A Psychoanalyst Tries to Explain Barry

ShrinkWrapped gives it a masterful whirl.

March 31, 2008

Obama's Failure

At the moment the Conservative blogosphere is working to make sense out of Barack Obama's identity, his identity politics, and his electoral chances. Mickey Kaus has suggested that there are two distinct negative versions of Barack Obama:

Two Memes Running: I'll try to keep track of the two most underdeveloped negative memes on Obama:

1) He's a wuss! He hedges on welfare, he hedges on affirmative action. "[H]e has a major deficiency in the realm of moral courage." He won't speak up against his own church's victim mentality until he absolutely has to (because he himself gets in political trouble). In the campaign he's done a whole lot of pandering and not much Sister Souljahing--certainly nothing as bold as Bill Clinton saying welfare should be two-years-and-out. He listens to everyone and everyone loves him for it. But he's conflict-averse--it would be more reassuring if everyone didn't love him. ...

2) He's arrogant! His failure to even admit to the slightest mistake in the Wright affair plays into this meme, originally ratified by AP's Ron Fournier. My colleague Robert (no relation) Wright thinks he saw additional evidence recently. ...

Are these memes contradictory? Not really. Maybe they go together. Arrogance is likely to build up in the absence of conflict, no? You can't take it out on your enemies in public so you take it out in private. Are they disqualifying? No. I'm not sure Obama can't accomplish a lot by being conflict-averse and respectful. But I don't think there was a conflict-averse way to, say, reform welfare. The liberal interest groups who supported the system weren't about to be "illuminated" or "elevated" (or fooled). They had to be beaten. The same probably goes for some conservative interest groups in, say, the health care debate.

There is another school of thought that Obama is a far left stealth candidate who would likely feel free, once in office, to institute a program of change that would only be a surprise because he has been so successful in obfuscating his true ideology.

Much of Obama's success has stemmed from his candidacy apparently offering an exit from this country's long and troubled preoccupation with race and all the difficulties that have arisen from the unhappy experience of blacks in America. Unfortunately, it is in this area that Obama's failings have been most pronounced. The opportunity has been squandered and the outcome of his candidacy will likely set back race relations for a very long time to come.

Barack Obama has established conditions that make it almost impossible for his candidacy to help resolve wounded feelings among either his supporters or opponents. Whether or not he personally agrees with the "black liberation theology" espoused by his church and whether or not he believes in the kind of paranoid conspiracy theories that his former Pastor (and, from early reports, his current pastor) espouses, his candidacy has championed such ideas among those people who do ascribe to them. This means that if he should lose the nomination or the election in November, as I believe is very likely, a significant portion of the black electorate and a significant portion of the white liberal electorate will understand his defeat as confirmation of their firmly held belief that America is irretrievably racist.

If he should happen to win the election he will be the personification of affirmative action as the route to success in America. This would be unfair to such a bright attractive candidate but by effectively making himself into a post-racial candidate who upon examination turns out to be nothing more than a racial candidate with better diction, Obama has made himself less of a man and more of a symbol of a race.

[The reason I think Obama's election would be an unlikely scenario is that I have spoken to a great many very liberal, life long Democrats who have no intention of voting for him and are not horrified by the possibility of a McCain presidency. Their disinclination to vote for Obama is not racism, though the usual suspects will certainly consider it such, but rather a visceral disgust at being called racists by Obama's Pastor with nary a peep of demurral from Obama. This is what will cost him the election.]

In City Journal, John H. McWhorter reviews Larry Elder's Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card—and Lose. In his article, Looking Past Race, McWhorter has two essential criticisms of Elder's thesis:

Yet Elder’s analysis only takes us so far. He asks: “If so-called black leaders and other influence-makers can simply halt the widespread use of the n-word by rappers and others, why not use this power to deal with urban crime?” He thinks it’s because they’re lazy: “Crying racism takes less effort than exploring why black children underperform compared to their white and Asian counterparts.” Elder fails to see that self-doubt cripples many blacks, leading them to mistake weakness (crying racism) for strength.

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 suddenly left black people responsible for proving themselves before they had had a chance to overcome their internalized sense of inadequacy. After centuries of marginalization, this should not have been surprising. There were now two ways for a black person to make his way. He could embrace accountability and work to take advantage of the new opportunities. Or he could fashion a sense of legitimacy by playing the noble victim, exploiting white America’s new susceptibility to such postures.

The damaged black soul settles for doubletalk and elided moral vision in seeking self-affirmation. The “victicrats” whom Elder describes are insecure people who would be best off in twelve-step programs. But Elder also implies that such people are more important to the current racial conversation than they actually are. Most are getting on in years, having reached adulthood just as the whites who once barred them from Holiday Inns became hip to “the Negro problem.” For blacks of this vintage, the empowering novelty of thumbing their noses at whitey imprinted their worldview permanently. They will remain forever on the barricades, but they are no longer the future.

McWhorter's analysis offers a great deal more depth and insight than (his description of) Elder's positions; it also fits neatly with my description of the damage conspiracy theories do to the holders of such views. (And, I would add that a current fixation on the "rich white man" holding down the morally and ethically pristine black man that forms the core of Reverend Wright's sermons, is nothing more than a paranoid conspiracy theory.)

Barack Obama could have spoken to white and black Americans in a post-racial vein; ie, he could have described a universal approach to the opportunities America offers. Note this from McWhorter:

Elder quotes James Q. Wilson’s 38 most important words for black Americans: “Finish high school, marry before having a child, and produce the child after the age of twenty. Only 8 percent of families who do this are poor; 79 percent of those who fail to do this are poor.” Few could deny the wisdom of that counsel, but many fail to see that it logically requires letting go of the racism fetish. As Elder puts it: “Racists do not prevent kids from studying, racists do not demand that men father children outside of wedlock.” And further: “Complete and total eradication of racism cannot instill the necessary moral values that create healthy, prosperous communities.”

James Q. Wilson's 38 words are not most important for black Americans but for all Americans. A recognition by Obama that America, more than any other nation on earth, allows one to have a say in one's future that surpasses the advantages (or disadvantages) of sect, tribe, ethnicity, or lucky parentage would not mean that race and racism have been banished from our nation but that it is no longer a sufficient reason to accept failure among black Americans. For all of Michelle and Barack Obama's great success in achieving the American dream, they have never escaped from the chains of a victim mentality.

We can even take the argument a step further: Even if a black American is convinced that white racism presents great barriers to success in America, for that man or woman, eschewing the anger and resentment can be even more crucial. Anger and resentment can only impede one's progress; racism as an explanation offers a too ready excuse for failure and encourages acceptance of failure. As well, the race based ideologues replace the struggle for achievement with the struggle to get even. It was not simply happenstance that led to the burgeoning of gangsta culture and all the damage that the idealization of failure produced in the poor black community. The ground was first fertilized with a toxic mix of an exaggerated hypersensitivity to perceived racism, guilt ridden affirmative action, and the failure of the black family, all of which reinforced the "self-doubt [that] cripples many blacks."

In addition, McWhorter points out that race based victim ideology belongs to the “victicrats” of the past. Obama's left wing politics as well as his race based identity are both reactionary and regressive, even as his rhetoric soars on the wings of "progressive" thought.

Whether through a failure of self-reflection, moral cowardice, or arrogance, Barack Obama has run a campaign that has reinforced the damage done to black Americans through their legacy of racism and slavery. The opportunity costs of the Obama candidacy are the greatest failure of Barack Obama.

http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2008/03/obamas-failure.html

Rev. Wright Writes

Barry will not disavow this man. Interesting psychological dependency going on there.

Text of Letter from Wright to the New York Times

March 11, 2007
Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
9 West 43rd Street
New York,
New York 10036-3959

Dear Jodi:

Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the
truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me
for two hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual Biography” of
Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he
was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.

For two hours, I talked with you about how idealistic he was. For two
hours I shared with you what a genuine human being he was. I told you
how incredible he was as a man who was an African American in public
service, and as a man who refused to announce his candidacy for
President until Carol Moseley Braun indicated one way or the other
whether or not she was going to run.

I told you what a dreamer he was. I told you how idealistic he was. We
talked about how refreshing it would be for someone who knew about Islam
to be in the Oval Office. Your own question to me was, Didn’t I think it
would be incredible to have somebody in the Oval Office who not only
knew about Muslims, but had living and breathing Muslims in his own
family? I told you how important it would be to have a man who not only
knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis prior to 9/11/01 in the
Oval Office, but also how important it would be to have a man who knew
what Sufism was; a man who understood that there were different branches
of Judaism; a man who knew the difference between Hasidic Jews, Orthodox
Jews, Conservative Jews and Reformed Jews; and a man who was a devout
Christian, but who did not prejudge others because they believed
something other than what he believed.

I talked about how rare it was to meet a man whose Christianity was not
just “in word only.” I talked about Barack being a person who lived his
faith and did not argue his faith. I talked about Barack as a person
who did not draw doctrinal lines in the sand nor consign other people to
hell if they did not believe what he believed.

Out of a two-hour conversation with you about Barack’s spiritual journey
and my protesting to you that I had not shaped him nor formed him, that I
had not mentored him or made him the man he was, even though I would
love to take that credit, you did not print any of that. When I told
you, using one of your own Jewish stories from the Hebrew Bible as to
how God asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?,” that Barack was like
that when I met him. Barack had it “in his hand.” Barack had in his
grasp a uniqueness in terms of his spiritual development that one is
hard put to find in the 21st century, and you did not print that.

As I was just starting to say a moment ago, Jodi, out of two hours of
conversation I spent approximately five to seven minutes on Barack’s
taking advice from one of his trusted campaign people and deeming it
unwise to make me the media spotlight on the day of his announcing his
candidacy for the Presidency and what do you print? You and your editor
proceeded to present to the general public a snippet, a printed “sound
byte” and a titillating and tantalizing article about his disinviting me
to the Invocation on the day of his announcing his candidacy.

I have never been exposed to that kind of duplicitous behavior before,
and I want to write you publicly to let you know that I do not approve
of it and
will not be party to any further smearing of the name, the reputation, the
integrity or the character of perhaps this nation’s first (and maybe even
only) honest candidate offering himself for public service as the person to
occupy the Oval Office.

Your editor is a sensationalist. For you to even mention that makes me
doubt your credibility, and I am looking forward to see how you are
going to butcher what else I had to say concerning Senator Obama’s
“Spiritual Biography.” Our Conference Minister, the Reverend Jane Fisler
Hoffman, a white woman who belongs to a Black church that Hannity of
“Hannity and Colmes” is trying to trash, set the record straight for you
in terms of who I am and in terms of who we are as the church to which
Barack has belonged for over twenty years.

The president of our denomination, the Reverend John Thomas, has offered
to try to help you clarify in your confused head what Trinity Church is
even though you spent the entire weekend with us setting me up to
interview me for what turned out to be a smear of the Senator; and yet
The New York Times continues to roll on making the truth what it wants
to be the truth. I do not remember reading in your article that Barack
had apologized for listening to that bad information and bad advice. Did
I miss it? Or did your editor cut it out? Either way, you do not have to
worry about hearing anything else from me for you to edit or “spin”
because you are more interested in journalism than in truth.

Forgive me for having a momentary lapse. I forgot that The New York
Times was leading the bandwagon in trumpeting why it is we should have
gone into an illegal war. The New York Times became George Bush and the
Republican Party’s national “blog.” The New York Times played a role in
the outing of Valerie Plame. I do not know why I thought The New
York Times had actually repented
and was going to exhibit a different kind of behavior.

Maybe it was my faith in the Jewish Holy Day of Roshashana. Maybe it was
my being caught up in the euphoria of the Season of Lent; but whatever
it is or was, I was sadly mistaken. There is no repentance on the part
of The New York Times. There is no integrity when it comes to The Times.
You should do well with that paper, Jodi. You looked me straight in my
face and told me a lie!

Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
Senior Pastor
Trinity United Church of Christ

http://thepage.time.com/text-of-letter-from-wright-to-the-new-york-times/

To Say America is Racist Is Racist

Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell are Jackie Robinsons. This typical white person doesn't understand why out of a country of 300 million people, we wind up with Barry.

Let's Face It: Obama's No Jackie Robinson

By WALTER E. WILLIAMS | Posted Wednesday, March 26, 2008 4:30 PM PT

Some pundits ask whether America is ready for Sen. Barack Obama. The much more important question is whether Obama is ready for America and even more important is whether black people can afford Obama. Let's look at it in the context of a historical tidbit.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson, signing a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, broke the color barrier in major league baseball. He encountered open racist taunts and slurs from fans, opposing team players and even some players on his own team.

Despite that, he hit .297 in his first year, led the National League in stolen bases and won the first-ever Rookie of the Year Award. Without question, he was an exceptional player.

There's no sense of justice that should require that a player be as good as Robinson in order to be a rookie in the major leagues, but the hard fact of the matter is, as the first black player, he had to be.

In 1947, black people could not afford a stumblebum ballplayer. By contrast, today black people can afford stumblebum black players. The simple reason is that as a result of the excellence of Robinson, as well those who immediately followed him, there's no one in his right mind who might watch the incompetence of a particular black player and say, "Those blacks can't play baseball." Whether we like it or not, whether for good reason or bad reason, people make stereotypes and stereotypes can have effects.

For the nation and for black people, the first black president should be the caliber of a Jackie Robinson, and Obama is not. Obama has charisma, but in terms of character, values and understanding, he is no Jackie Robinson.

By now, many have heard the racist and anti-American tirades of Obama's minister and spiritual counselor. There's no way Obama could have been a 20-year member of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church and not been aware of his statements.

Wright's racist and anti-American ideas aren't unique. They're held by many leftist professors and taught to our young people. The basic difference between Obama, Wright and the professors is simply a matter of style and language.

The senator's Philadelphia speech demonstrated his clever style; he merely changed the subject. The controversy was not about race. It was about his longtime association with such a hatemonger and whether he shared the reverend's vision.

Obama's success is truly a remarkable commentary on the goodness of Americans and how far we've come in resolving race matters.

I'm 72. For almost all of my life, a black having a real chance at becoming president was at best a pipe dream. Obama has convincingly won primaries in states with insignificant black populations. As such, it further confirms what I've often said: The civil rights struggle in America is over, and it's won. At one time black Americans did not have the constitutional guarantees enjoyed by white Americans; now we do.

The fact that the civil rights struggle is over and won does not mean that there are not major problems confronting many members of the black community, but they are not civil rights problems and have little or nothing to do with racial discrimination.

While not every single vestige of racial discrimination is gone, Obama and Wright are absolutely wrong in suggesting it is anywhere near the major problem confronting a large segment of the black community.

Its problems are: family breakdown, illegitimacy, fraudulent education and a high crime rate. To confront these issues, which are not the fault of the larger society, requires political courage, and that's an attribute that Obama and most other politicians lack.

Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=291416988280797

Barry and the friends he keeps

So on one hand we have Hill who ran with her head ducked under non-existent sniper fire, and on the other Democratic hand we have Barry whose sad life is characterized not by the size of his character but by the size of his hate.

Obama's Pro-Hamas Church

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election 2008: It's bad enough that Barack Obama's church took sick joy in 9/11 for "racist white America" supporting "Zionists." Now we learn it also is a mouthpiece for anti-Israeli terrorists.

Last July, Trinity United Church of Christ reprinted a Hamas manifesto written by a terrorist fugitive wanted by the FBI. It was published across two pages of the "Pastor's Page" section of the church bulletin.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright's name is copyrighted at the bottom of the pages. For those who don't know, Wright is the anti-American, anti-Israeli bigot that Obama has consorted with for the past two decades.

In his newsletter, the preacher gives Mousa Abu Marzook a platform to justify the Palestinian terrorist group's denial of Israel's right to exist, while defending strikes against Israeli targets.

Marzook is identified in the church bulletin only as the "deputy of the political bureau of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement."

In fact, Marzook was kicked out of the U.S. several years ago after the U.S. declared him a specially designated terrorist.

The Palestinian was indicted in 2004 for conspiring to funnel millions to Hamas to carry out kidnappings, bombings and other attacks on Israel. Believed to be hiding in Syria, he remains a fugitive.

Even if Wright didn't know Marzook was wanted by the government, Hamas has been designated a terrorist group since 1995, blacklisted by a Democrat administration.

Wright had to have known from headlines that Hamas targets innocent civilians in pizza parlors and buses for suicide bombings, eviscerating children and elderly with fireballs laced with nails and ball bearings. These are not warriors, but terrorists.

Obama, for his part, says he is shocked— shocked! — that his church would support Hamas.

"I certainly wasn't in church when that outrageously wrong piece was reprinted in the bulletin," he said in a carefully worded statement that denies only his attendance and not his prior knowledge of the bulletin.

The Democratic front-runner for president seems to think if he just claims "not present," he won't be linked to his longtime church's radicalism. But a history of 20 years of church attendance and close ties to Wright make that impossible.

When videos showed his pastor blaming America for 9/11 and damning it to hell, Obama insisted he did not attend service on the days those particular sermons were delivered.

Obama also pleaded ignorance about Wright last year honoring anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan with a "lifetime achievement award," even though the church featured Farrakhan on the cover of its magazine and held a gala in Chicago to celebrate his "greatness."

This didn't come out of the blue. Wright and Farrakhan go way back. In the 1980s, they traveled to Libya to pay homage to terrorist leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Yet, Wright is the man Obama says has been "like an uncle" to him all these years.

It strains credulity that in all their conversations, he remains in the dark about his radical ties.

Yet now that Obama knows Wright sympathizes with terrorists, Obama continues to defend him and his church.

"This is a pillar of the community," Obama said, "and if you go there on Easter, and you sat down there in the pew, you would think this is just like any other church."

Maybe any other church in Gaza or the West Bank. But certainly not in post-9/11 America.

Who does Obama think he's fooling? He needs to sever ties with Wright and his church, regardless of their support.

If he can't stand up to them, how can he stand up to terrorists?

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=291335140632942

What IBD isn't asking is--Does Barry want to stand up to terrorists. But I'm just a typical white person and don't understand how Marxism and sharia would be better than the freedom and democracy we have now in the USA.

Barry Can't Support A Democracy in the Middle East

And we should be asking why not. But no one in throes of Obamania will. This typical white person remains curious.

Another Obama Advisor with Anti-Israeli Views

Ed Lasky

Earlier in the year, American Thinker published an article "Barack Obama and Israel" which wondered why Barack Obama seemingly had a proclivity to tie himself to people who have very problematic attitudes towards Israel.

These included early supporter George Soros; billionaire foe of close ties between America and Israel; Zbigniew Brzezinski-who has an antipathy towards Israel that is well known and who has publicly supported the views of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer (as has George Soros) who feel America's Middle East policy is too influenced by what they disparagingly call the "Israel Lobby.

Then there's "foreign policy expert" Robert Malley who has had a long history of anti-Israel advocacy; top foreign policy adviser, close personal friend and former employee Samantha Power whose views towards Israel include a call for halting all aid to Israel and transferring it to "Palestine:. She also has had a litany of anti-Israel policy proposals over the years .

Power also was recently on a book tour where she complained that criticism of Barack Obama all too often revolved around "what is good for the Jews". Power also alluded to Americans who have vast financial power and criticized the role of these ominous people in the foreign policy debate (her defenders say she was referring to the oil industry but certainly other images can be evoked by many readers). Power recently resigned from the foreign policy staff in the wake of comments she made depciting Hillary Clinton as a "monster". However, some feel this "break" might be for show-after all, she was a volunteer on his foreign policy staff and their relationship was a very strong one (including text messsaging at all hours of the day and night).

Of course, Barack Obama's close friend and sounding board for the past twenty years, Pastor Jeremiah Wright's has also been subject to much controversy over the last two weeks. Wright has long advcated anti-American, anti-White, and anti-Israel views. These include calls for divestment from Israel, tying American support for Israel to 9/11, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa, and the bestowing of an award by the Church's magazine to the most notorious anti-Semite in America , Louis ("Judaism is a gutter religion") Farrakhan.

Now comes news of yet another close adviser to Barack Obama who has suspect views towards Israel and towards American Jews. Barack Obama's military adviser and national co-chairman Merrill "Tony " McPeak has recently been subject to some criticism regarding a variety of comments he has recently made. A few years ago he indicated that there was no reason an invasion of Iraq would not be a cakewalk. He earlier indicated that it might be desirable to have military bases in Iraq for many years (the campaign has distorted John McCain's own remarks speculating about that possibility). He has blamed George Bush for Iranian anti-Americanism and thereby ignored over 30 years of hostility and violence towards America through a series of American presidents, both Democrat and Republican . He insulted Bill Clinton by characterizing his remarks about the patriotism of candidates as being redolent of McCarthyism.

Now comes more revelations concerning McPeak. In a breaking story in the American Spectator, Robert Goldberg writes that McPeak has a penchant for bashing Israel and making dark and ominous allusion to American Jews and Christian Zionists who support the American-Israel relationship. Merrill Peak even charges that Americna Jews and Chriztian supporters of Israel are manipulating our Iraq policy to serve the interests of Israel.

Goldberg:

McPeak has a long history of criticizing Israel for not going back to the 1967 borders as part of any peace agreement with Arab states. In 1976 McPeak wrote an article for Foreign Affairs magazine questioning Israel's insistence on holding on to the Golan Heights and parts of the West Bank.

In recent years McPeak has echoed the Mearsheimer-Walt view that American Middle East policy is being controlled by Jews at the expense of America's interests in the region. In a 2003 interview with the Oregonian, McPeak complained of that the "lack of playbook for getting Israelis and Palestinians together at...something other than a peace process....We need to get it fixed and only we have the authority with both sides to move them towards that. Everybody knows that."

The interviewer asked McPeak: "So where's the problem? State? White House?"

McPeak replied: "New York City. Miami. We have a large vote -- vote, here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it.

McPeak also claims that a combination of Jews and far right Christians are manipulating U.S. policy in the Middle East and he railed against "neoconservatives" who he said were "radical," not conservative like him.

(Editor's Note: neoconservative has become a codeword for American Jews who are accused of having a dual loyalty towards both America and Israel)

Goldberg speculated that the Obama campaign will once again have to distance itself, and Barack Obama, from yet another close adviser who has very harsh views towards Israel and towards American Jews. He has been trying to do so regarding his 20-year relationship with Pastor Wright who he has called a mentor, a spiritual advisor, a sounding board, and a moral compass. Now he, or more likely campaign gurus David Axelrod and David Plouffe, will again have to get out their playbook to deal with another controversy regarding Barack Obama's judgment in choosing close advisers who have such harsh views towards a close ally and who have conspiratorial views towards American Jews that are redolent of, not just McCarthyism, but also of outright anti-Semitism.

Was Barack Obama aware of the views of McPeak? After all, he appointed him to be his co-chair of the campaign and to serve as his chief military adviser. One would presume, or hope, that McPeak had been vetted. If Senator Obama becomes President, McPeak might very well be in line for an appointment as Secretary of Defense. Given the close ties between the defense forces of America and Israel, can the millions of supporters of this close alliance rest assure that McPeak will not seek to weaken this relationship and make Israel even more vulnerable to the enemies that surround her? One would like to know how Barack Obama assembled his team of advisers-who recommended McPeak, for example?

This is the company Barack Obama keeps. Will his defenders yet again trot out the charge of "guilt by assocation"? There is a more important issue at stake; how good is the judgment of Barack Obama?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/03/another_obama_advisor_with_ant.html

Obama's Slave Owning Ancestors

I bet this is something he'd like us to not know. Every day it's something and I thought I wouldn't have that much to do here.

Obama's Blind Spot on Race and Character

By Frances Rice

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In his Philadelphia speech on race, Senator Barack Obama justified his 20-year relationship with his anti-American pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, by castigating as racist a host of people, including his own white grandmother who he later lambasted as a "typical white" racist. Conspicuously omitted from Obama's culpability list is the architect of modern day racism—the Democratic Party.

Obama's failure to even mention the Democratic Party's racist past, while confessing that he lied about when he first heard Rev. Wright's hateful rants, calls into question Obama's character and judgment. The shocking words of Rev. Wright can be heard by viewing the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw&feature=related . Without flinching, Rev. Wright damned his own country, declaring that innocent Americans deserved to be killed by Islamic terrorists on September 11, 2001.

Since Obama refuses to end his ties to Rev. Wright and has put forth a false face as a presidential candidate, we need to look behind the mask and examine his past to see the real Barack Obama.

Obama's Slave-owning Relatives

Notably, in his speech, Obama mentioned the slavery history of the family of his wife, Michelle. He failed to say one word about the unsavory slave-owning past of his own white relatives. Historical records uncovered by researchers and posted on the Internet at: http://www.freedomsenemies.com/_more/obama.htm show that Obama's maternal forbearers were slaveholders. In fact, one of Obama's ancestors, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves as is recorded in the Nelson County, Kentucky 1850 Census. The same records show that another one of Obama's ancestors, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves. All of Obama's slave-owning forbearers were Democrats.

Obama, following in the footsteps of his white ancestors, is also part of the Democratic Party that: (1) fought to keep blacks in slavery; (2) started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize Republicans—black and white; (3) passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws; (4) fought every piece of civil rights legislation from the 1860's to the 1960's; and (5) attacked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights protesters with skin-burning fire hoses and vicious dogs.

While hiding the racist past of the Democratic Party, Obama refuses to give credit to the Republican Party that: (1) started in 1854 as the anti-slavery party and fought to free blacks from slavery; (2) amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom, citizenship and the right to vote; (3) started the NAACP to stop the Democrats from lynching blacks; (4) passed the civil rights laws of the 1860's that were overturned by the Democrats when they took over Congress in 1892; (5) founded the HBCUs; (6) started affirmative action enforcement in 1969 to help blacks get jobs and contracts based on merit; and (7) fought the Democrats for over six decades until Republicans finally achieved passage of the civil rights laws of the 1950's and 1960's under the leadership of Republican Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois.

It defies logic for Democrats to claim that, after Republicans spent over 100 years fighting the Democrats on behalf of blacks and finally won, all the racist Democrats suddenly rushed into the Republican Party. In fact, those racist Democrats declared that that they would rather vote for a "yellow dog" than a Republican because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks. Facts about the racist past of the Democratic Party can be found in such books as A Short History of Reconstruction by Dr. Eric Foner, Unfounded Loyalty by Rev. Wayne Perryman, Bamboozled by Angela McGlowan, and Wrong on Race by Bruce Bartlett.

Exposed in these books are the facts that the chief opponents of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act were Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Albert Gore, Sr. and Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Democrat President Lyndon Johnson is applauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, in his 4,500-word State of the Union Address delivered on January 4, 1965, Johnson mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only thirty five words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights.

Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a civil rights advocate. In reality, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Senator Al Gore, Sr. After he became president, John F. Kennedy opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King.

In an effort to shift the racist past of the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, Democrats point a finger at Republican President Richard Nixon for his so-called "Southern Strategy." These same Democrats expressed no concern when the racially segregated South voted solidly for Democrats; yet unfairly deride Republicans because of the thirty-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party that began in the 1970's. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was an effort on his part to get fair-minded people in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were discriminating against blacks. Georgia did not switch until 2004, and some Southern states are still controlled by Democrats, including Louisiana until the 2007 election of Republican Bobby Jindal, a person of color.

Democrats also castigate Senator Trent Lott for his remarks about Senator Strom Thurmond in a blatant attempt to unfairly paint the Republican Party as a racist party. Where was the outrage when Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd praised former Ku Klux Klanner Democrat Senator Robert Byrd as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment," including the Civil War. Notably, Senator Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and, after he became a Republican, defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Senator Byrd and Senator Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched.

Obama's Muslim Connections

While not denying the basic facts about his Muslim connections, Obama and his defenders parse words, Clintonesque style, in a blatant attempt to discredit anyone who raises the issue. It's important to scrutinize Obama's Muslim background to determine if his Islamic past influences his decisions and actions toward America, including his decision to select an anti-American pastor as his spiritual advisor.

Obama readily exhibits his disdain for our country by refusing to wear an American flag lapel pin, and the video showing him making this anti-American declaration can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccbPVMBKQpA&feature=related . Obama was also photographed with his back turned to our flag and his hands clasped defiantly in front of him during the saying of the pledge of allegiance, and that video can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOtsJufVs5Y&feature=related . Now that his relationship with Rev. Wright has been exposed, Obama is trying to deceive the public by giving speeches with American flags being used as props in the background.

To more fully understand the extent of Obama's Muslim experiences and how this connection influences his attitude about America, we need to examine some basic, undisputed facts.

Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and his full name is Barack Hussein Obama. He is named after his father who was born on the shores of Lake Victoria in Alego, Kenya. Obama's father was raised as a Muslim and married a white American woman, Anna Dunham of Wichita, Kansas while both were students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's parents divorced when he was two years old, and when he was six years old, his mother married an Indonesian oil company executive named Lolo Soetoro, who was also a Muslim and who introduced Obama to Islam.

The family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, where they lived for five years from1968 through 1973. Obama first attended a Catholic school for three years. In that school's documents, Obama is listed under the name Barry Soetoro as an Indonesian citizen, and his religion is listed as Islam. Later, Obama attended a Muslim school where he received Islamic religious training before he was sent back to America to live with his maternal grandmother while his mother and his half-sister, Maya, stayed in Indonesia.

Obama's half brothers and sisters in Nairobi, Kenya are Muslims. His step-grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, is a lifelong Muslim who said: "I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith." In an April 30, 2007 New York Times interview, Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng who now lives in Hawaii, said: "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim."

Obama, while describing his 1992 wedding, admitted that he was proud of his brother, Roy, who chose Islam over Christianity. "The person who made me proudest of all," Obama wrote, "was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol."

If Obama were not a Muslim from the time his religion was recorded in Indonesia as Islam until he "converted" to Christianity, then what was he for 27 years? We, as citizens, have a right to know this information about the man who wants to be our next president.

Obama's Legislative Actions

Considering Obama's Islamic connections, it is not surprising that he introduced a bill in Illinois called "Islamic Community Day" which proclaimed that November 1, 1997 would be the South Shore Islamic Community Center Day.

Obama's other legislative actions in Illinois demonstrate that he is a liberal Democrat who puts left-wing ideology before the best interest of the people.

Incredibly, Obama opposed four times the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that would have prohibited a baby that was born alive from being left to die, simply because the mother said she wanted the baby to die. He also sided with the Democratic Party's radical pro-abortion special interest group by opposing a bill that defines as a "person" a fully born baby who survives an abortion.

Obama was the only member of the Illinois Senate who voted against a bill that prohibited the early release of sexual predators. He also refused to vote for a bill that would have increased penalties for drug traffickers. Obama voted against a bill that made it a criminal offense for convicts to have contact with a street gang while out of jail on bail or on probation. He even voted against a bill that would have delivered the death penalty to gang members who murder first responders. Obama sent a shock wave throughout the state of Illinois when he voted to make a criminal out of a homeowner who was forced to use a gun to defend himself in his own home.

As a US senator, Obama voted against the minimum wage bill. Now, Obama is on the presidential campaign trail promising to increase the minimum wage. What a hypocrite.

Obama and Black Poverty

Obama, in his Philadelphia speech, loudly denounced the deplorable conditions in black communities. Yet, he said not one word about the fact that those communities have been run by Democrats for the past 40 years. The socialist policies of the Democrats have fostered a culture of dependency on government handouts and turned those communities into economic and social wastelands. Obama also rails against the failure to educate black children. However, he gives a pass to teachers' union special interest groups that are responsible for black children not being educated. Those groups are aligned with the Democratic Party and are against school choice opportunity scholarships that would help black parents get their children out of failing schools. Liberal teachers act against the best interest of black children because they want to keep control of the buildings, and thus the money, but the money belongs to the people, not the buildings.

The root cause of the grinding poverty in black communities that is ignored by Obama is well documented by black Democrat Juan Williams in his book entitled Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America.

Comments by Juan Williams about how Obama, a rich, half-white Harvard educated man, is using the black community for partisan political gain can be seen at: http://election.newsmax.com/williams_obama/?s=al&promo_code=4780-1

The sad truth is that Obama is one of those phony, socialist Democrats who wants to push on the rest of America the failed socialist policies that have devastated black communities.

Obama and Corruption

Just coming to light are the sleazy facts about Obama's relationship and shady real estate deal with Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the Arab-American fundraiser and immigrant from Syria. Rezko has been a friend of Obama's since his days at Harvard, and Rezko was recently indicted for corruption, found guilty of skipping bail and sent to prison.

The details of the Obama-Rezko deal are astonishing and involve the purchase of Obama's Edwardian-style mansion in Kenwood, an up-scale section of Chicago where Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan also lives. When Obama sought to buy the grand house, the former owner refused to sell unless Obama also agreed to buy the adjoining land which Obama apparently could not afford. Obama's friend, Rezko, came to the rescue and bought the adjoining land for $625,000, even though the property could not be accessed from the public street. This cleared the way for Obama to buy the mansion for $1,650,000, about $300,000 less than the asking price. Then, six months later, Obama bought one-sixth of Rezko's property for $104,500. All of these financial dealings raise questions about whether Rezko subsidized the purchase of Obama's mansion in violation of ethical rules.

Also, campaign contribution records show that Rezko made substantial contributions to Obama's 2000 campaign for Congress. A recent report in a British newspaper, The Times, shows that in May 2005, Rezko was loaned $3.5 million by Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company controlled by Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi-born British billionaire. This is the undeclared loan that landed Obama's friend and bagman, Rezko, in jail.

We ignore the stench of corruption that surrounds Obama at our peril.

As citizens, we must ask ourselves whether Obama has the character and judgment to be our president. Unfortunately, the answer is no.

Frances Rice, a lawyer and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, is the chairman of the National Black Republican Association and can be contacted at: www.NBRA.info

http://blackrepublican.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html

The clear sight of Richard Fernandez

And when Jeremiah Wright puts a black man on the Throne of God we should recognize the obvious: that there is no God left after the transaction, only a man raised as high as human hands can hold.--Richard Fernandez

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2008/03/skin-of-god.html

The peculiar theology of black liberation

SPENGLER
The peculiar theology of black liberation
By Spengler

Senator Barack Obama is not a Muslim, contrary to invidious rumors. But he belongs to a Christian church whose doctrine casts Jesus Christ as a "black messiah" and blacks as "the chosen people". At best, this is a radically different kind of Christianity than most Americans acknowledge; at worst it is an ethnocentric heresy.

What played out last week on America's television screens was a clash of two irreconcilable cultures, the posture of "black liberation theology" and the mainstream American understanding of Christianity. Obama, who presented himself as a unifying figure, now seems rather the living embodiment of the clash.

One of the strangest dialogues in American political history ensued on March 15 when Fox News interviewed Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, of Chicago's Trinity Church. Wright asserted the authority of the "black liberation" theologians James Cone and Dwight Hopkins:

Wright: How many of Cone's books have you read? How many of Cone's book have you read?

Sean Hannity: Reverend, Reverend?

(crosstalk)

Wright: How many books of Cone's have you head?

Hannity: I'm going to ask you this question ...

Wright: How many books of Dwight Hopkins have you read?

Hannity: You're very angry and defensive. I'm just trying to ask a question here.

Wright: You haven't answered - you haven't answered my question.

Hopkins is a full professor at the University of Chicago's Divinity School; Cone is now distinguished professor at New York's Union Theological Seminary. They promote a "black power" reading of Christianity, to which liberal academic establishment condescends.

Obama referred to this when he asserted in a March 14 statement, "I knew Reverend Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago." But the fact the liberal academy condescends to sponsor black liberation theology does not make it less peculiar to mainstream American Christians. Obama wants to talk about what Wright is, rather than what he says. But that way lies apolitical quicksand.

Since Christianity taught the concept of divine election to the Gentiles, every recalcitrant tribe in Christendom has rebelled against Christian universalism, insisting that it is the "Chosen People" of God - French, English, Russian, Germans and even (through the peculiar doctrine of Mormonism) certain Americans. America remains the only really Christian country in the industrial world, precisely because it transcends ethnicity. One finds ethnocentricity only in odd corners of its religious life; one of these is African-American.

During the black-power heyday of the late 1960s, after the murder of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, the mentors of Wright decided that blacks were the Chosen People. James Cone, the most prominent theologian in the "black liberation" school, teaches that Jesus Christ himself is black. As he explains:

Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants.

Theologically, Cone's argument is as silly as the "Aryan Christianity" popular in Nazi Germany, which claimed that Jesus was not a Jew at all but an Aryan Galilean, and that the Aryan race was the "chosen people". Cone, Hopkins and Wright do not propose, of course, to put non-blacks in concentration camps or to conquer the world, but racially-based theology nonetheless is a greased chute to the nether regions.

Biblical theology teaches that even the most terrible events to befall Israel, such as the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, embody the workings of divine justice, even if humankind cannot see God's purpose. James Cone sees the matter very differently. Either God must do what we want him to do, or we must reject him, Cone maintains:

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love. [1]

In the black liberation theology taught by Wright, Cone and Hopkins, Jesus Christ is not for all men, but only for the oppressed:

In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not [Cone].

In this respect black liberation theology is identical in content to all the ethnocentric heresies that preceded it. Christianity has no use for the nations, a "drop of the bucket" and "dust on the scales", in the words of Isaiah. It requires that individuals turn their back on their ethnicity to be reborn into Israel in the spirit. That is much easier for Americans than for the citizens of other nations, for Americans have no ethnicity. But the tribes of the world do not want to abandon their Gentile nature and as individuals join the New Israel. Instead they demand eternal life in their own Gentile flesh, that is, to be the "Chosen People".

That is the "biblical scholarship" to which Obama referred in his March 14 defense of Wright and his academic prominence. In his response to Hannity, Wright genuinely seemed to believe that the authority of Cone and Hopkins, who now hold important posts at liberal theological seminaries, was sufficient to make the issue go away. His faith in the white establishment is touching; he honestly cannot understand why the white reporters at Fox News are bothering him when the University of Chicago and the Union Theological Seminary have put their stamp of approval on black liberation theology.

Many things that the liberal academy has adopted, though, will horrify most Americans, and not only "black liberation theology" (Queer Studies comes to mind, among other things). It cannot be in Obama's best interests to appeal to the authority of Cone, whose unapologetic racism must be repugnant to the great majority of Americans, including the majority of black Americans, who for the most part belong to Christian churches that preach mainstream Christian doctrine. Christianity teaches unconditional love for a God whose love for humankind is absolute; it does not teach the repudiation of a God who does not destroy our enemies on the spot.

Whether Obama takes seriously the doctrines that Wright preaches is another matter. It is possible that Obama does not believe a word of what Wright, Cone and Hopkins teach. Perhaps he merely used the Trinity United Church of Christ as a political stepping-stone. African-American political life is centered around churches, and his election to the Illinois State Senate with the support of Chicago's black political machine required church membership. Trinity United happens to be Chicago's largest and most politically active black church.

Obama views Wright rather at arm's length: as the New York Times reported on April 30, 2007:

Reverend Wright is a child of the 60s, and he often expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism and the struggles the African-American community has gone through," Mr Obama said. "He analyzes public events in the context of race. I tend to look at them through the context of social justice and inequality.

Obama holds his own views close. But it seems unlikely that he would identify with the ideological fits of the black-power movement of the 1960s. Obama does not come to the matter with the perspective of an American black, but of the child of a left-wing anthropologist raised in the Third World, as I wrote elsewhere (Obama's women reveal his secret , Asia Times Online, February 26, 2008). It is possible that because of the Wright affair Obama will suffer for what he pretended to be, rather than for what he really is.

Note
1. See William R Jones, "Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology", in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology, ed Cornel West and Eddie Glaube (Westminster John Knox Press).

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JC18Aa01.html

--Just A Typical White Person, ya know?

Pass the Popcorn, the Barry Show Has Started

Here's an interesting piece from the 2004 NYT. It's necessary to connect the dots. Even a typical white person can do that.

We know this week someone accessed Barry Obama's passport files and he was outraged. Of course John McCain's files were also accessed but he's in the Middle East preoccupied with world events so hasn't troubled his head with such things. Then we find out the person who was poking around in those files works for John Brennan. John Brennan, ex-CIA, who just happens to be Barry's intelligence advisor. Then we go back four years and see Brennan already trying to undercut the security of this country.

You gotta hand it to Barry, he really knows how to pick his friends.

Published: New York Times July 22, 2004--Economic Scene; To improve terrorism data, the U.S. should follow the lead of economic statistics

By ALAN B. KRUEGER

No changes in procedures to prevent a repeat of the kinds of errors in this year's terrorism report or the perennial partisanship that accompanies it have been announced. The idea of inviting an independent organization to evaluate the report's methods and procedures was shelved, although an internal review is pending.

In a briefing for Congressional staff members, J. Cofer Black of the State Department and John O. Brennan of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, who accepted responsibility for the errors in the report, floated the idea of dropping the detailed chronology from next year's report. Not only would such a move violate Congress's requirement for ''a full and complete report,'' it would also be counterproductive -- more objective information on terrorist attacks is needed, not less.

Indeed, the errors in this year's report could not have been caught had the chronology been excluded.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/32dmhm

It doesn't pass the sniff test to this Typical White Person.