The Obama Phenomena

[ccp]

Rachel,

It is great to have another opinion on this board.  Thanks for you ideas.

"And so he has"

Or, so he and his Jewish supporters are trying to claim.  And this may be true!  But it remains to be seen.

Personally, I don't trust this guy.  He has a long history of being a very liberal guy trying to move to the center.  He also has a long history of associating with those who are, lets say it gently, not fond of Jews, or Israel.

A person's historical actions, beliefs, and the way that they have lived are far far more characteristic of their true beliefs than any expedient things they say for political purposes.  Could he truly have altered his beliefs?  I doubt it.  Will he truly strive to work towards protecting Israel once elected? Maybe.  Will he negotiate with Israel's enemies?  Almost certainly he will.  Will this be good for Israel?  That is the great question.  It ain't his life in danger if Iran unleashes nuclear weapons on Israel.  It ain't his life on the line by *trusting* Iran whose total history is hell bent on driving Jews out of Israel - dead or alive.

Do you think he will really risk American lives and his political life to save Jews?  I am to say the least, very, very skeptical.  I feel Israel was far safer with Bush/Cheney then the left.  Just my opinion.  But as we speak Iran is closing in on nucs.  And all the talking has done nothing to stop that - nor will it.  Only a political collapse from within Iran or war will stop this IMO. 

[rachelg]

Rachel,

It is great to have another opinion on this board.  Thanks for you ideas.

......Do you think he will really risk American lives and his political life to save Jews?  I am to say the least, very, very skeptical.  I feel Israel was far safer with Bush/Cheney then the left. 

CCP,
Thanks for the Welcome!  Did Bush risk American lives and his political life to save Jews?  Would McCain?  I admit Bush is probably stronger on Israel than  Obama but I think he was/is  terrible for the country.   I would definitely vote against someone who I felt was bad for Israel( which I think would be bad for the US as well) but I am not a one issue voter. I already voted for Obama over Alan Keys who said some beautiful things about Israel but who I think is a total nut job.   According to Aipac( who is extremely concerned about Iranian nukes) and Alan Dershowitz  Obama is good  on Israel. What has Bush done about the Iranian Nuke problem? What would McCain do? Do you see an easy simple solution?  I am not hearing a good solution on either side.     I definitely like McCain much  better than Bush or Kerry  but I am not so found of his  current and former religious endorses and it is not the only issue we disagree  about.   Neither Party is a great fit for me because my views on social issues and  my views on security issues don't mesh well with either.

[ccp]

 ***Did Bush risk American lives and his political life to save Jews?***

Yes, I think that was part of the calculation in invading Iraq.  Obviously it hasn't worked as well as thought, but he certainly is risking American lives right now.   And I think if he had more political backing he would bomb the shit out of Iran's nuclear facilities, but America has turned weak.

******Would McCain?***   

In my mind I believe he would, absolutely.

As for Alan Dershowitz he can't see without his Democrat/liberal colored glasses.  So of course he will back the Democrat - he *always* does.  I have never heard him say a kind word for any Republican.  He could be an editorialist for the NYT.

Is/was Bush terrible for the country?  All I can say is the whole Republican party has been a disgrace the last 5 years - since 911 IMO.  I am a truly disappointed Republican. 

[G M]

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/05/23/vets-for-freedom-obama-will-go-to-iran-but-not-iraq/

Obama's priorities.

[Crafty_Dog]

POTOMAC WATCH
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL   

The Obama Learning Curve
May 23, 2008

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden took to the airwaves this week to "help" the rookie Barack Obama out of a foreign-policy jam. Oh sure, admitted Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee had given the "wrong" answer when he said he'd meet unconditionally with leaders of rogue states. But on the upside, the guy "has learned a hell of a lot."

Somewhere Mr. Obama was muttering an expletive. But give Mr. Biden marks for honesty. As Mr. Obama finishes a week of brutal questioning over his foreign-policy judgments, it's become clear he has learned a lot – and is learning still.

Right now, for instance, he's learning how tough it can be to pivot to a general-election stance on the crucial issue of foreign policy. He's also learning Democrats won't be able to sail through a national-security debate by simply painting John McCain as the second coming of George Bush.

Remember how Mr. Obama got here. In a July debate, the Illinois senator was asked if he'd meet, "without preconditions," the "leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea." It was an unexpected question, and Mr. Obama rolled with his gut: "I would," he said, riffing that the Bush administration's policy of not negotiating with terror-sponsoring states was "ridiculous."

Hillary Clinton, who still had the aura of inevitability, and who was already thinking ahead to a general election, wouldn't bite. At that point, any initial misgivings the Obama campaign had about the boss's answer disappeared. Mr. Obama hadn't got much traction differentiating himself from Mrs. Clinton over Iraq, but this was a chance to get to her left, to cast her to liberal primary voters as a warmonger. Which he did, often, committing himself ever more to a policy of unfettered engagement.

Today's Obama, all-but-nominee, is pitching to a broad American audience less keen to legitimize Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who provides weapons that kill American soldiers. The senator clumsily invited this debate when he took great umbrage to President Bush's recent criticism of appeasers (which, in a wonderfully revealing moment, Democrats instantly assumed meant them). Mr. Obama has since been scrambling to neutralize his former statement.

A week ago, in Oregon, he adopted the "no-big-deal" approach, telling listeners Iran was just a "tiny" country that, unlike the Soviet Union, did not "pose a serious threat to us." But this suggested he'd missed that whole asymmetrical warfare debate – not to mention 9/11 – so by the next day, he'd switched to the "blame-Republicans" line. Iran was in fact "the greatest threat to the United States and Israel and the Middle East for a generation" – but all because of President Bush's Iraq war.

This, however, revived questions of why he'd meet with said greatest-threat leader, so his advisers jumped in, this time to float the "misunderstood" balloon. Obama senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, channeling Bill Clinton, said it all depended on what the definition of a "leader" is. "Well, first of all, he said he'd meet with the appropriate Iranian leaders. He hasn't named who that leader will be." (Turns out, Mr. Obama has said he will meet with . . . Mr. Ahmadinejad.)

Former Sen. Tom Daschle, channeling Ms. Rice, explained it also depended on what the definition of a precondition is: "It's important to emphasize again when we talk about preconditions, we're just saying everything needs to be on the table. I would not say that we would meet unconditionally." This is called being against preconditions before you were for them.

And so it goes, as Mr. Obama shifts and shambles, all the while telling audiences that when voting for president they should look beyond "experience" to "judgment." In this case, whatever his particular judgment on Iran is on any particular day.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Democrats entered this race confident national security wouldn't be the drag on the party it has in the past. With an unpopular war and a rival who supports that war, they planned to wrap Mr. McCain around the unpopular Mr. Bush and be done with it. Mr. Obama is still manfully marching down this road, today spending as much time warning about a "third Bush term" as he does reassuring voters about a first Obama one.

Then again, 9/11 and five years of Iraq debate have educated voters. Mr. McCain is certainly betting they can separate the war from the urgent threat of an Iranian dictator who could possess nukes, and whose legitimization would encourage other rogues in their belligerence. This is a debate the Arizonan has been preparing for all his life and, note, Iranian diplomacy is simply the topic du jour.

Mr. McCain has every intention of running his opponent through the complete foreign-policy gamut. Explain again in what circumstances you'd use nuclear weapons? What was that about invading Pakistan? How does a policy of engaging the world include Mr. Ahmadinejad, but not our ally Colombia and its trade pact?

It explains too the strong desire among the McCain camp to get Mr. Obama on stage for debates soon. There's a feeling Mr. Obama is still climbing the foreign-policy learning curve. And they see mileage in his issuing a few more gut reactions.

[rachelg]

***Did Bush risk American lives and his political life to save Jews?***

Yes, I think that was part of the calculation in invading Iraq.  Obviously it hasn't worked as well as thought, but he certainly is risking American lives right now.   And I think if he had more political backing he would bomb the shit out of Iran's nuclear facilities, but America has turned weak.

******Would McCain?***   

In my mind I believe he would, absolutely.

As for Alan Dershowitz he can't see without his Democrat/liberal colored glasses.  So of course he will back the Democrat - he *always* does.  I have never heard him say a kind word for any Republican.  He could be an editorialist for the NYT.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3444393,00.html
Chief of staff of former secretary of state reveals that large number of senior Israeli officials warned Bush administration that invasion of Iraq would be destabilizing to region. 'The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy - Iran is the enemy,' he says

Yitzhak Benhorin

Instead invading Iraq to protect Israelis ( I am not arguing against the invasion of Iraq) why didn't Bush invade Iran move the embassy to Jerusalem.    The idea that Bush invaded Iraq for Israel is generally used as anti-Israel attack  and I don't think there is much truth to it. 

The Dershowitz quote I was referring to was ---

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/us/politics/22jewish.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1211688000&en=2f1c1073322ca17f&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin
"Mr. Dershowitz, who supports Mrs. Clinton, says he tells voters that Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, are all pro-Israel and to reject false personal attacks on Mr. Obama."

[ccp]

Hi Rachel

Thanks for the good points.

That the Iraq invasion was risky was the opinion of some people - true.  Just look at Pat Buchanan.  He was against it from day 1.

Yet Israel still factored in the equation to invade.  Neocons some of whom are Jewish certainly thought that toppling Iraq would give the US a bulkhead against Iran and Syria.  So the intent was certainly there though the result so far, has not gone as planned.  Unless we shrink from it now which BO certainly wants to do IMO.   BO is trying to back track now but there is absolutely no similarity to MCCain iron resolve to win this.  Some people do think accepting our losses, and retreating now may be our best option.  Americans will have to decide which direction to take and the lines are drawn.

As for Dershowitz I saw this quote too the other day. I was surprised.  I would say it is the first time in decades I have ever heard him say anything positive about a Republican.

Your points are valid but as matter of opinion I still stand on mine.   

[ccp]

By the way.  With regards to Keyes and Dershowitz I recall a debate between these two some years back.

I haven't actually tried this link but hopefully it works if you have the time and the interest.

I thought Dershowitz won hands down.  He shot Alan's arguments full of holes, and ran circles around him.  I would be the first to say he was superb!

On the other hand I know someone who was a law student at Harvard and I recall asking him what it was like to study with some of the world's great minds.  I specifically asked about Dershowitz.  The response took me by surprise:

"What a pompous jerk".

[ccp]

http://www.presidential-candidate-videos.com/watch/?vid=30802

[G M]

May 24, 2008

Barry Rubin: The Fall of Lebanon
Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, explains why May 21, 2008 is a date that should live in infamy.

“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now…. Oh, what a fall was there… Then I, and you, and all of us fell down.” .--William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar,” Act 3, Scene 1 May 21, 2008, is a date—like December 7 (1941) and September 11 (2001)—that should now live in infamy. Yet who will notice, mourn, or act the wiser for it?
On that day, the Beirut spring was buried under the reign of Hizballah.

Speaking on October 5, 1938, after Britain and France effectively turned Czechoslovakia over to Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill said, “What everybody would like to ignore or forget must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat….”

In contrast, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch said that the agreement over Lebanon was, "A necessary and positive step." At least when one sells out a country one should recognize this has happened rather than pretend otherwise. But this is precisely what took place at Munich, when the deal made was proclaimed as a concession that brought peace and resolved Germany’s last territorial demand in the region.

Churchill knew better and his words perfectly suit the situation in Lebanon today:

“The utmost [Western diplomacy] has been able to gain for Czechoslovakia…has been that the German dictator, instead of snatching the victuals from the table, has been content to have them served to him course by course.”

Yes, that’s it exactly. On every point, Hizballah, Iran, and Syria, got all they wanted from Lebanon’s government: its surrender of sovereignty. They have veto power over the government; one-third of the cabinet; election changes to ensure victory in the next balloting; and they will have their candidate installed as president.

The majority side is not giving up but is trying to comfort itself on small mercies. The best arguments it can come up with are that now everyone knows Hizballah is not patriotic, treats other Lebanese as enemies, and cannot seize areas held by Christian and Druze militias. It isn’t much to cheer about.
Nevertheless, as in 1938, a lot of the media is proclaiming it as a victory of some kind, securing peace and stability in Lebanon.

Not so. If Syria murders more Lebanese journalists, judges, or politicians, no one will investigate. No one dare diminish Hizballah’s de facto rule over large parts of the country. No one dare stop weapons pouring over the border from Syria and Iran. In fact, why should they continue to be smuggled in secretly? No one dare interfere if and when Hizballah, under Syrian and Iranian guidance, decide it is time for another war with Israel.

This defeat was not only total, it was totally predictable. Just as Churchill said:
“If only Great Britain. France and Italy [today we would add the United States, of course,] had pledged themselves two or three years ago to work in association for maintaining peace and collective security, how different might have been our position…. But the world and the parliaments and public opinion would have none of that in those days. When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have affected a cure.”

Instead there was a lack “of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong….” Actually, though, as Churchill knew, when he spoke these faults were still not corrected. The folly continued.

And so is what comes next? Back to Churchill:

“All is over. Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness.” That country suffered because it put its faith in the Western democracies and the League of Nations (now the United Nations). In particular, she was betrayed by France whom the Czechs then, and the Lebanese today, trusted to help them.

The UN Security Council on May 22 endorsed the Lebanon agreement even though it totally contradicted the Council’s own resolution ending the Hizballah-Israel war, thus betraying the commitments made to Israel about stopping arms smuggling, disarming Hizballah, and keeping that group from returning to south Lebanon. The UN’s total reversal of its demands from two years ago—constituting a total victory for Hizballah—did not bring a flicker of shame or even recognition that this in fact had happened.

All this is a victory for terrorism. It is quite true that the Lebanese Shia—like the German minority in Czechoslovakia which Hitler promoted—has genuine grievances and that Hizballah has real support in its own community. But how did it overcome the other communities, the other political forces in Lebanon? Through assassination and bombing (albeit done by Syria’s surrogates rather than directly), by intimidation and fear, by demagoguery and war.

Iran and Syria help their allies; the West doesn’t. And so the message was: We can kill you; your friends cannot save you. Look at their indifference! Despair and die.

And here, regarding the future, we can only quote Churchill’s speech extensively:

“In future the Czechoslovak State cannot be maintained as an independent entity. I think you will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years, but may be measured only by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi regime. Perhaps they may join it in despair or in revenge. At any rate, that story is over and told. But we cannot consider the abandonment and ruin of Czechoslovakia in the light only of what happened only last month. It is the most grievous consequence of what we have done and of what we have left undone in the last five years - five years of futile good intentions, five years of eager search for the line of least resistance….”

Lebanon will not disappear as a country on the map, of course—contrary to the Iranian alliance’s intentions toward Israel—but it is now going to be part of the Iranian bloc. This is not only bad for Lebanon itself but also terrifying for other Arab regimes. The Saudis deserve credit for trying to save Lebanon. But what will happen now as the balance of power shifts? They are less inclined to resist and more likely to follow the West’s course and adopt an appeasement policy.

Again, Churchill in 1938:

“Do not let us blind ourselves to that. It must now be accepted that all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi power. The system of alliances in Central Europe upon which France has relied for her safety has been swept away, and I can see no means by which it can be reconstituted. The road down the Danube Valley to the Black Sea, the road which leads as far as Turkey, has been opened.

In less than four years, that is where German armies were marching, thankfully a situation far worse than we can expect in the Middle East. Yet the trend toward appeasement and surrender could well be similar. Churchill said:

“In fact, if not in form, it seems to me that all those countries of Middle Europe… will, one after another, be drawn into this vast system of power politics--not only power military politics but power economic politics--radiating from Berlin, and I believe this can be achieved quite smoothly and swiftly and will not necessarily entail the firing of a single shot.”

His specific example was Yugoslavia whose government within three years was ready to join Germany’s bloc. (It was prevented from doing so only by a British-organized coup but was then invaded and overrun by the German army.)

Only the names of the countries need be changed to make Churchill’s point apply to the present:

“You will see, day after day, week after week [that]…many of those countries, in fear of the rise of the Nazi power,” will give in. There had been forces “which looked to the Western democracies and loathed the idea of having this arbitrary rule of the totalitarian system thrust upon them, and hoped that a stand would be made.” But they would now be demoralized. But they would now be demoralized, at best less active in resisting; at worst. going over to the other side.

Churchill knew that his country’s leader had good intentions but that wasn’t enough. His analysis of British thinking applies well both to Europe, to President George Bush’s current policy, and very well to the thinking of Senator Barack Obama:

“The prime minister desires to see cordial relations between this country and Germany. There is no difficulty at all in having cordial relations between the peoples. Our hearts go out to them. But they have no power. But never will you have friendship with the present German government. You must have diplomatic and correct relations, but there can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power, that power which…vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy.”

Churchill understood that his nation’s enemies took their ideology seriously and that their ambitions and methods were incompatible with his country.

And finally, Churchill understood the trend: things will get worse and would even make it politically incorrect to criticize the enemy:

“In a very few years, perhaps in a very few months, we shall be confronted with demands with which we shall no doubt be invited to comply. Those demands may affect the surrender of territory or the surrender of liberty. I foresee and foretell that the policy of submission will carry with it restrictions upon the freedom of speech and debate in Parliament, on public platforms, and discussions in the press, for it will be said--indeed, I hear it said sometimes now - that we cannot allow the Nazi system of dictatorship to be criticized by ordinary, common English politicians. Then, with a press under control, in part direct but more potently indirect, with every organ of public opinion doped and chloroformed into acquiescence, we shall be conducted along further stages of our journey.”

In short, what could be called “Germanophobia” or seen as war-mongering in resisting German demands and aggression would be…verboten, something often seen in contemporary debates when political correctness trumps democratic society and pimps for dictatorial regimes and totalitarian ideology..

Churchill predicted victory but only if the free countries—and even some not so free whose interests pushed them to oppose the threat—were strong and cooperated:

“Do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”

Wow. Well if you don’t see yet the parallelism with the current time let me continue on my own. Lebanon's brief period of independence has ended. Lebanon is now incorporated--at least in part and probably more in the future--into the Iranian bloc.

Only three years ago, after the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, almost certainly ordered at the highest level of the Syrian government, a popular mass movement called the Beirut spring helped push out the Syrian military. The resulting government was called "pro-Western" in the newscasts, but it might have well been called pro-Lebanon.

Forget about the Israel-Palestinian (and now Israel-Syrian) negotiations or the latest reports from Iraq or Afghanistan. What has happened in Lebanon is far more significant. When all these other developments are long forgotten, the expansion of the Syrian-Iranian zone of influence to Lebanon will be the most important and lasting event.

Basically, the supporters of the Lebanese government--the leadership of the majority of the Sunni Muslim, Christian, and Druze communities--capitulated to the demands of Hizballah. And who can blame them? With a steady drumbeat of terrorist acts and assassinations, with the Hizballah offensive seizing Sunni west Beirut, with the lack of support from the West, they concluded that the battle was unwinnable.

Politicians, intellectuals, academics, and officials in the West live comfortable lives. Their careers prosper often in direct relationship to their misunderstanding, misexplaining, and misacting in the Middle East.

Then, too, all too many of them have lived up to every negative stereotype the Islamists hold of them: greedy for oil and trade; cowardly in confronting aggression, easily fooled, very easily divided, and losing confidence in their own societies and civilization.

[G M]

In a statement of almost incredible stupidity, the New York Times stated:

“Everybody knew President Bush was aiming at Senator Barack Obama last week when he likened those who endorse talks with `terrorists and radicals’ to appeasers of the Nazis.”

During the Cold War, I remember that it was said that if a Soviet official or supporter began a statement like that—everyone knows—what followed invariably is a lie. So it is in this case. For several years, the main criticism of Bush has been his strategy of pressure and isolation on Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, and assorted terrorists. There have been hundreds of op-eds, eds, speeches, reports, and other formats on this point. It is the administration’s number-one problem. Suddenly, it applies only to Senator Barack Obama. What rubbish.

Equally, the principle issue is not just one of contacts with extremist forces but how much toughness, pressure and isolation as opposed to concessions (of which negotiations are one) and compromises are offered. For example, there have been numerous ongoing contacts with Iran over the nuclear issue for years, supported by the Bush administration. They have all failed. For someone to come and say that negotiations have not been tried is pretty ridiculous. The hidden element there is really as follows:

--The real fault is with us, not them.
--You haven’t offered enough.
--And the assessment that no agreement is possible because of the other side’s aims and behavior is always unacceptable. This implies that even if you talk with them and get nowhere, you just have to keep listening to grievances, avoiding giving offense, trying, conceding, and apologizing.

In this context, what better example could there be of this dangerous malady than Obama, the apparent Democratic nominee and possible future president of the United States?

According to Obama at an Oregon rally, Iran does not “pose a serious threat” to the United States. His reasoning is as disturbing—or more so—than his conclusion. Obama explained that Iran has less to spend on defense and if it “tried to pose a serious threat to us they wouldn’t . . . stand a chance.”

We can now feel secure that the Iranians won’t load their soldiers onto landing craft and storm the New Jersey beaches. Unfortunately, that isn’t their military strategy. Perhaps Obama doesn’t understand that the average B-1 bomber costs less than a suicide bomber. Has he heard about asymmetric warfare?

Forget that. Has he heard of terrorism, the Marine barracks’ bombing, or September 11?

According to Obama:

"Iran, they spend one one-hundredth of what we spend on the military. I mean if Iran tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen. That doesn't mean we agree with them on everything. That doesn't, we might not compromise with them on any issues. But, at least we should find out are there areas of potential common interest and we can reduce some of the tension that have caused us so many problems around the world."

One cannot pretend away the implications of this paragraph. Let’s list them:

--No understanding that Iran follows strategies designed to circumvent that problem of unequal power including terrorism, guerrilla war, deniable attacks, long wars of attrition, the use of surrogates, and so on.

--The only way Obama sees for using the U.S. “position of strength” is to listen to their grievances, as if we are not familiar with them. In short, the only thing you can do when stronger is to get weaker. Presumably the same applies when you are the weaker party.

--Why is he so totally unaware that dialogue has been tried? A decade with the PLO, longer with Hizballah by other Lebanese, four straight years of European engagement with Tehran over the nuclear issue, multiple U.S. delegations to talk with the Syrians, and so on. Was nothing learned from this experience?

--And what happens afterward if Obama’s dialogue doesn’t work? What cards would he have left? What readiness to try another course? Perhaps by then the Iranians will have nuclear weapons and other gains negating that “position of strength” so fecklessly frittered away.

--What possible issues can the United States find to compromise with Iran? Let’s say: give them Lebanon (oh, we already did that); ignore their sponsorship of terrorism; give them Iraq; give them Israel; withdraw U.S. forces from the region, accept their having nuclear arms. What?

--Why should the United States be able to reduce tensions through negotiations when Iran wants tensions? There is an important hint here: if the United States makes concessions it might buy off tensions. Since Iran and the others know about Obama’s all-carrots-no-sticks worldview, they will make him pay a lot to get the illusion of peace and quiet.

--There is no hint, not the slightest, of his understanding the option of using power to intimidate or defeat Iran, or as a way to muster allies. If Obama had the most minimal comprehension of these issues, he would fake it with some blah-blah about how America would combine toughness with flexibility, deterrence with compromise, steadfastness in order to gain more from the other side in negotiations. A critical element in peace-keeping, peace-making, and negotiations is to act tough and be strong in order to have leverage. Even in responding to criticisms, Obama has only talked about whether negotiations are conditional or unconditional and at what level they should be conducted. He is oblivious to the fact that the chief executive does things other than negotiations.

--If this is Obama’s strategy while Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons what would he do in dealing with a Tehran owning them?

Make no mistake, Obama is channelling Neville Chamberlain—precisely because what he says shows his parallel thinking. Many people may get a chill listening to Obama but it certainly isn’t a Churchill. Apologists, sympathizers, and wishful-thinkers keep endowing this would-be emperor with beautiful suits of clothes. He doesn’t have any.

And at present, even more if Obama wins, the threat is of an Iran that’s aggressive precisely because it knows that it will not have to confront U.S. forces. Tehran knows that it can sponsor terrorism directly against U.S. forces in Iraq, and also against Israel and Lebanon, because that level of assault will not trigger American reaction.

Yet anyone who doesn’t want to get into war with Iran should be all the more eager to talk about sanctions, pressures, deterrence, building alliances and backing allies; in short, combating Iran indirectly to avoid having to confront it directly.

All the more so now, however, Syria won’t split away from Iran; Iran won’t give up on its nuclear program; Hamas won’t moderate; Hizballah won’t relent. Why should they when they not only believe their own ideologies but also think they are winning? In each case, too, they are banking on an Obama victory—whether accurately or otherwise-- to bring them even more.

A lot of positive factors could be cited to show why Iran and its allies will ultimately lose. But it can happen in an easier way or a harder, longer way. There are too many Chamberlains and not enough Churchills, perhaps none at all. Things are bad, very bad, for the West right now. The beginning of repairing those strategic fortunes is to recognize that fact.

All quotes taken from the full text at http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1189.

[G M]

An Atomic Assist   
By Amir Taheri
New York Post | Friday, May 23, 2008

BUOYED by their modest electoral success last month, critics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's provocative foreign policy were preparing to launch a series of attacks on him in the Islamic Majlis, Iran's ersatz parliament. But then Ahmadinejad got an unexpected boost from Barack Obama.
Ali Larijani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator and now a Majlis member, was arguing that the Islamic Republic would pay a heavy price for Ahmadinejad's rejection of three UN Security Council resolutions on nukes. Then the likely Democratic presidential nominee stepped in.

Obama announced that, if elected, he wouldn't ask Iran to comply with UN resolutions as a precondition for direct talks with Ahmadinejad: "Preconditions, as it applies to a country like Iran, for example, was a term of art. Because this administration has been very clear that it will not have direct negotiations with Iran until Iran has met preconditions that are essentially what Iran views, and many other observers would view, as the subject of the negotiations; for example, their nuclear program."

"Talking without preconditions" would require America to ignore three unanimous Security Council resolutions. Before starting his unconditional talks, would Obama present a new resolution at the Security Council to cancel the three that Ahmadinejad doesn't like? Or would the new US president act in defiance of the United Nations - further weakening the Security Council's authority?

President Bush didn't set the preconditions that Obama promises to ignore. They were agreed upon after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran was in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Acting in accordance with its charter, the IAEA referred the issue to the Security Council.

Dismissing the preconditions as irrelevant would mean snubbing America's European allies plus Russia and China, all of whom participated in drafting and approving the resolutions that Ahmadinejad doesn't like.

Such a move would make a mockery of multilateral diplomacy - indeed, would ignore such diplomacy in exactly the way that critics claim the Bush administration has.

Obama clearly hasn't asked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy what they think of the United States' suddenly changing course and granting Ahmadinejad's key demand in advance.

Maybe Obama hasn't been properly briefed about the "preconditions" he gets so worked up about. He cites Iran's "nuclear program" as a precondition. Wrong: No one has asked, or could ask, Iran to stop its nuclear program - period. On the contrary, Iran's participation in in the Non-Proliferation Treaty gives it the right to seek help from other signatories, including the US, to access the latest technology in developing its nuclear industry - for peaceful purposes.

The Security Council isn't asking the Islamic Republic to do something dishonorable, humiliating or illegal. All it's asking Ahmadinejad to do is to stop cheating - something the Islamic Republic itself has admitted it has done for 18 years. The Security Council has invited Iran to "suspend" - not even to scrap - a uranium-enrichment program clearly destined for making bombs, in violation of the NPT.

Iran has not a single nuclear-power station and thus doesn't need enriched uranium - except for making bombs. Its sole nuclear plant is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2009. But that can't use the type of uranium that Iran is enriching; the station requires fuel of a different "formula," supplied by Russia, which is building the project, for the next 10 years. (And the Russians have offered to provide fuel for the plant's entire lifetime of 37 years.)

Another precondition asks Tehran to explain why it is building a heavy-water plant at Arak - when it has absolutely no plans for plutonium-based nuclear-power stations. The Arak plant's only imaginable use is to produce material for nuclear warheads.

Finally, the IAEA and the Security Council are asking Tehran to allow international inspectors access to all sites related to the nuclear project - access that Iran is obliged to provide under the NPT.

In short, the minimum show of goodwill on Ahmadinejad's part would be to comply with the UN resolutions before he goes to the White House for talks with President Obama on other issues.

Obama's words on "preconditions" have helped ease domestic pressure on Ahmadinejad to comply with the United Nations and the IAEA. The Iranian president is telling his domestic critics to shut up until after the US election. Why, after all, should he make concessions that a putative President Obama has already dismissed as unnecessary?

[Crafty_Dog]

Recollection of Obama Uncle’s War Service Missing Key Details

by FOXNews.com
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Barack Obama is getting called out again for his knowledge of history, including his own family’s, after declaring to veterans on Memorial Day that his uncle helped liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II.

Two problems with the tale: Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Obama’s American mother was an only child.

Speaking in Las Cruces, N.M., on Monday, the Democratic presidential candidate said he did not serve, but comes from a family that did sacrifice for the nation. He was speaking about the many members of the military who suffer post traumatic stress disorder and should be given better care.

“I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps and the story in our family is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months, right. Now obviously something had really affected him deeply but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain,” he said.

However, a quick check on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Web site shows that Soviet forces were the first to approach Auschwitz, which was in Poland.

“On Jan. 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners,” the site reads.

U.S. forces did liberate several camps, including Ohrdruf Concentration Camp on April 4, 1945; Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp on April 11, 1945; Buchenwald on April 12, 1945; Dachau on April 29, 1945; and Mauthausen on May 5, 1945.

Obama was raised in part by his grandparents, and his father served in the second World War. A request for clarification has been made to the Obama campaign.
__________________

[G M]

**Oh, if only this were true.....**



May 28, 2008, 4:00 a.m.

Ahmadinejad Sets Lance Straight
Cookies with the tyrant.

By Robert Ferrigno

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad watched as two of his bodyguards checked the young, room service fellow, doing a quick spectrographic scan of the tea and biscuits on his silver cart to insure they hadn’t been poisoned.

“Is the suite to your liking, your Excellency?” asked Millard Holt, counsel for Rapp, Tapp, and Tippytoe, chief lobbyists for the state of Iran. “We always recommend the Four Seasons to all our clients —”

“Are you a Jew?” asked Ahmadinejad.

“No… no, I’m not,” said Holt, his voice high and nasal “I’m here to brief you prior to meeting President Obama, Excellency. Our source within the White House has informed us that the president’s opening remarks will be very conciliatory, very favorable to our interests. He’s going to call for increased trade, a stepdown of all U.S. military exercises in the region, an exchange of scholars —”

“You look like a Jew,” said Ahmadinejad.

The room-service fellow, a lanky long-haired blonde in a white uniform, rolled the cart over, laid out bone china cups on the coffee table. He had a Snoopy gold earring stud.

“Well . . . hmmm . . . a Jew?” Holt adjusted the perfect Windsor knot in his necktie. “I hate to disagree with your Excellency, but my family came over on the Mayflower — ”

“What is this Mayflower?” demanded Ahmadinejad.

“A sailing ship that brought the original settlers to America,” said Holt, puffing up slightly, his smooth cheeks the color of rare veal. “The Founding Fathers, if you will — ”

“Your family owned a slave ship,” sneered Ahmadinejad, as though he had cracked the code. “I knew you were a Jew.” He flicked his fingers in dismissal. “Out of my sight.”

The room-service fellow stood frozen, the silver teapot in his hand. “Whoa.”

“You there,” said Ahmadinejad, addressing him. “What’s your name?”

“Lance.”

“Lance?” said Ahmadinejad. “Like a spear?”

“I guess.” Lance flipped his head, swung his hair out of his eyes. “If, it makes you feel better, I didn’t know what the Mayflower was either.”

“Sit down, Lance. I want to talk with you about President Obama. You’re not a Jew, are you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You would know if you were, I can assure you. Now sit, sit.” Ahmadinejad stroked his beard as Lance seated himself across from him. “These conciliatory — he made air quotes with his fingers — “proposals of Obama’s, they’re a ruse, designed to convince us that he is weak and out of his depth. Well, it won’t work.”

“I’m not really supposed to hang out with the guests,” said Lance. “I used to be a lifeguard, and the pool manager really ripped me for that.”

“I’m sure no one here will rip you, in spite of what your Zionist newspapers print.”

“Cool.” Lance pointed at the almond crescents. “Can I have a cookie?”

“Of course.” Ahmadinejad clapped his hands and two of his bodyguards sprang forward. One poured them tea, the other served cookies. “Do you agree with my appraisal of your president, Lance?”

“I wasn’t really listening, no offense.” Powdered sugar drifted onto Lance’s chin as he chewed. “I was going to vote for Big O, because like everybody was, but I got really wasted the night before and figured, heck, he can make it without me.”

“Obama is popular with young people, isn’t he?” said Ahmadinejad. “I too am popular with the young people in my country.”

“Where’s that?”

Ahmadinejad looked at his bodyguards, decided Lance was serious. “Iran.”

“Axis of Evil, Axis of Evil,” chanted Lance. He suddenly grinned. “Psyche.”

“Ha ha.” Ahmadinejad dropped three sugar cubes into his mint tea, gently stirred. “Let me be equally honest. Your young president, he is very crafty. Very dangerous.”

“You are talking about President Obama, right?” Lance slurped his tea, made a face. “Can I get a Red Bull?”

“A Red Bull for the young American,” Ahmadinejad said to one of his bodyguards, his dark eyes never leaving Lance’s. “So . . . tell me, are you CIA?”

“A spy?’ Lance shook his head. “Wish I was though. James Bond rocks, especially the new one . . . what’s his name?”

“Daniel Craig,” said Ahmadinejad.

“Right. Guy’s got a real sixpack.”

“A splendid sixpack,” agreed Ahmadinejad.



Lance looked around. “I should probably go. My supervisor’s gonna —”

“Stay a while longer.” Ahmadinejad leaned closer, whispering. “I’ve had many heated discussions with the Council of Mullahs. They are convinced that your new president is a naïve fool, easily pressured, easily duped . . . how do you say? A baby with a Snickers bar? Lance, I think that Snickers bar is filled with plastic explosive and whoever steals it from that baby is going to be very surprised and very sorry.”

“You want a Snickers? There’s one in the mini-bar.”

Ahmadinejad fingered his prayers beads, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. “The whole idea of us meeting without any preconditions, a superpower yielding such a huge advantage without hesitation . . . I must tell you, it is unheard of. I saw the Grand Ayatollah himself shouting landslide and clapping his hands with delight as your election returns were announced, but Lance, I, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I was not clapping.”

“I think I heard something about that preconditions thing . . . ” Lance reached for the can of Red Bull the bodyguard brought. He took a long swallow, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Didn’t Larry King ask him . . . or Chris Mathews?”

Ahmadinejad nodded. “You are much more knowledgeable than you appear. Yes, Chris Mathews asked Obama about our upcoming talks, and your president said of course there were preconditions, he was going to insist that I first name the Three Stooges.”

“I think that was a joke, dude.”

“You would be thinking wrong, Lance. It was a trap. He didn’t say the original Three Stooges. He left it ambiguous. So if I said Moe, Larry and Curly, your Big O could call off the meeting or embarrass me in front of the cameras, saying the correct answer was Moe, Larry and Shemp.”

Lance reached for another almond crescent. “Or Curly Joe.”

“Indeed.” Ahmadinejad offered the plate of cookies. “What do you think Obama’s true intentions are?”

“Probably just wants to hang out with you. Show people he’s trying.”

“No, no, no,” said Ahmadinejad, finger wagging. “He told the New York Times that he didn’t think my country was a threat, at least not like the former Soviet Union.”

“I got to tell you, Mahmoud, right? I got to tell you, Mahmoud, that was reassuring, because that last guy in the White House, he totally hated on you. Scared me —”

“Lance. Pay attention. Your president, he’s an educated man, is he not?”

“Big O’s Harvard all the way. Dude must have just smoked his SATs.”

Ahmadinejad held up a fist. “We currently have eight thousand centrifuges producing weapons-grade plutonium, and that’s not counting the ones I can’t tell you about.” He raised one finger. “We train Hezbollah, which has killed thousands of Americans and Israelis.” He raised another finger. “We supply upgraded IEDs to Iraqi freedom fighters to kill your countrymen.” He raised a third finger. “We’ve promised to wipe Israel off the map.” A fourth finger. “And Obama considers us no threat? How dare he?”

“I never thought of it that way. He’s totally disrespecting you, dude.”

“You understand, Lance. Try telling that to the Grand Ayatollah, see where that gets you.”

“Someplace bad I bet, right?”

“Your new president is a creation of the CIA,” said Ahmadinejad, expansive now. He stretched out his slippered feet, tugged at his wispy beard. “Obama pretends to be the naïf with the glittering smile, the schoolmarm asking children not to run in the hall: Let’s talk things over. Let’s turn the thermostat down. Let’s share your toys. Let’s be friends.”

“Won’t you be my neighbor?” sing-songed Lance.

Ahmadinejad clicked his teacup against Lance’s can of Red Bull in a toast. “This isn’t the first time the CIA has installed an American president.”

“That Nixon guy?”

“Nixon?” Ahmadinejad had a high-pitched laugh. “No, Ronald Reagan. You’re too young to remember, but the newscasts were full of stories about the handsome but bumbling actor who had been elected president, the cowboy who kept jellybeans on his desk in the oval office and rode a horse every chance he could.” He set his teacup down with a clatter. “One of the great talking heads dismissed Ronald Reagan as an amiable dunce. An amiable dunce. It worked too. Completely fooled Gorbachev. By the time Reagan got through with him, the Soviet Union was in ruins and Gorbachev was out of a job.”

“Wow.”

“Wow, indeed.” Ahmadinejad stood up, shook Lance’s hand. “Have you heard about the Hidden Imam?”

“Who?”

“I must pray now,” said Ahmadinejad, “but the next time we speak, I shall tell you of the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, and his plan for the world.”

“No, dude, Scientology gives me headaches.”

“Goodbye, Lance.”

The bodyguards ushered Lance out into the hallway. A few minutes later, he was in the stairwell, shaking his head as he debriefed to his handler. “Tell Big O we’re going to have to come up with a new narrative. Ahmadinejad is wise to the whole thing.”

— Robert Ferrigno is author, most recently, of Sins of the Assassin.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmQzMGRjMGRiYTNkZjM3NjM3YzE3YTkyYTMwZGFlNzI=

[Crafty_Dog]

e Obama We Don't Know
June 4, 2008; Page A20
With Barack Obama clinching the Democratic Party nomination, it is worth noting what an extraordinary moment this is. Democrats are nominating a freshman Senator barely three years out of the Illinois legislature whom most of America still hardly knows. The polls say he is the odds-on favorite to become our next President.

Think about this in historical context. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were relatively unknown, but both had at least been prominent Governors. John Kerry, Walter Mondale, Al Gore and even George McGovern were all long-time Washington figures. Republican nominees tend to be even more familiar, for better or worse. In Mr. Obama, Democrats are taking a leap of faith that is daring even by their risky standards.

 
AP 
No doubt this is part of his enormous appeal. Amid public anger over politics as usual, the Illinois Senator is unhaunted by Beltway experience. His personal story – of mixed race, and up from nowhere through Harvard – resonates in an America where the two most popular cultural icons are Tiger Woods and Oprah. His political gifts are formidable, especially his ability to connect with audiences from the platform.

Above all, Mr. Obama has fashioned a message that fits the political moment and the public's desire for "change." At his best, he offers Americans tired of war and political rancor the promise of fresh national unity and purpose. Young people in particular are taken by it. But more than a few Republicans are also drawn to this "postpartisan" vision.

Mr. Obama has also shown great skill in running his campaign. No one – including us – gave him much chance of defeating the Clinton machine. No doubt he benefited from the desire of even many Democrats to impeach the polarizing Clinton era. But he also beat Hillary and Bill at their own game. He raised more money, and he outworked them in the small-state caucuses that provided him with his narrow delegate margin. Even now, he is far better organized in swing states than is John McCain's campaign. All of this speaks well of his preparation for November, and perhaps for his potential to govern.

Yet govern how and to what end? This is the Obama Americans don't know. For all of his inspiring rhetoric about bipartisanship, his voting record is among the most partisan in the Senate. His policy agenda is conventionally liberal across the board – more so than Hillary Clinton's, and more so than that of any Democratic nominee since 1968.

We can't find a single issue on which Mr. Obama has broken with his party's left-wing interest groups. Early on he gave a bow to merit pay for teachers, but that quickly sank beneath the waves of new money he wants to spend on the same broken public schools. He takes the Teamsters line against free trade, to the point of unilaterally rewriting Nafta. He wants to raise taxes even above the levels of the Clinton era, including a huge increase in the payroll tax. Perhaps now Mr. Obama will tack to the center, but somehow he will have to explain why the "change" he's proposing isn't merely more of the same, circa 1965.

There is also the matter of judgment, and the roots of his political character. We were among those inclined at first to downplay his association with the Trinity United Church. But Mr. Obama's handling of the episode has raised doubts about his candor and convictions. He has by stages moved from denying that his 20-year attendance was an issue at all; to denying he'd heard Rev. Jeremiah Wright's incendiary remarks; to criticizing certain of those remarks while praising Rev. Wright himself; to repudiating the words and the reverend; and finally this weekend to leaving the church.

Most disingenuously, he said on Saturday that the entire issue caught him by surprise. Yet he was aware enough of the political risk that he kept Rev. Wright off the stage during his announcement speech more than a year ago.

A 2004 Chicago Sun-Times interview with Mr. Obama mentioned three men as his religious guides. One was Rev. Wright. Another was Father Michael Pfleger, the Louis Farrakhan ally whose recent remarks caused Mr. Obama to resign from Trinity, but for whose Chicago church Mr. Obama channeled at least $225,000 in grants as a state senator. Until recently, the priest was connected to the campaign, which flew him to Iowa to host an interfaith forum. Father Pfleger's testimony for the candidate has since been scrubbed from Mr. Obama's campaign Web site. A third mentor was Illinois state Senator James Meeks, another Chicago pastor who has generated controversy for mixing pulpit and politics.

The point is not that Mr. Obama now shares the radical views of these men. The concern is that by the Senator's own admission they have been major moral influences, and their views are starkly at odds with the candidate's vision as a transracial peacemaker. Their patronage was also useful as Mr. Obama was making his way in Chicago politics. But only now, in the glare of a national campaign, is he distancing himself from them. The question is what in fact Mr. Obama does believe.

The young Senator has been a supernova exploding into our politics, more phenomenon than conventional candidate. His achievement in winning the Democratic nomination has been impressive. Now comes a harder audience. The presidency has to be earned, and Americans have a right to know much more about the gifted man who is the least tested and experienced major party nominee in modern times.

[ccp]

"The presidency has to be earned, and Americans have a right to know much more about the gifted man who is the least tested and experienced major party nominee in modern times."


Well based on the company he keeps and the numerous back peddling change of positions (for example dealing with Palastinians) one would have to be, as radio host Mark Levin says, "Helen Keller" not to see that this guy is basically a  far lefty who associates with communists. 

Everyone could not only see and hear the preachers at his church, but we could also see the delight and glee and excitement of it's members at their words.  Of course he sat there for 20 years.  He agreed with it.

This is a huge problem for him.  He cannot convince otherwise at this point.  Unfortunately others especially the young will be taken in by their perception that he is charming.  "We must do this, we must do that, we have to do this, we have to do that..."  That's all I ever hear him say.  Oh really? we must, we have to?  Why because you say?

Tax like mad.  Redistribute wealth to buy himself votes.  Spend like crazy.  Weaken our influence around the world because we are "nice" and want to be liked.  Weaken our military.  Massively expand the reach and scope of government in our lives.  Expand the dependency of people on government.  All the while go around promoting yourself as a uniter not a divider yadda yadda yadda...

[Crafty_Dog]

Why Obama Must Go to Iraq
By PETE HEGSETH
June 5, 2008

Earlier this year, I spent five days in Iraq, walking the same streets in Baghdad where I had served two years earlier as an infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division.

The visit reinforced for me not only the immense complexity of the war – so often lost in our domestic political debate – but also the importance of taking the time to visit Iraq to talk with the soldiers and Marines serving on the front lines in order to grasp the changing dynamics of a fluid battlefield.

 
Chad Crowe 
It is for this reason that the failure of Sen. Barack Obama to travel to Iraq over the past two and a half years is worrisome, and a legitimate issue in this presidential election.

Since his election to the United States Senate in 2004, Mr. Obama has traveled to Iraq just once – in January 2006. This was more than a year before Gen. David Petraeus took command and the surge began. It was also several months before Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government came into office. Although Mr. Obama frequently criticizes the Iraqi leader on the campaign trail, he has never actually met him.

Mr. Obama's conduct is strikingly different from that of Sen. John McCain, who has been to Iraq eight times since 2003 – including three times since surge forces began to arrive in Baghdad. The senior senator from Arizona has made it his mission to truly understand what is happening on the ground, in all its messy reality.

Mr. Obama has dismissed the value of such trips, suggesting they are stage-managed productions designated to obfuscate, not illuminate, the truth. This has become an all-too-common sentiment within the Democratic Party leadership, especially since the surge began to transform conditions on the ground for the better. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has denied that there is any value in visiting the troops in Iraq, and has never done so.

In fairness, there are a number of Democrats who visit Iraq frequently – namely Sens. Joe Biden, who has made eight Iraq trips, and Jack Reed, with 10 trips. Mr. Obama's absence and cynicism stands in stark contrast to their serious approach. It is especially problematic given his intention to become our next commander in chief.

As anyone who has spent time on the ground in Iraq – speaking with troops of all ranks and backgrounds – can tell you, it is hardly a mission impossible to get them out to speak bluntly and openly about the problems they face.

Indeed, Mr. McCain's own frequent and vociferous criticisms of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his warnings, as early as 2003, that the Bush administration was pursuing a flawed strategy in Iraq, were directly informed by his firsthand interactions during his trips to Iraq. Troops and commanders warned him that we lacked sufficient forces to defeat al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias, and they were correct.

In turn, Mr. McCain's early advocacy for the surge and his prescient conviction that it would succeed were rooted not only in his extensive knowledge of military affairs, but in his close consultations with troops serving in the theater. They recognized that the new strategy was succeeding far before the mainstream media in the U.S. was willing to acknowledge these gains.

That Mr. Obama apparently doubts his ability to distinguish spin from reality, and to draw bad news out of subordinates, does not bode well for his possible future as our nation's chief executive. As I'm sure he will discover, if he wins the White House, these are among the most important skills for a president to possess.

Even more astonishing than Mr. Obama's absence from Iraq, however, is the fact that he has apparently never sought out a single one-on-one meeting with Gen. Petraeus. The general has made repeated trips back to Washington, but Mr. Obama has shown no interest in meeting privately with him. It's enough to make you wonder who exactly Mr. Obama listens to when it comes to Iraq?

Mr. Obama frequently decries the danger of "dogmatists" and "ideologues" in public policy, yet he himself has proven consistently uninterested in putting himself in situations where he might be confronted with the hard complexities of this war. It suggests a dangerous degree of detachment and overconfidence in his own judgment.

After all, Mr. Obama was among those in January 2007 who stridently opposed the surge and confidently predicted its failure – even going so far as to vote against funding our soldiers in the field unless the Bush administration abandoned this new approach. It is now clear that Mr. Obama's judgment on the surge was spectacularly wrong.

Yet rather than admit his mistake, Mr. Obama has instead tried to downplay or disparage the gains our troops have achieved in the past 12 months, clinging to a set of talking points that increasingly seem as divorced from reality as some in the Bush administration were at the darkest moments of the war.

Mr. Obama continues to insist that "Iraq's political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war" – despite the passage of numerous pieces of benchmark legislation by the Iraqi Parliament and unequivocal evidence of grassroots reconciliation across the country.

Mr. Obama also continues to claim that America has "simply thrown U.S. troops at the problem, and it has not worked" – despite the dramatic reduction in violence in precisely those areas of Iraq where American forces have surged, and since handed over to Iraqi Security Forces.

And of course, Mr. Obama persists in his pledge to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq, on a fixed timeline, beginning the moment he enters office – regardless of the recommendations of our commanders on the ground, regardless of conditions on the ground, and regardless, in short, of reality.

America is longing for an informed and principled debate about the future of Iraq. However, such a debate seems unlikely if the Democratic nominee for president won't take the time to truly understand the dynamics on the ground, let alone meet with commanders.

The time for talking points is over. Too much is at stake. When will Mr. Obama finally return to Iraq and see the situation for himself?

Mr. Hegseth, chairman of Vets for Freedom, served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division and returned as an embedded reporter.

[Crafty_Dog]

The Audacity of Death
By DANIEL ALLOTT
June 5, 2008

According to Barack Obama, Gianna Jessen shouldn't exist.

 
Miss Jessen is an exquisite example of what antiabortion advocates call a "survivor." Well into her third trimester of pregnancy, Gianna's biological mother was injected with a saline solution intended to induce a chemical abortion at a Los Angeles County abortion center. Eighteen hours later, and precious minutes before the abortionist's arrival, Gianna emerged. Premature and with severe injuries that resulted in cerebral palsy. But alive.

Had the abortionist been present at her birth, Gianna would have been killed, perhaps by suffocation. As it was, a startled nurse called an ambulance, and Gianna was rushed to a nearby hospital, where, weighing just two pounds, she was placed in an incubator, then, months later, in foster care.

Gianna survived then, and thrives now, because, as she told me recently with a laugh, "I guess I don't die easy." Which is what the abortionist might have thought as he signed his victim's birth certificate. Gianna's medical records state that she was "born during saline abortion."

* * *

As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation to define as "persons" babies who survive late-term abortions. Babies like Gianna. Mr. Obama said in a speech on the Illinois Senate floor that he could not accept that babies wholly emerged from their mother's wombs are "persons," and thus deserving of equal protection under the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

A federal version on the same legislation passed the Senate unanimously and with the support of all but 15 members of the House. Gianna was present when President Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in 2002.

When I asked Gianna to reflect on Mr. Obama's candidacy, she paused, then said, "I really hope the American people will have their eyes wide open and choose to be discerning. . . . He is extreme, extreme, extreme."

"Extreme" may not be the impression the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have bought Mr. Obama's autobiography have been left with. In "The Audacity of Hope," Mr. Obama's presidential manifesto, he calls abortion "undeniably difficult," "a very difficult issue," "never a good thing" and "a wrenching moral issue."

He laments his party's "litmus test" for "orthodoxy" on abortion and other issues, and even admits, "I do not presume to know the answer to that question." That question being the moral status of the fetus, who he nonetheless concedes has "moral weight."

Those statements are seriously made but, alas, cannot be taken at all seriously. Mr. Obama has compiled a 100% lifetime "pro-choice" voting record, including votes against any and all restrictions on late-term abortions and parental involvement in teenagers' abortions.

To Mr. Obama, abortion, or "reproductive justice," is "one of the most fundamental rights we possess." And he promises, "the first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," which would overturn hundreds of federal and state laws limiting abortion, including the federal ban on partial-birth abortion and bans on public funding of abortion.

Then there's Mr. Obama's aforementioned opposition to laws that protect babies born-alive during botched abortions. If partial-birth abortion is, as Democratic icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan labeled it, "too close to infanticide," then what is killing fully-birthed babies?

* * *

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama seldom speaks about abortion and its related issues. But his few moments of candor are illuminative. When speaking extemporaneously, Mr. Obama will admit things like "I don't want [my daughters] punished with a baby." Or he'll say that voting for legislation allowing Terri Schiavo's family to take its case from state courts to federal courts in an effort to stop her euthanasia was his "biggest mistake" in the Senate. Biggest mistake?

Worst of all are Mr. Obama's accusations against antiabortion advocates. He recently compared his relationship with unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers, a member of a group responsible for bombing government buildings, to his friendship with stalwart pro-life physician and senator Tom Coburn.

In his campaign book, Mr. Obama accuses "most anti-abortion activists" of secretly desiring more partial-birth abortions "because the image the procedure evokes in the mind of the public has helped them win converts to their position."

All this explains why the National Abortion Rights Action League voted unanimously to endorse Mr. Obama over Hillary Clinton, as did abortion activist Frances Kissling, who called Mrs. Clinton "not radical enough on abortion."

It's surprising that 18- to 30-year-olds, the most pro-life demographic in a generation, are the same voting bloc from which Barack Obama, the most antilife presidential candidate ever, draws his most ardent supporters.

What's not surprising is that Gianna Jessen, who turned 31 last month, plans not to support Obama.

In "The Audacity of Hope," Mr. Obama denounces abortion absolutism on both ends of the ideological spectrum. That is audacious indeed considering Obama's record, which epitomizes the very radicalism and extremism he denounces.

Mr. Allott is senior writer at American Values, a Washington-area public policy organization.

[G M]

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30234_IBD-_Obamas_Plan_to_Disarm_America

Who needs a military when we have "Hope" and "Change"?
=======
edited by Marc to add the content:

Investors Business Daily looks at another policy statement from Barack Obama that has gotten almost no media coverage: Obama’s Plan To Disarm The U.S.

The Obamatons [Hey, that sounds familiar! – ed.] of the mainstream media have failed to report one of the most chilling campaign promises thus far uttered by the presumptive Democrat nominee for president.

He made it before the Iowa caucus to a left-wing pacifist group that seeks to reallocate defense dollars to welfare programs. The lobbying group, Caucus for Priorities, was so impressed by Obama’s anti-military offering that it steered its 10,000 devotees his way.

In a 132-word videotaped pledge (still viewable on YouTube), Obama agreed to hollow out the U.S. military by slashing both conventional and nuclear weapons.

The scope of his planned defense cuts, combined with his angry tone, is breathtaking. He sounds as if the military is the enemy, not the bad guys it’s fighting. Here is a transcript:

“I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning; and as president, I will end it.

“Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems.

“I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending.

“Third, I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal.”

You can bet that Obama will not make this sweeping indictment of our security forces again as he tries to move to the center in the general election. But this is what he thinks, and this is what he plans to do.

[G M]

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/07/video-hannity-on-the-obama-khalidi-connection/

Does Obama know anyone who isn't a terrorist, convicted felon or race-baiting anti-american bigot? Just asking.....

[G M]

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/08/obama-community-blogs-bring-hope-change-to-enemies-of-jewish-lobby/


They "Hope" you don't see this, so they've "Change"'d the website. 

[G M]

http://www.policelink.com/news/26729-obama-uses-police-memorial-for-porta-potties

Obama Uses Police Memorial for Porta Potties

This photo by Officer Thomas Brennan shows the porta potties setup on the police memorial, with its flag still at half mast.
PoliceLink
May 30, 2008

PORTLAND, OR – Police officers in Portland, Oregon, are still waiting for an apology from Barack Obama after campaign staffers of his recent rally in Portland, Oregon, setup porta potties directly on top of the Portland Police Memorial, which honors the agency’s 25 fallen police officers.

The Obama rally drew a crowd of over 75,000 people.

Officer Thomas Brennan, who was working overtime at the rally, took a picture of the offending toilets, with the American flag still at half mast because of Police Officers Memorial Day, directly behind them. The local law enforcement memorial service had been held at the site only five days earlier.

Despite a large amount of open areas in the vicinity, the campaign staffers claimed the toilets were placed on the memorial for safety reasons to accommodate wheelchair access.

The Obama campaign has not responded to requests for an apology.

Want to express your outrage and ask for an apology? Contact Senator Obama here.

[Crafty_Dog]

Obama and the New Party



Quote:
Obama and the New Party
by Erick Erickson

Posted: 06/10/2008 Print This

Two weeks ago at RedState, we documented Obama’s 1996 endorsement by the New Party. A review of the New Party establishes that not only was the party an amalgamation of far left groups, but Barack Obama knew that when he sought the party’s endorsement.

Most of the New Party’s history has been lost in the digital age. It was established in 1992 and started to die out in 1998, well before Google and the modern web were established. But through lengthy searches of the Nexis archive and microfilm at the local university library, I’ve been able to piece this together.

The New Party was established in 1992 “by union activist Sandy Pope and University of Wisconsin professor Joel Rogers,” USA Today reported on November 16, 1992. The paper wrote that the new party was “self-described [as] ‘socialist democratic.’”

The seeds, however, had been sown all the way back in 1988. Quoting John Nichols in the March 22, 1998 issue of In These Times, “The roots of the New Party go back to the aftermath of Jesse Jackson’s run for president in 1988. At that time, Dan Cantor, who had served as labor coordinator for the Jackson campaign, and University of Wisconsin sociology professor Joel Rogers began talking about how to formulate an alternative between the increasingly indistinguishable Democratic-Republican monolith.”

Joel Rogers sought to use the idea of “fusion” as a way to get the New Party into power.

Fusion is a pretty simple concept. A candidate could run as both a Democrat and a New Party member to signal the candidate was, in fact, a left-leaning candidate, or at least not a center-left DLC type candidate. If the candidate -- let’s call him Barack Obama -- received only 500 votes in the Democratic Party against another candidate who received 1000 votes, Obama would clearly not be the nominee. But, if Obama also received 600 votes from the New Party, Obama’s New Party votes and Democratic votes would be fused. He would be the Democratic nominee with 1100 votes.

The fusion idea set off a number of third parties, but the New Party was probably the most successful. A March 22, 1998 In These Times article by John Nichols showed just how successful. “After six years, the party has built what is arguably the most sophisticated left-leaning political operation the country has seen since the decline of the Farmer-Labor, Progressive and Non-Partisan League groupings of the early part of the century …. In 1996, it helped Chicago’s Danny Davis, a New Party member, win a Democratic congressional primary, thereby assuring his election in the majority-black district …. The threat of losing New Party support, or of the New Party running its own candidates against conservative Democrats, would begin a process of forcing the political process to the left, [Joel] Rogers argued.”

Fusion, fortunately for the country, died in 1997. William Rehnquist, writing for a 6-3 Supreme Court, found the concept was not a protected constitutional right. It was two years too late to stop Obama.

On December 1, 1994, after the Gingrich revolution swept the Democrats from congress and forced Bill Clinton to triangulate, the Chicago Tribune ran an article by Steve Mills entitled “Looking for the Left: The Old Progressives and Marxists Still Breathe Idealist Fire, but They’re Too Splintered to Generate Any Heat.”

“‘The Left is in crisis, and it has been for some time,’ said Carl Davidson, the former national secretary for the radical Students for a Democratic Society. ‘I don’t know if it’s even bottomed out yet,’” he reported to Mr. Mills. Mills continued, “The Socialist Workers Party is in this corner; the International Socialist Organization is in this one. The [communist group Committee of Correspondence] is in another. The radicals, or even the liberals with some radical leanings -- so-called ‘soft radicals’ -- seem to find it hard to abandon individual issues for a broader movement.”

But, Mills reported, “It is amid this political confusion that The New Party would like to step in. ‘If there’s anything that defines the American Left, it’s fragmentation,’ said Dan Cantor, the party’s national organizer.… The New Party aims to change that. By uniting the progressives behind a cohesive ideology, one that, in theory at least, will have room for all the factions that now litter the landscape of the Left, The New Party is confident progressives can again be strong.”

In 1995, the New Ground, the newsletter of the Chicago Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, noted, “In Chicago, the New Party's biggest asset and biggest liability is ACORN.

“Like most organizations, ACORN is a mixed bag. On one hand, in Chicago, ACORN is a group that attempts to organize some of the most depressed communities in the city. Chicago organizers for ACORN and organizers for SEIU Local 880 have been given modest monthly recruitment quotas for new New Party members. On the other hand, like most groups that depend on canvassing for fundraising, it's easy enough to find burned out and disgruntled former employees. And ACORN has not had the reputation for being interested in coalition politics -- until recently and, happily, not just within the New Party.”

Naturally, Barack Obama was an active part of ACORN at the time, helping it legally in court and helping it organize voters. By 1996, ACORN and the New Party were essentially the same body. Along with the Democratic Socialists of America, the New Party endorsed Barack Obama in his State Senate bid.

Obama began seeking the New Party endorsement in 1995. He had been running in a four way primary against his former boss, Senator Alice Palmer, herself a far left radical, and two other individuals. But an election law quirk gave Obama the upper hand. In order to get on the ballot, candidates had to collect signatures of voters. Printed names were not allowed. Obama challenged the petitions of his rivals and was able to get every one of them thrown off the ballot. By the time the ballot was drawn up for the 1996 election, Obama’s was the only name in the race.

Nonetheless, Obama still coveted the New Party endorsement. The New Party required candidates who received the endorsement sign a pledge of support for the party. Obama did not need to support a party that was, in effect, a front group for communists; yet he still chose to. The July issue of the New Ground noted that 15% of the New Party consisted of Democratic Socialists of America members and a good number of Committee of Correspondence members.

Barack Obama, not needing to, chose to affiliate himself with this band of quasi-communists. As the nation moves closer to the election, it is clear that Obama chose to affiliate with assorted anti-American radicals. Machiavelli once noted that we can know a leader by the people he surrounds himself with. What does that say about Barack Obama, who chose to surround himself with people committed to overthrowing the United States and capitalism? 

[Crafty_Dog]

Friends of Barack
June 11, 2008; Page A22
WSJ
Barack Obama may have come up with a creative way to solve the housing recession: Let everyone buy property at a discount the way he did from Tony Rezko, and give everyone in America a discount mortgage the way Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide did for Fannie Mae's Jim Johnson. Team Obama's real estate and mortgage transactions are certainly a change from business as usual. They suggest old-fashioned back-scratching below even current Beltway standards.

A former CEO of mortgage financing giant Fannie Mae, Mr. Johnson is now vetting Vice Presidential candidates for Mr. Obama. But he is also a textbook case for poor disclosure as regulators sifted through the wreckage of Fannie's $10 billion accounting scandal. Despite an exhaustive federal inquiry, Mr. Johnson managed to avoid disclosing one very special perk: below-market interest-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial, arranged by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Journal reporters Glenn Simpson and James Hagerty broke the story this weekend.

Fannie Mae tells us that Mr. Johnson did not inform the company's board of these sweetheart mortgage deals, nor did his CEO successor Franklin Raines, who also received such loans. We can understand why. Fannie bought mortgages from loan originator Countrywide, and then packaged them into securities for sale or kept the loans and profited from the interest. Mr. Mozilo told Dow Jones in 1995 that he was "working very closely . . . with Jim Johnson of Fannie Mae to come up with a rational method of making the process more efficient by the use of credit scoring."

Since Fannie was buying Countrywide's loans, under terms set by Mr. Johnson and later Mr. Raines – or by people in their employ – the fact that Fannie's CEO had a separate personal financial relationship with Countrywide was an obvious conflict of interest. The company's code of conduct required prior approval of such arrangements. Neither Mr. Johnson nor Mr. Raines sought such approval, according to Fannie.

Even if they had received waivers from the board to enjoy these perks, conscientious board members would then have wanted to disclose the waivers to investors. Post-Enron, the Sarbanes-Oxley law requires such disclosures. But even in the late-1990s, when the Friends of Angelo loans began, board members would likely have raised red flags.

Former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt tells us that "the best way to deal with issues like this is not to have these kinds of relationships. From both the Countrywide and the Fannie perspective, it is simply bad policy to permit loans to 'friends' on more favorable terms than others similarly situated would be able to get."

 
One question is whether Messrs. Johnson and Raines were using their position to pad their own incomes that were already fabulous thanks to an implicit taxpayer subsidy. (See the table nearby.) But the bigger issue is whether they steered Fannie policy into giving Mr. Mozilo and Countrywide favorable pricing, which means they helped to facilitate the mortgage boom and bust that Countrywide did so much to promote. A further federal probe would seem to be warranted, and we assume Barney Frank and his fellow mortgage moralists will want to dig into this palm-greasing from Capitol Hill.

The irony here is that Mr. Obama has denounced Mr. Mozilo as part of his populist case against corporate excess, calling Mr. Mozilo and a colleague in March "the folks who are responsible for infecting the economy and helping to create a home foreclosure crisis." Obama campaign manager David Plouffe also said in March that "If we're really going to crack down on the practices that caused the credit and housing crises, we're going to need a leader who doesn't owe these industries any favors." But now this protector of the working class has entrusted his first big task as Presidential nominee to the very man who received "favors" in return for enriching Mr. Mozilo.

Yesterday, ABC News asked Mr. Obama whether he should have more carefully vetted Mr. Johnson and Eric Holder, who is working with Mr. Johnson on veep vetting. Correspondent Sunlen Miller noted Mr. Johnson's loans from Countrywide and Mr. Holder's involvement as Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration in the pardon of fugitive Marc Rich. Said Mr. Obama: "Everybody, you know, who is tangentially related to our campaign, I think, is going to have a whole host of relationships – I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters."

Vetting Mr. Johnson's finances would have been time well spent, judging by a May 2006 report from Fannie Mae's regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo). Even if Mr. Obama considers the advisers helping him select a running mate "tangentially related" to his campaign, he might have thought twice about any relationship with Mr. Johnson.

Addressing the company's too smooth (and fraudulent) reported earnings growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ofheo reported: "Those achievements were illusions deliberately and systematically created by the Enterprise's senior management with the aid of inappropriate accounting and improper earnings management . . . By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets, senior management maximized the bonuses and other executive compensation they received, at the expense of shareholders."

* * *
The regulator described how, despite an internal Fannie analysis that valued Mr. Johnson's 1998 compensation at almost $21 million, the summary compensation table in the firm's 1999 proxy suggested his pay was no more than $7 million. Ofheo found that Fannie had actually drafted talking points to deflect such media questions as: "He's trying to hide how much he's made, isn't he?" and "Gimme a break. He's hiding his compensation."

To this list we would add one more, directed at Mr. Obama: Is this what you mean by bringing change to Washington?

[G M]

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/13/the-dead-cat-bounce/

Me-yow! The question being, can McCain close the deal?

[Crafty_Dog]

  "Factual Questions for Obama" by George F. Will

  "Senator, concerning the criteria by which you will nominate judges, you
said: "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize
what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's
like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old." Such
sensitivities might serve an admirable legislator, but what have they to
do with judging? Should a judge side with whichever party in a controversy
stirs his or her empathy? Is such personalization of the judicial function
inimical to the rule of law?

 

 . Voting against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, you said:
Deciding "truly difficult cases" should involve "one's deepest values,
one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the
depth and breadth of one's empathy." Is that not essentially how Chief
Justice Roger Taney decided the Dred Scott case? Should other factors-say,
the language of the constitutional or statutory provision at issue-matter?

 
 
 . You say, "The insurance companies, the drug companies, they're not going
to give up their profits easily when it comes to health care." Why should
they? Who will profit from making those industries unprofitable? When
pharmaceutical companies have given up their profits, who will fund
pharmaceutical innovations, without which there will be much preventable
suffering and death? What other industries should "give up their profits"?

 

 . ExxonMobil's 2007 profit of $40.6 billion annoys you. Do you know that
 its profit, relative to its revenue, was smaller than Microsoft's and many
other corporations'? And that reducing ExxonMobil's profits will injure people
who participate in mutual funds, index funds and pension funds that own 52
percent of the company?

 

 . You say John McCain is content to "watch [Americans'] home prices
decline." So, government should prop up housing prices generally? How?
Why?

Were prices ideal before the bubble popped? How does a senator know ideal
prices? Have you explained to young couples straining to buy their first
house that declining prices are a misfortune?

 

 . Telling young people "don't go into corporate America ," your wife,
Michelle, urged them to become social workers or others in "the helping
industry," not "the moneymaking industry." Given that the moneymakers pay
for 100 percent of American jobs, in both public and private sectors, is
it not helpful?

 

 . Michelle, who was born in 1964, says that most Americans' lives have
"gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl." Since 1960, real
per capita income has increased 143 percent, life expectancy has increased by
seven years, infant mortality has declined 74 percent, deaths from heart
disease have been halved, childhood leukemia has stopped being a death
sentence, depression has become a treatable disease, air and water
pollution have been drastically reduced, the number of women earning a bachelor's
degree has more than doubled, the rate of homeownership has increased 10.2
percent, the size of the average American home has doubled, the percentage
of homes with air conditioning has risen from 12 to 77, the portion of
Americans who own shares of stock has quintupled . Has your wife perhaps
missed some pertinent developments in this country that she calls "just
downright mean"?

 

 . You favor raising the capital gains tax rate to "20 percent or 25
percent." You say this will not "distort" economic decision making. Your
tax returns on your 2007 income of $4.2 million show that you and Michelle own
few stocks. Are you sure you understand how investors make decisions?

 

 . During the ABC debate, you acknowledged that when the capital gains rate
was dropped first to 20 percent, then to 15 percent, government revenues
from the tax increased and they declined in the 1980s when it was
increased to 28 percent. Nevertheless, you said you would consider raising the rate
"for purposes of fairness." How does decreasing the government's financial
resources and punishing investors promote fairness? Are you aware that 20
percent of taxpayers reporting capital gains in 2006 had incomes of less
than $50,000?

 

 . You favor eliminating the cap on earnings subject to the 12.4 percent
Social Security tax, which now covers only the first $102,000. A Chicago
police officer married to a Chicago public-school teacher, each with 20
years on the job, have a household income of $147,501, so you would take
another $5,642 from them. Are they undertaxed? Are they rich?

 

 . This November, electorates in four states will vote on essentially this
language: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential
treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color,
ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public
education or public contracting." Three states- California , Washington
and Michigan -have enacted such language. You made a radio ad opposing the
Michigan initiative. Why? Are those states' voters racists?

 

 . You denounce President Bush for arrogance toward other nations. Yet you
vow to use a metaphorical "hammer" to force revisions of trade agreements
unless certain weaker nations adjust their labor, environmental and other
domestic policies to suit you. Can you define cognitive dissonance?

 

 . You want "to reduce money in politics." In February and March you raised
$95 million. See prior question

[rachelg]

I actually really like Michelle Obama. She is a strong woman who made her family her #1 priority.  However, I  wouldn't vote for President based on the first lady. I have always though Laura Bush was very classy as well .

"On the morning that the Times ran a front-page story about Michelle Obama's recalibrating her image in the wake of conservative attacks, the potential first lady appeared friendly, well spoken, likable, if understandably measured, on "The View." It was a big moment for her, what Times writer Jodi Kantor dubbed "the television equivalent of a Broadway debut." No scandal, no surprises, really, but there was the expected discussion of her pride comment, to which Obama responded:

"Of course I am proud of my country. Nowhere but America could my story be possible. I'm a girl who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, my father was a working-class guy who worked his shift all his life, and because of his hard work he sent not just me but my brother to Princeton ... I am proud of my country without a doubt."

In a first-lady lovefest, Michelle expressed her gratitude to Laura Bush for defending her about those comments, and she gave props to Hillary: "Hillary Clinton says she created 18 million cracks on a ceiling, and we need to keep pushing it and pushing it. Because it's only until women like her step out, take the risk, take those hits, and it's painful. And it's hurtful, but she has taken them so that my girls when they come along they won't have to feel it as badly."

Most important, however, is that Obama greeted the guests with her signature fist bump (also known, in some circles, as a terrorist fist jab!). She admitted, like the adorable square she is, "I got this from the young staff … it's the new high-five."


http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59twO1fJwtQ

[G M]

You are really buying the "re-imaging" of Michelle Obama? Really? 

[rachelg]

No-- I liked her before

[G M]

Back when she was bitter about having to pay student loans while just scraping by on 430,000 a year?

[G M]

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/18/obama-pretty-psyched-for-a-nuremberg-trial-for-bin-laden/

Bad ideas, waiting to happen.

[rachelg]

I'm not saying she is perfect.  She  wouldn't be my role model  in that particular case for being grateful. I just always thought she was a plus for Obama not a minus.   

[G M]

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/18/bitter-half-alert-michelle-obamas-makeover-and-view-debut/

Michelle Malkin's take on Obama's "bitter-half".

[sgtmac_46]

***Did Bush risk American lives and his political life to save Jews?***

Yes, I think that was part of the calculation in invading Iraq.  Obviously it hasn't worked as well as thought, but he certainly is risking American lives right now.   And I think if he had more political backing he would bomb the shit out of Iran's nuclear facilities, but America has turned weak.

******Would McCain?***   

In my mind I believe he would, absolutely.

As for Alan Dershowitz he can't see without his Democrat/liberal colored glasses.  So of course he will back the Democrat - he *always* does.  I have never heard him say a kind word for any Republican.  He could be an editorialist for the NYT.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3444393,00.html
Chief of staff of former secretary of state reveals that large number of senior Israeli officials warned Bush administration that invasion of Iraq would be destabilizing to region. 'The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy - Iran is the enemy,' he says

Yitzhak Benhorin

Instead invading Iraq to protect Israelis ( I am not arguing against the invasion of Iraq) why didn't Bush invade Iran move the embassy to Jerusalem.    The idea that Bush invaded Iraq for Israel is generally used as anti-Israel attack  and I don't think there is much truth to it. 

The Dershowitz quote I was referring to was ---

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/us/politics/22jewish.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1211688000&en=2f1c1073322ca17f&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin
"Mr. Dershowitz, who supports Mrs. Clinton, says he tells voters that Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, are all pro-Israel and to reject false personal attacks on Mr. Obama."

And here in lies the democrats strategy.......run against Bush (who, by the way isn't running in 2008).  Clever.

As for the notion that Israel did not view Saddam Hussein as the enemy, that's preposterous, and Dershowitz is out of his mind.  Am I the only one that remembers that Saddam Hussein was paying large sums of cash to the families of suicide bombers who killed Israeli citizens?

[sgtmac_46]

I actually really like Michelle Obama. She is a strong woman who made her family her #1 priority.  However, I  wouldn't vote for President based on the first lady. I have always though Laura Bush was very classy as well .

"On the morning that the Times ran a front-page story about Michelle Obama's recalibrating her image in the wake of conservative attacks, the potential first lady appeared friendly, well spoken, likable, if understandably measured, on "The View." It was a big moment for her, what Times writer Jodi Kantor dubbed "the television equivalent of a Broadway debut." No scandal, no surprises, really, but there was the expected discussion of her pride comment, to which Obama responded:

"Of course I am proud of my country. Nowhere but America could my story be possible. I'm a girl who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, my father was a working-class guy who worked his shift all his life, and because of his hard work he sent not just me but my brother to Princeton ... I am proud of my country without a doubt."

In a first-lady lovefest, Michelle expressed her gratitude to Laura Bush for defending her about those comments, and she gave props to Hillary: "Hillary Clinton says she created 18 million cracks on a ceiling, and we need to keep pushing it and pushing it. Because it's only until women like her step out, take the risk, take those hits, and it's painful. And it's hurtful, but she has taken them so that my girls when they come along they won't have to feel it as badly."

Most important, however, is that Obama greeted the guests with her signature fist bump (also known, in some circles, as a terrorist fist jab!). She admitted, like the adorable square she is, "I got this from the young staff … it's the new high-five."


http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59twO1fJwtQ

  "For the first time in my adult life I am really proud to be an American" -Michelle Obama

I think it's time America put the kool-aid down and became honest about who and what Barry and Michelle Obama really are....they far left radicals who also appears to have embraced a black nationalist ideology when it was politically convenient on the local level in Hyde Park Chicago.  Over the years Barry has surrounded himself with left wing terrorists, black seperatists and assorted fringe fruitcakes and nutjobs, and now he wants to simply avoid any discussion of that.  And strangely the media is content to oblige him by NOT discussing anything Barry feels uncomfortable with.

Barry has convinced a significant number of American citizens that he should be president because he is 'clean and articulate' and can come up with interesting variations of saying he's about 'hope and change' in very inspiring speeches....that actually saying NOTHING at ALL!  Now those brain-washed kool-aid drinkers speak of Obama as if he were a MESSIANIC FIGURE!   

PUT THE KOOL-AID DOWN AMERICA! 

[G M]

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/06192008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obama_vs__osama_116128.htm

OBAMA VS. OSAMA
By RALPH PETERS

June 19, 2008 -- NAME-BRAND journalists have let Barack Obama make any claim he chooses about Iraq, Afghanistan or coping with terrorism without pinning him down for details.
Yet many of his comments and positions seem stunningly naive about national security. Given that this man may become our next president, shouldn't he explain how he'd do the many impressive things he's promised?

This week, Obama claimed, again, that he'd promptly capture Osama bin Laden. OK, tell me how: Specifically, which concrete measures would he take that haven't been taken? How would he force our intelligence agencies to locate bin Laden? And he can't just respond, "That's classified."

He also claimed that fighting terrorism is a law-enforcement problem, not a military one (should we send the NYPD to Mosul and Kandahar?), and that the answer to terrorism is the approach taken after the 1993 World Trade Center attack, featuring conventional trials and prison terms.

That flaccid post-'93 response only encouraged terrorists - who are unfazed by the prospect of a US prison, where the quality of life's better than it was at home. The Clinton administration's hesitancy and softness gave us the subsequent attacks on the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, on our embassies in East Africa, on the USS Cole and, ultimately, the events of 9/11.

The senator needs to tell us why it would be different now.

Obama has also said he'd send our troops into Pakistan, although he'll withdraw rapidly from Iraq. His unwillingness to discuss the consequences of a hasty retreat from Baghdad is one thing - but invading Pakistan would be an order of magnitude worse.

A substantial number of Iraq's 26 million citizens did welcome us. In Pakistan, with its 170 million Muslims and some of the most rugged terrain on earth, anti-Americanism prevails. Any US military incursion would be greeted with outrage and demands for a military response.

Nor does Obama appear to grasp that armies need fuel, ammunition, food, spare parts and other supplies. Nearly everything for our troops in landlocked Afghanistan, from bottled water to medical supplies, now comes via Pakistani ports, roads and railroads. If those long, difficult routes were cut, how would President Obama supply our troops? And no, it can't all be done by air.

Oh, Pakistan has nukes, too.

Also this week, Obama's advisers stated that, if apprehended, Osama bin Laden should be tried in a conventional US courtroom. My fellow Americans, do you believe that?

Do you believe that this arch-terrorist, publicly proud of his responsibility for 9/11, should be given all the rights of a US citizen and a public platform to engage in propaganda?

What the full-rights-for-terrorists advocates fail to comprehend is that our judicial processes - so dear to us - are viewed by terrorists as a means to advance their cause, to embarrass us, to reveal our intelligence methods and to perpetuate their martyr myth.

Harsh as it may sound, a dead terrorist is dead, but an imprisoned terrorist is a cause (and not just for his fellow radicals). Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is forgotten, but our Guantanamo prisoners are pop stars.

Obama appears out of his depth on all this, but the gushingly friendly media have given him a pass on every groundless claim or gaffe. It's time for journalists to start asking him tough questions - to press him when he doesn't give serious answers. Isn't that their job?

Those who knew Obama in his university days claim that he couldn't be persuaded to study history. It shows. And his lifelong lack of interest in the military is self-evident.

The response that "he has knowledgeable advisers" isn't enough. Obama's military and counterterror "experts" compose a unique collection of the dismissed, the discredited and the dysfunctional. Most appear to be out to settle personal grudges rather than to advance our nation's security.

Let's hope that just one high-profile journalist pushes Obama on the following questions:

* How would you find Osama bin Laden? What, specifically, would you do differently?

* What would be the rules for capturing or killing Osama?

* How would you manage the consequences of the military incursion into Pakistan you've threatened? Are you willing to go to war with Pakistan?

* What would be the specific results of a swift troop withdrawal from Iraq?

* Why would a judicial approach to defeating terrorists work this time when it failed to protect us in the past?

* Do you truly believe that self-admitted terrorists, when captured, deserve the full legal privileges of US citizens?

If this highly talented candidate has glaring gaps in his understanding of the world, voters deserve to know. If his campaign promises have no substance, we deserve to know that, too.

I support John McCain for president, but I live by the values that guided me as an Army officer: I will support my commander in chief as chosen by the American people, no matter who he (or, one day, she) may be. But until the people make their choice, both candidates should be held to the same tough standards of truth in advertising.

Sen. Obama, tell us how.

Ralph Peters' new book, "Looking for Trouble," will be published in July.

[SB_Mig]

...far left radicals who also appears to have embraced a black nationalist ideology when it was politically convenient on the local level in Hyde Park Chicago.  Over the years Barry has surrounded himself with left wing terrorists, black seperatists and assorted fringe fruitcakes and nutjobs...

So the thing I always wonder when people make this argument is, "What are you afraid of?"

Do you really think that somehow, IF he's voted into office, the US is going to suddenly become a far left, radical, black separatist state? That people are suddenly going turn to Islam? I just don't get the fear factor. Do you honestly think that career politicians are going to take whatever bill he puts in front of them and ignore their constituents? That the entire country will suddenly go all glassy eyed and let the administration run all over them? I just don't buy it.

What is the concern? His questionable acquaintances? His lack of a moral compass? His willingness to do/say/try anything to get elected? If those are the arguments, we might as well empty the US Congress and start over.

[Crafty_Dog]

The man's mentor, Frank something, is/was a formal member of the US Communist Party; there is his friendship with unrepentant Weather underground terrorists, there is his association with Rev Wright's church (which praises and honors Louis Farrakan), his wife's shame in our country, etc etc etc.  Then there is the matter of the man's voting record, and his positions.

Does not the confluence of all these things raise a warning flag for you as to the man's inner compass?  And does not our President's inner compass matter?

[SB_Mig]

Crafty,

I am not defending or supporting the senator.

Honesty and integrity are two things that I find lacking in the majority of our politicians. Actually, I can't think of a political figure in the past 20 years without major character/personality deficits, questionable business practices, or who is not morally ambiguous at best. Politics is a business. And that business is all about staying in office, no matter what.

Obama's background is questionable at the very least, but just as politically transparent as any number of other politicians. His constituents are made up of a mix of lower/mid/upper class voters, of different races. His associations are strictly political capital. Of course he's going to attend a particular type of church, if that is going to get make him popular or get him votes. If you want to be popular with a certain crowd (in his case, liberal voters) you hang out with the people that can help you get popular. And guess what? It will, at some point, come back to bite you in the ass.

Do I think he should be commended on him choice of friends or business partners? No. Does he know some sketchy people? Hell yes. Is that o.k.? Hell no. But really, honestly, how many political figures don't have skeletons in their closet (or living room for that matter)? Do Obama's associations make him anymore questionable than any number of other politicians? I'd say it's about a 50/50 on that one. I mean, just look at the amazing political scandals of the past 12 months, on both sides of the aisle.

I am more concerned about this perception that by virtue of Obama's past, his administration is somehow going to ride roughshod all over the country. Do people really believe that an individual has that much power in today's day and age? I mean, checks and balances? Anyone? And if they do hold this belief, where did it come from? Why would Obama's presidency be any more politically effective/powerful/dangerous than the current administration's? And if people do have concerns about unchecked presidential power, perhaps they should have been complaining (as some have in these forums) over the past 8 years.

I would ask those who are concerned about who gets voted-in the following:

When was the last time a president came into office with unchecked power, completely changed the fabric of our society, our political standing in the world, and ignored anything that the voting public or Congress said? I'm going to go with....never.

I just find the "sky is falling" scenarios ridiculous. IF Obama gets voted in, we are not going turn into a communist, socialized medicine, far left, terrorist loving society. Let's give ourselves a little more credit than that.

[Howling Dog]

SB Mig, Take your last post on Obama and apply those same questions to Mcain and what say ye?

I honestly think you find very little scandal, charecter flaws or skeletons in his closet.......
Not that he's impeccable, but so far the biggest thing I've heard negative about him is that he has a bad temper
Yea there are some questionable right wing extremist pastors that try to align themselves with him.....the thing is though, is that he has no personal association to them.......Please though do expound on the negatvies that you know of on John Mcain......
                                                           TG

[Crafty_Dog]

"When was the last time a president came into office with unchecked power, completely changed the fabric of our society, our political standing in the world, and ignored anything that the voting public or Congress said? I'm going to go with....never."

Ummm how about LBJ? 

The point I think you have not considered yet is that if elected BO will head an overwhelimingly Demogogue Congress-- one determined e.g. to socialize 15% of GDP (health care).  This alone is a dramatic change.  The point is that there will be little to no countervailing political power.  BO and the Demogogues look to raise taxes dramatically.  This too is a big change-- one that will be catastropic IMHO.  BO and the Demogogues want to re-apply the Carter solutions to the energy challenges of our time-- this too will lead to disaster.

[rachelg]

Just so I clearly understand you point not voting for Senator McCain is the same as joining a cult and drinking cyanide? It is not possible that  someone could make a logical informed choice to vote differently?

I don't think anyone was arguing SH was good for Israel. The issue being Palestinian suicide bombers are extremely painful but they are not an existential threat to Israel the way a  nuclear Iran would be.

"Not that he's impeccable, but so far the biggest thing I've heard negative about him is that he has a bad temper"

Does a bad temper excuse  calling his a wife a trollop and a four letter word? How does adultery fit into having a moral compass?   

Michelle Obama never said she was ashamed of her country.    The opposite of "really proud" is not shame. It was not great comment but not the same as saying she was ashamed of her country

There are logical thoughtful reasons to vote  for McCain. Variations of Barak is evil and scary because he greeted is wife with a terrorist  fist pump or accepted $200 from someone from Weather Underground etc  are not really great arguments

 We can play this game with McCain  and argue about his moral compass which is much less interesting than arguing the issues

 "John McCain has called off a fundraiser(but kept the money) at the home of a Texas oilman who joked about rape during a 1990 gubernatorial run in the state.

The Texan, Republican Clayton Williams, made the joke during his failed campaign against Democrat Ann Richards. Williams compared rape to the weather, saying, "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

"He also compared Richards to the cattle on his ranch, saying he would "head her and hoof her and drag her through the dirt."


:The campaign said it would not return money Williams had raised for McCain because the contributions came from other individuals supporting McCain and not from Williams. Williams told his hometown newspaper, the Midland Reporter-Telegram, that he had raised more than $300,000 for McCain."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/14/mccain-cancels-event-over_n_107139.html


On a positive note no matter who wins --we will  at least  have a president who believes in evolution .

[G M]

Will Obama stop the US gov't from giving black people the HIV virus if he's elected president?

[rachelg]

Do you honestly  think Obama believes the government gave black people HIV ? Do you honestly think most of Obama's supporter believe that. I'm positive   Neo Nazi/KKK vote  will all be for McCain . It is not really a good reason to vote for Obama.

[G M]

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/19/louis-farrakhans-newspaper-defends-poor-michelle-obama/

Looks like the Nation of Islam is a fan of Michelle Obama too!

[G M]

Do you honestly  think Obama believes the government gave black people HIV ? Do you honestly think most of Obama's supporter believe that. I'm positive   Neo Nazi/KKK vote  will all be for McCain . It is not really a good reason to vote for Obama.

Obama sure didn't mind bathing in that hatred for 20 years and exposing his young daughters to it. Is black racism more palatable to you than white racism? As far as neo-nazis, they want to see Obama elected in the belief that this will be the cause of the race war they've been waiting for. So, actually by supporting Obama, one is supporting racist loons of both the black and white kind.

[G M]

- Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center - http://www.splcenter.org/blog -

President Obama? Many White Supremacists are Celebrating
Posted By Mark Potok On June 11, 2008 @ 11:56 am In Anti-Black, Hate Groups, Klan, National Alliance, White Supremacist | 78 Comments

With the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate clinched, large sections of the white supremacist movement are adopting a surprising attitude: Electing America’s first black president would be a very good thing.

It’s not that the assortment of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, anti-Semites and others who make up this country’s radical right have suddenly discovered that a man should be judged based on the content of his character, not his skin. On the contrary. A growing number of white supremacists, and even some of those who pass for intellectual leaders of their movement, think that a black man in the Oval Office would shock white America, possibly drive millions to their cause, and perhaps even set off a race war that, they hope, would ultimately end in Aryan victory.

“He will make things so bad for white people that hopefully they will finally realize how stupid they were for admiring these jigaboos all these years,” “Darthvader” wrote on the neo-Nazi [1] Vanguard News Network web forum. “I believe in the motto ‘Worse is Better’ and Obama certainly fits that description.” Just last week, [2] Ron Doggett (right), a Virginian who has been a key activist in the Klan, the paramilitary White People’s Party and the neo-Nazi National Alliance, chimed in with this: “I hope Obama wins because in four years, white people just might be pissed off enough to actually do something. … White people aren’t going to do a thing until their toys are taken away from them. So things have to be worse for things to be better.”

“Oh man,” enthused “Centimanus” on the white nationalist [3] Stormfront website. “I am gleefully, sadistically looking forward to Obama as president. … It will be a beautiful day when the masses look at the paper and truly realize they have lost their own country. Added “Fulimnata”: “To the average white man and woman, they could look at Obama and see plain as day that whites are not in control.” Another message, from “TheLastOfMyKind,” agreed: “Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black, muslim [sic] rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites throughout the nation.” “Actually,” said another poster, “if Obama were to win, it would be the best thing that ever happened to the Klan. They would have massive growth.” And “TeutonicLegion” said that “a whole bunch of people will join us and find these boards” if Obama becomes president.

Even [4] David Duke (right), the neo-Nazi and former Klan boss who is the closest thing the movement has to a real intellectual these days, sees clear advantages in an Obama victory in the fall. “Obama will be a signal, a clear signal for millions of our people,” Duke wrote in an essay entitled [5] “A Black Flag for White America” last week. “Obama is like that new big dark spot on your arm that finally sends you to the doctor for some real medicine. … Obama is the pain that let’s [sic] your body know that something is dreadfully wrong. Obama will let the American people know that there is a real cancer eating away at the heart of our country and Republican aspirin will not only not cure it, but only masks the pain and makes you think you don’t need radical surgery. … My bet is that whether Obama wins or loses in November, millions of European Americans will inevitably react with new awareness of their heritage and the need for them to defend and advance it.”
Opinion on the radical right is far from unanimous on the topic of a possible Obama victory. Many of those writing on the topic — perhaps half of those who have posted recently — think an Obama presidency would destroy the country and oppose it mightily. On the other hand, there is virtually no enthusiasm on the radical right for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who is widely seen by white supremacists as a sellout, particularly on the issue of nonwhite immigration into the United States. But increasing numbers think that a bad situation with a black president will be good for their movement.

“Thomas Dixon Jr.,” a Stormfront poster using the name of the racist author who wrote the classic novel [6] The Clansman, put it like this: “As WLP [William Luther Pierce, the late leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance] would say… ‘What is bad for the system is good for us.’” “Obama,” added “The Patriot” in the same thread, “would be better for our cause in the long run, no doubt about it.”

[rachelg]

IMO Racism  no matter the flavor is morally equivalent and maybe those who suffer it themselves should know bettter.   Be kind to the stranger because you were a stranger in a strand land etc.   Practically it is worse for the person in power to be racist than those not in power to be racist  because of the size of the impact.

[G M]

Rachel,

I assume you are now retracting "I'm positive   Neo Nazi/KKK vote  will all be for McCain ."

Yes?

[rachelg]

Rachel,

I assume you are now retracting "I'm positive   Neo Nazi/KKK vote  will all be for McCain ."

Yes?

Yes-- Obviously the facts are against me in that case . I often try to fact check things before I post them  just in case my memory fails me but that was not something I thought I would need to look up.