Jeremayakovka

Kafir Caveat Again

David Solway again on Tariq Ramadan, whose memoir could justly be titled Dreams From My Grandfather.

Barack Obama Hijacked Our Hope And Flew It Over Ground Zero

Last Friday evening the AP originally posted a story about the resignation of White House staffer Michael Caldera in the wake of President Obama's low-altitude fly-over of Manhattan in Air Force One, with an F-16 in tow. Purportedly a photo-op, the deliberate aerial maneuver caused panic on a scale unheard of since Ronald Reagan's inadvertently on-air microphone quip The bombing (of the USSR) begins in five minutes. By posting the story around 8:00PM, the AP did its part to help the public ignore the Obama Administration's embarrassment. But should it be ignored?

Like many Americans, I too have wondered just what contributed to this questionable and, to many, offensive (even outrageous) presidential decision. To wit, some speculations:

10. After a non-stop First Hundred Days of Honey, I Shrunk the Economy!, Obama ordered Air Force One's in-flight movie switched to United 93.

9. Obama was displaying a deap-seated weakness for believing that he possesses Superman-like powers. Unfortunately, he ended up being the cause -- for the second time in recent memory -- of New Yorkers shouting, Look! Up in the sky ... it's a bird! It's a plane!! It's ... It's a plane!!!

8. Whatever panic New Yorkers felt was nothing compared to what gripped Michelle Obama -- because never before has a man so blantantly hinted to his wife that he's on the down-low.

7. The White House says the fly-over's purpose was to take photographs of New York City for official use, which is only partly true. What it won't say is that Obama's gathering material for another feel-good memoir about the tribulations of completing half of one term in high office, this one to be called The Audacity of Fear.

6. Lending credence to right-wing suspicion that Obama truly believes -- as much of the world does -- that America is an evil empire that deserves to be humiliated violently on the way to being defeated utterly, The Audacity of Fear will feature a special chapter, "Thirty Seconds Over New York."

5. In a controversial development, the official investigation now underway will show that the Air Force One crew did not unanimously support the fly-over decision. Testimony purportedly will show that Obama was heard knocking on the door to the cockpit, while saying, Don't make me get out the box-cutters....

4. Testimony may also show that once the fly-over was complete, Obama knuckle-bumped Michelle and gave David Axelrod a high-five while boasting Mission Accomplished!

3. Consistent with what some perceive as his deferential posturing before Muslim and/or Arab interests, Obama was trying to demonstrate what sharia-compliant air travel might look like in the United States.

2. For some Muslims, however, the lower Manhattan fly-over doesn't count as "sharia-compliant." Some Muslim leaders say that if Obama is serious about showing respect to Islam, he'll fly over lower Manhattan again -- this time in the direction of Mecca.

1. Let's face it: on a scale of 1 to 10, Obama's presidential fly-over of lower Manhattan rates a Ground Zero.

(Directly inspired by Fausta's recent post, "Priceless," and a certain anti-Bush banner from c. 2004)

Obama As Kitsch

During the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, the worst thing a critic (or more cuttingly, a fellow artist) could say about a work was that it was kitsch -- sentimental, vulgar, and/or pretentious.

One of the blogosphere's bolder take-downs of Obama paints him with that brush:

In the case of Obama, kitsch appeal operates at a heightened advantage, cuing a long-conditioned response in whites inclined toward critical self-examination and conspicuous expressions of tolerance. This practice has always come with an expectation of change, of eventual improvement in relations among the races generally, between blacks and whites specifically.

(H/T larwyn)

Zogby Poll - Many Obama Voters Poorly or Uninformed

The text beneath the asterisks is Zogby poll data copied verbatim from the web site How Obama Got Elected. HOGE's founder, John Ziegler, is making a documentary about the disastrous impact of mainstream media coverage of the recent president election. (See video clip in previous post .)

Related: In an LA Times article today, Peace Action's Executive Director Kevin Martin is "expressing concern" over "so much Obama hero worship."

* * *

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

71.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet.....

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)

# # #

Straight Talk With Sarah Palin

I try to keep it so simple by reading the [Constitution of the State of Alaska] and believing in it and living it. I get chided all the time, especially in the campaign. It was funny -  people got so sick and tired of me quoting the Constitution. It's my Bible in governing. It's a simple Constitution. It's short and sweet. It was providential. It was written by very wise minds fifty some years ago. Some of these crafters of our Constitution, they're still alive today. They're my mentors, they're my advisers. I get to meet with these folks and say, "What did you mean by this provision in our Constitution." They get to tell me what they meant and what the intention was and they make so much sense. And if more of our lawmakers knew what it says about equality: inherently it's the people who have the power - it's not the elected officials - it's the people who have the power in Alaska. And when we develop these God-given resources of ours it's to be for the maximum benefit of Alaskans.

- Governor Sarah Palin

Before the election one liberal commenter suggested I was "naive and sentimental" in my support for Sarah Palin. Far from it. Yes, I welcomed her to the ticket and, yes, last week I voted for her. I also had the good fortune to meet one of her former neighbors and constituents from Wasilla. That was a refreshing antidote to the mainstream media's/entertainment industry's/netroots' relentless assault on her character. Much as I feel about Obama, she's lived a great American life; and as Joe Lieberman suggested about Obama in his RNC speech, she may one day make a good national executive. Voters this year decided Obama's chance would come sooner. Fine.

Still, Palin didn't overly impress me in the places where she had to most - her high-profile media interviews and her one debate. In the former, her awkwardness revealed the weaknesses of being merely a regional reformer and not a Machiavellian, cloak-and-dagger operator. In the latter, her winks into the camera were more worrisome, even offensive, than any on-stage knuckle-bumping. What I, and I think many others, would have appreciated would have been more opportunities to hear straight talk from Sarah Palin.

Back in June 2007 Dimitri Vassilaros of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review sat down for an inquisitive one-on-one with her. The stakes were low then which, sadly, may be why the conversational quality is high. Palin's got a bunch to say about financing Wasilla's sports complex, her critical hindsight about beauty pageants, her conservative principles, her legal perspective (as an executive) on gay marriage and school choice, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and more. Listen to the audio while it's still available.

One of the best questions is near the very end: 

DV: When will you be running for president?
SP: President of the PTA, maybe!... I can't answer that.... Life happens.
DV: So she didn't answer No. OK, great.

Too Much Information

Hey! I don't want to know my president's Secret Service codename. I don't want anybody outside of the Secret Service to know his codename. That's why it's called the Secret Service. Ya dig? From today's Yahoo! Buzz (i.e., Gossip Column, i.e., National Security Leak):

The Secret Service takes a lot of risks for the first family. So it's only fair that the agency gets the honor of coming up with code names for the president-elect and his family. Various sources within the Buzz recently revealed the not-so-secret nicknames.

Mr. Obama will be known as "Renegade" (move over, Lorenzo Lamas). Michelle, a woman of many talents, will be referred to as "Renaissance." Malia Obama's name will be "Radiance," while little sister Sasha's will be "Rosebud."

* * *

Meanwhile, trust-busting President-elect Obama discloses intentionally private details of yesterday's one-on-one meeting with President Bush .... and his privately-financed campaign continues to rake in unprecedented fraudulent online contributions.

Black Democrat Warns Against Unrealistic Expectations

How did this slip under the radar?

In many ways his candidacy kind of exacerbates [the Black community's] problems rather than solves them.
- Dr. Ricky L. Jones, author of What's Wrong With Obamamania?, interviewed earlier this year

An Old Friend's Election Night Thoughts

Last week an old friend sent around a message which describes his experience of watching Barack Obama win the presidential election. It's a special message which offers a unique perspective on this historical moment. It's open-hearted, of course, and also authoritative. Whatever political differences we may have (cordial, spirited, or both) are set aside during this great moment in our nation's history.

The thing is, when we were very young teenagers, I don't remember Adam and I talking politics much. Mostly we showed up for classes, diligently handed in homework, and played lots of hallway handball. Our respective reflections on what this election brings to bear arrived in different ways, at different times.

With Adam's permission, I am posting portions of his message here.

* * *

Dear friends and family,

I have been, and remain, overwhelmed by this election. A special thanks to those who joined us at our home that night, and many more who joined us by phone or in spirit....

[W]hen CNN put up the enormous picture of him with "Barack Obama projected winner and 44th President of the United States!" All of a sudden, it hit me: we have a black President and First Family!! Colleen found her soprano range, and our guests erupted in the loudest most raucous celebration we've ever had.

This made me think about my grandfather, elected into a segregated Capitol cafeteria with Congressmen who refused to sit next to him and supposed colleagues who insisted on sabotaging him. I thought of my grandmother, refused a concert at Constitution Hall, and then slammed by the IRS for telling off the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Her biography is now on Amazon, and an article in today's Washington Post mentions this experience: -- see page 2 "Fifty years later...")

I thought about the experience of my parents, a mixed-race couple in the late 60s and early 70s who faced many challenges with the support of some great friends. (They married in DC less than two years after the Supreme Court's ruling in the Loving case struck down Virginia's law against interracial marriage.) It's so comforting to think that when people see a similar couple today, they'll think of the parents of our new President.

I thought about the Adam Clayton Powell Academy which I visited in south side Chicago last week as Principal for a Day. Though located in a dangerous neighborhood (the cab driver who took me there told me I should fear for my safety in that area), most of the school was absolutely jubilant on the eve of the election of a President of the United States who is one of their own in several ways. However, one second grade class kept asking questions like "Why do black people and white people hate each other?" "Why do people shoot each other?" I wonder, what must they be thinking now, after seeing the election and the celebrations which followed?

I thought of the 13-year-old Haitian boy named Marc who joined my tutoring group in a Dorchester school seventeen years ago because a friend dragged him in. The atmosphere of violence was so pervasive back then, he asked me, "Why should I work hard and study in school, when I don't even know if I'm going to be around in six months?" I was so completely shocked, I don't even remember my reply. His story has a happy ending: he kept coming (saying he felt "addicted to this program -- I don't really like it, but I keep coming back"), and the attention and tutoring sent his attitude and grades rocketing upward. Most important, he started to think about the years ahead instead of merely days and weeks.

How many young boys like him, and for that matter how many young girls, will start off at a much better place when thinking about their future because of this election? This thought brought tears to my eyes....

It truly is a great time, for the nation, and for the world.

With love,
Adam

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Obama's Election Heralds America's "Long, Slow Descent Into The Third World"

It's been going on for some time now. In any case, what he said:

[T]he US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.

If Mr Obama’s election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn’t. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.

If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn’t get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.

And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn’t vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue....

The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world. Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

RARE Video Footage: Stanley Ann Dunham's Last Breakup Before She Met Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.

Something is missing....

Global Caliphate Forces Anticipate, Interpret Obama's First Iraq Moves

From the Islamic Republic of Iran's Press TV: Taji Mustafa of the international, pro-global caliphate Hizb ut-Tahrir Party of the United Kingdom (!) is trying to cool somebody's jets in this recent, post-American election commentary.

Says Mustafa: Barack Obama is not Vladimir Lenin. He's not a revolutionary who has come with a new system to Washington DC, planning to overthrow the current system and turn everything upside-down.

Who? What rabble? To what revolutionary squads, cadres, kooks, and thugs is Mustafa speaking?

Thankfully, Jamie Kirchick  articulated the pro-American perspective. Note very well, in the final minutes, the confrontation between Kirchick and Mustafa. Kirchick, whom I respect for going on camera there, was way too polite (calling him, "Sir") - he should have tore Mustafa's (rhetorical) head off and spit his (rhetorical) brains into the camera....

(H/T Jamie)

Reliably Conservative Pundit "Gets" Obama's Deep Appeal To Blacks; Harlem Reunites; Bush Speechwriter Hails "My President"

There is more than one prize on which to fix our eyes.

Chicagoan Rick Moran, author of the Right Wing Nuthouse blog, attended the Grant Park Election Night Party and saw up close the unsprung emotions Obama's victory brought to many black people who also attended:

I suppose I got caught up in the emotion of the night due almost exclusively to the genuine and copious tears of black Americans. The ones I spoke to and interviewed were nearly speechless with joy. With a start, I realized something that had escaped me all these long months of writing and thinking about this race. For many African-Americans, this election was a spiritual event, something that transcended the corporeal and brought to mind ancestral yearnings and desires for freedom.

For perhaps many blacks, Obama is the word made flesh -- the redemption of the promise in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." The small sample of blacks I interviewed all spoke of the shattering of barriers, the hope that an Obama presidency would translate into a more just society, and the belief that for them personally, their lives would never be the same.

This is a very good thing. It's a very good thing for any white man to notice, and in particular for this one to notice. The longtime Chicagoan apparently hasn't spent much time on the South Side. (That's not an accusation, just an observation.) More importantly, he's a conservative. And conservatives need to be curious about the victorious opposition - out of respect for their humanity as well as for fine-tuning our strategy.

There are piles of reasons to hold President-elect Obama's feet to the fire. To name three: his shady online fundraising, his (or rather, the MSM's and certain institutions') refusal to make all sorts of personal records public, and the highly questionable meaning of his being welcomed into office by some of America's sworn enemies. Those are questions of character and leadership. The fact of his election, however, is another matter altogether.

* * *

* UPDATES *

Rick reads Rahm

Harlem-based writer Sekou says 125th Street "was like standing in the midst of a massive family reunion as all of them found out that they had hit the lottery at the same time."

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson provides historical context independent of the leftwing, Democratic Party narrative (which typically omits Republican ("The Party of Lincoln") advances for blacks): This presidency in particular should be a source of pride even for those who do not share its priorities. An African-American will take the oath of office blocks from where slaves were once housed in pens and sold for profit. He will sleep in a house built in part by slave labor, near the room where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation with firm hand. He will host dinners where Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 entertained the first African-American to be a formal dinner guest in the White House; command a military that was not officially integrated until 1948. Every event, every act, will complete a cycle of history. It will be the most dramatic possible demonstration that the promise of America – so long deferred – is not a lie. I suspect I will have many substantive criticisms of the new administration, beginning soon enough. Today I have only one message for Barack Obama, who will be our president, my president: Hail to the chief..

"The United States of Audacity"

Fox News Captures The Significance Of Obama's Election

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I can't think of another country in the world where you would have a significant minority that was once so maligned and so oppressed finally have one of its sons rise to this level. This is - you know, I don't care how you feel about him politically - on some level you have to say, "This is America at its grandest." The potential, the possibility - and what it says for our children, black and white - the image of Barack Obama and those little girls in the Rose Garden in these years to come I think is just stunning.
Agreed, Juan. Agreed.

"Now reality must intervene."
Agreed there, too, Jacob.

Forest, Meet Trees

The Republican brand may be "tarnished," John McCain definitely is "tarnished" (as in finished), but through it all conservatism sparkles: Kevin McCullough predicted Obama's ascension 23 months ago. Five decisive factors: raging liberals, disgusted conservatives, exhausted moderates, energized blacks, gullible evangelicals. Read it all.

* * *

More: Two red-blooded, blue-state residents (one Christian, one Jewish) don't need Weathermen to know which way the wind blows. Read "President Fraud."

John McCain - America's Fifth Lost Man

I don't think about John McCain, because he's part of the old world, the dead America.
- The rapper Nas, “Q&A Nas,” Rolling Stone, July 10-24, 2008.
 

A post at Gay Patriot yesterday speculated that the mainstream media has largely accepted Obama's life-narrative and worldviews because they figure this is their shot to be a part of history. Certainly that's been the heady message which Obama's supporters have internalized. They're so sure of it, they can't imagine anything else coming close. My comment to that post said as much.

That said, it's been a GOP truism that Obama can't be beaten on image, and instead can be beaten only on issues, facts, character. Obama is an extreme liberal (not "post-partisan"); Obama is a ruthless and tainted, Chicago-bred machine pol (not an "idealist"); Obama not only enjoys the enthusiastic support of most of the world's "Jamal the Plumbers," he enjoys (and occasionally cultivates) support from the anti-American, anti-liberal, and anti-Zionist demagogues who rule them (hence, he lacks " judgment"). All of the above are objectively true, and have been amply demonstrated - by conservative bloggers generally, of course, rather than by the mainstream media.

But what if John McCain's presidential bid were just as historic as Barack Obama's? Shouldn't anyone coming so far to gain a major party nomination deserve to be esteemed on that merit alone? What if John McCain - the life-narrative of John McCain - were upheld, admired, revered even (as his Democratic endorser, Lynn Forester de Rothschild declared on CNN)? What if John McCain's life were already historic? What if a John McCain presidency fit squarely in a great and already-established American historic tradition, one which should be apparent to all Americans?

The lost story of this presidential election is that John McCain's life and potential presidency already are historic. Sadly, however, what makes them so are not on the tip of people's tongues. They should be. Our media and cultural powerbrokers hardly see this as worthy of mention, let alone worthy of inquiry, admiration, and cause for pause and reflection. These people are not even capable of conceiving of McCain's virtues, I venture. (When his age is mentioned it's as a liability exclusively, not as a source of wisdom and moderation.) So few of today's cultural powerbrokers - including his opponent - have ever risked anything close to what John McCain risked (and lost) to earn them. Risked not just for his country, but for another, far-off country. For them to conceive of John McCain's virtues, and then to inform the public of them would be highly inconvenient. It would get in the way of their being a part of the election of Barack Obama.

* * *

It wasn't always that way, and it doesn't have to be that way.

Curiously, the following excerpts from a Thomas Wolfe short story, "The Four Lost Men," shed light on this situation. The story appears (in its abridged version) in the collection From Death to Morning. (Click here for discussion of the original, long version.) Set in June 1917, shortly after the US had entered WWI, Wolfe contrasts his 16 year-old sensitivities to his aged father's undying esteem for post-bellum Republican presidents - all of whom were veterans of the American Civil War. Wolfe's special power in this tale is to imagine these men's minds, not as elder statesmen, but as young wartime leaders passionately enamored with life and death, with duty and nation, with hope and wonder and agony and loss.

The lessons, concerns, and even obsessions which Wolfe visits are as timely today as they are undying - just like the historic life of John McCain. Here's just one excerpt. Please click through and read them all in sequence.

[My father] spoke then with familiar memory of the lost Americans – the strange, lost, time-far, dead Americans, the remote, voiceless, and bewhiskered faces of the great Americans, who were more lost to me than [ancient] Egypt ... – and whom he had seen, heard, known, found familiar in the full pulse, and passion, and proud glory of his youth: ... the proud, vacant, time-strange, and bewhiskered visages of [post-bellum Republican presidents] Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, and Hayes.

The first vote I ever cast for president,” my father [said] ... “I cast in 1872, in Baltimore, for that great man – that brave and noble soldier – U. S. Grant! And I have voted for every Republican nominee ever since.... [In 1893] the Democrats were in and we had soup kitchens. And, you can mark my words,” he howled, “you'll have them again before these next four years are over – ... before that fearful, that awful, that cruel, inhuman and bloodthirsty Monster [i.e., President Woodrow Wilson] who kept us out of war [from 1914 until 1917],” my father jeered derisively, “is done with you – for hell, ruin, misery, and damnation commence every time the Democrats get in. You can rest assured of that!” he said shortly, cleared his throat, wet his thumb, lunged forward violently and spat again.

* * *

Barack Obama's Hidden Selves

Numerous categories of information and documents would have enabled the public to form a truer and more accurate assessment of the Democratic nominee, including:

1. Occidental College records -- Not released
2. Columbia College records -- Not released
3. Columbia undergraduate thesis  -- Not released
4. Harvard College records -- Not released
5. Selective Service registration -- Not released
6. Medical records -- Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule -- "Not available"
8. Law practice client list -- Not released
9. Certified Copy of original birth certificate -- Not released
10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth -- Not released
11. Harvard Law Review articles published -- None
12. University of Chicago scholarly articles -- None
13. Baptism record -- Not released or "Not available"
14. Illinois State Senate records --"Not available"

15. US Senate record -- the most liberal by far.

Rewind No Evil, Replay No Evil, Reject No Evil

* UPDATE (11/03) * Link to an audio file of a 1979 interview with Khalidi, with extensive commentary by Martin Kramer

In the closing days of the presidential election, the LA Times sits on 2003 video footage of Barack Obama at a public dinner honoring his longtime friend, staunch Palestinian nationalist Rashid Khalidi.  The Times culled quotes for an article earlier this year, but interest is rife to examine the evening's entire program (which included explicit endorsements of Palestinian terrorism).

Speaking in 2007 at Portland State University, without missing a beat Khalidi compared the politics of Fateh (i.e., Arafat's once-dominant PLO faction) to Chicago, Democratic Party, machine politics. Khalidi needed a frightening, American analogy to the PLO - to make vivid its corruption, patronage, and intimidation (which Khalidi saw firsthand as a PLO spokesman in Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s). So he reached for how things are done in his - and Obama's - city. Describing Fateh, he said, would make your hair turn white.

What, then, about Obama's (and Khalidi's) career would make your hair turn white?

* * *

Meanwhile Israeli news networks, having broadcast excerpts of an interview with Yitzhak Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, are now refusing to air the bulk of their half-hour footage. A pariah to many Israelis, Amir says that he did not regret the murder and that he had more respect for Palestinian terrorists than he did for some Israelis.

What are these media people hiding? What - or Who - are they afraid of?

Gaddafi Endorses His Arab and Muslim Brother Obama For President Of Racist Dictatorship of Amrikia

The vague "respect" some people think the United States should seek from other peoples consists of unending self-abasement that accepts those people's lies, slander, half-truths, and sworn animosity:
.
We still hope that this black man will take pride in his African and Islamic identity, and in his faith ... and that he will change America from evil to good.

 
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That "ignorant" old lady at a McCain townhall meeting - who called Obama, with grave reservations, "Arab" - wasn't that far off. She sensed the winds blowing, in her own way.

A diligent media corps would press Obama to respond directly to Gaddafi's claims, including to Gaddafi's demagogic distortions of American society, and probe Obama's opinions on how world opinion like this affects his foreign policy views.

A Worldview Without Zionism

Senator Obama's political coming-of-age memoir, The Audacity of  Hope, contains not one mention of the State of Israel, reports Gay Patriot. Who knew that the candidate of Hope and Change is equally the candidate of Imagination?

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too....

Obamafada Watch

* Update * WSJ op-ed, "Obama is Stoking Racial Antagonism"

* 2d Update * The native ambition and aspiration of men, even though they be black, backward, and ungraceful, must not lightly be dealt with. To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires; to flout their striving idly is to harvest a brutish crime and shameless lethargy in our very laps.
- W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

Is a litmus test whether one is racist or not whether one votes for Barack Obama or not? What are the burdens those of us will bear, we who freely and carefully decide that John McCain is the better man to be president?

Philly print columnist Fatimah Ali (who is black) sees "race war" already here, after saying two weeks ago that race war would arrive on the heels of a McCain-Palin victory: If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness - and hopelessness!... But when Obama wins the White House, we may just see a revolution....

Harvard law prof Randall Kennedy (who is black) asks "What If [Obama loses?]" and answers "bitter disappointment" and "stark rage" for blacks at large, plus "feelings of dejection, anger and resentment" for himself.

Occasional commenters wax incendiary about race riots. Mostly, though, look for more obfuscations -- whether aggressive (like Ali's) or laconic (like Kennedy's) -- which obscure the race-, class-,  and religion-warriors who've hitched themselves to Obama's bandwagon.

So, we're supposed to believe that an Obama defeat -- after what will be 20 months of steady public exposure to and evaluation of  his (brand) name -- would be an outrage comparable to the assassination of MLK or the acquittal of certain LA policemen? Last month Dennis Prager (who is Jewish) recommended to shoot-to-injure graffiti taggers. How about against Obamafada taggers, vandals, rioters?

Pity any misguided blacks (and others) who might take to the streets (or worse) on Nov. 5. Pity anyone who tries to wrest guilt-concessions from mainstream Americans over this subject -- before, during, or after the election. Pity anyone who falls for it.

Race Matters

Like W.E.B. DuBois, Barack Obama Is Either A Genius Or A Fool

For those of us who oppose Senator Obama for president, his candidacy is a curious -- and absolutely necessary -- study. The very reasons why enthusiasts welcome and worship him are why the rest of us are wary and worried: opposition to maintaining the Iraq front against Islamic terror ... a resume reeking of Rules for Radicals Saul Alinsky (by whose tactics Obama seeks to reframe issues in terms of community "empowerment") ... and that "breath of fresh air" facade, behind which we skeptics sense, blowin' in Obama's wind, storms of soft jihad.

What to do?

Classical liberals and committed conservatives alike must plot Illinois's ambitious junior senator on a moral grid in the way he so richly deserves. This moral grid is formed by two axes, "Hope and Hype" and "Humility and Hubris," strains of which already reveal themselves. For my part, I've made sure to read his two memoirs, the aw-shucks Audacity of Hope and the unevenly introspective Dreams From My Father. Next I read Shelby Steele's A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win. Recently I picked up David Mendell's Obama: From Promise to Power. Elegaic and informative, it is chock full of first-hand anecdotes (including access to all of Obama's men, and his woman) and offers occasional glimpses of his shortcomings and vulnerabilities.

Now on my plate is to discern just whose cloth Obama cuts himself from, including which swaths and what size. African-American history is the best place to start, I figure, since that's his primary identity. I've started with legendary NAACP-founder and Communist propagandist, W.E.B. DuBois. Like Obama, DuBois was partly of white ancestry but never shied from identifying with African-American community. Like Obama, DuBois completed (with distinction) graduate work at Harvard, which gained him immediate notoreity. Like Obama, DuBois was an educator as well as a political organizer.

Also like Obama -- such is the case his opponents seek to compile -- DuBois lent his name and his mind to the propagation of America's reigning sworn enemy. In DuBois's time that was Soviet Communism, and in ours imperial Islamic jihad. Leaving a finer comparison and contrast of the two men for another day (e.g., DuBois entered the political fray during the Jim Crow era, when lynching was rampant; Obama has done so in the post-Civil Rights era, when black-on-black crime is rampant), here's a brief excerpt of a notable passage from DuBois's Autobiography (aptly subtitled, "A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life..."). One of DuBois's reflections on turning 25, or something like it, has no doubt been thought by you know who:

I rejoice as a strong man to win a race, and I am strong -- is it egotism -- is it assurance -- or is it the silent call of the world spirit that makes me feel that I am royal and that beneath my sceptre a world of kings shall bow. The hot dark blood of a black forefather is beating at my heart, and I know that I am either a genius or a fool.

Did I say that Barack Obama is either a genius or a fool? What I meant to say -- to prudently, shrewdly not misunderestimate him -- is that Barack Obama may be both a genius and a fool.

Barack Obama Can Kiss My Black Assassin

*Update (04/24)*: The video (now removed) was shot as a close-up of a very young black boy who for 8 minutes demanded the assassination of President Bush and boasted that he would do it. He also urged the election of Barack Obama.

Here's what happens when niggaz always be callin' niggaz "niggaz":
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Ain't that right, nigga? (Found here.)

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Sen. Obama famously said, The anger is real. It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

The Senator scores points for calling attention to American racism, but loses points for euphemisms that call for "understanding its roots." Seething resentments like the ones on brazen display (above) are squarely the result of the deliberate, demagogic and/or psychotic cultural warfare that stamps our "post-Civil Rights" era. Those guilty of waging this cultural warfare run the social, economic, and racial gamut from from the underclass to the governing class, and every skin color. It's not "a black thang," so exceptionally race-conscious people wouldn't understand....

By any reasonable application of federal statute that child is a criminal. According to 18 USC Sec. 871:

....Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

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What kind of people call black people "nigger" most often? Black people, that's who. What kind of people maim, cripple, rape, and murder black people most often -- in America and in Africa? Black people, that's who. According to a 2007 Department of Justice report, for example, Among single victim-single offender homicides, about 93 percent of black victims were murdered by black offenders.  About 77 percent of black homicide victims were killed with a firearm. What U.S. president saw American governmental aid to Africa triple under his watch? George W. Bush, that's who.

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"Buffalo soldiers" (below) are worth more than "buffalo niggers" like that wannabee assassin (above) any day. Come on, people! Shall we overcome that?

One Lifetime Feminist Writer To Another

I will honor and "hear" you even if -- especially if -- we disagree on particular subjects. You believe that Barack Obama can somehow save our country. You are moved by his oratory and character. I am bowed beneath the weight of tribal sorrows and fear for our country and our world no matter who becomes the next American President.

Read the rest of Phyllis Chesler's open letter to Alice Walker (where you can follow the links to Alice's original letter).

It Takes One To Know One

Who's a monster?
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Well, well. The true face of Obama foreign policy brain trust shows itself.

First thought: If only all partisan liberals took responsibility for their attitudes and actions in a like manner.

Second thought: It's more damage control than responsibility, however. She's a well-heeled intellectual, ideas are her currency. She doesn't need to be officially on board to still influence Obama's foreign policy or his other advisers.

Last year Men's Vogue fawned over the (well-stiletto-heeled) "Genocide Chick" (click for pic).

Nader '08: Obama Not Left Enough

The left has its complaints, too, against Barack Obama. in this clip (comparatively) late-entry candidate Nader accuses him of "self-censuring" and "protective imitation."

Count on leftists like Amy Goodman and Ralph Nader -- two of the cootiest "old coots" around -- to tug and even claw at Obama as he continues to vie for the presidency.

Chillin', Not Trillin (No. 9) - "The O-Bomb Threat"

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The O-Bomb Threat

That prickly old pear Uncle Sam
In '45 finally proved, Yes, we can
Crush foe Jap and German.
FDR's war was finished by Truman
Who acknowledged the next one
By dropping A-bombs on Japan.

Times today are as hopeful as grim
When enemies without and within
Swoon for "change" adorned by Guevara.
This makes Uncle Sam wanna holler
O America -- I ain't yo' Mama!
As all 'round Obama fallout descends.
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Previous "Chillin', Not Trillin" here.
What's "Chillin', Not Trillin"? and Why? here.

Obamamania! ... Obamamania?

Rick Moran's long post is a good one, rounding up even liberal complaints about the quasi-religious, at a bare minimum uncritical, fervor extended toward the candidate.

How To Describe An Obama Enthusiast?

I know one self-described Obamista
A deadhead for Obama is an Obamahead
A robotic platitude spewer would be an Obamotron

What else?

The Audacity of Skepticism

Heeding the call of a great, almost prophetic, American, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I just created an Obama-related category for JMK -- it's called "The Content of His Character."

The Change Cult

Fair enough that "change" is the magic word right now. It's an open presidential election in which a two-term Republican president "enjoys" 30-something percent approval ratings -- and a Democrat-led Congress 20-something. Mitt pronounced the word, Hillary's qualifies it, and Obama channels it.

But is it time now to call the Democratic Party The Change Cult? Two blogs press the question: Is Barack Obama the Messiah? (pick a post, any post) and The Macho Response "Zombies, Part III" (follow its links).

La Bandera De "¡Viva Obama!" Sea Lo Mismo Que El Asesinato De La Democracia

* Update *

Welcome Seraphic and Atlas readers!

(Everyone, please don't let your alarm and disgust at this "Chebama" image interfere with the longer, harder work of parsing Obama's own words and deeds. Exhibit A: Stephen Hayes. -JMK)

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Watch for these and other anti-American signs in Obama's campaign. Larwyn emails: You think if Mitt had a Hitler poster in one of his campaign offices it wouldn't be FRONT PAGE.  How about just a POPE poster? (Photo from Obama campaign office in Houston, found at Don Surber's site.)

Let's point out that Ernesto's evil ideology killed 100 million human beings while Hitler's evil ideology killed maybe a quarter of that. At every step of the way card-carrying liberal elites were fascinated by Ernesto's evil ideology. They were captivated by it and sometimes even directly adhered to it. Recall also that Ernesto's evil ideology was the final hope and ambition of the assassin of Democrat John Kennedy -- Kennedy, in whose image Obama's is being burnished. But Alas! both the irony and criminality are lost on today's Democrats.

Had Oswald somehow lived to see Ernesto emerge in world affairs, he would have been slamming his tin cup against his cell's steel bars to celebrate El Comandante's "exploits," first before the bloodied execution walls of Cuba, then amid the humid heights of the Bolivian jungle.

(Photo from Political Party Poop.)

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Meanwhile, from "Obama's Politics of Collective Redemption" at the American Thinker:

Consider these numbers on  recent Google searches using only Obama's name plus one other word:

* Obama + messianic  75,200
* Obama + savior  226,000
* Obama + prophet  312,000
* Obama + Christ 504,000
* Obama + change 4,540,000

Beware Obamamania

It’s long past time that we pause, take a deep breath, and evaluate the presidential candidates using concrete criteria as opposed to vague pronouncements that this or that candidate can “unite” the country or “transcend” this or that division, whether it be racial or political or what have you. It may be that Barack Obama is the best candidate at this moment in time; ultimately, of course, that’s a purely subjective question. But I fear about the emotional baggage that people have invested in his candidacy, and what his most fervent supporters will believe about American democracy should he lose. The country will, in short, become irredeemable.
- Jamie Kirchik, "Obama: The New Princess Diana?" at Commentary