Slick Barry!

Barack Hussein Obama (Barry Soetoro) is a con artist. Obama's speeches and promises are slick. Most con men are - or they wouldn't be good cons.

The following "Obama, Con - Obama and the Left" is quoted from Thomas Sowell, on October 25, 2008 in National Review: "Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger are not just people with left-wing opinions. They are reckless demagogues preaching hatred of the lowest sort - and both are recipients of money from Obama...Bill Ayers is not just `an education professor' who has some left-wing views. He is a confessed and unrepentant terrorist, who more recently has put his message of resentment into the schools - an effort using money from a foundation that Obama headed... Nor has the help all been one way. During the last debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, Senator McCain mentioned that Sen. Obama's political campaign began in Bill Ayers's home. Obama immediately denied it and McCain had no real follow-up... It was not this year's political campaign that Obama began in Bill Ayers's home but an earlier campaign for the Illinois state legislature. Barack Obama can match Bill Clinton in slickness at parsing words to evade accusations... That is one way to get to the White House. But slickness with words is not going to help a president deal with either domestic economic crises or the looming dangers of a nuclear Iran."

Historical Inaccuracies

Historian Sean Wilentz (on January 26, 2008) wrote: "[S]ome of the (Obama) presidential candidates and their surrogates have been evoking history more insistently than ever. Not surprisingly, those evocations often have been flimsy and faulty."

"The latest maiming of the historical record and elementary historical logic has come over Martin Luther King, Jr., Lyndon B. Johnson - and the presidential primaries of 2008. The media echo chamber is now booming with charges that Senator Hillary Clinton has disparaged Dr. King, praised President Johnson in his stead, and thereby distorted the history of the civil rights movement. It is the latest evidence, say the talking heads, that Clinton is running a subtly racist campaign - or, as the theology and African-American studies professor Michael Eric Dyson worded it on MSNBC, that she is carrying a message with an "an implicit racial subtext." (Sean Wilentz - from an essay in the New Republic - http://www.tnr.com)

"Ben Smith of Politico was among the first to stir things up, charging that remarks by Clinton on MLK and LBJ offered "an odd example for the argument between rhetoric and action" that Clinton has been making in her contest with Senator Barack Obama." (ibid)

By the time the charge reached Maureen Dowd's column in The New York Times on Wednesday, it had morphed into a false claim that Clinton actually compared herself to Johnson - a comparison Dowd claimed she never thought "any living Democrat" would do in trying to win the New Hampshire primary. (Dowd had 1968 and Vietnam on her mind, which, unfortunately, was not the matter in dispute: civil rights.)" (ibid)

"Now, Representative James E. Clyburn, the most prominent African-American elected official from South Carolina, has picked up the ever-changing story and implicitly ac cused Senator Clinton of denigrating Dr. King and the civil rights movement. "We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics," Clyburn told The New York Times." (ibid)

So - let us very, very carefully look at that historical record. In a pair of television interviews earlier this week, Clinton made the uncontroversial historical observation that Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement put their lives on the line for racial equality, and that President Johnson enacted civil rights legislation. Her point was simple: Although great social changes require social movements that create hope and force crises, elected officials, presidents above all, are also required in order to turn those hopes into laws. It was, plainly, a rejoinder to the accusations by Obama that Clinton has sneered at "hope." Clinton was also rebutting Obama's simplistic assertions about "hope" and the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the end of Jim Crow." (ibid)

The historical record is crystal clear about this, and no responsible historian seriously contests it. Without Frederick Douglass and the abolitionists, black and white (not to mention restive slaves), there would have been no agitation to end slavery, even after the Civil War began. But without Douglass's ally in the White House, the sympathetic, deeply anti-slavery but highly pragmatic Abraham Lincoln, there could not have been an Emancipation Proclamation or a Thirteenth Amendment. Likewise, without King and his movement, there would have been no civil rights revolution. But without the Texas liberal and wheeler-dealer Lyndon Johnson, and his predecessor John F. Kennedy, there would have been no Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Voting Rights Act of 1965." (ibid)

"Hope, in other words, is necessary to bring about change - but it is never enough. Change also requires effective leadership inside government. It's not a matter of either/or (that is, either King or Johnson), but a matter of both/and." (ibid)

"Behind this argument over Clinton's comments lies a false, mythic view of the 1960s in which the civil rights movement supposedly pushed Johnson and the Democrats to support civil rights against their own will. In fact, the movement and the elected officials were distinct but complementary elements in the civil rights politics that changed America." (ibid)

Civil rights protests mounted gradually after 1945. By the spring of 1963, amid the protests in Birmingham, Alabama, a civil rights revolution was plainly underway, undertaken by ordinary black Americans who had outrun their own leadership (including Dr. King), let alone the federal government. President Kennedy, who had to work with a conservative Congress dominated by Southern senators, had initially been cool to civil rights legislation, lest it doom his entire presidency. But he finally embraced the cause in a momentous speech to the nation on June 11, 1963, which became a prelude for a major civil rights act to come." (ibid)

Kennedy's speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, describes the June 11 address as a turning point in the history of civil rights politics as well as in JFK's presidency. Kennedy knew well, Sorensen observes, "that it would make other legislation impossible ... and he knew how much was riding on it, politically and historically. He knew all of that." Lyndon Johnson, perhaps as much as any politician of the time, understood the political and historical stakes just as well. As Senate Majority Leader, he had pushed through the Congress, in 1957, the first piece of civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction era." (ibid)

"Picking up the murdered Kennedy's mantle, Johnson used his mastery of congressional politics to push through the momentous Civil Rights Act in 1964. A year later, Johnson responded to the movement's battles in Selma, Alabama, by proposing and shepherding through to enactment the equally momentous Voting Rights Bill of 1965. And in June of that year, Johnson's famous commencement speech at Howard University launched what he called "the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights," which laid the foundation for affirmative action in hiring." (ibid)

In all of these instances, Johnson responded with political courage as well as sincere conviction about racial equality, but, like Kennedy (and, for that matter, Lincoln) before him, he also needed events to create a climate when his political skills could be applied. Johnson's relations with Martin Luther King were often tense, and the two men parted ways in 1967 over King's opposition to the Vietnam War. On the fundamental issues of civil rights reform, though, Johnson and King were in close contact and worked together as allies. And when Johnson, in his speech to Congress on voting rights in 1965, quoted and embraced the civil rights battle cry - "We Shall Overcome" - Dr. King openly wept. He called Johnson at the White House. "It is ironic, Mr. President," said King, "that after a century, a southern white President would help lead the way toward the salvation of the Negro."" (ibid)

"Martin Luther King led the movement; Lyndon B. Johnson supported that movement, played the politics, guided the legislation, and signed it into law. Both were indispensable to the civil rights successes of the 1960s. To acknowledge both denigrates neither man. Describing such an acknowledgement as a denigration of Dr. King is, at best, bad history. At worst, it is a manipulative and inflammatory racial appeal concerning a crucial era in American history - an era that needs very, very careful consideration indeed. Either way, the current heated rhetoric demonstrates that the utopia of post-racial politics has hardly arrived." (Sean Wilentz)

American Idol

Professor Wilentz says the misuse of history has been largely the facts about the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the GOP contest has at times looked like an "American Idol"-style competition over who can deliver the most convincing imitation of Reagan." He tells us the GOP debate on Jan 5 Reagan's name was mentioned 34 times but what was said was thin on historical accuracy.

But he also says, "[T]he more grievous grievous abuses of history, though, have come from the Democrats, and particularly from the Barack Obama side, including his many avid supporters in the media and the academy."

He said the comparisons between Obama and past presidents by the Obama campaign and his supporters, including some Republicans including New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof who made the comparison with Lincoln saying he served only one term in the House before he was elected president in 1860.

"These comparisons distort the past beyond recognition. By the time he ran for president, JFK had served three terms in the House and twice won election to the Senate, where he was an active member of the Foreign Relations Committee. In total, he had held elective office in Washington for 14 years. Before that, he was, of course, a decorated veteran of World War II, having fought with valor in the South Pacific. Kennedy, the son of a U.S. ambassador to Britain, had closely studied foreign affairs, which led to his first book, "Why England Slept," as well as to a postwar stint in journalism." (Wilentz)

"This record is not comparable to Obama's eight years in the Illinois Legislature, his work as a community organizer and his single election to the Senate in 2004 -- an election he won against a late entrant, right-wing Republican Alan Keyes, in a state where the GOP was in severe disarray." (ibid)

"The Lincoln comparison is equally tortured. Yes, Lincoln spent only two years in the House after winning election in 1846. Yet his deep involvement in state and national politics began in 1832, the same year he was elected a captain in the Illinois militia -- and 28 years before he ran for president. He then served as leader of the Illinois Whig Party and served his far-from-undistinguished term in Congress courageously leading opposition to the Mexican War." (ibid)

"After returning home, he became one of the leading railroad lawyers in the country, emerged as an outspoken antislavery leader of Illinois' Republican Party -- and then, in 1858, ran unsuccessfully for the Senate and engaged with Stephen A. Douglas in the nation's most important debates over slavery before the Civil War. It behooves the champions of any candidate to think carefully when citing similarities to Lincoln's record. In this case, the comparison is absurd." (Wilentz)

Obama is no JFK

Not all the Kennedy's support Obama. Bobby Kennedy's children, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Kerry Kennedy all declared their support for Hillary Clinton. They said, "Like our father, Hillary has devoted her life to embracing and including those on the bottom rung of society's ladder."

Ted Kennedy said Obama is like JFK. How could Ted Kennedy be so wrong about history? Maybe he is just too old or maybe he has much he would like to forget?

Sean Wilentz Princeton professor Sean Wilentz and author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, said, Obama is no JFK: "By the time he ran for president, JFK had served three terms in the House and twice won election to the Senate...Before that, he was, of course, a decorated veteran of World War II, having fought with valor in the South Pacific."

Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama to a debate a week. She wanted to debate him one to one, so that everyone can really see the differences and make their judgment on facts, not speculation or false allegations from the Obama campaign. Obama refused just as he has refused to meet McCain in town hall meetings. He is afraid to go up against the big man. If he can't hold his own in this election how is he going to hold up under some real pressure if he should become the president?

Fantasy Based Reporting and History

"Spreading bad history is no way to make history." (Sean Wilentz, professor of history at Princeton University author of "The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln," among other books)

In war, truth is the first casualty - but in politics, it appears that the first victim is history. (Wilentz)

"Every now and then in American politics, normally balanced people get swept up by delusions of greatness about a presidential candidate, based on an emotional attachment to the candidate's oratory or image. The youthful William Jennings Bryan brought down the house and swept up the nomination with his famous "Cross of Gold" speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1896--only to be crushed by the dreary William McKinley in November." (Sean Wilentz, The New Republic - "The Delusional Style in American Punditry" - Dec 19, 2007)

(Sean Wilentz is also a contributing editor at The New Republic, and the author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (Norton))

"Political journalists have never been immune to the delusional style. But editorialists and pundits are supposed to be skeptical experts..." (Wilentz)

Unfortunately that hasn't been the case. Who can miss it? Watching the way this election is covered is so revealing about the nature of political punditry. There is very little neutrality and the way the campaign is being covered is harmful to democracy. They don't even try to hide their partiality. Hatred for the Clinton's has been obvious, most especially in on cable, CNN, MSNBC and even DemocracyNow. Even the outspoken Keith Obermann has been laudatory toward Barack Obama. Their "enthusiasm" for change has clouded their judgment. They have even been complicit in the cover-up of what some investigations have exposed in Obama's background and his connection to the Islamists in Kenya. Wilentz writes that this kind of reporting is not discerning, but it is,

"[I]n fact nothing more than enthusiasm, based on feelings and projections that are unattached to verifiable rational explanation or the public record." (ibid)

We are reminded that the same style was demonstrated by the media in the lead up to the last presidency, with George W. Bush, and criticized by progressives later. The same intuitive style devoid of facts was to no small degree responsible for the favorability of George W. Bush in 2000.

"Bush had a thin record on domestic matters as governor of Texas, no record whatsoever on foreign policy, and things to hide about his past, none of it mattered. As president, he has asked the American people to trust him because of his faith in himself and his God-given instincts--what he calls his "gut." For years, the Washington press corps was bowled over by such self-assurance. Having decided that the wonkish, reasonable Al Gore was boring and inauthentic, reporters covered Bush as a centered man with superb intuition." (ibid)

And that all sounds familiar for what is happening now. Obama has a thin record and no foreign policy experience. He has never traveled in Europe. He tells everyone who wants change to vote for him but change is still a nebulous idea with him and when he does explain his plans they are wanting, flawed and extremely conservative as he has been as a freshman in the senate. And it doesn't hurt the Democrats that he is a black man.

Professor Wilentz points out the delusional style of the Boston Globe which endorsed Obama "because he is biracial and grew up in "multi-ethnic cultures"--adequate substitutes, by the editorial's lights, for serious background and expertise in foreign affairs. Obama, according to the Globe, has engaged in "a search for identity" and taken "a roots pilgrimage to Kenya," all of which supposedly displays a "level of introspection, honesty, and maturity" that the newspaper longs for in a president. "Obama's story is America's story," the Globe intoned--a sentence that comes as close as any distinguished newspaper ever has to perfect emptiness." (Sean Wilentz)

"The pundits have vaunted good vibes and gut-thinking as the crucial qualifications for the nation's highest office. They have turned the delusional style into a rallying cry--in support, at least for the moment, of the candidacy of Barack Obama and his allegedly superior intuition." (Sean Wilentz)

"There are many possible explanations for this latest outbreak of the delusional style. An ever-intensifying cult of celebrity personality-worship, the more sentimental the better, may finally have overwhelmed precincts of political commentary. (Obama's sidekick, Oprah Winfrey, is, after all, the reigning master of that cult.) Democrats may simply be so battered after what the Globe calls "seven desolating years" that they are looking for a man on a white horse to deliver them from despair--and so they have invented one." (ibid)

Baract Obama made the assertion applauding a Republican partisan accounting of the Reagan and post-Reagan years which are at odds with history. Obama declared the Republicans has been the "party of ideas" since the Reagan presidency.

As Wilentz writes in his article in The New Republic, Obama was wrong to hold the Republicans up as an example of transformation which historically has been discredited, that he was in fact presenting as political gospel "the old (and long discredited) right-wing bromides repackaged as the "Contract with America" in 1994, the Republican attack on Medicare that led to the government shutdown a year later, the endless recycling of supply-side economics (especially ironic, given the current meltdown), and the other ideological agendas pushed by Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, have made the GOP the party of intellectual daring and innovation." (ibid)

Sean Wilentz states, "Historians cannot expect all politicians and their supporters to know as much about American history as, say, John F. Kennedy, who won the Pulitzer Prize for a work of history. But it is reasonable to expect respect for the basic facts -- and not contribute to cheapening the historical currency." (ibid)

We are also being told to "forget experience" and rely on Obama's instincts. Where was his instincts with his friend of 17 years, Tony Rezko, who is now in jail - and the low cost housing unions his friend left in such disaray he had to walk away from them and people were left without heat during the winter and Obama never noticed - or the extra lot for his $1.6 million mansion which Rezko sold to Obama hundreds of thousands of dollars below cost. And what did Rezko get for it? He got something. You can depend on it. Did Obama look the other way on purpose? Whatever is ultimately revealed it demonstrates a lack of good judgment at the very least and at the worst it implicates Obama in Rezko's illegalities.

John McCain is no Bush. He is a `moderate' Republican with more similarity to Eisenhower than to George Bush and in these times when America is threatened by Islamic terrorism I would rather have a McCain Republican in charge than someone who picks his friends and his preacher the way Obama has. Unfortunately, that has not been the case and I think America will suffer - and so will we.

Obama's biggest test so far has been the economy and he is promising a miraculous recovery. Here too he is misleading the American people. Here is what Cliff Kincaid says about Obama's selling of America to China:

"The truth is starting to seep out. Because of the need for more money to finance the latest bailout, the Obama economic stimulus plan. America is going further in debt to the Chinese Communists. Our country is officially being sold to the highest bidder. And we have striking confirmation of this fact from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. By Cliff Kincaid | February 22, 2009 - Accuracy in Media column .

"The truth is the Administration needs China's help. Americ's stimulus is very expensive and the U.S. wants China to help finance it, Andrews (of CBS news) reported. This is what America has become, a country that sends its Secretary of State abroad to beg for money from foreigners. In this case, it's a communist dictatorship that forces women to have abortions, tortures Christians, and threatens the freedom and democratic government of Taiwan." (ibid)

So as Cliff says, correctly so, "So the cost of the "stimulus" is more sacrifice of American independence and sovereignty, as well as our own values, ideals, and commitment to human freedom. It is a sad day both for America and China."

Hillary exposes America's real sacrifice. Obama can't be happy with her frankness. Clinton was shown saying, "We are relying on the Chinese government to continue to buy our debt. The almighty dollar takes precedence over everything else, even as it falls in value and the dangers of hyperinflation and national bankruptcy loom. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that pandering to the Chinese will not solve anything. This policy, set in motion by big banks and corporations and pursued by Democratic and Republican Administrations, is what got us into this predicament in the first place."

Hank Roth

|

Related Content

Permalink: http://inyourface.info/ArT/ZuLu/BadH.shtml

Today is Friday May 18, 2012