Is Obama for Real?

Is Barack Obama just another politician - albeit with a flair for the oratorical arts?

Charles Krauthammer writes about Obama's growing list of flip-flops.

Over at ABC News, here's today's Obama's flip on the gun control issue.

He had made the most definite statements about campaign finance reform; he had even promised to meet with John McCain before he made any decisions. Now he's decided to go with the money.

So, we've seen the Primary Campaign Obama. Now we're seeing the General Campaign Obama. His supporters no doubt expect that that the GC Obama is not real, it is to just fool centrist voters into voting for him. Then he'll go back to being PC Obama.

But who will be fooled in the end? When we go from PC Obama to GC Obama to President Obama? What will he be like?

Novak 6/4/08

These are professional pundits who usually say things that are significant. Robert Novak’s policy is to have something nobody knows in each column. In his memoir at the left he writes of the 50 years he’s covered the news in Washington.

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McCain's Camp Believes Obama Weaker Than Clinton

McCain went on the attack today. He’s spent the last few months trying to unite his party but without success. He distanced himself from George W. Bush to such an extent that his Republican audience yesterday was shocked.

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Quote

That Sen. Barack Obama limped through the final Democratic primaries,
unexpectedly losing to Sen. Hillary Clinton in South Dakota Tuesday after being
trounced in Puerto Rico Sunday, is reason for hope by dispirited
Republicans.

Reversing their earlier judgment, Sen. John McCain's strategists now
feel that Obama is a weaker Democratic nominee than Clinton would have been.
McCain's tactics change now that Obama is his opponent.

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My Views

These are two flawed candidates.

Obama: says he wants a serious discussion on race but then he only wants to talk about White racism against Blacks. (Why did Black audiences across America welcome Rev. Wright after knowing about his racist, anti-America speeches? Also, why did the Black audience react so positively to the Rev. Pfleger’s racist rant?) Blacks and Whites are equal. Black racism is just as bad as White racism. Obama wants a frank discussion but not too frank. White racism is politically correct; Black racism is politically incorrect.

McCain: Tends to attack people for purely political gain. His past attacks on Republican leaders (e.g. religious right) were almost McCarthyism in their venom. His targets were unpopular. Hence the falseness and the opportunism. This played well with Media and others who were against Republicans, especially Conservatives, but is a big reason he’s having so much trouble uniting his base now.

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Here’s Novak’s essay.

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Don’t Overlook This! 6/3/08

These are stories in the news that have much more significance than they’ve received. These stories should have been the leading news items of their day. Their significance extends beyond just a particular area and beyond just a particular news cycle.

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Brigitte Bardot Convicted in Speech Case

The former movie actress was convicted for writing an open letter to the President of France regarding immigration policies. Her major concern has been Muslim practices regarding ritual killing of animals. (She has been an animal rights activist for decades.) Her secondary concern has been the changing culture in the wake of large scale immigration from mainly Muslim countries.

Bardot was known for her steamy performances in the 60’s and 70’s. Her views and her writings reflect the attitudes of that era. Since the Danish cartoon controversy highlighted the changing and diminishing freedom of speech rights, many artists and writers have scaled back their views of artistic freedoms, especially as regards Muslims.

This has not held true for anti-Christian speech. The movie “The Da Vinci Code” offended many (if not most) Christians but nobody was ever prosecuted in the West for it. The movie and the book it was based on went much farther in criticizing Christianity than Bardot did in criticizing Islam.

This is the latest in a trend of attacks on freedom of speech in the western world involving Muslims. In Canada, Mark Steyn and Macleans Magazine is being prosecuted for publishing excerpts from his book regarding the effects on Muslim emigration on Western societies. Like Bardot’s case, the writings would not have been objectionable (legally) a decade ago.

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Here is the Bardot story from the AP. And here is the Steyn story on Wikipedia.

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Why This Is Significant:

This marks a trend in the lowering of free speech rights in order to accommodate Muslim concerns. There has been a steady stream of news stories in recent years about a tightening legal climate on writers, artists and others.

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Related Story

In Britain today, two Christian missionaries have been warned not to proselytize in a Muslim neighborhood. The police told the Christians that trying to convert Muslims to Christians is now a hate crime. They also told the Christians that if they came back they would be beaten although they did not specify who would do the beating, the Muslim residents or the police.

The interesting part of this story is the muted reaction of the British government to the police action. Their public attitude towards this story is consistent with their past public statements on these kinds of incidents.

Much of Britain is now considered “no go” areas for anybody but Muslims. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has called for replacing British law with Muslim law in Muslim areas of Britain.

The story can be found here. There is a backlash as reported here.

One More Time

The Clintonistas are finally (!) coming to terms with excessive lying. Here is Frank Rich of the NY Times. Here is Jonathan Alter of Newsweek. For me, there is some relief that justice is finally happening. The thing that I kept thinking all during the Clinton scandals was that sometime the universe would balance and justice would be done.

Sure some justice was done. Clinton was disbarred from the practice of law - the only President in history - but then he was still treated as a hero and the disbarment became no big deal. And on and on and on.

I don't particularly want Obama to beat Clinton. It's just that politicians should not lie as bad as badly as the Clintons have done and continue to do. Finally, they're going to have to pay in some meaningful way. Finally!

More on Clinton

I don't want to beat this topic to death but this does seem to be an end of an era. There is a limit to the amount of lies that people are going to stomach - and this is a good thing for our country. Mind you, I'm not talking about political issues here. Lying ought to be bad without regard to whether the pol doing the lying is on your side or not.

The Clinton case is bad because their lying has been so bad and so common. Every day on every topic. I especially hated their "Everybody does it" line during the period of their White House scandals - especially the sex scandals.

Today's essay underscores the point. Was Hillary named for Sir Edmond Hillary as she claimed? Bill even put this whopper in his autobiography. How could this have been? Sir Edmond did not do anything famous (climbing Mt. Everest) until 6 years AFTER HRC was born!

The trouble with this stuff is that the lies just went on and on. Little things, big things - on and on and on.

Picture from Wikipedia article on Hillary Clinton. The Wiki caption reads, "Re-enactment of Hillary Rodham Clinton being sworn in as a United States Senator by Vice President Al Gore in the Old Senate Chamber, as President Clinton and daughter Chelsea look on. January 3, 2001."

Hillary Clinton and the Lies

Here is an article that sums up the problem that the public has had with Hillary all along. People may be left or right wing and may like her or hate her for that but the main reason for her difficulties is the sense that she's just not very honest. I mean not honest to a degree worse than other politicians.


As the article says, by this time each individual either gets this or does not.

Knell of Doom

Last week the first baby boomer applied for social security.

People may play politics all they want but the iron laws of mathematics cannot be toyed with. In the next decades more money will go out of the social security fund than comes in. Much more. If the politicians can't make provisions now, then how will they ever be able to do it in the future?

We need to note that the Democrats in particular have blocked any reforms. They may become known in history as the party that created social security in the twentieth century and destroyed it in the twenty-first century.

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Pictured: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935.