A Priceless Cartoon

(H/T Dr. Sanity)

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The Central Issues Of Obama’s Candidacy

Obama is attempting to ride into the Presidency on an undefined promise of change and a claim to be able to magically heal the supposed divides of the nation, if not the world. He deflects reasonable concern about his lack of any substantive experience by proclaiming that he is possessed of "superior judgment." Thus, and as with all candidates, we need to take the measure of Obama’s judgment, his character, and his veracity in order to determine his fitness to lead us as President.

But as Obama and his supporters made clear today, they want all such topics off limits. Obama outrageously claims that these issues don’t matter:



It is the height of hypocrisy for Obama to call this "gotch’a politics" and unfair electoral tactics. Beyond the fact that these questions are central to assessing Obama’s fitness for the presidency, virtually Obama’s entire political career has been built on unfair electoral tactics and "gotch’a politics." His first foray into politics was won when he used his fellow lawyers to get his competition decertified and taken off the ballot. His subsequent elections have each been won only after huge "gotcha’" moments involving his competition. For Obama to claim the questions last night are either superfluous, unwarranted or unfair is hypocrisy and prevarication writ large.

(Update: Obama has now refused to take part in a CBS debate that had been scheduled before the North Carolina primary. It appears that he wants nothing to do with further debates.)

That said, let’s review what was raised last night and why it matters:
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Bittergate

Charles Gibson questioned Obama on Obama's recent comments made before a rich, liberal crowd gathered in an "off the record" venue in San Francisco:



Obama claimed that he misspoke, but then he immediately reaffirmed the substance of his "bittergate" comments. He tied people’s economic situation to whether they are overly concerned with their rights under the Second Amendment, as well as with moral, ethical and religious issues. He questions their judgment, stating in sum - albeit more tactfully than he did in San Francisco - that Americans concerned with these things are unable to distinguish what really matters. What does this say about how he will treat their concerns as President? What does his belittling of their values say of his judgment?

Are we to accept, just by way of example, gay marriage and severe regulation of our right to own weapons in return for socialized Obamacare and a few other middle class entitlement programs? Are our values and ethics for sale in Obama's view and, if so, what does that say about his own? When it comes to choosing Supreme Court judges, will Obama use his judgment to choose justices likely to uphold the traditions important to those small town people he calls bitter? Or will he choose judges with a socialist agenda who espouse the theory of a "living constitution?" - i.e., a theory that allows judges to act as a supra-legislature and create new rights - or gut old ones, such as the 5th Amendment limitation on government's ability to take private property - based on their personal beleifs. Obama's explanation of his "bittergate" remarks clarifies most, if not all of those questions.

Gun Rights, Obama’s Position On Handguns & The 1996 Survey –

As part of Obama’s claim to superior judgment, he asserted last night that he has "never" supported a ban on handguns - and that his "writing" never appeared on a 1996 survey indicating that he did support such a ban at the time. By making this claim in light of all the surrounding circumstances, Obama again asks us to make a blind leap of faith and accept, on his bald assertion, a counterintuitive conclusion. It raises questions of character and veracity that transcend the policy issue of restriction on gun ownership.

In 1996, when he was first running for elected office, an influential local political organization asked Obama to complete a survey on his positions as an integral part of their process to determine which candidate to endorse. The completed survey ascribed to Obama a series of very far left positions on a variety of hot button issues, one of which was support for a total ban on handguns. After the survey came to light, Obama’s aides said he "never saw or approved" the questionnaire. They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who "unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position." That was plausible.

But then additional facts emerged. Obama, it turned out, had met with the organization and was interviewed directly upon the basis of his answers to the survey. Further, the day after the interview, Obama filed an amended survey with a hand-written comment in the margins. Once this came to light, according to the Politico, "[t]hrough an aide, Obama, . . . did not dispute that the handwriting was his. But he contended it doesn’t prove he completed, approved — or even read — the latter questionnaire." That is the type of legalistic defense that Bill Clinton could appreciate. As several members of that local political organization admit today, Obama’s claims in this regards are simply "unbelievable."

Now in the latest twist, Obama not only disclaims any knowledge of the answers on which he was quizzed, but even claims now that the handwriting isn’t his on the amended survey.

The important point here is not that 12 years ago Obama supported a total ban on handguns, though it is of some significance. The critical aspect of this whole situation is that Obama is prevaricating to keep his carefully created reputation for "superior judgment" from being called into question. And by taking this tack, he calls not only his judgment into question, but adds issues of veracity and character.



Rev. Jerimiah Wright

Once it came to light that Obama, the would-be great uniter, was heavily influenced by, spent twenty years with, and donated substantial sums of money to a virulenty racist, anti-American preacher, it created a cognitive dissonance of epic proportions. It was of a magnitude that, were it a white candidate in the same scenario, his candidacy would have been crushed within days of the matter becoming public – no questions asked by anyone of any race. It is a dissonance that so clearly goes to Obama’s character and judgment that it must be answered. And it is a measure of the hypocrisy of our left wing media that no one has yet vetted Obama’s frankly unbelievable claims of ignorance in regards to Rev. Wright.

Once a few of Rev. Wright's racist sermons were made public - what we saw on Fox was in fact a highlights reel sold by Rev. Wright's Church - Obama tried an ever changing litany of excuses to quell the issue. Only after these excuses failed and his poll numbers were tanking did Obama decide to give a speech on the "larger issue" of race in America. He started that speech by referring to slavery as "original sin" - thus tagging every white now alive in America and all yet to come with responsibility for slavery. That is not a particularly uniting theme. Indeed, it is the theme at the heart of race baiters and seperatists. The remainder of Obama's speech got little, if any, better.

Our left wing press proclaimed the speech historic and asserted that Obama had fully put to rest the issue of Rev. Wright. But for those of us with critical faculties not predisposed to the vacuity of identity politics, Obama's speech was in no way a reasonable explanation of why he adopted Wright as his mentor and supported him with church attendance and donations for twenty years. It did not explain how Obama was so moved by a blatantly racist sermon condemning "white greed" that he chose it for the central theme of his book, the Audacity of Hope, published in October, 2006. Nor was his speech in any way a larger dialogue on the issue of racism. It was a series of excuses buttressed with a completely unbelievable claim that he had no idea Wright was a racist during his 20 years he sat with his family in Wright's pews. Contradicting earlier assertions, Obama now admitted that he had heard a few "controversial" remarks from Rev. Wright over the many years. Obama caveated that by saying that he completely disagreed with the remarks and that the remarks were excusable becasue of Wright's background and public works.

Hillary Clinton hit the nail on the head in her response to Obama on this issue. And if Obama wants us to accept his incredibly unbelievable excuses, he needs to have Rev. Wright release his transcripts for 20 years of sermons - the whole sermons, not merely the sanitized versions.



William Ayers

Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse fully explores the extent and the importance of Obama’s voluntary association with the unrepentant anti-American terrorist, William Ayers. As Rick presciently asks:

What would any other politician have done when he or she discovered that a terrorist was sitting on the same board as they? Wouldn’t just about anyone else have said “no thank you” to such an invitation?

Moreover, Obama displayed a very skewed sense of moral relativism, equating Ayers, a man who bombed government buildings and is proud of his past terrorist acts, with Senator Tom Colburn, a doctor who believes abortion is morally wrong and has sponsored a bill to treat doctors performing abortions as murderers.



Tony Rezko

Obama’s extensive relationship with a major fundraiser-cum-felon Tony Rezko didn’t even make it into the questioning last night, but it is yet another issue that goes to Obama’s judgment and veracity. Again, see Rick Moran for the full explanation.

Flag Pin and Patriotism

I would consider this a non-issue had Obama not made it one. In October, 2007, Obama told a reporter:

. . . right after 9/11 I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest, instead I'm gonna try to tell the American people what I believe what will make this country great and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

That is not Obama's only act that seems to smack of a disdain for patriotism. Several months ago, Obama refused to put his hand over his heart while our national anthem was being played. Admittedly, these are mere symbolic acts. But symbolism is used to make a point. Taken together, it would be reasonable to infer that Obama sees some things very fundamentally wrong with our country and its 200 plus years of traditions. That is quite troubling in a man who wants to "change" this country in some undefined way. Under these circumstances, it is quite valid to raise these issues and test those inferences. In other words, if Obama is going to make symbolic acts, than we as a nation have every right to find out the meaning he is trying to convey by those symbolic acts.

Here is the anthem video:



And here is Obama last night:



Conclusion

One’s character is determined by how one habitually responds to things within one's environment. To put it in the words of P.B. Fitzwater, "character is the sum and total of a person's choices.” It is only by looking at character and veracity that we can judge how a man is likely to act in the future – whether in accordance with deeply held principles that define his character, or with prevarication and expediency that define a weak and self-serving character. And it is only by reviewing a person’s past acts as well as their current beliefs that we can get a feel for the soundness of their judgment. Character and judgment are the crucial considerations in choosing a leader who will face a myriad of challenges, many we cannot forecast today, over the period of the next four years as President.

The questions Obama was asked last night are central to assessing his character and judgment. It tells us volumes about his fitness to lead us as President that he does not want us to ask anymore questions on those issues.

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Obama Takes A Nose Dive In Philly

Finally, at a debate, Obama gets asked some difficult questions - though with minimal follow-up - and he stumbles badly. He was on the defensive most of the night and not only was his performance weak, but some of his answers will very likely come back to haunt him.

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The far left is screaming this morn that the questions asked of Obama in last night’s debate were grossly unfair. You can find the high decibel round-up at Instapundit. They absolutely do not want a spotlight shown on Obama’s history from which we can infer the measure of the man. To ABC’s credit, they did ask questions about some of the major issues surrounding Obama’s character. That said, they did so without the follow-up questions to Obama’s facile attempts to sweep them away. Nonetheless, Obama looked bad and on the defensive throughout the night.

The lowest of the low points for Obama during last night’s debate came on the issues of “bittergate” and gun rights. Almost right out of the gate, Charles Gibson asked Obama about bittergate:

[You said] small town Pennsylvanians who have had tough economic times in recent years. And you said they get bitter and they cling to guns or they cling to their religion or they cling to antipathy toward people who are not like them. . . . Do you understand that some people in this state find that patronizing and think that you said actually what you meant?

Obama seems to have really fumbled his answer. He claims he misspoke, but then went on to say:

. . . when people [are] like promised year after year, decade after decade, that their economic situation is going to change and it doesn't, then, politically, they end up focusing on those things that are constant like religion. They end up feeling this is a place where I can find some refuge. This is something I can count on. They end up being much more concerned about votes around things like guns, where traditions have been passed on from generation to generation. And those are incredibly important to them. And, yes, what is also true is that wedge issues, hot-button issues, end up taking prominence in our politics.

Didn’t he just repeat the bittergate remarks, substituting the word “focusing” for the word cling? That is certainly what it seems to me. Just as it seems that he is saying is that its economic concerns that drive concerns about Second Amendment rights and moral issues. So if we only had enough money in our pockets, we would be unconcerned with such things as efforts to restrict gun ownership and moral issues such as gay marriage, abortion and the role religion should play in society. Its pretty clear Obama said exactly what he meant in the “bittergate” remarks to San Francisco’s elite left.

Then on gun rights issues, Obama sidestepped a question about where he stood on the highly restrictive D.C. gun laws, stating that he had not read the legal briefs before the Supreme Court. How that keeps him from forming his own opinion on the matter is beyond me – and his refusal to answer this question appeared very weak. Indeed, he has sponsored incredibly restrictive gun legislation while in the Illinois State Senate (see here), though Gibson did not ask him about that legislation.

Obama did give an answer that could have real long-term problems for him. He stated that he had “never favored a total ban on hand-guns.” Asked about a 1996 survey filled out by his campaign that clearly stated the opposite, Obama disclaimed any knowledge of the survey in the debate, stating “No, my writing wasn't on that particular questionnaire . . .” I blogged in detail about this questionnaire here. Obama was quizzed on the questionnaire the day after his campaign submitted it. The day after that, he submitted an amended questionnaire with both the answer about a ban on hand guns unedited and with what, until yesterday, his campaign acknowledged were Obama's own handwritten comments in the margins. This is not the last we have heard of this issue, by any means.

On his association with Rev. Wright, Obama claimed that he had already fully addressed this issue and again trotted out the frankly unbelievable assertion that he never heard Rev. Wright’s racist screed throughout his entire twenty year attendance at the church. The truth is we have yet to hear a Rev. Wright sermon that is not racist. I am waiting for someone to request copies of the Rev. Wright’s sermons over the past twenty years – and to ask Obama whether he will demand Rev. Wright make them available. And Gibson did not ask Obama about his reference to “white greed” in his book Audacity of Hope – an inclusion that clearly shows Obama not only heard such vile screed over his twenty year association, but that he adopted it. Be that as it may, Clinton had the right take on this:

I think in addition to the questions about Reverend Wright and what he said and when he said it, and for whatever reason he might have said these things, there were so many different variations on the explanations that we heard.

And it is something that I think deserves further exploration because clearly, what we've got to figure out is how we're going to bring people together in a way that overcomes the anger, overcomes the divisiveness and whatever bitterness there may be out there. You know?

It is clear that, as leaders, we have a choice who we associate with and who we apparently give some kind of seal of approval to. And I think that it wasn't only the specific remarks but some of the relationships with Reverend Farrakhan, with giving the church bulletin over to the leader of Hamas, to put a message in.
You know, these are problems. And they raise questions in people's minds. And, so, this is a legitimate area, as everything is, when we run for office, for people to be exploring and trying to find answers.

And on his long association with the unrepentent terrorist bomber William Ayers, Obama had the audacity to liken Ayers to conservative Senator Tom Colburn, a man who is virulently anti-abortion but who has certainly never advocated violence against the pro-abortion crowd, let alone carried out such an act. Gateway Pundit has more on this.

Both Obama and Clinton were allowed to repeat their ‘out of Iraq now' canard to softball questioning. Both said they would ignore the advice of Petraeus and Crocker, but neither were questioned on the explicit premise articulated by Petraeus and Crocker that such a precipitous drawdown would be a disaster that would open Iraq to being dominated by Iran and reinfiltrated by al Qaeda.

On the issue of a nuclear armed Iran, when asked whether the U.S. should put Israel under its umbrella of nuclear protection, while Clinton answered forcefully, Obama danced around the answer, never answering with a clear “yes.”

Obama was asked about his plans to nearly double the capital gains tax rate. When he was told that each time the capital gains tax rate has been cut, it has brought in more revenue, Obama responded by justifying his sophmoric class warfare on the grounds of “fairness.”

Obama continues to favor affirmative action and considerations of race in college admissions to overcome “current discrimination.” I was floored by that. The group most being discriminated against in college admissions today, according to the most recent surveys, are white male gentiles. How Obama’s support for affirmative action in regards to that reality portends to unite America across the vast racial divide we hear exists from the far left and from race baiters such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton – and you can add Rev. Wright to the list – is an issue that Obama needs to explain in detail.

You can find the entire debate transcript here. This was not only a poor performance by Obama, it is likely one that will - and very much should - resurface often between now and November. The more I see of Obama, the less I trust this man's judgment to hold any elected office.

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Obama Is Not JFK

Tomorrow, Obama has stated that he will address race and his two decades of close association with Rev. Jerimiah Wright during a speech in Philly. I have seen several commentors on other blogs say they expect this to be Obama’s Kennedy – Catholic speech moment. It cannot possibly be.


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Tomorrow, Obama supporters are hoping that their candidate - already compared to JFK by many in the press - will assuage the national consciousness about racism in the same way JFK did on the issue of his Catholic faith. But JFK's issue with Catholicism and Obama's issues with racism are fundamentally different.

John F. Kennedy was baptized a Catholic at his birth. Unlike Obama, who made a conscious decision to join Rev. Jerimiah Wright and Trinity United Church as an adult, JFK’s religion was simply a part of his inheritance. Obama's adult choices reflect upon his judgment and character in a way JFK's Catholicism never reflected on JFK.

At issue with JFK in 1960 was the question of whether his Catholicism would dictate how he would lead America on social issues and the issue of religious freedom. JFK had to give assurances that as President, he would make decisions based on what he felt was best for America, not on the basis of Catholic dogma. There was no inherent dissonance between his religion and his duties as President. As he put it in his 1960 speech, "I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic."

The situation with Obama is quite different. The central promise of his candidacy lies in his promise to be a post racial candidate who can heal the black white divide and, indeed, all other divides. It is a utopian promise indeed – and it is in direct contradiction to the fact that he has spent twenty years in a close relationship with a man who is an ardent, anti-American and divisive racist. It is in direct contradiction to the facts that he described Rev. Wright as a mentor on spiritual and secular matters, and that one of Obama's central themes - the audacity of hope - is based on a racist sermon given by Rev. Wright.

There is inherent dissonance between those facts and Obama's carefully crafted persona. I simply do not see how this can be "contained" with anything approaching intellectual honesty. What Obama cannot say is "I am the post racial candidate for President who happens also to have a decades long relationship with a man I chose as my pastor and whose raison d’etre is racism and claims of victimization by whites and jews."

As I said, I will wait for the speech. But all I expect from Obama is pure dissimulation. More and more, I am convinced that he is nothing more than an incredible con man.

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Interesting Posts From Around The Web - 17 March 2008

Art: The Muses Clio, Euterpe and Thalia, Eustach Le Sueur, 1655

Spc. Monica Lin Brown, 19 years old from Lake Jackson, Texas, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cav, has done something only a very few female soldiers in American history have ever done. She’s been awarded the Silver Star.

Of winter soldiers and real soldiers, two valuable posts from This Ain’t Hell.

From Consul at Arms quoting VDH on the suicidal canard of multiculturalism: "So ingrained is the notion among our elite that there are no absolute standards of ethics and morality, that we have lost the ability to apply abstract moral judgment without exception." And to see multiculturalism’s conjoined twin in all of its destructiveness, one need only turn to the surreal world of modern Britain.

Of course, things can get pretty damn surreal over here amongst our holier than thou lefties – like librarians refusing to notify authorities about visitors downloading kiddie porn over concern for their First Amendment rights.

Hillary’s imaginary achievements.

An Alpocricy commercial.

The question now is, what did Obama know and when did he know it? Remember Obama saying two days ago he had never heard Rev. Wright light into his racist vitriol at any time during his 20 years of attending Trinity United? Documentary evidence to the contrary is starting to roll in. And the video of Obama heaping praise on Rev. Wright has been scrubbed from YouTube, but not from the Jawa Report.

Barking Moonbats has a video that will tell you all you need to know about Obama. And now Obama’s church is trying to claim that Rev. Wright is the victim of character assassination. If you put the words "suicide by" in that description, I might buy it. And have you seen the Trinity United’s proposed revisions to the National Anthem?

The top 9 Obama campaign slogans suggested by Rev. Jerimah Wright. Heh. My favorite: Defeat racism; kill a cracker. And Rev. Wright will soon be bringing his social gospel into children’s programming. His initial work will be to tell the biblical story of "institutional racism in housing policy, when there was ‘no room at the inn.’"

Fact checking – it is not Reuters’ strongsuit. Far easier just to repeat the anti-gun accusations.

Free trade and Economics 101.

The Paris Book Fair this year is honoring several Israeli writers. Muslim authors have called for a boycott, and wholly unsurprisingly, there has been a bomb threat. For a psychological perspective on suicide bombers, go here. Meanwhile, some very bad things are happening to those who have filed official complaints against a radical Salafi Imam in Canada.

Time to break out the ham sandwiches and run the bath, we have a new guest at the Caribbean retreat. Heh. Meanwhile, what should we do with those guests guilty of plotting 9-11? Off with their heads? Nah, only the Saudis do that, such as for the crime of writing that other religions should not be considered "unbelievers." Apostacy.

So what exactly is the intersection of Islamic lawfare, Tibet’s riots and a Caribbean crimewave?

Whither the chainmail bikini?" And it’s the Medieval Tech Help Desk. Heh.

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Hypocrisy and Obaminations (Update 3)

In the wake of the revelations about Obama's church of twenty years and his close relationship with a vitriolic, racist and anti-American preacher, we are treated in the MSM to near silence and, in several instances, outright dissimulation. Indeed, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune tell us that "no one with more than a springer spaniel's political awareness" need be concerned with what Rev. Wright has said.


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Barak Obama is asking for us to vote him into our Presidency. Does he evince sufficient character, judgment and veracity to warrant it?

We evaluate a person based on their deeds, their associations and their words. All three tell us much, as does any dissonance among the three. Do the words match the deeds? Are the associations consonant with both? Of these three, probably the most difficult and fraught with potential for unfairness lies with assessing associations.

That said, one of the oldest sayings that we have in the English language is that a man shall be known by the company he keeps. Indeed, the saying itself has ancient roots, deriving from Book of Proverbs 13:20. Taken past its reasonable moorings, this can lead to an unfair assessment of guilt by simple association. But to dismiss the importance of associations on that possibility alone would be a rejection of the wisdom of the ages. And the longer and deeper the associations, the more important they are in assessing the judgment and character of an individual.

In the case of Barack Obama, we now know that he has had a two decades long and extensive association with the Reverend Jerimiah Wright and Trinity United Church. You can find the details and the videos about the deeply racist and anti-American Rev. Wright here. Here is one of the videos:



The relevant facts for this post are that Obama chose this Church. Obama has attended the church for twenty years, and he has spoken often about how important Rev. Wright has been to his life, how he regularly consulted the Reverend on matters both spiritual and secular, and indeed, how he used one of the Reverend's racist sermons to form the basis of his book, "The Audacity of Hope."

Obama's defenses now that the video above and others have surfaced of Rev. Wright's sermons are simply unbelievable:

1. He has tried to deflect the questions about his Church by simply asserting he did not see the Church as "particularly controversial."

2. He attended the Church for twenty years, but claims that he never heard Rev. Wright express this racist, anti-American vitriol that lies at the heart of Rev. Wright's "social gospel."

3. He downgraded the pastor of the Church yesterday to the status of a mere parishioner whose relationship to Obama was that of an acquintance and with whom he had a limited scope of dealings: "I knew him as somebody in my church who talked to me about Jesus and family and friendships."

To put this in perspective, if we were to find that John McCain, for the past twenty years, had embraced as his spiritual advisor a racist who preached vitriol and hatred against his country, who doubts that it would be front page news for months to come. If McCain had not only chosen this man as his pastor, but written about his theories and closely associated with him in his decision making, there would be a great national debate - or at least an unending series of editorials and news analyses - on the pages of the NYT and Washington Post. Left wing pundits would be red-faced and sputtering with righteous moral outrage.

They would be right to do so. And conservatives, I would like to think, would be equally vociferous and, indeed, leading the charge.

Yet, now that it has become clear, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that Obama is embroiled in just such a scenario, there is only the hypocrisy of silence in the MSM for the most part, the brazen hypocrisy of attempting to pretend it does not matter from others.

In the Washington Post, it has only merited a posting to a blog.

In the NYT, we were treated to a blog post discussing only Obama's defenses and a short article on the topic, noting that Obama is "distancing" himself from his preacher.

But by far the most disingenuous is the Chicago Tribune who, in an editorial, have equated Clinton's relationship with Geraldine Ferarro to Obama's relationsip with Rev. Jerimiah Wright and dismissed both:

The controversial, race-based comments of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and of retired South Side pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. are of genuine importance to the selection of a Democratic presidential nominee. . . .

. . . No one with more than a springer spaniel's political awareness thinks that Ferraro speaks for Clinton, or that Wright speaks for Obama. Demands from one candidate's supporters that the other repudiate what was said on his or her behalf ring disingenuous. . . .

Read the entire editorial. Any equation of Clinton/Ferraro to Obama/Rev. Wright cannot even be rightly described as comparing apples to oranges, because those two are at least both fruit. It really is more like comparing apples to deadly nightshade in the degree of difference between the two. No one claims that Clinton had a twenty year relationship with Ferraro, or that she regularly consulted Ferraro on matters both spiritual and otherwise. Ms. Clinton has not crafted a book and a campaign message on the philosophy of Ms. Ferraro. In short, it would take an axe to chop through the disingenuousness and hypocrisy in the Chicago Times editorial.

All of this creates a tremendous level of dissonance as we attempt to evaluate Obama's character, integrity, and whether he has the judgment to lead America. Obama's appeal to this point has been in his words. He portrays himself as being post-racial, able to unite America as one. And yet one of his closest associations over the past twenty years has been with his choice of a spiritual guide and mentor whose vile racism and divisivness has no part in America today. That is a level of dissonance that cannot be swept under the carpert except by utter fools on one hand and those who happen to agree with the racist and anti-American screed of Rev. Wright on the other.

It may well be, as many have speculated, that Obama merely joined the Church and associated so closely with Rev. Wright over the past twenty years purely for political gain. If that is the truth, than we need to know it and judge Obama accordingly. It will tell us about Obama's charachter, his lack of principle, his opportunism, his lack of veracity, and his incredibly cynical embrace of political expediency.

The alternative, and certainly what was suggested several weeks ago by the remarks of Michelle Obama regarding her being proud of America for the "first time," is that Obama and his wife have been quite amenable to Rev. Wright's racist and anti-American screed. If that is the truth, than it will be equally informative of Obama's character and veracity. In either event, Obama's dissimulation and the attempt by his supporters to assert this does not matter while offering vacuous comparisons will not - and cannot be allowed - to work.

Update: Obama continues his dissimulation, now scrubbing mention of his pastor of twenty years from his website.



(H/T Before and After screenshots from LGF and Powerline)

Update2: In four days, there has been a 5 point change in the poll numbers. Obama is dropping. Clinton now leads in the national polls 47 to 45.

Obama now plans to address the race issue at a speech in Philladelphia on March 18. This from the Atlantic:

Barack Obama plans a major speech tomorrow in Philadelphia on race, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the future.

An adviser said that Obama wants to contain the Wright story. He worries that the 1960s-to-1980s prism of race is what everyone has read into it, and Obama wants to move the discussion forward.

He is expected to recount, in detail, how he came to know Rev. Wright, how he came to admire Rev. Wright, the history and meaning of the Trinity church, and address the controversial remarks attributed to Wright. . . .

Read the article here. Given the dissimulation by Obama himself to this point, I expect nothing less from his speech tomorrow.

Update 3: I have listened to Obama's speech. I will do a seperate post on the speech, though several things struck me. He has now changed his story and admitted that he was well aware of Rev. Wright's racism and bombast, though he did nothing to explain why he would willingly sit through such racist and anti-American screed for twenty plus years. He is trying to create an acceptable grey area out of clear racism and anti-Americanism that should enjoy no support in this land.

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About Time

The fulcrums of Obama's campaign have been his character as supposedly transcending race - indeed, he implies that his very identity will somehow end identity politcs in America - and equally his claims to superior judgment. Yet all are clearly called into question by the company he has chosen to keep. The blogosphere has been pointing for months to Obama's twenty year relationship with the racist and vitriolic Rev. Jerimiah Wright and Obama's membership in Wright's afrocentric Trinity United Church. Now it is finally making its way into the cable news, though not yet into the MSM.

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Here is the Hannity and Colmes video documenting a few of the incredibly inflamatory, anti-American, anti-semetic and racist remarks of Obama's friend and pastor of twenty years, Rev. Jerimiah Wright.




And here is a Sean Hannity interview of Rev. Wright:



Obama has previously attempted to squelch talk about Rev. Wright and their association by claiming that Wright was simply an "uncle figure" and that Obama "didn't agree" with all of the things Wright may have said. Despite Obama's disingenuous characterization of Trinity United - "I don’t think my church is actually particularly controversial" - the cat is out of the bag now, and Obama is into damage control.

As reported in the Kaus Files, Obama tried to put a damper on this issue with a preemptive, global denial in the Huffington Post yesterday:

. . . I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. . . .

Read the article. And he appeared on Fox News last night to briefly answer questions about the scandal:

As shown in the video, Obama's defence is that, while he often attended church, Rev. Wright did not make these vitriolic and racist types of statements while he was in attendance. Obama states that he did know about one or two statements that Wright had made when he named Wright to the committee but did not feel them that important. Obama claims that had he heard these repeated he would have quit the Church.

Watching the video, one is struck with the fact that Bill Clinton may finally have met his match in the ability to lie convincingly. But as Rick Moran lays out the facts, he notes that Obama's contrary assertions are "frankly unbelievable." Indeed, Obama seems to have has his own DNA stained dress problems. In Obama's case, it is a paper trail that belies his assertions in the Fox interview. It is Obama's memoirs and, indeed, the origins of his "audacity of hope" theme. As Rich Lowrey posts at NRO:

. . . In the book, Obama makes it clear that Wright when he first got to know him was pretty much the same Wright we're getting to know now (the one that Obama is at pains to say is on the verge of retirement). Wright was striking some of the same notes, saying racially venomous things and attacking the bombing of Hiroshima. Note this passage about the first sermon Obama heard from Wright, the source ultimately of the title of Obama's second book and one of the central themes of his presidential campaign:

The title of Reverend Wright’s sermon that morning was “The Audacity of Hope.” He began with a passage from the Book of Samuel—the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting title Hope.

“The painting depicts a harpist,” Reverend Wright explained, “a woman who at first glance appears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.

“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill . . .

Read the entire post. Indeed, it would seem that when Obama first heard Rev. Wright's racist screed, he didn't recoil, rather he signed on the dotted line. And we clearly see the Reverend's mindset in the words of Obama's wife. It was only a few weeks ago that she told the world that, for the "first time," she was "proud of America."

The far left Obama supporters in the MSM are circling the wagons, some in an incredible display of hypocrisy. Others ponder whether this is really meaningful.

Update 2: Juan Williams just appeared on the Beltway Boys and raised an interesting point. The Jerimiah Wright issue has still not gotten a lot of traction in the MSM, but he doesn't think that simply ignoring it is doing Obama any favors. To paraphrase, he states that, while the MSM may be ignoring this, a lot of white people aren't.

As Bookworm Room argues in one of her usual thoughtful posts, yes, Obama's association with Rev. Wright does matter. I certainly believe so on several accounts. One, Obama's attempt to minimize his twenty year association with Rev. Wright and the screed he has preached show a distinct lack of veracity. Two, I personally do not tolerate racism, and with two children of mixed race, I firmly believe that racism of any sort has no place in our politics. I would not tolerate the racism of a David Duke, I would not tolerate a supporter of Duke and the racist attitudes that implies, nor will I tolerate the racism of Rev. Wright. The fact that Obama has tolerated it for twenty years speaks volumes about this man's character.

As Thomas Sowell recently wrote:

Character is what we have to depend on when we entrust power over ourselves, our children and our society to government officials.

We cannot risk all that for the sake of the fashionable affectation of being more non-judgmental than thou.

Currently, various facts are belatedly beginning to leak out that give us clues to the character of Barack Obama. But to report these facts is being characterized as a "personal" attack.

Barack Obama's personal and financial association with a man under criminal indictment in Illinois is not just a "personal" matter. Nor is his 20 years of going to a church whose pastor has praised Louis Farrakhan and condemned the United States in both sweeping terms and with obscene language.

The Obama camp likens mentioning such things to criticizing him because of what members of his family might have said or done. But it was said, long ago, that you can pick your friends but not your relatives.

Obama chose to be part of that church for 20 years. He was not born into it. His "personal" character matters, just as Eliot Spitzer's "personal" character matters — and just as Hillary Clinton's character would matter if she had any.

Read the entire article. Finally, Rick Moran asks:

How many lies must Obama tell before he falls off his perch as an “Agent of Change” and comes back down to earth and is recognized as a gifted but flawed politician, no better and no worse than McCain or Hillary Clinton for that matter?

I think it is now beginning to happen. According to Rasmussen, Obama dropped seven points in the polls overnight, making him almost even with Hillary in the Democratic primaries and several points behind McCain in the national polls. It's about time.

Update: Tom MacGuire at Just One Minute has an exceptional post on all of this:

. . . [N]ot even the Times will be able to ignore this now, ancient footage and interviews with Wright will surface, and Obama will be pretending that he never heard any of it. Get Claude Rains to close the church!.

This Rolling Stone article from Feb 2007 titled "The Radical Roots of Barack Obama" looks like a gold mine. Lots of material on Wright . . . This next passage gives a flavor of what Obama is pretending he did not hear in church . . . :

Wright takes the pulpit here one Sunday and solemnly, sonorously declares that he will recite ten essential facts about the United States. "Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he intones. "Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!" There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry. Now the reverend begins to preach. "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!" The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: "And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS SHIT!"

This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr. Wright is not an incidental figure in Obama's life, or his politics. The senator "affirmed" his Christian faith in this church; he uses Wright as a "sounding board" to "make sure I'm not losing myself in the hype and hoopla." Both the title of Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 come from Wright's sermons. "If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from," says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left, "just look at Jeremiah Wright."

Obama wasn't born into Wright's world. His parents were atheists, an African bureaucrat and a white grad student, Jerry Falwell's nightmare vision of secular liberals come to life. Obama could have picked any church — the spare, spiritual places in Hyde Park, the awesome pomp and procession of the cathedrals downtown. He could have picked a mosque, for that matter, or even a synagogue. Obama chose Trinity United. He picked Jeremiah Wright. Obama writes in his autobiography that on the day he chose this church, he felt the spirit of black memory and history moving through Wright, and "felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams."

. . . Let's cut to the Times for more on Obama's choice of minister:

It was a 1988 sermon called “The Audacity to Hope” that turned Mr. Obama, in his late 20s, from spiritual outsider to enthusiastic churchgoer. Mr. Wright in the sermon jumped from 19th-century art to his own youthful brushes with crime and Islam to illustrate faith’s power to inspire underdogs. Mr. Obama was seeing the same thing in public housing projects where poor residents sustained themselves through sheer belief.

. . . In “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama described his teary-eyed reaction to the minister’s words. “Inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones,” Mr. Obama wrote. “Those stories — of survival, and freedom, and hope — became our story, my story.”

Mr. Obama was baptized that year, and joining Trinity helped him “embrace the African-American community in a way that was whole and profound,” said Ms. Soetoro, his half sister.

Whoa. It is hardly as if this is the church Obama's parents selected and he inherited. He sought out Wright, was moved by Wright, and is now pretending he had no idea Wright said these things. . . .

Read the whole post. There is much more.

Updated 3: Much of the above information is now appearing in the Washington Post - but only on Mary Ann Akers The Sleuth blog. Its not quite made the main pages yet. Regardless, the comments of one individual who identifies herself as an Obama supporter are noteworthy:

An interesting summary from an Obama supporter. Here's the link if you wanna sound-off. Very interesting:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/obamas-judgment-wright-or-wron.php
By now everyone has seen some of the exceedingly provocative clips from
Mr. Wright's (Obama's pastor) sermons. As an Obama supporter I am
assailed by the following questions/confusions regarding the fallout of
this episode. I have tried my hardest (believe me it's been excruciatingly hard)
to objectively confront the implications of our candidate's
relationship with his pastor. I persuaded myself to face these
questions by telling myself that one is nothing if one is not
intellectually honest:

1. There is an undeniable close knit 20 year relationship between the
pastor and Obama. I gather, the Pastor married Barrack and Michelle,
baptized his children, dedicated Obama's house, has been his "sounding
board" for all that time. The title of Obama's book "Audacity of Hope"
is from the Pastor's sermon. From WSJ I gather, the Pastor was one of
the first people Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in
2004. That, Obama consulted him before deciding to run for president
and prayed privately with him before announcing his candidacy last
year. How can one distance oneself from this deep and this long a
relationship? That would be akin to trying to distance yourself from
half your life. Won't it?

2. The Pastor called US the number one killer, held US responsible for
AIDS/9-11/Mandela's imprisonment and apartheid/Palestinian
plight/killing of innocents to bring down Castro & Libya - I mean,
it goes on and on over, not one or two, but several sermons. How do you
explain how you presumably sat through such incendiary sermons with
your family? Or, at a minimum, continued having a spiritual
relationship despite such rhetoric?

3. Then I read that these clips directly contradict some of the things
Obama has been saying about the pastor. It seems Obama said clearly
that he does not regard his church to be "controversial". While
addressing the Jewish Leaders he apparently explained his pastor's
anti-Zionist statements as being rooted in Israel's support for South
Africa when it seems those statements were never qualified as that. I
don't know if anyone has more insights on this.

4. Our candidate's primary counterpoint to Hillary's Experience has been his Judgment. If people question his judgment for keeping close kinship with someone who was asking God to damn America, how will he respond? What will he say?

5. Obama's candidacy is significantly based on his crossover appeal.
That is, his appeal to Republicans and Independents. He may yet get the
nomination but is his appeal not fatally compromised? How can he hold
on to the mantle of being the less divisive candidate while having an
unapologetic 20 year spiritual relationship with such a radical
preacher? I feel so hopeless about this point. I mean, how would we
feel if McCain was taking his family most Sundays to Jerry Falwell's
discourses?

6. Obama's appeal to the young and the "latte liberals" has been his
fresh-faced sincerity and honesty. To me, I know, that has been his
primary appeal. Now, how do I reconcile this with what his detractors
will call: the hypocrisy of calling, say, Ferraro as divisive? I mean,
folks, what is more divisive than the things the Pastor said about
"white folks", even clearly lambasting Europeans.

7. Of all the incendiary things one can say about race and society and
country where is an Obama supporter or surrogate who now has the moral
high ground to accuse the opponent's surrogates for being divisive.
What is disheartening here is that Obama has forever ceded that high
ground to Clinton/McCain.

I may be wrong - do persuade me that I am. It is very hard for me to
vote for Hillary but now I am thinking about the general election and
finding it really hard to figure out how Obama can keep his
constituencies, his image of being a uniter. How can he? I am seeing
those Republican ads running day and night showing a montage of all the
different ways this Pastor has denounced America and Europeans and
Israel, punctuated by Obama in his own words "I don't think actually
that my church is particularly controversial". I mean, Judgment,
Moderation, Sincerity - can they be Obama's defining pillars anymore?
This is so disheartening. Where do we go from here?

Posted by: Umbria | March 14, 2008 05:38 PM

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