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BS: Popular Views on Obama
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: GUEST,beardedbruce Date: 08 Oct 08 - 10:43 AM The FEC on Monday provided The Associated Press with a spread sheet of potential overseas donors that did not include contributors who left their state designation blank. As a result, the list was incomplete. The $3.3 million total does not include donors who have given less than $200 and whose contributions do not have to be itemized. Some of that money could also have come from overseas. About half of Obama's $455 million in contributions so far are unitemized. The campaign does not identify those donors. Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, speaking to reporters en route to Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday, noted that anyone can donate to the campaign through the Internet. "We monitor these things as best we can," he said. Republican John McCain's campaign lists all his donors, even those who give less than $200, on his Web site. The Obama campaign has begun to request passport numbers from donors to verify their citizenship. Asked why the Obama campaign doesn't do the same and open its database to the public, Axelrod said the campaign returns improper contributions. "Obviously we've got a huge database of contributors," he said. "It's valuable to our campaign... We're probably more forthcoming about disclosure than anyone." Independent watchdog groups, however, have asked the campaign to provide more information about its fundraisers and to at least provide information about small donors by zip code or country from where they donate. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: GUEST,beardedbruce Date: 08 Oct 08 - 10:56 AM Oct. 8, 2008 | Dear Camille, I was actually leaning towards Obama before he stated his willingness to enter negotiations with Iran with no pre-conditions. This is frightening stuff here. My wife and I lived in Germany for five years until late 2006, and I worked in Baghdad during the better part of 2006. His offer is reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain, but I don't think Obama's motives are as sincere as Chamberlain's. Like most politicians, I believe Obama says what the people want to hear. He doesn't come across as a change agent. Sincerely, Philip Steelman Your concern about the foreign-policy world-view of liberal Democrats is certainly justified. The university culture at Columbia and Harvard through which Obama passed has been drenched in a reflexive anti-Americanism for several decades. Armchair blame-America-first leftism is the default mode. Disdain for the military is rampant, and conservative voices are rarely heard. However, your invocation of Neville Chamberlain may be a bit alarmist because there is no Hitler on the horizon -- just a series of regional petty dictators who, in my view, can be contained or neutralized through joint international efforts rather than open war. But the Chamberlain parallel cannot be entirely discounted, because British and European artists and intellectuals during that highly creative first generation of avant-garde modernism did indeed drift away from national affiliation into a chic, passive cosmopolitanism. As an Obama supporter, however, I was not particularly troubled by his rather carelessly phrased response about negotiation without preconditions during a primary debate with Hillary Clinton. I don't believe that would in fact happen during an Obama administration, when the new president would have time to reflect and to absorb State Department briefing books. Surely the standard, prudent diplomatic protocols would kick into action. I am well aware of the widespread conservative view of Obama's naivete and lack of preparation (Rush Limbaugh stingingly calls him a "man-child"). But I am one of the many who regard Obama as authentically inspirational -- as a leader appealing to our better nature rather than armoring us in eternal fear and paranoia against our fellow human beings. I remember how John F. Kennedy (the first politician I ever campaigned for) electrified young people and transformed our political reality, which was about to emerge from the long, grey slog of the Cold War. What would concern me more about an Obama administration, given these rampant doubts, is the possibility that he would jump more readily toward war in order to prove his toughness. We don't need more foolish military incursions, bogging us down in regions whose vicious factionalism has boiled irresolvably for 3,000 years. Where our national interest is not directly at stake, we should mind our own business. Israel, on the other hand, whose very survival might be menaced by a nuclear Iran, would always have the right of preemptive self-defense. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 08 Oct 08 - 11:29 AM No -- it is not justified. Neville Chamberlain's appeasement involved giving away POland to the Nazis. Obama's commitment is to keeping lines of communication open, and opening diplomatic channels, not to appeasing tyrrany. There is a world of difference, and the reactive impulse to identify the two together incorrectly is hardly a credit to the analytical skills of tyhe author. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 08 Oct 08 - 12:18 PM LH: It is not so complicated. If someone says I hate America, it means everything. Policy, people, customs, everything. If they say they hate the government that is what they hate. I have stated my near hatred of American government above. Congress and the electoral college is an outdated, archaic form of representation that dates back to horse and buggy days when it took a week for news to travel from one end of the 13 American colonies to the other. People should be able to vote directly on the passage and content of bills thereby bypassing all of the skewing of votes due to lobbying, campaign contributions, self enrichment and the owing of political favors. This back and forth finger pointing bullshit between Dems and Repubs is yet another facet of the game. It divides the American people in to something like the Bloods and Crips, Ford and Chevy, blacks and whites, two warring factions. Divide and conquer. People want to blame things on Bush or the Democrats or the Republicans. The fight is not getting anything accomplished. We are headed toward a dictatorship if people cannot realize that people are wrong sometimes and they are right sometimes. It is a simple as that. I see things that I believe LH is right about and I see things I believe he is wrong about. The same with Obama and McCain, Palin and Biden. I don't support any of them because I believe they are playing this divide and conquer game and I believe they are wrong for doing it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 08 Oct 08 - 01:46 PM Jim Johnson, the former chairman of Fannie Mae who was one of three advisors tapped by Democrat Barack Obama to vet vice presidential candidates, resigned today after questions were raised about favoritism he may have received from Countrywide Financial Corp. Insisting he had done nothing wrong, Johnson issued a statement saying that he did not want the flap over his mortgage to distract attention from Obama's run for the presidency. "I would not dream of being a party to distracting attention from that historic effort," Johnson said. "I believe Barack Obama's candidacy for president of the United States is the most exciting and important of my lifetime." Johnson, 64, ran Walter F. Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign and helped John F. Kerry in his vice presidential search in 2004. Johnson was part of a three-person team – including Caroline Kennedy and former Deputy U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder – appointed by Obama to cull the prospective candidates for vice president. The Wall Street Journal reported 10 days ago that Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of Calabasas-based Countrywide, may have provided favorable terms on mortgages to Johnson and other friends. Ever since Johnson and the Obama campaign have been on the defense. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 08 Oct 08 - 01:54 PM Obama Got Discount on Home Loan By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 2, 2008; A03 Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates....... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 08 Oct 08 - 02:54 PM CNN) -- iReporters across the country agree that Sen. Barack Obama won the second presidential debate Tuesday at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Students at Northern Virginia Community College gather to watch the second presidential debate Tuesday. Dozens of iReporters sent in video reactions to the debate between Obama and Sen. John McCain. While the majority said that Obama came out ahead, several iReporters called the face-off a tie. The reaction from iReporters reflects the results of a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey that was conducted after the debate. Fifty-four percent of respondents said Obama performed better in the debate, while 30 percent said McCain fared better. Frequent iReporter Jason Dinant noted that McCain went into the debate with the advantage of the town hall meeting. "However, at the end, hands-down Barack Obama won this debate," he said. Dinant, who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, said he is now an undecided voter. Originally a supporter of former Democratic candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, he later switched his vote to McCain. After watching both presidential debates, he is now considering voting for Obama in the presidential election. iReport.com: Watch why Dinant is tried of hearing the phrase 'my friends' Obama "came off as definitely more knowledgeable in this debate," he said. "Sometimes McCain stumbled and you could definitely see it through his lies." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 08 Oct 08 - 02:58 PM On Wednesday, Barack Obama surged to his biggest lead yet in the Gallup Poll, 52-41 percent over John McCain. And that gap could grow even larger in the next few days. That's when Americans will make it clear they think Obama won Tuesday's debate with McCain. Obama has been at or above the magical 50 percent victory margin the past five days. Why? Because people recognize McCain has no answer on the nation's economic problems -- and McCain has been in Washington all these years as the crisis approached. To be clear, Obama also wrongly favors lower taxes as a way to get out of this mess, something that would only exacerbate the fiscal ills of a nation that's been living too high off the hog for years. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Little Hawk Date: 08 Oct 08 - 03:10 PM Amos, Chamberlain gave away Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, not Poland. He declared war on the Nazis when it came to Poland. Sawzaw - I agree with you entirely when it comes to the old divide and conquer game you allude to that the Democrats and Republicans are playing. I don't support any of them either, though I do think McCain is a somewhat worse alternative than Obama. Whether I am right about that, we'll never know, because we're only going to get to try out one of them as president. We'll never know for sure what the other one would have done in his place. You are quite correct that everyone is right sometimes and wrong sometimes...but you'd never know that listening to the partisan voices in America, would you? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 08 Oct 08 - 04:03 PM QUite right, LH. SOrry for the misstatement. The distinction is still vividly important, however. Current numbers: Gallup Tracking 10/05 - 10/07 2747 RV 52 41 Obama +11 Rasmussen Tracking 10/05 - 10/07 3000 LV 51 45 Obama +6 Reuters/CSpan/Zogby Tracking 10/05 - 10/07 1220 LV 47 45 Obama +2 Hotline/FD Tracking 10/05 - 10/07 904 LV 45 44 Obama +1 GW/Battleground Tracking 10/02 - 10/07 800 LV 49 45 Obama +4 Ipsos/McClatchy 10/02 - 10/06 858 RV 47 40 Obama +7 NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 10/04 - 10/05 658 RV 49 43 Obama +6 CBS News 10/03 - 10/05 616 LV 48 45 Obama +3 CNN 10/03 - 10/05 694 LV 53 45 Obama +8 Democracy Corps (D) 10/01 - 10/05 1000 LV 49 46 Obama +3 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Bobert Date: 08 Oct 08 - 06:31 PM Well, well, well... Yeah, looks as if Obama did very well In a forum that John McCain has favored... Just a couple of things... I think the "That guy" thing was way outta line and borderline ricist and will only help McCain with the most rabid of his base... But, secondly, McCain did roll out a new-to-him proposal whereby the feds would get into refinancing of folks who are about to be forcliosed... I believe that this was something that the Dems floated a couple weeks ago and had it shot down by the Repubs but this is a good idea and I'm glad that McCain has changed his mind on this... I belive there is room for bipartisanship here... Yeah, okay, I know that McCain only did it to try to get some votes and it probably won't help him but it is good to see the idea back out there for consideration... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Alice Date: 08 Oct 08 - 06:48 PM He said "that one", like an object, not a person. At least "guy" refers to a human being. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Alice Date: 08 Oct 08 - 06:52 PM "That One" has already hit CafePress, with lots of people creating shirts and other items like I'm Voting For That One, I (heart) That One, This Joe Six-Pack is Voting for That One... CafePress That One |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Riginslinger Date: 08 Oct 08 - 09:55 PM There seem to be a whole lot of folks with nothing much constructive to do. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 08 Oct 08 - 10:15 PM Au contraire, dear Rig. The wave of new enthusiasm represented by those tee-shirts is very constructive, indeed. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 09 Oct 08 - 01:13 AM "McCain only did it to try to get some votes" Now there is real wizdom. I don't suppose that anything either of them says is an effort to get some votes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Oct 08 - 01:21 AM Perish the thought! What they are each trying to do is "save America" (from the horror of being governed by the other guy's party)... ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Riginslinger Date: 09 Oct 08 - 09:23 AM ...of which, neither party is capable of governing! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 09 Oct 08 - 10:29 AM I take it that Rig in in the "none of the above" category. I think McCain is trying to be in the middle between the two parties. In doing so he makes himself seem wishy washy. Ready to cave in under pressure from either side. If there was just some way to get rid of the two party system. A dictatorship would do that. I am afeard that Obama would soon turn into a Chavez type of president. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Riginslinger Date: 09 Oct 08 - 01:00 PM Actually, I think we should go the other way. A strong third party would be nice. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Oct 08 - 01:37 PM "a Chavez type of president" Someone who is very popular with the poorer people, and very unpopular with the rich business people, you mean? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 09 Oct 08 - 01:51 PM No. I mean person that uses the old socialist class warfare strategy to divide and conquer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 09 Oct 08 - 03:00 PM Oy, have you got the wrong number, Sawz. For one thing, Obama is NOT a socialist by any stretch of the imagination. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: curmudgeon Date: 09 Oct 08 - 03:00 PM And now for something completely different! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Riginslinger Date: 09 Oct 08 - 06:40 PM "Obama is NOT a socialist by any stretch of the imagination." I knew there was something fishy about him! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 09 Oct 08 - 11:15 PM Obama is NOT a socialist? Then neither is Chavez. Would any self respecting Socialist would employ Truth Squads to intimidate free speech? How about school indoctrination? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 09 Oct 08 - 11:32 PM JERUSALEM – The official campaign website of Sen. Barack Obama has completely scrubbed a series of user-generated blog postings on the candidate's site by a former top communist activist who is an associate of former Weathermen terrorist leader William Ayers. The move has raised questions regarding Obama's relationship with the deleted blogger, Mike Klonsky, who runs an education organization that was founded by Ayers and that received a substantial grant from a group directed by Obama. Klonsky served with Ayers and Ayer's wife, former Weathermen terrorist Bernadine Dohrn, in the Students for a Democratic Society group, a major leftist student organization in the 1960s that later splintered, with Ayers and Dohrn leading a more activist approach with the Weathermen. Klonsky reportedly favored less aggressive tactics, promoting the philosophy that young workers possessed the potential to be a revolutionary force to overthrow capitalism. In the 1970s, Klonsky became a top communist activist and leader of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. He reportedly identified as a Maoist, and traveled in 1977 to Beijing, where he held friendly meetings with the Chinese leadership. In a book, "Revolution in the Air," author Max Elbaum, himself a former Maoist activist, recounts that in Beijing, Klonsky toasted the Chinese Stalinist leadership who, in turn, hailed the formation of his Communist Party group as "reflecting the aspirations of the proletariat and working people," effectively recognizing Klonsky's organization as the all-but-official U.S. Maoist party. In a brief conversation with WND yesterday, Klonsky would not state whether he is still a communist. He did not deny his associations with Ayers or his communist activism in the 1970s. Klonsky's blog postings were removed from Obama site during a period the presidential candidate has been repeatedly questioned about his relationship with Ayers, who is currently a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a member of the Weathermen group, which sought to overthrow the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971. Ayers has admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s. Ayers told the New York Times in an interview released Sept. 11, 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." He posed for a photograph accompanying the piece stepping on an American flag. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 09 Oct 08 - 11:43 PM Obama actively sought and received the stamp of approval of a Marxist third party that operated briefly in Chicago between 1992 and 1998. The group was called the "New Party" and was started in 1992 by Daniel Cantor (a former staffer for Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign) and Joel Rogers (a sociology and law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison). The New Party was a Marxist political coalition whose objective was to endorse and elect leftist public officials -- most often Democrats. The New Party's short-term objective was to move the Democratic Party leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of new Marxist third party. Most New Party members hailed from the Democratic Socialists of America and the militant organization ACORN. The party's Chicago chapter also included a large contingent from the Committees of Correspondence, a Marxist coalition of former Maoists, Trotskyists, and Communist Party USA members. The New Party's modus operandi included the political strategy of "electoral fusion," where it would nominate, for various political offices, candidates from other parties (usually Democrats), thereby enabling each of those candidates to occupy more than one ballot line in the voting booth. By so doing, the New Party often was able to influence candidates' platforms. (Fusion of this type is permitted in seven states -- Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont -- but is common only in New York.) Though Illinois was not one of the states that permitted electoral fusion, in 1995 Barack Obama nonetheless sought the New Party's endorsement for his 1996 state senate run. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers. In 1996, three of the four candidates endorsed by the New Party won their electoral primaries. The three victors included Barack Obama (in the 13th State Senate District), Danny Davis (in the 7th Congressional District), and Patricia Martin, who won the race for Judge in the 7th Subcircuit Court. All four candidates attended an April 11, 1996 New Party membership meeting to express their gratitude for the party's support. The New Party's various chapters similarly helped to elect dozens of other political candidates in a host of American cities. One of the more notable New Party members was Carl Davidson, a Chicago-based Marxist who became a political supporter of Barack Obama in the mid-1990s. In 1997 the New Party's influence declined precipitously after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that electoral fusion was not protected by the First Amendment's freedom of association clause. By 1998 the party was essentially defunct. Daniel Canto and other key party members went on to establish a new organization with similar ideals, the Working Families Party of New York. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: CarolC Date: 10 Oct 08 - 12:20 AM If Obama was a socialist, the socialists here in the Mudcat would be endorsing him. They are not. In fact, for some reason, one of them has been campaigning rather heavily for Palin here in the Mudcat. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Little Hawk Date: 10 Oct 08 - 02:34 AM I've been kind of puzzled by that too, Carol. I understand perfectly why Ake dislikes the 2-party system in America, but I can't figure what it is that he likes about Sarah Palin. I mean, aside from those conspiratorial winks that she favors us with now and then. ;-) Sawzaw - I think Chavez is a socialist in a number of respects. He's also a populist. And he's a man with a big ego who would like to have more extensive powers than he ought to have. I other words, like you said awhile back, he's gets some things right and he gets some things wrong...same as the rest of us. He's very popular with the majority of the poorer people in Venezuela and has been winning democratic elections despite the efforts of the rich people and the CIA to end his government...so I have to say on the whole that I am reasonably well impressed with Mr Chavez. I prefer him to America's kind of pet Latin American dictator by a long shot. But.....I haven't seen anything that would make me think Obama's a socialist. Heh! I think it's about as likely he is a socialist as that George Bush is a Buddhist. If he gets endorsed by some socialist group...so? What does that prove? It proves they like him better than McCain, that's all, and that's no big surprise. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: GUEST,beardedbruce Date: 10 Oct 08 - 07:20 AM So, Obama will solve Iraq??? What is it they call people who act against the government of their own country???? Obama tried to sway Iraqis on Bush deal In private conversations on troop presence, candidate pitched delay Barbara Slavin Friday, October 10, 2008 At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders in private conversations that the president shouldn't be allowed to enact the deal without congressional approval. Mr. Obama's conversations with the Iraqi leaders, confirmed to The Washington Times by his campaign aides, began just two weeks after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in June and stirred controversy over the appropriateness of a White House candidate's contacts with foreign governments while the sitting president is conducting a war. Some of the specifics of the conversations remain the subject of dispute. Iraqi leaders purported to The Times that Mr. Obama urged Baghdad to delay an agreement with Mr. Bush until next year when a new president will be in office - a charge the Democratic campaign denies. Mr. Obama spoke June 16 to Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari when he was in Washington, according to both the Iraqi Embassy in Washington and the Obama campaign. Both said the conversation was at Mr. Zebari's request and took place on the phone because Mr. Obama was traveling. However, the two sides differ over what Mr. Obama said. "In the conversation, the senator urged Iraq to delay the [memorandum of understanding] between Iraq and the United States until the new administration was in place," said Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United States. He said Mr. Zebari replied that any such agreement would not bind a new administration. "The new administration will have a free hand to opt out," he said the foreign minister told Mr. Obama. Mr. Sumaidaie did not participate in the call, he said, but stood next to Mr. Zebari during the conversation and was briefed by him immediately afterward. The call was not recorded by either side, and Mr. Zebari did not respond to repeated telephone and e-mail messages requesting direct comment. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Riginslinger Date: 10 Oct 08 - 08:01 AM "I haven't seen anything that would make me think Obama's a socialist." Or anything else, for that matter. He never says anything. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 10 Oct 08 - 10:30 AM Rig: You are so full of it some times. Is the notion Obama never says anything because you never read, litsen to, or think about any of the things he does say? Or are you getting all your news from a 1972 Sylvania with a broken audio circuit? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Sawzaw Date: 10 Oct 08 - 10:40 AM LH: Why does Chavez see fit to change the laws and the constitution in Venezuela in his favor? Where is he now without $149 a barrel oil to support his blow hard pandering to the poor crap? The King of Spain had to tell him to shut up. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: beardedbruce Date: 10 Oct 08 - 12:25 PM Obama & Friends: Judge Not? By Charles Krauthammer Friday, October 10, 2008; Page A19 Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association. But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate. McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama's associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate. McCain had his chance back in April when the North Carolina Republican Party ran a gubernatorial campaign ad that included the linking of Obama with Jeremiah Wright. The ad was duly denounced by the New York Times and other deep thinkers as racist. This was patently absurd. Racism is treating people differently and invidiously on the basis of race. Had any white presidential candidate had a close 20-year association with a white preacher overtly spreading race hatred from the pulpit, that candidate would have been not just universally denounced and deemed unfit for office but written out of polite society entirely. Nonetheless, John McCain in his infinite wisdom, and with his overflowing sense of personal rectitude, joined the braying mob in denouncing that perfectly legitimate ad, saying it had no place in any campaign. In doing so, McCain unilaterally disarmed himself, rendering off-limits Obama's associations, an issue that even Hillary Clinton addressed more than once. Obama's political career was launched with Ayers giving him a fundraiser in his living room. If a Republican candidate had launched his political career at the home of an abortion-clinic bomber -- even a repentant one -- he would not have been able to run for dogcatcher in Podunk. And Ayers shows no remorse. His only regret is that he "didn't do enough." Why are these associations important? Do I think Obama is as corrupt as Rezko? Or shares Wright's angry racism or Ayers's unreconstructed 1960s radicalism? No. But that does not make these associations irrelevant. They tell us two important things about Obama. First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. He found these men useful, and use them he did. Would you attend a church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit? Would you even shake hands with -- let alone serve on two boards with -- an unrepentant terrorist, whether he bombed U.S. military installations or abortion clinics? Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency. Yet Obama did, if not out of conviction then out of expediency. He was a young man on the make, an unknown outsider working his way into Chicago politics. He played the game with everyone, without qualms and with obvious success. Obama is not the first politician to rise through a corrupt political machine. But he is one of the rare few to then have the audacity to present himself as a transcendent healer, hovering above and bringing redemption to the "old politics" -- of the kind he had enthusiastically embraced in Chicago in the service of his own ambition. Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window these associations give on Obama's core beliefs. He doesn't share the Rev. Wright's poisonous views of race nor Ayers's views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond. Until now. Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the years in which he sat in Wright's pews and shared common purpose on boards with Ayers, Obama considered them a legitimate, indeed unremarkable, part of social discourse. Do you? Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: CarolC Date: 10 Oct 08 - 12:29 PM It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. John McCain - Charles Keating, Oliver North, and Gordon Liddy. And that's just for a start. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: CarolC Date: 10 Oct 08 - 12:32 PM John McCain has made the distant connections from years ago between Barack Obama and "unrepentant terrorist" Bill Ayers a centerpiece of the McCain-Palin campaign. But McCain has much closer, more direct, and more recent connections to terrorists who committed acts far worse than Ayers, yet McCain's links to "unrepentant terrorists" are completely ignored by the media. And although Obama has forcefully condemned the past actions of Ayers, John McCain has never denounced his terrorist friends. In the 1980s, McCain personally funded a guerrilla group (the Contras) that engaged in terrorist acts. Just last year, McCain expressed how "proud" he was of an ex-felon who urged shooting law enforcement agents in the head (G. Gordon Liddy). And earlier this year, the McCain campaign trumpeted the endorsement of a man who illegally provided weapons and money to terrorists; when a reporter questioned this, the McCain campaign refused to even criticize this criminal (Oliver North). In February 1988, the Washington Post reported that McCain personally (and relatively "recently") gave the Contras $400. No one can doubt that acts of terror were committed by the Contras. Human Rights Watch concluded in 1989 that "the Contras were major and systematic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, including by launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants, and mistreating prisoners." Human Rights Watch also criticized acts of terror by the Sandinista government, but called the Contras "a force that has shown itself incapable of operating without consistently committing gross abuses in violation of the laws of war." Here are some eyewitness reports of the terrorism committed by the Contras: They took out their knives and stuck them under his fingernails. After they took his fingernails off, then they broke his elbows. Afterwards they gouged out his eyes. Then they took their bayonets and made all sorts of slices in his skin all around his chest, arms, and legs. They then took his hair off and the skin of his scalp. When they saw there was nothing left to do with him, they threw gasoline on him and burned him. The next day they started the same thing with a 13 year old girl. They did more or less the same, but they did other things to her too. First, she was utilized, raped by all the officers. They stripped her and threw her in a small room, they went in one by one. Afterwards they took her out tied and blindfolded. Then they began the same mutilating, pulling her fingernails out and cutting off her fingers, breaking her arms, gouging out her eyes and all they did to the other fellow. They cut her legs and stuck an iron rod into her womb. Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken and their testicles cut off and their eyes poked out. They were then killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit. A congressional committee confirmed at the time that the Contras "raped, tortured and killed unarmed civilians, including children" and that "groups of civilians, including pregnant women and children were burned, dismembered, blinded and beheaded." Harold Pinter recalled the testimony of Father John Metcalf: I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity. And no one can doubt that McCain knew about these acts of terror when he was publicly funding them. On February 10, 1987, the New York Times noted that a 170-page report by Americas Watch determined about the Contras, "They still engage in selective but systematic killing of persons they perceive as representing the Government, in indiscriminate attacks against civilians or in disregard for their safety, and in outrages against the personal dignity of prisoners. The Contras also engage in widespread kidnapping of civilians, apparently for purposes of recruitment as well as intimidation." The report noted, "The escalating brutality of Contra practices leads Americas Watch to conclude that disregard for the rights of civilians has become a de facto policy of the Contra forces." McCain also must have known that the Contras were engaged in drug smuggling while he was handing them money. On August 5, 1987, the CIA Central American Task Force chief testified before the Iran-Contra Committee about the Contra drug trafficking: "It is not a couple of people. It is a lot of people."(pdf, p. 38) In addition to his personal support for the Contras, McCain has a supporter who is far more of a terrorist supporter than Bill Ayers. His name is Oliver North. Ayers was never convicted for any crime, and there's no evidence he ever killed anyone. North, by Contrast, was convicted (he got away with it because his testimony to Congress provided him with immunity). There can be no doubt about North's connection to terrorism. Under the direction of North, the US covertly sold $48 million in battlefield missiles and other weapons to Iran, even though Iran was classified by the US government as a sponsor of international terrorism. North then illegally used some of this money to help finance the Contras. So what is the McCain campaign's position toward this terrorist supporter? Have they denounced his views? No, McCain's own campaign website promotes the endorsement of him by North. McCain also supported North's 1994 campaign for the US Senate in Virginia. The Washington Post blog did ask the McCain campaign, "Is McCain pleased to receive North's endorsement, given the fact that the failed GOP senatorial candidate was convicted in 1989 of shredding documents, accepting an illegal gratuity and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress?" The McCain campaign declined to criticize North or remove their link to his endorsement: "We'll let the comments in the release stand," wrote spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker in an e-mail. Obviously, McCain has no regrets about supporting the Contras. McCain named Otto Reich as his adviser on Latin American issues, even though Reich was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. In the mid-1980s, Reich ran the U.S. Office of Public Diplomacy and illegally coordinated with the CIA to run a "White Propaganda" campaign planting bogus op-eds written by his speechwriters in newspapers. In 1987, the Republican Comptroller-General formally found that Reich had broken the law. As ambassador to Venezuela, Reich arranged the release and asylum of Cuban-American terrorist Orlando Bosch, who had planted a bomb on a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing all 73 people on board. McCain's connections to G. Gordon Liddy are even closer and more disturbing. Liddy, of course, is famous as an ex-felon convicted for his role as a mastermind in the Watergate break-ins and cover-up. Less well known is the fact that Liddy proposed to kidnap anti-war activists in 1972 and even plotted the murder of a newspaper columnist deemed unfriendly. If his criminal activity helped bring down a president weren't bad enough, Liddy actually advocated terrorist acts, too. In 1994, Liddy advised listeners to his radio show to kill federal law enforcement agents: "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches." Despite this public advocacy of terrorism, McCain appeared at Liddy's home for a fundraiser Liddy organized for him in 1998. Liddy has given McCain $5,000 during his various campaigns, including $1,000 in 2007. McCain has never refused the money. Less than a year ago, McCain appeared on Liddy's radio show (where Liddy greeted him as an "old friend") and McCain told Liddy, "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family. It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." No one imagines that John McCain's connections to terrorism should automatically disqualify him from the presidency or should even be a major factor in the election, when questions about the economy, health care, and foreign wars loom much more prominently. But John McCain's character does matter. And unlike the attacks on Obama and Ayers, McCain's terrorist connections have an important policy dimension. No one imagines that Obama is going to implement a policy of covert symbolic bombings in America as Ayers did, and Obama has strongly condemned what Ayers did decades ago. However, McCain has never condemned the Contras or Oliver North or G. Gordon Liddy, and that raises many policy questions. Would McCain ever allow a Watergate-style criminal ring in his White House? Would he ever sell weapons to a regime engaged in supporting terrorism? Would he illegally engage in covert propaganda aimed at Amricans? Would he ever try to secretly fund a guerrilla force committing acts of terror? Unlike the guilt-by-association smears against Obama, McCain's friendship with terrorists is more than just a character issue. McCain needs to answer these questions about critical errors of judgment committed by past Republican administrations, since his terrorist associations suggest that he might endorse these terrible mistakes and be prone to repeat them. The questions about Obama and Ayers have been asked and answered and analyzed in depth many times before. But John McCain still hasn't answered any questions about his terrorist connections. And the media have almost entirely ignored all of McCain's friends who are "unrepentant terrorists." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Riginslinger Date: 10 Oct 08 - 02:24 PM "Charles Keating, Oliver North, and Gordon Liddy." None of the people are as reprehensible as Gee Reverend Wright. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 10 Oct 08 - 02:39 PM Has anyone noticed that the more vehement, hateful, slanted and bigoted McCain's ads become, the more Obama's polls outpace McCain's? Today, he's up by 6 points on the national RCP average, while the McCain campaign starts frothing and spraying more desperately than ever, trying to paint him with the AYers slanders and imlying that he is soft on crime (a great porposition coming from one of the founding members of the Keating Five.) A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Ebbie Date: 10 Oct 08 - 02:46 PM In your opinion, Rig. Personally I can't think of a more reprehensible human being alive than G. Gordon Liddy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 10 Oct 08 - 03:41 PM Rig: The Rev Wright has served his country in the U.S. Navy AND the USMC and has served two presidents as a medical corpsman. The fact that he believes America should take responsibility for its own actions in the world is not sufficient grounds to warrant your unspecific and somewhat hateful knee-jerk reaction, informed solely by arm-waving Hannity and his hysterical soundbites taken from the middle of two sermons. There is no rational defense for that kind of unthinking bigotry, and I believe you know it. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Little Hawk Date: 10 Oct 08 - 03:46 PM Sawzaw, you asked: "LH: Why does Chavez see fit to change the laws and the constitution in Venezuela in his favor?" I already alluded to that in my previous post when I said: "And he's a man with a big ego who would like to have more extensive powers than he ought to have. In other words, like you said awhile back, he gets some things right and he gets some things wrong...same as the rest of us." Chavez is not perfect. Neither are you or I or McCain or Obama. I'm just saying that Chavez is better, on the whole, than a number of Latin American dictators who have run outright police states in their countries with the full cooperation and approval of the USA. The USA doesn't mind Chavez because of anything undemocratic or autocratic in his nature...in fact, his democratic election victories have really annoyed them. ;-) They mind him because he is not cooperating with USA big business concerns as they would like him to. If he did cooperate with the USA's big business concerns, then he could freely execute and torture thousands, imprison thousands, rape villages, be a 100% dictator, and terrorize his population and all you would hear about from the State Department would be "our good friend Hugo Chavez in Venezuela". It's sheer pragmatism and corporate self-interest in action, Sawzaw. Nothing to do with morality or democracy. The only "democracies" which are tolerated are those which obey orders from Washington. Those are not real democracies, they are controlled surrogates...controlled mostly by American money. If the money fails, then they are controlled by military intervention or a CIA-sponsored coup which overthrows their government. (that has been attempted in Venezuela, but it failed, much to the chagrin of planners in Washington, and now the USA is a bit too busy elsewhere to settle their Venezuelan "problem", which is simply an independent nation that won't bend over and let itself be used in a certain way by American business interests). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Donuel Date: 10 Oct 08 - 03:55 PM We need to rethink the phrase, "leader of the free world" now that we are the number one exporter of torture and murder. Only China outpaces the USA in the area of capital punishment. Perhaps we should also rethink democracy since our elections have proved to be such a problematic mess. Barack Obama's name appears on the ballot as Barack Osama. The explanation is that it was a typo that slipped through the cracks of 3 proof readers. I don't buy it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Amos Date: 10 Oct 08 - 04:48 PM Funny--it was spelled correctly on the ballot I just mailed in. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Riginslinger Date: 10 Oct 08 - 04:55 PM "Rev Wright has served his country in the U.S. Navy AND the USMC and has served two presidents as a medical corpsman..." Well Gee Gordon Liddy ran around in the middle of the night and shot people in the back for his country... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Little Hawk Date: 10 Oct 08 - 05:05 PM Yes...soldiers, like other people, do both good and bad things...no matter what side they are on. That proves nothing one way or another, does it? You see, if Liddy's people had "won"....(not been caught and prosecuted)...he'd be a well respected man, wouldn't he? Hitler's number one commando in WWII would have been a world-renowned hero if he'd only been on the winning side when the war ended. We'd be watching movies about his daring exploits if he'd been an American instead of a German. You will always pick the examples that appear to support your point if you're like most people, Rig. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Ebbie Date: 10 Oct 08 - 05:17 PM "Both sides of the aisle insist the typo was only a mistake" If that is so, not only are the three proofreaders incompetent but to me it appears that they must be heavily biased. I realize that Rensellaer County is in New York, not in Georgia (ha! I first wrote George! Not sure what that says about me), say, but anyone who is not smitten across the eyes on seeing those two words together: Barack Osama has some kind of problem. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Riginslinger Date: 10 Oct 08 - 05:32 PM With 26 letters in the alphabet, and "B" being the letter they were looking for, they were facing pretty long odds to come up with an "S." Not only that, but when I miss the letter "B" on the key-board, I usually come up with a "V" or an "N." But, folks have to do what they can to off-set the huge advantage in money that the sheep herders at MoveOn.org handed Obama, so... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: Little Hawk Date: 10 Oct 08 - 07:17 PM The obvious answer is to alter McCain to appear as McPain on a similar number of ballots... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views on Obama From: CarolC Date: 10 Oct 08 - 09:00 PM William F Buckley's son endorses Obama... http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama |
