Fireworks In Phoenix….3-2-1-

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.

Obama’s Rules

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?

Change You Can Believe In

Obama, fall ‘07:

“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:

West Virginia:

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?

Planned Parenthood Sends Out Mother’s Day Fund-Raiser Emails

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.

The Exaggerations, Lies, Distortions, and Flip-Flops Of Barack Obama

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.”

Also:

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:

What McCain actually said:

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.

♦Hotair reports:

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:

Ed Morrissey:

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.

“Not Something To Laugh About”!

Cheeky Monkey!

A UK man faces fines for “public order offences”, and……”not wearing a seatbelt”.

BBC News primly reports:

A front seat car passenger was photographed baring his backside at a speed camera in Northumberland.

The “mooning” man was snapped by the mobile camera as the black BMW X5 drove past on the A1171 Dudley Lane in Cramlington last month.

His behaviour has been labelled as “dangerous and offensive” by road safety campaigners.

Police may take action against the man for public order offences and not wearing a seat belt.

Officers have the registration of the car, which was not breaking the speed limit, and intend to contact its owner.

It is understood the driver will not face prosecution as no driving offence was being committed.

I guess the guy’s butt was a good driver.

Jeremy Forsberg, of the Northumbria Safer Roads Initiative, said: “This behaviour is simply ridiculous - it’s clear what he was thinking with what he had on show.

“Not only is it disrespectful, but distasteful and offensive, particularly to children who may have been exposed to this nonsense.

“This prank could have been a real distraction from the driver and that is not something to laugh about.”

Bwahahaha!

Hat tip: Crime Scene KC

Obama Says “Wright Was Never My Political Council”

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:

(From the WSJ):

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.

David Blaine On Oprah

I was tipped off to this while reading the Politico piece about how Oprah hasn’t been out stumping for Obama since Feb. (I never watch Oprah). Oprah’s people say it’s because of her busy schedule, although there is some speculation that it has more to do with her falling popularity since her star studded fundraiser for Obama last fall, and her campaign appearances on his behalf. I wrote a post about her sliding popularity in early April.

The Politico:

Indeed, since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, Oprah has been absent from Obama’s side. Her people say other projects have kept her too busy to hit the hustings for the candidate. His people say they’d love to have her but don’t need her help in attracting crowds anymore.

Obama doesn’t need her help attracting large crowds. He does that well enough on his own. But she could help him attract a more diverse crowd, and maybe help erase some of the discomfort many people have regarding Obama’s problematic associations. A lot of women trust Oprah. But that’s neither here nor there.

This throw-away line caught my attention:

Either way, people expecting to see her on the stump any time soon may have to hold their breath longer than David Blaine did this week on her namesake talk show.

Youtube star David Blaine was on her show?

I thought David Blaine was a fake magician… a comedian spoofing real magicians. That’s the impression I get from watching his youtube videos.

But this definitely wasn’t fake:

Dude!

Turning The Page

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.

Obama And His “Intellectual Father” (In Happier Times)

Feb. 2007. Obama with the man whose ‘words sometimes disturb him’:

What Obama And Wright Hath Wrought

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.

Obama Unambiguously Throws Wright Under Bus

The press conference is ongoing as I type this. Allah will have the video as soon as it’s available. Also Michelle Malkin is liveblogging.

Obama appears to be seriously displeased by Wright’s performance, last weekend. Calls them “rants not grounded in truth”. Says it doesn’t reflect anything he believes. He’s annoyed by the damage Wright has done to him personally, but more importantly… his campaign. (I was expecting him to say race relations in this country, or something of that nature, but nooooo). Does Obama have any idea how depressing Wright’s words are to average Americans?

Incredibly, he asks us to believe that Reverend Wright’s view of America, which was on display over the weekend, (which Obama strongly condemns) was never on display during the 20 years he was a member of TUCC. He goes to church to pray, not see a spectacle. I’m sorry, but I call b.s.

The Fox Commentators (Edie Hill and ?) find Obama’s response to the questions, not satisfying. The problem still not going to go away…could be the “death knell” of his campaign. (Gosh! I hope not!)

Also, he disavows the claim that Wright was ever his “spiritual mentor”, or “adviser”, merely his pastor. He says the media has erroneously portrayed Reverend Wright as such. The implication being…they’re really not that close. I could be wrong, but I thought Obama was on record as describing Wright as his spiritual adviser.

I’ll be busy googling for the next few minutes.

Ace’s coverage here.

UPDATE:

As for the ‘Hey! He was only my pastor…not my spiritual mentor or advisor’ claim; Obama said back 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.”

Sounds like he’s calling him some sort of spiritual adviser, (not to mention a ‘day to day’ political adviser!) if you ask me.

Should Obama “Disown” Reverend Wright?

I have to do one more quick post before I go to bed.

Some pundits like Byron York, and Andrew Sullivan are offering Obama free advice, strongly suggesting that he “disown” Reverend Wright.

York:

“I think he’s going to have to walk farther away from Wright, if he wants to win the general election,” one Democratic strategist told me Monday night. “He could say, ‘This is different now. Just to eliminate any questions, I am going to leave this church, because I believe the country is more important.’ It would say that Wright’s rhetoric has no place in his campaign or the lives of his children.” (As the Wright controversy has festered, observers on both sides of the political divide have wondered, usually in whispers, about Obama’s decision to take his young children to Wright’s church.)

Sullivan:

Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright’s views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer, Vietnam era’s obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and anti-America fixations. That is not what this election needs to be about; and Wright’s massive, racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation requires a proportionate response.

We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this poison, however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the impact will be.

(Here’s Ace’s hilarious take on St. Andrew’s change of heart).

First of all, STOP trying to help the enemy, Byron.

(Here’s Karl Rove trying to give him some free advice, too). Stop that!

Second of all, what can he possibly say as a means to explain how he was able to sit in Reverend Wright’s pews for 20 years, and listen to that garbage? He can “disown” Wright all he wants, but he can’t disown his participation in that loathsome church for 20 years; a church that practices the profoundly racist Black Liberation Theology.

He, and Wright, and the media can spin spin spin all they want that Wright was taken out of context, but the American people, (the majority, anyway) are not such ignorant buffoons that they would believe such unmitigated bullcrap. The unedited versions of his sermons, taken completely in context, (which he sells in his own church giftshop!) are even worse.

So to say that Obama just needs to “disown” his Pastor of twenty years doesn’t cut it. But don’t tell the panicky nutroots that. They’re still holding on to hope, (and change).

What Obama really needs to do is drop out before he does any more damage to race relations in this country.

UPDATE:

GOP operatives, always slow on the uptake, are finally noticing Obama’s weaknesses, and are preparing a $500,000 hit on him. Something tells me it’s going to be lukewarm, and unsatisfying:

Whereas Obama once seemed an almost cultlike figure who transcended race and class, the narrative that has emerged from his campaign’s recent trials has given Republicans hope that the Illinois senator can be tagged as an elitist with the same effectiveness with which Michael Dukakis and John F. Kerry were so labeled.

The elitist story line has provided Republicans with press release fodder against freshman Democratic House members and statewide elected officials in roughly two dozen states.

Whoa, Nellie! Hardcore! Elitist, eh?

The guy’s got our nations enemies, tin-pot dictators, known commies, radical pinkos, (and Reverend Wright) supporting him; he’s buds with a former terrorist, for crying out loud, and the best they can do is try to paint him as an elitist?

They had better do better than that, by God.

Reverend Wright’s October Surprise?

Reverend ‘US of KKK A’ Wright is the gift that keeps on giving to Republicans. He’s writing a book that will be published later this year.

He announced this good news during his speech in Detroit:

“So let me give you the outline of the rest of this message. You can either fill in the blanks for yourselves or you could wait for my book that will be out later this year.”

Later this year…as in…say…October? Blogger Steve Sailer likes to think so. He predicted this, earlier this month:

If you were a literary agent, say, wouldn’t you want to sign Wright up for a quickie bestseller, with a release date targeted at, say, 10/1/08? Hustle your best ghostwriter out to Tinley Park and get Wright’s memoirs and views on current issues slapped together by the Fourth of July. Make that deadline and you could have it on the bookshelves five weeks before Election Day! No, I don’t think we’ve heard the last from Rev. Wright.

Some people are saying that Wright is mad at Obama for throwing him under the bus during his speech on race. I’m not so sure about that. I think Wright actually wants to help Obama. He’s just too delusional to know how to go about it.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

Related:

Anybody getting Reverend Wright fatigue? Do you watch the clips of Wright saying G-D Damn America over and over in front of his whooping and hollering congregation, and get demoralized? Do the US of KKK A intonations give you heartburn. Here’s the antidote. (I really think Baldilocks is in love).

Official Obama Blogger: Hardcore Marxist

No that is not hyperbole. Meet Sam Graham-Felsen, official Obama blogger, and writer for The Nation, and The Socialist Viewpoint.

The Socialist Viewpoint? Sounds kind of left-wing, doesn’t it? Let’s visit the ‘About Us’ page and find out more:

The Socialist Workers Organization was formed to advance the revolutionary Marxist political program in the United States. Our members are long time active participants in the socialist and labor movements. We agree with Karl Marx that society is divided into social classes whose interests are irreconcilable.

The capitalist ruling class of the United States exercises a virtual dictatorship not only over American society, but also over the entire world. This capitalist class rule is the basic cause of the poverty, wars, and the degradation of the natural environment.

We advocate workers’ power to solve the pressing problems that plague our society—homelessness, hunger, AIDS, the lack of health care for those who can’t afford it, the poor quality and lack of resources for public education and other public institutions, and the destruction of the environment.

We believe that people have the human right to freedom, justice, and sharing of all the resources available for the makings of a good life. This means the right to jobs, decent housing, food and health care, and every aspect of education, clean water, air, and earth.

Workers power is the answer!

Working people are the overwhelming majority of the population and the ruling capitalist class is only a handful. They hold a monopoly over the media and the institutions of culture that create “public opinion”—the printed and electronic mass media, as well as all public and private educational institutions. In the final analysis, however, capitalists rule by military and police force and violence.

To break the stranglehold of the capitalist minority over all of society, workers need their own political institutions. Workers and their unions need to break definitively with Democrats, Republicans, and other capitalist parties, all of which are dedicated to preserving and advancing the capitalist system of social, economic and political injustice.

Socialism, the ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the working class, and the removal of profit from the system of production, is the aim of Socialist Viewpoint, which reflects the political views of the Socialist Workers Organization. Socialism is the prerequisite for the next stage in human development that will end class oppression and exploitation for all time.

The Common Ills has much more on Graham-Felsen (what’s with the 2-part name? He’s a dude!).

What more do people need to know about Obama? Have the super-delegates figured out that he’s unelectable yet? Should we just hush up about all this and save it for later… I mean…MY GOSH!

Hat tip: Moonbattery

Update:

Oh wow, why does this not surprise me:

Real or hoax? I can’t decide.

The Communist Party USA definitely seems to like him.