Obama?

Obama?

I heard the other day that Democratic Senator Barack Obama might run for the US Presidency in 2008. Obama is a dynamic speaker, gives the appearence of being an intellectual, is very charismatic, and really "seems to care". In other words, he might end up being another "cult of personality" President, much like Clinton, as Democrats can rarely win national elections by running on the issues.

So what are Obamas stances on the issues? Well, it appears he doesn't want people to know.

From vote-smart.org:

SENATOR BARACK H. OBAMA REPEATEDLY REFUSED TO PROVIDE ANY RESPONSES TO CITIZENS ON ISSUES THROUGH THE 2004 NATIONAL POLITICAL AWARENESS TEST.

That is enough to raise a HUGE red flag for me. What does he want to hide? Are his stances on the issues out of the mainstream? Fortunately, the voting record of every house member and senator is public information (at least for now), so lets examine his voting record:

He voted for the Unintended Pregnancy Amendment, which increases funding and access to family planning services (ie abortion).

He voted against the Defense Department FY2006 Appropriations bill.

He voted against the Increase the Number of Detention Beds Amendment.

He entered a no-vote for the Future Military Funding for Iraq Amendment.

He voted for the Temporary Tax on Crude Oil Amendment (another huge red flag that he doesn't understand economics nor the concept of cause and effect).

He voted for the Removal of ANWR Provision from HR 2863.

He voted againt making it illegal, excluding the minor's parents, to knowingly transport a pregnant minor across state lines in order to obtain an abortion, as a way to escape state laws requiring parental consent. (another HUGE red flag).

He voted against the Firearms Manufacturers Protection bill.

He voted for stem cell research funding.

These are enough for me to never vote for him. Unfortunately, most people in the US don't look at the issues. The for the vaunted "swing voters", this poster will be enough to doom the country in 2008:

 

Obama makes one good speech and he's vaulted into the national spotlight as if he's the second coming. Oh wait, the Left doesn't believe there was even a first coming. So much for that metaphor.

Here's another one:

Hitler started his public career with one good speech too...

(and now, let the moonbats bring their fire)

 

Obama comes across as a very nice man. But of course, nice is different than good.

Other big name Dems whose careers were greatly boosted by giving the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention:

Mario Cuomo
Ann Richards
Bill Clinton

A friend of mine says that Nostradamus had a prediction about a leader called "Barack". I think I'll try to find something about that.

 

 Scott Roche said...

"Unintended Pregnancy Amendment" = increased funding for abortion. That's not how it reads. It seems to provide funding for things like contraception and prevention of pregnancy. Perhaps you can point me to some information to the contrary?

"he doesn't understand economics nor the concept of cause and effect"

I'm sure he understands those things just fine. It just sounds like he disagrees with you.

I agree with you that most Americans vote based on some sort of "gut feeling" and not on the issues. Just don't fall into the trap of deciding that if someone disagrees with you that they are somehow stupid or aren't paying attention.

Obama Winning Duel of Alinsky Disciples

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

 

Kyle-Anne Shiver:

Obama answered a help-wanted ad for a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumnet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago. Obama was 24 years old, unmarried, very accustomed to a vagabond existence, and according to his memoir, searching for a genuine African-American community.

Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned how to "rub raw the sores of discontent," in Alinsky's words.

One of Obama's early mentors in the Alinsky method was Mike Kruglik, who had this to say to an interviewer of The New Republic, about Obama:

"He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards. As with the panhandler, he could be aggressive and confrontational. With probing, sometimes personal questions, he would pinpoint the source of pain in their lives, tearing down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they could make things better."

The agitator's job, according to Alinsky, is first to bring folks to the "realization" that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the fault of unresponsive governments or greedy corporations, then help them to bond together to demand what they deserve, and to make such an almighty stink that the dastardly governments and corporations will see imminent "self-interest" in granting whatever it is that will cause the harassment to cease.

In these methods, euphemistically labeled "community organizing," Obama had a four-year education, which he often says was the best education he ever got anywhere.

Is it any wonder, then, that Obama's Alinsky Jujitsu is making mincemeat of the woman who merely interviewed Alinsky, wrote about him, and spent the next 30 years in corporate law and in the lap of taxpayer-funded luxury in government mansions?

Obama Outfoxes Bill Clinton -- Landslide Victory

 

I read with amusement this past week or so how Bill Clinton had thrown Barack Obama off his game and gotten under his skin. The talk was that Mr. Clinton's obvious disdain for the truth and his insistence on repeatedly introducing race into the campaign had marginalized Mr. Obama and left him as the "black candidate".

Excuse me, folks, but it's my belief that Mr. Clinton was played like a fiddle. Let's re-examine the events. Bill Clinton got into the fray by claiming Mr. Obama's record on the war in Iraq was identical to Hillary's. That is totally untrue as can be seen from the video in Saturday's post entitled, Hillary's Truth -- She Promoted the Iraq War. Mr. Clinton temporarily sidetracked Obama, who felt he had to answer the intentional misstatements. He did.

Then, Barack Obama demonstrated that he is a brilliant tactician and completely outfoxed the former president. In a radio broadcast, Mr. Obama mentioned that Ronald Reagan's administration was the one that had the most transformative effect on our society, saying that was "unlike Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton". He fired his arrow right at where Mr. Clinton is most vulnerable -- his EGO.

Clinton went ballistic. He started spreading obvious lies about Obama's speeches and record, shook his finger belligerently at the media, and as he left South Carolina, made another strong attempt to inject race into the equation by comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson. The people of South Carolina and the rest of America were treated to "Bill Clinton Gone Wild", and the true nature and character of the former president were exposed. He is not fighting so hard for his wife -- he wants to be back in the White House for himself, Bill Clinton.

I think Mr. Obama's tactics in baiting Bill Clinton were brilliant and Bill's ego wouldn't allow him to not respond. The result: a LANDSLIDE victory in South Carolina where 68% of white voters said that Hillary Clinton had treated Obama unfairly.

Hail to the new King!

The Candid Blogger: Obama Accepts Kennedy Endorsement

Obama Accepts Kennedy Endorsement

Watch Barack Obama's inspirational acceptance of the Kennedy endorsements and the Kennedy Legacy. If anyone was too young to have lived during the 1960's, watch this speech and you can feel the electricity in the air, the feelings of hope for the future, and a young, dynamic leader to take us there.

The Candid Blogger: Obama Accepts Kennedy Endorsement.

Obama

 

Here's a few thoughts of why I think Obama is a good candidate:

He's smart and has a lot of experience. He graduated with a Harvard law degree and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. He's been an Illinois state senator and US senator.

Also, he's lived abroad and all over the states. He's been a volunteer and community organizer and activist; he is a champion of the underprivileged. He's put climate change as a high priority in his campaign.

He opposed the Iraq war from the onset. He's not hawkish and wants to engage other leaders in diplomacy first (more than any other candidate). Also, so much of the modern conservative-liberal hawk versus dove divide has its roots in the Vietnam war. Obama was born in 1961 and so, thankfully, there won't be any campaigning on his service or lack of service (no swift-boating, draft-dodging, etcetera).

He's more electable than Clinton in the general election, especially against McCain.

Finally, he does have a lot of charisma and his message of change and ability to unite people are exciting.

Obama and the ghosts of racism

Monday, January 7, 2008

Obama and the ghosts of racism

The Boston Globe
By James Carroll
January 7, 2008

"THEY SAID this day would never come," Barack Obama declared in Iowa last week, and the ghosts of this nation nodded. With an African-American competing seriously for the presidency of the United States, the last act of a centuries-old drama begins. Obama's blood tie to the story of American slavery, ironically, comes through his white mother's ancestry, which apparently includes both slave owners and those who fought for the Union to end slavery. That Obama's father was a Kenyan links him more directly than anyone could have imagined both to Africa's past as an exploited continent, and to its present, where the bloody legacy of colonialism plays itself out. (Obama's father was a member of the Luo tribe, like Raila Odinga, the leader of the Kenyan opposition, whose people are protesting the recent election.)
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In the American memory, slavery and then the war to abolish it are taken to be the two poles of the story, but it isn't that simple. If racial injustice continued to be a hallmark of life in the United States, it was thought to be an inevitable, but essentially unchosen consequence of the "250 years of unrequited toil," in Abraham Lincoln's phrase, that were imposed on kidnapped Africans and their descendants. Nearly a million Americans died in the war to end slavery, and - still in the American memory - the nation has felt badly ever since that slavery's hangover includes discrimination against black people to this day.
The conventional wisdom, given powerful articulation a generation ago by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is that the plight of African-Americans - from broad family dysfunction, to almost unshakeable poverty, to disproportionate incarceration rates of black males - is a tragic consequence of the social evil that America nobly renounced in the mid-19th century. Black people are socially disadvantaged, according to this narrative, because of the unhealed wound that was inflicted on them across the early centuries. Innately equal, yes, but they have been made a crippled people, which accounts for their still inferior position.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/07/obama_and_the_ghosts_of_racism/]

Obama: Offers Plan for New Orleans (with Clip)

 

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday that the country cannot fail New Orleans
again and that as president, he would keep the city in mind every day.

"The words 'never again' cannot be another empty phrase," he said in front
of one of the few rebuilt houses he saw on a brief tour of the city's Gentilly
Woods section. "It cannot become another broken promise."

Obama is the first of several presidential candidates from both parties who
are set to visit New Orleans in connection with the second anniversary of
Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday. President Bush also is expected to mark the
occasion with a trip to the Gulf Coast.

[See the Obama video at Chicago Tribune]

As many presidential candidates convene in the city today for a summit spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Landrieu, the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landing in New Orleans is providing an opportunity for people to try to gauge how the country's next leader will handle the fallout from disasters past and future.

Being the first on the ground gave the Senator an opportunity to discuss his plan for rebuilding, which included: Incentives such as loan forgiveness to attract students and needed professionals back to the region; national catastrophic insurance reserve; and funding for community policing operations, among others.

Followup report on event at NOLALive

ALSO

In THE BLACK COLLEGIAN / Black College Wire interview with Obama last year, the Senator had stressed the importance of students' volunteerism to help rebuild communities like New Orleans', and to address racial inequities and issues of poverty.

As part of on weeklong series of Katrina anniversary superevents in New Orleans, a coalition of organizations from around the nation have called for Tuesday AUGUST 28 to be a UNITY Day of Community Service, urging volunteers from across the country to assist in environmental cleaning up of damaged neighborhoods, schools and churches in New Orleans and we will visit the sick and elderly in the few nursing homes that have reopened including Guste Home Senior Citizens Highrise. "Volunteers will help to paint, pressure wash and repair play grounds in a local public school and remove contaminated top soil from communities. Our goal is to personally touch as many survivors as physically possible to let the people of the Gulf know that we will not let the country forget the devastation that still exists in the Gulf." Main local organizers include Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University, Mount Zion United Methodist Church, AALP, Urban League of Greater New Orleans, Rainbow PUSH New Orleans, Millions More Movement and LA Unity Coalition.