes.
That response, coupled with Obama's North Dakota press conference and watching the Yes We Can video, began to clarify the "Obama of Summer" problem with his supporters. To a guy like me, who has been involved in many campaigns, what Obama was doing made sense. But to millions of Obama supporters (most having never been near a political campaign) Obama's general election repositioning stood in stark contrast to his 'elegance of defeat' in New Hampshire.
I finally got it. While I was holding Obama to a typical political standard, his supporters' standard, forged in the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, was more elevated and exacting. To them, the "Obama of Winter" had been a calling, while the "Obama of Summer" was causing an uncomfortable disconnect (as evidenced by a decline in the percentage of Obama supporters who tell pollsters they are 'totally' verses 'probably' certain to vote for him).” Real Clear Politics
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What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
By Philip Klein
7/11/2008 The American Spectator (Excerpt)
"AMERICA HAS ENDURED liberal presidents before. Jimmy Carter's single term in office was an unmitigated disaster, but it brought us eight years of Ronald Reagan. Bill Clinton's early stumbles ignited the Gingrich Revolution. Though Clinton's presidency contained personal political triumphs, he never advanced the liberal agenda in any permanent way, and welfare reform is one of his few domestic accomplishments.
On the other hand, there is Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal created the welfare state as we know it, and more significantly, changed the psychology of Americans so that they would look to government to solve their problems ever after, a legacy that Lyndon Johnson built on with his Great Society programs.
If he's elected president, there are certain items on the liberal wish list that we can expect Barack Obama to fulfill, especially given the likely expanded majorities he will enjoy in Congress.
The Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire, resulting in the largest tax increase in the nation's history. Democratic legislation that cleared the House in the Bush years only to be blocked by a Senate filibuster or Bush veto, will get passed and quickly signed into law by Obama. Chief among these will be an expansion of the government-run children's health care program S-CHIP and "card-check" legislation, which will deny workers access to a secret ballot when voting on unionization, thus allowing big labor to expand its membership through intimidation. Obama also can be expected to appoint liberal judges to any court vacancies that arise during his administration." The American Spectator
Labels: Liberals and Conservatives, Politics
posted by RussWilcox @ 9:29 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
"I believe that he and his wife are hate-America liberals, and that these new positions are essentially lies being told to fool that large segment of the voting public."
Agreed. That is obvious but the press will say otherwise because the are essentially the same ilk as OBH.
Could this happen?
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2010 Was Not A Good Year To Be President
Welcome to Toastmasters, June 13, 2033. That's right: 2033.
Today Rick Campbell, one of our senior members at age 87, is here to reminisce a bit and give us a history lesson. He says he is so old that he learned to drive an internal combustion engine car (remember those) with a manual transmission. He once owned a typewriter. He remembers when bicycles had one speed, phones had two-party lines, and cameras had something called film. As incredible as this may seem, he says that when he was young, it was common for people to smoke in restaurants and public places. He is from a different time; almost a different world.
I'm sure all of us are far too familiar with the tragic events of 2010, so Rick is not going to plow that fertile field again. Instead, he is going to give us a personal look back at the conditions which led up to that fateful year, in a speech titled "2010 Was Not A Good Year To Be President."
"2010 Was Not A Good Year To Be President"
Yes, 2010 was long ago and far away.
As we look back on history, it appears that some Presidents had an easy ride- times of growth and stability. Teddy Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Clinton come to mind. Those were good years to be President.
Others were elected just when the Republic was facing terrible crises:
Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, George W. Bush. They rose to the occasion, even though they were controversial and widely hated while in office. Not such good years to be President.
Just a few years prior, in 2008, the country began foundering. We were in the sixth year of the Iraqi Occupation, and the economy was flat. The mainstream press clearly wanted a Democrat elected.
Although we didn't know it until some years later, oil producing nations had colluded to secretly buy their own oil on the open market, driving oil prices to shocking levels above the true demand price- reaching a high of $162 a barrel in October, 2008, just before the general elections.
Their purpose was simple: to effect regime change in the United States .
And of course, the U.S. economy was already in a real estate slump and also suffering the curse of stagflation; slow growth and high inflation.
There were a million home foreclosures.
Independent truckers went under by the thousands.
Airlines failed. Airlines with names now long-forgotten: United, Delta, Northwestern, American. All now merged, of course, into the one lone U.S. carrier we love so much: Southwest.
Against this backdrop of weariness of the war on terror, and economic distress, the American people were ripe for a demagogue, and they certainly got one in Barack Hussein Obama.
He and his running mate Kathlene Sibelius inspired them with vague notions of hope and change; of a world in which diplomacy settled all international problems, of free universal health care, of abundant alternative energy, of peace and love.
It was a vision too good to resist.
The Republican nominee, a name you probably haven't heard in years anyone?
Yes, it was John McCain, an obscure Senator from Arizona had no clue how to run a national campaign, and a platform nearly as liberal as Obama's.
The selection of Condoleeza Rice as his running mate looked brilliant at first. Unfortunately, black voters viewed her as white, and women voters viewed her as one of the guys.
Even so, the McCain/Rice ticket would have won the election if it weren't for the fact that 16 percent of conservative Republicans voted for anyone remember? That's right, Bob Barr, another name that's a footnote in history.
After Obama's narrow win, thanks to recounts in Broward County , Florida , the country was positively giddy. A Democrat House, Senate, and President. At last an end to gridlock in Washington .
Camelot!
When Congress convened in January, 2009, the 44th President of the United States did something unique in history: he made good on his campaign promises.
Certainly most Americans never really thought he was serious during the campaign. But whether because of inexperience, idealism, or simply incompetence, he followed through.
In Obama's first One Hundred Days, the Congress passed his initiatives, and he signed them into law as he said he would.
He repealed the Bush tax cuts, and increased capital gains taxes.
He enacted a windfall profits tax, and instituted price controls on gasoline and diesel fuel.
He passed universal health care, which added an additional 10 percent tax increase on all working Americans.
He signed the Immigrant Amnesty bill which created 12 million new citizens instantly, each with entitlements.
He closed the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay , and summarily released all the detainees.
He repealed the Patriot Act, and cut funding for espionage, and eliminated all terrorist listening and wiretaps.
Most important, he began the complete and immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq .
He ignored the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who wanted to retain bases in Kuwait and Qatar . Instead, he went with the recommendation of Secretary of Defense Dennis Kucinich, and ordered all troops back to U.S. soil.
Voila! In One Hundred Days, by May of 2009, it was all done, and the vision was complete. He did exactly what he said he would do.
And so it was in the summer of 2009 that things began to unravel for Obama.
Of course, the economy needed a tax cut, not an increase, and unemployment quickly rose to 12 percent. Even attorneys and economists were put in the bread lines. Hard times!
Price controls on gasoline immediately led to shortages and gas lines.
The global cooling trend we have seen for the past 25 years first became obvious in 2009, exposing the CO2 global warming fraud.
People were justifiably angry.
Federal deficits increased massively because thousands of baby boomers, facing job loss and much higher taxes, simply gave up and took social security.
Although the superb U.S. health care system was thrown into disarray, the bright spot was the creation of the Federal Department of Health care, and the immediate hiring of 250,000 administrators, inspectors and auditors, the only job growth in any economic sector in 2009.
By February 2010, the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq was complete. It was a very expensive undertaking.
And then in March, the gradual Shiite insurgencies from Iran turned into a true Iraqi civil war. In May, Iranian tanks crossed the border and quickly took Baghdad . Although the exact number is not know, at least 230,000 Sunni Iraqis died as we stood by.
Iran also quickly moved into undefended Kuwait .
President Obama did exactly what he said he would. He sent Secretary of State, Maria Cantwell, to Tehran to meet with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.
After two weeks of high level talks, the United States agreed to allow Iran to retain Iraq and Kuwait to create stability in the middle east, with the understanding that Israel would not be disturbed.
Cantwell returned to Washington, and explained the agreement in her famous speech, in which she proudly noted that the Obama administration had finally achieved "peace in our time" in the Middle East .
So there was some surprise at the rocket attacks on Tel Aviv on August 14th.
President Obama said, "This is not the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad I knew."
The Obama administration decided it would be de-stabilizing to take sides in the conflict, and approximately 29,000 Israeli civilians died during the summer and fall.
American Jews were appalled at the inaction. Yes, in 2010 most American Jews were Democrats, but because of 2010, they are solid Republicans today.
As awkward as it was, everything might have turned out all right for the Obama administration going into the fall mid-term elections of 2010, if it hadn't been for the dirty bomb in the Port of Long Beach .
The administration had cut funding for the inspection of containers, because they felt it showed a "lack of trust" in the international trading community.
It wasn't really a very big bomb, and thank goodness, not a real nuclear device, but nonetheless it contaminated some expensive real estate- Newport Beach , Palos Verdes Estates- and ultimately caused the death of 14,000 Americans. People were especially annoyed that Disneyland had to be closed for decontamination.
And so, in the midterm elections, Republicans regained control of both the House and Senate, and the rest is history.
The impeachment proceedings against President Obama for "failure to protect and defend" were swift and nearly unanimous. Vice President Sibelius resigned. Newly-elected Speaker of the House, J.C. Watts, became the 45th President of the United States .
But, you know the rest of the story well.
Republicans finished the war on Islamic fundamentalists, largely by aiming ICBM's at Mecca and Medina .
No Democrat has been elected President since.
Republicans have held both Houses of Congress.
History of Western Civilization and Economics are now taught in all public schools, and in English only.
Marriage is defined as one man and one woman.
And there are border fences, north and south.
We old codgers remember the ancient Confucian curse: "May you live in interesting times."
Well, 2010 was an interesting year, but it was not a good year to be president."
(Far fetched? We are likely to find out if we continue to be unaware of the issues and vote with our emotions rather than be studious in our approach to electing our "public officials".)
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