Yesterday I wondered what had changed to make Barack Obama suddenly decide that wearing a flag lapel pin was a cool idea, after all.
Byron York wondered the same thing this morning, and found these revealing photos of Obama:
Here he is leaving the U.S. Capitol, yesterday. (No pin):
And here he is right before his event in Cape Girardeau, MO, same day. (Oh look —pin!)
Hahahaha. Gotta love it.
The Democrat Governor, Janet Napolitano has figured out a way to stop illegal immigrant busting sheriff Joe Arpaio:
Much of the money for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration-enforcement efforts lately has poured out of a special pool of state money.
But New Times has learned that Governor Janet Napolitano’s turning off the spigot.
In what appears to be a prelude to a major fight between Napolitano and Arpaio, the governor issued an executive order last week to develop a new task force–headed up by the state Department of Public Safety–to find and arrest tens of thousands of felons with outstanding warrants.
And, according to a letter from DPS Director Roger Vanderpool to Arpaio outlining the new effort, the task force will be funded with the money that Arpaio isn’t getting anymore.
I think we’ll be hearing more about this fairly soon.
Well, Rich Lowery’s piece, Obama’s Rules, is being commented on all over the net today, so I thought I’d weigh in. First, here are the rules as spelled out by Rich:
He can’t be called a “liberal” (“the same names and labels they pin on everyone,” as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can’t be questioned (“attempts to play on our fears”); his extreme positions on social issues can’t be exposed (“the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives” and “turn us against each other”); and his Chicago background too is off-limits (“pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy”). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.
Democrats always want cultural issues not to matter because they are on the least-popular side of many of them, and want patriotic symbols like the Pledge of Allegiance and flag pins to be irrelevant when they can’t manage to nominate presidential candidates who wholeheartedly embrace them (which shouldn’t be that difficult). As for “fear” and “division,” they are vaporous pejoratives that can be applied to any warning of negative consequences of a given policy or any political position that doesn’t command 100 percent assent. In his North Carolina speech, Obama said the Iraq war “has not made us safer,” and that McCain’s ideas are “out of touch” with “American values.” How fearfully divisive.
Any deviations from these rules will be attacked as distractions, racism, or fear mongering.
Needless to say (I hope)…Nice Deb will not be deterred. I will continue to carry on as I have, pointing out every objectionable thing I discover about the man.
And I will unhelpfully laugh at his gaffes, too.
Sadly, I can see McCain obediently and enthusiastically following Obama’s rules, but is it too much to hope that the RNC demur?
“You know, the truth is that 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,” Obama added rather grandiosely, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”
Obama, Spring ‘08:
Pennsylvania:
Barack Obama sported a flag lapel pin and talked up patriotism Monday as he campaigned in blue-collar West Virginia. He also shot a solid game of pool.
So what changed?
So I’ve been reading up on that Obama campaign adviser who threw himself under the bus, recently. He was becoming a “distraction” because of his ties to Hamas.
Robert Malley, an employee of the International Crisis Group, said he served as an “informal” Middle East adviser to Obama. He told NBC News this past weekend he decided to step down after the Times of London inquired about whether he had contacts with Hamas.
Turns out his support for Hamas was well known, and ongoing:
Malley has penned numerous opinion articles, many of them co-written with a former adviser to the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, petitioning for dialogue with Hamas and blasting Israel for numerous policies he says harm the Palestinian cause.
In February 2006, after Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament and amid a U.S. and Israeli attempt to isolate the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority, Malley wrote an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun advocating international aid to the terror group’s newly formed government.
In numerous other op-eds, Malley advocates a policy of engagement with Hamas.
Hamas is responsible for scores of deadly shootings, suicide bombings and rocket attacks aimed at Jewish civilian population centers. The past few weeks alone, Hamas militants took credit for firing more than 200 rockets into Israel.
Hamas’ official charter calls for the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel.
Naturally it’s totally unfair to surmise that having Robert Malley, as Obama’s Middle East adviser in any way reflects Obama’s views. Why would anybody think that?
Well, (this is just a distraction, and all), but It should be remembered that Obama’s church, TUCC published a “Hamas Terror Manifesto” in its church newsletter, The Trumpet.
It also published an insane article by a Palestinian activist about how Israel was an “apartheid” regime with claims that the Jewish state worked on an “ethnic bomb” that kills “blacks and Arabs.”
It turns out that TUCC also has a soft spot for Hezbollah. Who would have thunk it?
Again in the church newsletter, The Trumpet:
U.S. Must Stop Middle East Violence
The escalating Middle East violence and the continued bombing of Lebanon and Gaza is threatening regional stability. Though appeals have gone out from the religious community for the United States and other world leaders to intervene diplomatically, as of Wednesday when the TUCC bulletin is published, the U.S. refuses to call for a cease-fire. Instead, the U.S. is increasing arms shipments to Israel and Congress has passed resolutions declaring unconditional support for Israel’s devastating military campaigns.
More at Sweetness and Light, who have apparently been pouring over past Trumpet newsletters to find such gems as Reverend Wright’s impassioned plea for tolerance of practitioners of Santeria, (otherwise known as Voo Doo!), and a quaint little poem written for the five year anniversary of 9/11.
Apparently, Obama is one of those people who doesn’t read the church newsletter. Or maybe he just skimmed through it quickly, to see when the next prayer meeting would be. ‘Cause Obama’s just a praying fool!
UPDATE:
Well, here’s an interesting turn of events. In The Atlantic, today Obama tells us that Israel is a “constant wound… a constant sore…” that “infects foreign policy”.
Asked if he was “flummoxed” by Hamas’ endorsement, he answers:
I wasn’t flummoxed. I think what is going on there is the same reason why there are some suspicions of me in the Jewish community. Look, we don’t do nuance well in politics and especially don’t do it well on Middle East policy. We look at things as black and white, and not gray. It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,” and that’s something they’re hopeful about. I think that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security.
“It’s indicative of how some of our enemies view America. And I guarantee you, they’re not going to endorse me.”
No one is right or wrong, it’s all “gray” and he’s just the guy to let everyone know. What is jaw-dropping, however, is his assumption that Hamas might be impressed with his “worldly” outlook. That’s what Hamas has been searching for: someone who is worldly. And notice the evasion he employs (”talks with people”) to escape stating the obvious: they are thrilled he’s offered direct talks with their sponsor and Holocaust denier Ahmejinidad.
Please help us Prevent More Women From Becoming Mothers:
With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, has a message for moms: send us more money. Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, sent out a fund-raising request this week one pro-life advocate says is grotesque.
Richards honored Mother’s Day by sharing part of an editorial her daughter wrote saying she got her pro-abortion views from her mother and grandmother, former Texas Gov. Ann Richards.
“It’s true that I have had lots of rewarding moments in my career. So did my mother,” Cecile wrote in the email LifeNews.com obtained. “But knowing that my daughter is carrying on the legacy of fighting that my mother passed to me trumps ‘em all.”
Richard couldn’t wait until the third paragraph of her Mother’s Day letter to PPFA supporters to ask them to open their wallets.
“This Mother’s Day, I’m honoring that legacy with a Planned Parenthood Federation of America Mother’s Day gift. Join me,” she wrote.
“You can help with a gift to Planned Parenthood Federation of America today in honor of your mother or daughter, and on behalf of all the women,” she added.
Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek called Richard’s exploitation of Mother’s Day for pro-abortion money-making purposes “grotesque” and said she couldn’t believe Richards would stoop to “using her dead mother and daughter as props.”
“This pathetic woman is so psychologically and emotionally invested in abortion she has no semblance of conscience left,” Stanek said. “If and when she has grandchildren, I’m sure she’ll use them too.”
It’s grotesque alright. Asking women around the Mother’s Day holiday to send them money so they can prevent other women from becoming mothers…by destroying their babies, is downright Orwellian.
Richards said passing on her pro-abortion mantra to her daughter Hannah and her younger children Lily and Daniel is “the best gift any mother can give her children.”
The mind reels…the best gift she can leave her children is the teaching that abortion is a wonderful right? “I had the right to kill you, but “chose” not to…isn’t choice neat-o?”
In the email, Richards also admitted that promoting abortion was more important to her mother than even promoting equal rights for African-Americans.
“In all of my mother’s activism — from the civil rights movement to the ERA — nothing meant more to her,” she said.
“I’m proud that, as the leader of Planned Parenthood, I get the opportunity every day to carry forward work that honors her and honors all who came before her,” Richards concluded.
“And, I’m proud that my own children carry on that legacy. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”
Good lord. Planned Parenthood does all it can to deny such legacies.
Stanek said abortion advocates can leave no legacy to children and grandchildren because they’ve been responsible for the deaths of 50 million of them.
Exactly. The ghouls.
Check it out over at Suitably Flip.
The reason I haven’t said anything about this latest gaffe of Obama’s is because everybody knows these slips of the tongue on the campaign trail happen to all politicians at one time or another.
A couple of thoughts, though, first the most obvious one: If McCain had said this, it would have been covered exhaustively in newspapers all across the country; it would have been evidence of him being an old man “losing his bearings”, and it would haunt him relentlessly all the way to election day. Obama says it, and of course he receives howls and cat-calls from the right-wing blogosphere, but it doesn’t receive a great amount of attention from the MSM. Because it’s just evidence of a man fatigued from too many days on the campaign trail. Which is what it is….but wouldn’t be if McCain had said it.
Second…where did he even get the 57 number? What the heck? At first I thought, “Maybe he means 57 cities?” But surely he’s been to more cities than that. I mean….???
UPDATE:
Possible answers:
1. Liberal commenters from all across the internets are saying “he was clearly joking”.
2. Hmmmmm.
3. (Most likely): He meant 47 states. He has one left + Alaska & Hawaii that he “wasn’t allowed to go to.” That’s all 50.
Not a joke, just a misstatement.
Thanks Geoff.
UPDATE:
Weird Coincidence!
Guess how many FBI officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty, last year?
Who’s this Dwight Schrute person? I’ve never heard of him. But MDefl at Rightpundits has, and is endorsing him for McCain’s VP pick. McCain announced his choice of Schrute as his VP pick on the Daily Show, yesterday:
McCain doesn’t seem to know who he is either, since he had to read his name off of a piece of paper.
UPDATE:
As for McCain/Clinton….please! I can’t believe anyone is even taking that seriously.
Check out this excerpt from Obama’s North Carolina victory speech:
The attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences, to turn us against each other for political gain, to slice and dice this country into red states and blue states, blue collar and white collar, white, black, brown, young, old, rich, poor … this is the race we expect, no matter whether it’s myself or Senator Clinton who is the nominee. The question then is not what kind of campaign they will run; it’s what kind of campaign we will run.
It’s what we will do to make this year different. You see, I didn’t get into this race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics, but I am running for president because this is the time to end it.
We will end it — we will end it this time not because I’m perfect. I think we know at this phase of the campaign that I am not.
We will end it not by duplicating the same tactics and the same strategies as the other side, because that will lead us down the same path of polarization and of gridlock.
We will end it by telling the truth.
We will end it by telling the truth forcefully, repeatedly, confidently, and by trusting that the American people will embrace the need for change, even if it’s coming from an imperfect messenger, because that’s how we’ve — that’s — because that’s how we’ve always changed this country, not from the top down, but from the bottom up, when you, the American people, decide that the stakes are too high and the challenges are too great.
That’s right. Barack Obama fancies himself to be the truth-telling candidate. And anyone who says otherwise will (of course) be accused of racism, and “playing on our fears”.
Well, I don’t care. I’m pretty thick skinned. Let’s just examine how truthful this man is:
♦Obama claims the Kennedy family payed for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship to meet his Kansan mother.
Status - NOT TRUE:
Contrary to Obama’s claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama’s father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.
♦Obama claims that a detailed questionaire filled out in his name, in 1996, with responses reflecting ultra liberal views on everything from gun control to abortion, was filled out by an aide, and doesn’t reflect his views.
Status: LIE
… a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer.
♦Obama sites photo of black man bleaching his skin in Dreams From My Father. Claims said photo gave him the feeling of an “Ambush Attack”
Status - NOT TRUE: No such photo appears to exist.
♦Obama states in January 2008 debate: “I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer.
Status: Flip-flop or LIE: Barack at AFL-CIO conference in June 2003: “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage.
♦Obama in 2004: Doesn’t see himself running for President in 2008: “If I were to seriously consider running on a national ticket…I would essentially have to start now…before having served a day in the Senate. Now there might be some people who would have no problem doing that, but ah…I’m not one of them“.
He said two years ago that he would “absolutely” serve out his Senate term, which ends in 2011, and that the idea of him running for president this cycle was “silly” and hype “that’s been a little overblown”.
In an appearance on Meet the Press with Tim Russert, January 22nd, 2006:
Russert: “When we talked back in November of ‘04 after your election, I said, ‘There’s been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your six-year term as United States senator from Illinois?’”
Obama: “I will serve out my full six-year term. You know, Tim, if you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things. But my thinking has not changed.”
Russert: “So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?”
Obama: “I will not.”
Status: Gross flip-flop or LIE. Obviously.
♦In July ‘07 Barack Obama tells a group of reporters in Boston that the United States has an “absolute obligation” to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a success: “The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster,” he said at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, according to an audiotape of the session. “It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective.”
Status - Flip-flop or LIE: Obama Campaign pledge 9/07: Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq.
♦Obama tells this stirring tale to a Selma audience: He had been conceived by his parents, Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham, because they had been inspired by the fervor following the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights demonstration that was commemorated March 4.
Status - Bad Info or LIE: Obama was born in 1961, and the Selma march occurred four years later, in 1965.
♦On January 24, 2008, the Obama campaign released a statement, saying, “To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.
Status: NOT TRUE:
The Associated Press reports that “documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim” while at a Catholic school during first through third grades. …the Chicago Tribune confirms that Obama was “listed as a Muslim on the registration form for the Catholic school.” A blogger who goes by “An American Expat in Southeast Asia” found that “Barack Hussein Obama was registered under the name ‘Barry Soetoro’ serial number 203 and entered the Franciscan Asisi Primary School on 1 January 1968 and sat in class 1B. … Barry’s religion was listed as Islam.”
…the Toronto Star visited the Jakarta public school Obama attended and found that “Three of his teachers have said he was enrolled as a Muslim.”
♦Obama told the Sun-Times his “best estimate” was that Rezko raised “between $50,000 and $60,000″ during Obama’s political career.
Status: Very sloppy fact-checking, or LIE: Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Additionally, Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.
♦During a nationally televised debate last fall, Obama hesitantly raised his hand and joined with most of his Democrat rivals to declare that he opposed decriminalizing marijuana. (first video).
Status: Stupid gaffe, or LIE:
But as a candidate for the U.S. Senate four years ago, Mr. Obama told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use or possession, according to a videotape of a little noticed debate that was obtained by The Washington Times.
“I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws,” Mr. Obama told an audience during a debate at Northwestern University in 2004. “But I’m not somebody who believes in legalization of marijuana.” (second video).
♦ Obama promised to use public funding in the general election if the Republican candidate would do so also.
Status: Welcher:
Well, McCain has agreed to it, but now Obama wants to back out of the deal. After all, when he made the promise, he didn’t have a chance of raising more than the public’s $85 million stipend. But now that he can raise $300 million, well, what’s a little untruth between the waited-for one and his people? Yes, he can.
♦Obama’s campaign claims he meant every word he said about overturning the free-trade treaty, and that no one had contacted the Canadian diplomatic corps to reassure them that it was mere demagoguery.
Status: LIE:
CTV responded today by naming names — and suddenly the Obama campaign has grown quiet.
CTV didn’t stop there. They also announced that their sources, at “the highest levels of the Canadian government”, reconfirmed the story to CTV. One of their primary sources provided a timeline of the discussion to CTV. Contrary to some reports, CTV has not retreated at all from this story.
Jim Geraghty notes:
I realize Obama’s campaign can still claim that one of his advisers went rogue in contacting the Canadians about his NAFTA rhetoric, but to me, this is game, set and match to CTV. … If Goolsbee had not talked to officials in the consulate, it seems likely that his answer would have been, “No, I didn’t talk to them.”
♦Obama: I didn’t hear (reverend Wright’s) inflammatory sermons.
Status: BULL
♦Barack Obama, May 2008: he never sought Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s counsel on political issues.
Status: LIE:
Obama January 2007: “What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice,” Obama said. “He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics.”
Mr. Obama consulted Mr. Wright before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Mr. Wright before announcing his candidacy last year.
♦Obama continues to claim that McCain favors 100 more years of US troops fighting in Iraq:
Status: Gross distortion:
QUESTIONER: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years –
McCAIN: Maybe a hundred.
QUESTIONER: Is that — is that –
McCAIN: We’ve been in South Korea — we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans –
QUESTIONER: So that’s your policy?
McCAIN: — As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, then it’s fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, and equipping and motivating people every single day.
The Barack Obama campaign responded to the pictures of Obama political and community associate William Ayers stomping on the American flag, first published in 2001 in Chicago Magazine. In a statement reported on Fox & Friends this morning, Team Obama deplores Ayers’ actions but rejects any connection between Ayers and Obama:
Status: Doesn’t add up!
That distance might be hard to maintain. First, the profile in the magazine wasn’t exactly a low-profile article in an obscure publication. Ayers had just published a memoir of his days as a fugitive for domestic terrorism in the Weather Underground, and both the book and the publicity gained national attention, especially after 9/11. Obama continued to work with Ayers after this, appearing on public panels with Ayers into 2002.
If Team Obama wants to disassociate itself from Ayers in this manner, it should recheck its website. Obama still defends William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn as part of Chicago’s “mainstream”. Does Obama think that stomping on a flag in an alley to celebrate a memoir of domestic terrorism represents the mainstream of political thought?
Important Source: The Obama File, Freedoms Enemies
To be continued….
MORE:
Obama said in his North Carolina victory speech:
The other side can label and name-call all they want, but I trust the American people to recognize that it is not surrender to end the war in Iraq so that we can rebuild our military and go after Al Qaida’s leaders.I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.
Status: NOT QUITE:
I’m particularly bemused by the references to FDR and Truman. Both men ended up having to conduct massive wars that outlasted their presidencies, and in FDR’s case in no small measure because Western nations insisted on talk rather than action. While we maintained diplomatic contact with Germany and Japan until Pearl Harbor, FDR did not meet with Hitler and Tojo. And that diplomatic contact didn’t stop war from coming; indeed, it make it much worse than it otherwise would have been, at least in Europe, had the US, UK, and France had taken the appropriate steps to disarm Hitler when he started his Versailles Treaty violations.
Truman met with Joseph Stalin during and after World War II, but that didn’t stop the Soviets from blockading West Berlin or ringing down an iron curtain across eastern Europe, enslaving those nations for almost 50 years. If Potsdam and Yalta are Obama’s idea of successful foreign policy, then he obviously hasn’t studied 20th century history. Talking with implacable tyrants leads to appeasement, which leads to either war or more implacability of the tyranny in question.
UPDATE (May 10):
Obama says he’s been to 57 states during a campaign stop.
Status: GAFFE.
Bestest photoshop evah! ^^^ (She SAID we could use it).
Fox News reports:
Barack Obama said Sunday he never sought Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s counsel on political issues and would “absolutely not” seek his advice on policy if he gets to the White House.
The Democratic presidential candidate said his retiring pastor built a wonderful church that “lived out the social gospel,” but ultimately Wright’s comments about the United States “over the last several months and over the last several years … are contrary to what I stand for and who I am.”
Well huh! I’m scratching my head here, because I distinctly recall him saying in January 2007:
Obama says that rather than advising him on strategy, Wright helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated.
“What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice,” Obama said. “He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics.”
Now….when Obama says “not his day-to-day political advice”, he doesn’t mean he doesn’t get “day to day political advice” from reverend Wright. He just means it’s just not what he values most about his relationship with his pastor.
But his statement does strongly suggest some “day to day political advice”.
Now perhaps Obama didn’t/doesn’t consider Wright a political councilor because he never sought his advice, and the good reverend just offered it in an unsolicited manner….. “Day-to-day”.
Obama just never told him to can it because he’s such a nice guy, and all.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Just sayin’
UPDATE:
Alice H. reminds me of this well known example of Obama/Wright political consultation:
The title of Mr. Obama’s bestseller “The Audacity of Hope” comes from one of Wright’s sermons. Mr. Wright is one of the first people Mr. Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004. Mr. Obama consulted Mr. Wright before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Mr. Wright before announcing his candidacy last year.
You know what? I’ll quit playing “gotcha” when he quits lying.
Michelle Obama said in a recent interview that she wants to “turn the page” from the Reverend Wright controversy. Hoo-boy, I don’t blame her.
Instead, she prefers to talk about education:
“Let’s not elect somebody who has been there and hasn’t done it,” Michelle Obama said in a fairly clear reference to Clinton. She said education was the issue that most concerns parents and her husband is the only one who can make changes there.
“It’s going to take us being, as a nation, deeply passionate and angry about the failing education for all kids,” she said. “When was the last time we heard some really solid questions for these candidates on education in a debate? You know all about the issues in our personal lives, but … education is the thing we should be angry about.”
Tom Maguire, of Just One Minute, (who’s been looking into Obama’s past work on an education board, created by Bill Ayers) jumped on that:
Obama and Ayers (a professor of education) worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge for several years in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to reform Chicago’s public schools. The extent of their relationship is not clear, since Obama has been opaque on this topic both in a televised debate and at his website. However, Ayers was instrumental in founding the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and Obama was the group’s first chairman, so there is something being concealed there.
Read the whole thing. This story should be getting more play in the media.
More background here.
Michael Smirconish (filling in for Bill O’Reilly today on his radio show), played a clip from his interview with Hillary Clinton.
What an annoying piece of work, O’Reilly is. He says he feels sorry for Obama because his lunatic former pastor is derailing his campaign. Poor Obama is a nice guy, according to O’Reilly, and Reverend Wright is hurting him. What does Hillary think?
Frankly I don’t care. I realize she’ll just give a careful politician’s answer to that question. It’s O’Reilly’s sympathy for Obama that I’m interested in. As always, with O’Reilly, he wants to come off as a very mature, reasonable, independent thinker. So he basically implies that those of us whose hearts don’t bleed for Obama’s suffering in this cruel predicament are mean spirited wingers.
I can’t stress forcefully enough what utter bullshit that is. I don’t feel one teeny tiny bit sorry for Obama, and neither should anyone. In fact I think he owes me an apology for insulting my intelligence to the degree that he has. You don’t sit in the pews of a church for as long as he did and not notice the crazy, Marxist, race-baiting style of the Pastor. To try to convince us that Reverend McCrazyRace-baitingMarxist only came out when Obama and his family were not in the pews, strains credulity. It’s simply. not. credible. And that’s putting it nicely. Frankly, it’s BS - Barbara Streisand horse-hocky. Eh…I wish I had a really foul mouth right now…. if anyone deserves heaps of foul-mouthed scorn poured down on him, Obama does for being such an arrogant, insulting….!@#$%&* And what pisses me off the most are the dumcoffs who buy his bull, hook-line-and-sinker.
He also owes the country an apology for setting race relations in America back 50 years. By causing a spotlight to shine on his demonic church in Chicago, (because that’s the church he attended for nearly 20 years, and as he was running for POTUS, he had to know it would be looked at) he has forced millions of whites to recoil in disgust, and exclaim WTF??? What kind of pastor screams “God damn America”, and what kind of congregation whoops and hollers in appreciation at that kind of rhetoric…in church??? What kind of pastor blames the “US of KKK A” for the insane and unwarranted destruction on 9/11, the very weekend after the attack?
I used to believe that vast majority of Americans, both black and white, despised racism, and craved racial unity. Now we’re all forced to wonder how many of these black churches engage in that sort of “worship”, when normally we wouldn’t consider it any of our business how other congregations worship. I always assumed (mistakenly it turns out), that black churches were lively, but still reverent, and respectable, but in the case of TUCC, I can see I was wrong.
Christians are not supposed to damn anyone. That is why the curse “God damn” is such an egregious one. Christians are called to forgive their neighbors, not sit in supreme judgment of them. I understand that throughout history, there have been evil, or wrong-headed “men of God” preaching hate from the pulpit, I didn’t realize it was still going on to this degree.
How many more black pastors preach such hate from the pulpit. I shudder to think. I really don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think I want to know.
Thanks Obama.
Oh brother.
Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch reports:
A reliable source has informed me that Condoleeza Rice has approved a new lexicon for State Department usage, absolutely forbidding the use of the terms “jihad” and “jihadist” by any State Department official.
The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we’re validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it’s ridiculous to think that the U.S. State Department carries any validating authority within the Islamic world to determine what is Islam and what isn’t. This would be the first time that unbelievers have set the meaning of Islamic theology for Muslims.
Also, the claim is that by using the word “jihad,” we are insulting the peaceful Muslims who are waging the daily jihad of the struggle against sin…
Again with the argument that by using a word that implicates some of the more violent Muslims, we are insulting them all.
Just yesterday I was congratulating John McCain for refusing to cow under pressure from the ISNA to stop using the word ‘Islamic’ when describing Islamic terrorists:
Mr. Fareed, who is ISNA’s secretary-general, said such usages are wrong.
“I think this is just criminality, fair and square. We should just call them criminals. You want to call them terrorist criminals, fine,” he said. “But adding the word ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’ certainly doesn’t help our cause as Americans. It’s counterproductive. It paints an entire community of believers, 1.2 billion in total, in a very negative way. And certainly that’s not something that we want to do.”
Michael Ledeen countered with the obvious, clear thinking rebuttal to this type of PC tripe:
“It doesn’t group the enemy under the Islamic brush stroke because there are plenty of terrorists and extremists who are not Islamic. So it’s just a way of specifying who they are.”
Of ISNA’s criticism, Mr. Ledeen said, “They’re just silly. What a silly thing to say. I talk of Marxist extremists and nationalist extremists. They just don’t want people to say there are Islamic terrorists, which there are. Too bad.”
Sadly, bureaucrats at the State Department aren’t capable of such clear thinking.
It’s true that the word, Jihad has more than one meaning, violent Jihad being just one, but the primary one. Muslihoon who wrote a series of posts about the meaning of the word ‘Jihad’, back in February put it this way:
… there are technically a number of types of jihad. However, in general and across Muslim peoples, jihad by force (“jihad bi-s-sayf”, “jihad by the sword”) is the type that is assumed by default.
By not allowing officials to use the word, ‘jihad’, the State Department is like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. Everybody knows what it means, but they’re going to deny it and hope it goes away.
Hat tip: Weasel Zippers
UPDATE:
The inimitable Nick has a different take on this:
While I am generally appalled at political correctness or anything resembling it, this could be viewed in a different light. I can see how the term “Jihadist” could be viewed by a terrorist in a positive and emboldening light. Also, against political correctness doctrine she didn’t mandate an alternative term to replace teh forbidden words as is customary in enlightened circles, leaving the budding state department snob to use their own imagination to replace it.
UPDATE (May 1st):
Robert Spencer addresses this issue in a Jihad Watch video:
The Islamic Society of North America, (recently named an “Unindicted Co-conspirator” for a the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas) is in a snit over McCain’s use of the word, “Islamic” when describing Islamic terrorists.
I don’t get it. Do they prefer “islamofascist”?
The Washington Times reports:
A coalition of American Muslim groups is demanding that Sen. John McCain stop using the adjective “Islamic” to describe terrorists and extremist enemies of the United States.
Muneer Fareed, who heads the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), told The Washington Times that his group is beginning a campaign to persuade Mr. McCain to rephrase his descriptions of the enemy.
“We’ve tried to contact his office, contact his spokesperson to have them rethink word usage that is more acceptable to the Muslim community,” Mr. Fareed said. “If it’s not our intent to paint everyone with the same brush, then certainly we should think seriously about just characterizing them as criminals, because that is what they are.”
So….every time there’s a terrorist act in the name of Islam, we’re supposed to just say, “Criminals did it?”
Excuse my French, but are they shitting me?
An aide to Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who is counting on his pro-Iraq war stance to attract conservative voters, said the senator from Arizona will not drop the word.
Thank you, Maverick.
The two remaining Democrats in the presidential field, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, generally shun such word usage.
No surprise there; what do you expect from Dhimmicrats?
I honestly don’t understand the line of thinking, here:
Mr. Fareed, who is ISNA’s secretary-general, said such usages are wrong.
“I think this is just criminality, fair and square. We should just call them criminals. You want to call them terrorist criminals, fine,” he said. “But adding the word ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’ certainly doesn’t help our cause as Americans. It’s counterproductive. It paints an entire community of believers, 1.2 billion in total, in a very negative way. And certainly that’s not something that we want to do.”
Well, I’m sorry, the truth hurts. How about reforming your religion so it stops inspiring so many of its adherents into killing infidels. That would do more to improve people’s perception of Islam, then these campaigns of intimidation designed to chill free speech.
Steven Emerson, who directs the Investigative Project on Terrorism, recently wrote that the silence of ISNA and other Muslim groups after Hamas killed eight Israeli students “shows their unwillingness to condemn the terrorist act and its glorification.”
Michael Ledeen, a terrorism analyst at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, backed Mr. McCain’s definition of the enemy. “Islamic terrorism is purely descriptive,” he said. “It doesn’t group the enemy under the Islamic brush stroke because there are plenty of terrorists and extremists who are not Islamic. So it’s just a way of specifying who they are.”
Of ISNA’s criticism, Mr. Ledeen said, “They’re just silly. What a silly thing to say. I talk of Marxist extremists and nationalist extremists. They just don’t want people to say there are Islamic terrorists, which there are. Too bad.”
Some info on the ISNA from Discover The Networks:
According to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, ISNA “is a radical group hiding under a false veneer of moderation”; “convenes annual conferences where Islamist militants have been given a platform to incite violence and promote hatred” (for instance, al Qaeda supporter and PLO official Yusuf Al-Qaradhawi was invited to speak at an ISNA conference); has held fundraisers for terrorists (after Hamas leader Mousa Marzook was arrested and eventually deported in 1997, ISNA raised money for his defense); has condemned the U.S. government’s post-9/11 seizure of Hamas’ and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s financial assets; and publishes a bi-monthly magazine, Islamic Horizons, that “often champions militant Islamist doctrine.”
Sooo, if the ISNA isn’t supporting McCain, I wonder who they do support?
Hat tip: The Astute Bloggers
