Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The mask drops to the ground

With Hillary's admission that her trip to Bosnia wasn't exactly the danger-filled mission she made it out to be the contest between her and Barack Obama is degenerating into a matter of pure identity politics. The Washington Post reports the myth:

Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Bill Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down."





But with the discovery of actual video footage of Hillary's trip showing belying her account, the Senator from New York was being left with less and less of a resume to tout. With the evaporation of her credentials there remains only one undeniable argument in favor of electing her: that it's time for America's first woman President. Barck Obama's problems with Jeremiah Wright have left him in an almost analogous position. Once his aura began to dim, and without much of a resume to run on anyway, the residual argument for electing him will increasingly be about healing the scars of past racial injustice.

Thus the two will ultimately wind up campaigning not as themselves but as stereotypes. How did it come to this? In part because of the way the Democratic Party identifies its electoral markets. Segmentation takes place not primarily along lines of policy or belief but on lines of identity. With both Clinton and Obama essentially sharing the same ideological platform each was obliged from the outset to run on their distinguishing characteristics. With the platform held constant or treated simply a cynical talking points, the only variables the candidates could manipulate from the outset were race and gender. And manipulate they did.

The seeds of the current civil war were present from the beginning. But at the start of the campaign this ugly fact was partly hidden by a totally contrived gentility; a studiously high tone that only betrayed the savage instincts straining to get loose. Coalition politics is all about displays of unity precisely because there is none of it; the smiles are there precisely to mask the uneasy truce between the rivals.

Unless Hillary Clinton selflessly withdraws from the race, the eye-gouging, ear-biting, finger-breaking identity wrestling contest will continue all the way to the convention in Denver where all hell is expected to break loose. DNC Disruption '08, a coalition of 'progressive activists' is already surveilling the city, noting the location of television cameras and identifying weak points in security with the same cold precision with which an undertaker measures a corpse for a coffin.





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86 Comments:

Blogger Doug said...

Many will close their eyes to avoid the jarring spectacle!
---
The Audio edition of "Dreams from My Father," Read by Obama himself, (!) who by the time of it's publication in Audio form on May 3, 2005, had become US Senator Obama, was the subject of Hugh Hewitt's show Monday.

Audio Excerpts are available here.
...one question I had when listening to his profanity laced reading was:
Why would he remember, in word for word detail, a run of the mill conversation he had with a school chum when he was 17 years old?

Not too hard to see how much he projected his personal rudderlessness and alienation onto his ostensibly rational analysis of politics and racial relations.
Pay particular attention to the people he chose to associate with in his days as a student at Occidental College!

3/25/2008 04:09:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"In his preface to the 2004 revised edition, Obama explains that he had hoped the story of his family "might speak in some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience, as well as the fluid state of identity—the leaps through time, the collision of cultures—that mark our modern life."

(unstated and unexamined, no doubt unrealized, was the effect of the fluid state of the author's identity, to include mind altering substances, on the quality of the product!)

3/25/2008 04:19:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

Subsequent investigations have, in fact, verified Hillary's account.

However, she was describing her arrival back from Bosnia, in Washington. D.C., the per capita Murder Capital of the U.S....

Well, such embellishments are par for the course for the Political Class. We have all wearied of John McCain's inability to as much order a cup of coffee without referring to his Vietnam experience.

No, wait, come to think of it, that was John Kerry.

And we have been regaled countless times of G. W. Bush's stories of roaring down a runway in a machine packed with rockets, radar and A/B that you could not even see out of worth a damn. Except that I can't think of him ever mentioning that experience... Oh! Wait! Yes! That was the 60 Minutes people...

In any case, despite the Bosnian misstatement,, release of Hillary's schedule as First Lady shows that she was deeply involved in almost every aspect of policy. Or, at least, those aspects that involved the type and location of doilies in the White House.

Well, just par for the course....

3/25/2008 05:45:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

You forgot the Dollys in the WH.
She had many years experience controlling Bimbo Eruptions.

Simply defame and destroy the bimbos.
Feminist Revolutionary, ya know.

3/25/2008 06:25:00 AM  
Blogger LarryD said...

OT - ref the ideological war:

Check out Islam’s ‘Public Enemy #1’ at National Review Online

3/25/2008 06:55:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

The Clinton's, as a couple are dysfunctional. We know this from behavioral observation over the past 20 years. They also exhibit deep sociopathic traits. ergo.

Profile of the Sociopath
Some of the common features of descriptions of the behavior of sociopaths.

• Glibness and Superficial Charm
• Manipulative and Conning
. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
• Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."
• Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis.
• Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
• Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
• Incapacity for Love
• Callousness/Lack of Empathy
• Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse.. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
• Irresponsibility/Unreliability
. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
• Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
• Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
. . Changes life story readily.

NOTE: In the 1830's this disorder was called "moral insanity." By 1900 it was changed to "psychopathic personality." More recently it has been termed "antisocial personality disorder" in the DSM-III and DSM-IV. Some critics have complained that, in the attempt to rely only on 'objective' criteria, the DSM has broadened the concept to include too many individuals. The APD category includes people who commit illegal, immoral or self-serving acts for a variety of reasons and are not necessarily psychopaths.

It sure sounds like Hillary.

3/25/2008 07:11:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

Good catch on the Botros article.

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, and so it is with the unexamined religion. Islam under the spotlight is a brain crushing anachronism. How could it be otherwise when it is based entirely on the "vision" and biography of a single, 7th century individual?

You can understand why so called Muslim scholars and politicos who depend on absolute obedience and submission go into maniac mode when Joe Muslim rubs up against other cultures. He can't help but notice that continuing as a believing Muslim is self confinement to an insane asylum.

3/25/2008 07:25:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

habu

What does it say about the Democrats when the Clintons are the better choice?

3/25/2008 07:28:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

He didn't mention the mental case, Obama?

3/25/2008 07:41:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Michelle and I sent our young girls to the KKK meetings to promote racial harmony"

3/25/2008 07:43:00 AM  
Blogger Jrod said...

Democrats as a class seem to be bad at judging general-election electability, and recent history has shown that the more passionate or actively involved a Democrat is, the worse he or she is at judging electability.

Anger breeds passion, and good decisions are rarely made under the stress of anger, and by extension, passion.

p.s. good link larryd, thanks.

3/25/2008 07:57:00 AM  
Blogger David M said...

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 03/25/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

3/25/2008 08:29:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

The Clintons are so nakedly obvious that really it's the people who keep them in office (in office where people have to come under their power) who are the real stark staring crazies. The Clintons are so obvious that in a way they're really just furniture in the mad house.

3/25/2008 08:30:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

PetereBoston

Boy great question. The Dems choices looked set in stone a year ago with Hillary the anointed one. The Obama rock star supernova came on the scene and rocked Hillary. Now we see him as a self described poseur and anti white gasbag, still clinging to a totally racists "Reverend", who if white would have by now been exiled to Point Barrow,Alaska. And Obama was going to bring us together..the us was the whitey;s and the where was the "showers" of Zyklon-B ..ok a bit of hyperbole but the boy Obama is a fraud.
I say let 'em eat each other all the way through the DEM Convention.

3/25/2008 08:41:00 AM  
Blogger eggplant said...

Jrod said:

"Democrats as a class seem to be bad at judging general-election electability, and recent history has shown that the more passionate or actively involved a Democrat is, the worse he or she is at judging electability."

It worries me that the Democratic Party keeps promoting presidential candidates who are completely unacceptable, e.g. John Kerry and Barack Hussein. The worst case Democratic presidential candidate --should be-- someone who's political views maybe "different" but at least has demonstrated a basic competence to serve as President.

John Kerry had no business serving in the US Senate let alone run for President. It is also abundantly clear that Barack Hussein lacks the basic competence to serve as President. It is obvious that the Democratic Party's primary election process has malfunctioned.

If Barack Hussein does win the Democratic nomination, I am hoping that in the general election he'll be trounced by McCain in a repeat of what happend to George McGovern in 1972 (the Democrats should have learned from the McGovern experience).

The British Labour Party kept losing to Margaret Thatcher mainly because they were dominated by their "looney left", i.e. old fashioned communists and radical trade unionists. The British Labour Party went through a long and painful process of ejecting the obvious idiots and re-inventing themselves. After having done so, they became fit to actually be the party in power. I think it is obvious the US Democratic Party needs to do the same thing (Too many moonbats!). The Green Party is out there waiting with open arms to receive the Democratic Party's debris. After purging themselves of moonbats, maybe the Democratic Party will be fit to actually run the country.

3/25/2008 09:01:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

but can you have a party with no people in it?

3/25/2008 09:13:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

One thing is a good bet. With Hillary's only hope of snatch-ing away the nomination from Obama is the Superdelegates then THIS IS THE TIME to put the FBI files she may have into play.

If she does indeed have them and enough Superdelegates are in those files,(a good bet) then she will use them and geyt the nomination.

During Watergate one of the original operatives was James McCord, a former CIA officer..he is famous for saying that if the Watergate break in were laid at the CIA's doorstep "every tree in the forest will fall" here is the setting.

On 21st December, 1972, James W. McCord wrote a letter to Jack Caulfield " Sorry to have to write you this letter but felt you had to know. if Helms goes, and if the WG (Watergate) operation is laid at the CIA's feet, where it does not belong, every tree in the forest will fall. It will be a scorched desert. The whole matter is at the precipice right now. Just pass the message that if they want it to blow, they are on exactly the right course. I'm sorry that you will get hurt in the fallout.”

Hillary will clear cut the mountain.


>Trees Fall

3/25/2008 09:14:00 AM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

3/25/2008 09:27:00 AM  
Blogger eggplant said...

Buddy Larsen said:

"but can you have a party with no people in it?"

They tried to expel Joe Lieberman but he still considers himself to be a Democrat. I find it amusing to speculate that if the Democrats had nominated Joe Lieberman instead of John Kerry as their presidential candidate then they probably would have beaten Bush in 2004. Instead, the Democrats allowed their moonbats to hoot Lieberman out of the party and effectively lose control of one Senate seat (Idiots!).

One can often judge a man by who his enemies are.

3/25/2008 09:29:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

Back to the aforementioned post on the FBI files.

This would obviously have to be a very sensitive operation. I would look at Harold Ickes as the operative. As the son of an FDR com- simp and a current political advisor on Hillary's 2008 run he is ideally placed to do the door to door sit downs with the targets.

If it works out he'll be given the keys to the kingdom..well almost

Ickes http://tinyurl.com/2x3vsf

3/25/2008 09:43:00 AM  
Blogger Kadai Sono Narabi said...

I too have ducked in terror as sniper bullets cracked around my head and thudded into the dirt near my feet.

Wait...no...actually the neighbors dog was barking as I took out the garbage. I misspoke, sorry.

But that story did help me get elected as assistant leader of the neighborhood watch group.

3/25/2008 09:45:00 AM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

The problem with the leadership of the Democratic party is that they have no goals or ideals. They only have tropisms.

-------

As she has done so many times before, Hillary Rodham Clinton lied because (1) she thought she could get away with it; a BOLDLY TOLD LIE frequently goes unchallenged. (2) There is a deep satisfaction, better than sex for some folks, in tempting fate, risking discovery for forbidden behavior, and GETTING AWAY WITH IT. 



Even if "getting away with it" is only Temporary.

The craziest aspect of an utterly crazy compulsive life is that the THRILL increases directly with the danger of exposure as the LIAR becomes more prominent, more public, and so more likely to be trapped and exposed for the deception. Exposure and discovery become almost inevitable when the LIAR has betrayed many friends along the path to prominence. Which enhances the thrill, which... well, leads to a feedback loop.


Seems as though a lot of folks just have a will to LOSE.

--------




In that respect, the Empress Dowager Hillaire is much like her spouse, Mr. President I-Can't-control-my-own-Willie. The LIE is an irresistible compulsion, even when she MUST be fully aware that U.S. and international Camera crews recorded the truth on the occasion she mentions in this lie.



Governor-then-President Penis knew each time he spotted a potential sex partner that to act upon his impulse imperiled all that he was building in the "respectable" world, but the adrenalin rush that accompanies the risky behavior was more compelling than any satisfaction he'd ever been able to achieve from "respectable" success.



It has been found to be a common factor of all forms of sexual addiction that the RISK itself --- i.e., the deliberate placing one's self in danger of exposure, discovery, or the imposition of drastic consequences as a result of the sexual behavior is at least as if not MORE satisfying than the mere sexual acts per se.



Adrenalin Addiction --- the underlying pathology that gets named inaccurately for the specific behaviors the addict "fixes upon" to feed that addiction. But it's true of rapists, bank robbers, adulterers, sex addicts of all orientations, daredevils of all sorts, et cetera.



I have to be careful here including people who break the law to scale skyscrapers, and base-jump with parachutes illegally from broadcast towers --- I'm certainly not comparing their acts to rape or bank robbing.



There can be "positive" expressions of being an "adrenalin junkie" --- explorers, test pilots, firefighters, police officers, rescue workers, people who choose any inherently dangerous profession in which they MUST repeatedly push beyond the limits of "normal" life just to accomplish the routine requirements of their work. They tend to demonstrate the brilliance of human potential. But there's still that element of the adrenalin fiend seeking the release.



---------------------

(I apologize for my smugly-git pontification and general mean spiritedness for the Clintons. I'll probably end up beheaded for it. and any how I CAN'T HELP IT. It's a compulsion, you see.)

3/25/2008 09:50:00 AM  
Blogger Triton'sPolarTiger said...

Wow - habu, Buddy, Doug... feels like old times around here! :-)

3/25/2008 10:00:00 AM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

triton

Yeah. We need the Rat pissing on the party.

3/25/2008 10:10:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

I think that the spectacles presented by the Clintons, Obama, and even lesser luminaries like Anita Hill and Al Sharpton as well as the 9/11 Conspiracy crowd show that we really do not understand the human brain’s ability to alter how it records reality in order to meet its needs.

I have little doubt that such people could quite easily pass a lie detector test on a host of issues in which unquestioned objective reality is at a considerable variance with their sworn recollections. From such differences we get criticism of “Western Eurocentric While Male civilizations’ excessive emphasis on accuracy,” “the issues are too important to let the facts get in the way,” and the ever popular “the seriousness of the charges are too great to allow a lack of evidence to trump the need for an full investigation.”

I find the thought that they are not lying but really believe the crap they are shoveling to be more frightening than the mere possibility that they are lying so often and so convincingly.

3/25/2008 10:26:00 AM  
Blogger LarryD said...

habu, there's a lot of overlap there with narcissism

•Grandiosity
•Sense of entitlement
•Lack of Empathy
•Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends
•Lying, while not a diagnostic, is typical


(aside on ideological war, The Man Islamists Cannot Silence)

3/25/2008 10:33:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"...by any means possible"

--Alinsky


(hey Triton -- long time no see -- holding the fort ok are ya?)

3/25/2008 10:40:00 AM  
Blogger Kadai Sono Narabi said...

Hey, don't forget the classic:

"Fake but accurate".

Dan Rather, where for art thou?

3/25/2008 10:47:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

Mad Fiddler
Re: your 9:50

Huzzahs and nicely done.

3/25/2008 11:30:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

LarryD @10:33 mak'n me see the connection ...nice pick on nailing it.
Wait is that a mixed metaphor?

Nice hammer nailing it..naw doesn't work

Nice work... hey hey works every time!!

3/25/2008 11:35:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

LarryD,

I just finished your offering from The American Thinker ( a great source) on The Man Islamist can't Silence.
Thank goodness in our world there are such men..a few that came to my mind, some famous, other less so but heros all.
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
Alexander Solzenitzen
Armando Valladares
Kurt Schuschnigg
Oscar Elias Biscet

Our own Revolution was perhaps the greatest event in the history of mankind, for we not only beat the mightiest nation in the world at that time but we established a new era for human dignity and freedom. These brave souls carry our Revolutions "invisible hand" to borrow from Adam Smith and dilate it's meaning.

3/25/2008 11:52:00 AM  
Blogger TmjUtah said...

The Democrats already have their nominee.

Obama will be anointed by the Party's Best and Brightest in Denver. They have no other option.

To do anything else confirms the blatant lack of respect long held by the Democrat elite for the black man in the street... and the Super Delegates, many of whom are beholden to significant numbers of black voters, will take absolutely chance that they will be associated with (a) overturning the perceived (nobody on earth short of Stephen Hawking could hope to figure out how to parse the Dem primary numbers) popular will of the Democrat electorate and (b) shivving the first (up until two weeks ago) viable black skinned candidate for president.

Voting should be important, and it should carry consequences. The Dems have made their primary season a sham... but now leave their elite to face the task of making public choices on the most important election there is.

It's embarrassing that our second major party is built so much on cowardice and avoiding personal responsibility. I wish it weren't so, but it is, and now we get to wait and see just how much of Denver gets burned.

3/25/2008 12:40:00 PM  
Blogger PeterBoston said...

I did not keep the link but read recently that Obama's lead in the primary popular vote is not much less than, or different from, the number of Democrat primary voters in Cook County, Illinois.

I think people make way too much of the popular vote numbers in the Democrat primary. The superdelegates will decide the nomination - just as the Dems planned it way back when. Politics being politics the superdelegates will vote based on their own self interest, i.e. getting reelected to whatever office they hold. I'm not sure if I could accept that means voting for Obama in every or even in most cases. Obama has John Q Public enthralled but I don't see how that translates directly into influence within the machine. The average politician has to be much more concerned about currying the favor of the party bosses, who control the money, than a bunch of internet schmucks who send Obama $50 at a time.

3/25/2008 01:03:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

It's getting ugly. And yes, it's about identity politics.

One anonymous superdelegate is now comparing Hillary Clinton to Tonya Harding. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is denouncing Jeremiah Wright.

Hillary Clinton said the following.

He would not have been my pastor. You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.

Well, this is what happens when you get a Hollywood writer's strike during presidential primaries -- American politics the old fashioned way, up close and dirty. Except now, presidential politics is in direct competition against professional wrestling and reality television for its audience.

3/25/2008 01:52:00 PM  
Blogger Habu said...

Alexis,

I just read about the Tanya Harding Option ..."Hillary's gonna break his back(Barry H O'Bama, soon he'll be claiming Irish ancestry too)

Tmjutah is convince as are many others that this is over..well Yogi said it best,it ain't over til it's over. Hillary will use those FBI FILES to blackmail the superdelegates and she's got the Rev Wright option. Who knows what they will uncover in the next few months , but you can bet they're digg'n on the Barry's drug and perhaps dealing..the gloves are off. Hillary is not going to quit and Obama won't have a lock on it by the convention. It should be better than watching the Chinese beating Tibetans outside the Olympic arena.

3/25/2008 02:15:00 PM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

The problems with the Democratic Party is not identity politics, here I disagree with Wretchard. But rather the Party being oriented around exclusively rich white yuppies allied with Black Nationalists and various La Raza, other identity groups.

The Party is very clear internally, and when it's honest (gaffe being described as a pol telling the truth as he/she sees it) externally as well.

The Party hates hates hates middle and working class whites. It hates the military. It exalts the priesthoods of entertainment and media. It is about status and social standing of the thin, wealthy elite in the coastal cities. It stands for pacifism, post-nationalism, moral equivalency, multiculturalism, and political correctness. All of which appeal to the Party's capture by wealthy white yuppies.

The tragedy of the Democratic Party is that it morphed in the 19th Century from Jacksonian populism to elitism in the run-up to the Civil War. Copperhead opposition to Lincoln was elitist, and the same sort of anti-nationalist, anti-American stuff you see and hear now. Republicans though they had their corporate and baronial influences still retained some populism. William Jennings Bryan briefly injected some Jacksonian populism into the Democratic Party, but it did not last. No one could call either Woodrow Wilson, former Harvard President, nor aristo FDR populist.

While FDR practiced populist politics, his cabinet and the core of the Democratic Party were made up of aristos. Men like Ickes, etc. Republicans still had some populists around, like Wilke and Dewey.

The reaction of the Party elite and it's allies in Media and Entertainment to Truman, a populist, was telling. As was the selection of aristo Stevenson instead of a populist against populist hero Ike (closest approximation to Andrew Jackson in the 20th century).

From then on, the Democratic Party slowly slid into total control of the elitists. Aristos who's entire desire is to suppress the populists and nationalists who are their natural and eternal enemies in America since Andrew Jackson. While the Republican Party became more and more populist.

The passing of LBJ from the scene and the arrival of Nixon, odious as he was, on a wave of populism should have been a wakeup call. But elitism has it's own siren song. Since then, Republicans have had populists Reagan and Bush II, while Dems have had Carter (who quickly became elitist), and Clinton. [Ford being merely a caretaker and Bush I also.]

But more important is the Party structure. Howard Dean, Moveon, Code Pink, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, ANSWER, George Soros, are all elitists. Post-American, post-national, aristos in fact if not by long breeding. [Add Kerry, Kennedy, and the various dynasts hangers on.]

While the Republican Party has had it's problems with Dynasts, it's telling that GWB is a non-factor as is his family in the Party. Contrast to the Kennedys. Along with the problems of finding any Democrat with military service.

Sorry Wretchard. I would argue that the turmoil in the Democratic Party is not the result of Identity Politics. Rather it is the result of Elitist politics having to pose as faux-populism in a very populist nation, RESULTING in Identity Politics. The IP is merely a symptom of a greater disease. One which has plagued the US since Andrew Jackson faced off against John Quincy Adams in the "stolen election" decided by "the corrupt bargain."

3/25/2008 02:37:00 PM  
Blogger TmjUtah said...

habu -

I said it's OVER... but I didn't bet any money, did I?

Denver is going to make Chicago look like a Romper Room outtake reel.

Ever BlackBloc moron who ever stayed up late to write down his very own pet sabotage plan is going to head to Denver and find other like minded morons to make it happen.

There's only so much bad faith an organization can generate before it loses all control of its minions.

The Democrat Party of America. Slogan: "What F*cking Goal Posts?"

3/25/2008 02:56:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Tonya and Jeff's Wedding Night

Hey Triton!
(just a greeting, not an invitation to watch the flick)

3/25/2008 03:33:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Barack's Friend Ray answers my question in my first post
(Why would he remember, in word for word detail, a run of the mill conversation he had with a school chum when he was 17 years old?)

Turns out, he didn't have to:

He just made it up to sound good for...
guess who?
...just like when he threw Granny under the bus.

---
Back in Hawaii in the 1970s, it could seem that everyone was some kind of a minority. The fact that Obama was half-black and half-white didn’t matter much to anyone but Obama, Kakugawa says: “He made everything out like it was all racial.” On one occasion, Obama thought he’d gotten a bad break on the school basketball team because he was black. But Kakugawa recalls his father’s telling the teenager, “No, Barry, it’s not because you’re black. It’s because you missed two shots in a row.” (Here, Kakugawa’s memory is different from Obama’s. The Ray character in the book is the one obsessed with being discriminated against.)
I wouldn’t trust Kakugawa’s word because he’s an ex-con, but what he says is much more in line with what his non-jailbird classmates say than what Obama writes in his autobiography, so the evidence suggests that we should trust the low-life’s word over the Presidential candidate’s in this case.

There’s a reason Obama leaves Ray’s mixed heritage out of the book. In general, Hawaii’s high degree of racial mixing is an unwelcome complicating factor in the story Obama is conjuring up about himself as a black kid in a white world. It’s an easy story for most Americans to understand, but it doesn’t make much sense to Obama’s Hawaiian friends. Dreams from My Father tries to ignore just how common non-white and mixed race kids were in his privileged social circle at Punahou.

Obama Reporters Go Back To The Beach

3/25/2008 03:45:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Our son's roommate's mother is white, dad black.

Probably won't be writing a book anytime soon about when some Tongans beat him up.

He's got the common sense to know that's just what Tongans do!

...of course he most likely won't become a multi millionaire presidential candidate, anytime soon, either!

3/25/2008 03:51:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Need an Emetic?
Newsweak's here to help!

3/25/2008 04:05:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Winter Kills: Obama Exposed As Race Racketeer

3/25/2008 05:00:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

In Sunday's Chicago Tribune, Kirsten Scharnberg and Kim Barker report from Honolulu and Jakarta, where Obama spent his first 18 years:

"More than 40 interviews with former classmates, teachers, friends and neighbors in his childhood homes of Hawaii and Indonesia, as well as a review of public records, show … several of his oft-recited stories may not have happened in the way he has recounted them, sometimes making him look better in the retelling, and sometimes skipping over some of the most painful, private moments of his life."
[ The Not So Simple Story of Barack Obama's Youth , March 25, 2007]

Obama described Indonesia in the late 1960s as idyllic for a small mixed-race boy, while Hawaii in the 1970s was a nightmare of racism.

The Tribune reporters found the opposite was closer to the truth.

They interviewed Southeast Asians from his Jakarta neighborhoods:
"All say he was teased more than any other kid in the neighborhood--primarily because he was so different in appearance." He was frequently attacked by three Indonesian kids at once, and one time they threw him in a swamp. "Luckily he could swim."

Conversely, Obama's account of his supposedly oppressed and angry 5th-12th grade years (at Honolulu's most prestigious prep school) make Hawaii sound like Alabama in the 1950s—rather than a state where whites didn't hold any of the top three elective posts at the time.

However, the Tribune correspondents note,
"Much time is devoted in Obama's book to exploring his outsider status at Punahou. But any struggles he was experiencing were obscured by the fact that he had a racially diverse group of friends--many of whom often would crowd into his grandparents' apartment, near Punahou, after school let out."

Obama exploits his typical reader's ignorance of Hawaii's very different racial rules. For instance...

3/25/2008 05:09:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I particularly like how Obama rationalized his preppie drug use as "something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind . . ."

His classmates, in contrast, in these articles seemed to find his explanation puzzlingly gratuitous.

Many of them smoked dope on the beach, too, but they didn't need a racial identity crisis caused by the white power structure to justify their getting high.

It was, like, Hawaii in the 1970s, you know?
Maui Wowie, dude!

While Dreams from My Father may not be the most accurate of autobiographies ( Random House should have encouraged him to write an autobiographical novel, for which his talents are more suited), it should not be dismissed. Artistically, it is a minor masterpiece, although of a rather depressing sort.

3/25/2008 05:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Someone else sniffs just a bit of solipsistic self-obsession:

One reason few have finished Obama's autobiography, even though it has been on the bestseller list for over a year, is because of the stubborn relentlessness with which he refused to recount any incidents in his life just because they were entertaining or educational or edifying.

It's clearly not ghostwritten—any professional hack would have made it less forbiddingly literary, more reader-friendly.

The aesthetic (as opposed to factual) integrity of Dreams is extraordinary.
The discipline with which Obama stuck to his one and only theme—his racial identity, his "Story of Race and Inheritance"—for 442 pages is rare among autobiographies…fortunately for readers. Despite my professional interest in his topic, I had trouble finishing his book because it is so lacking in anecdotes.

In contrast, in the extremely unlikely event that I ever wrote my autobiography, I would make sure to put in, say, a funny story about the time I sat around in a bar drinking with Margaret Thatcher. I wouldn't include the anecdote because it was a crucial to understanding the development of my personality, but because any sane reader would be more interested in hearing about a historic figure like Mrs. Thatcher than about me.

But Obama's solipsistic self-obsession won't allow his readers the cheap thrills of his even trying to appeal to their interests rather than his own.

3/25/2008 05:31:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

3/25/2008 05:43:00 PM  
Blogger Pax Federatica said...

whiskey_199: Indeed, it occurs to me that the elites of which you speak not only don't care that they are running the Democratic Party into the ground, they may even be doing it on purpose. If they succeed, we would then have a political structure dominated by Republicans and conservatives (who, reality notwithstanding, are still synonymous as far as the Left is concerned), and a cultural structure (the media, academia, etc.) still dominated by the "bravely" defiant Left, who could then proceed to pursue their agenda using the methods they've always preferred, only this time more brazenly and without concern for electoral blowback. As a certain musician once wrote and sang back when he was still a champion of the Left, "When you ain't got nothin, you got nothin' to lose."

3/25/2008 05:58:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Maybe Hillary was Channeling Eleanor Roosevelt,
and just forgot it's not WWII anymore

3/25/2008 06:32:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Rush has multiple examples of Hillary on tape retelling the lie, and the lie about the lie!

3/25/2008 06:34:00 PM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

Quite likely Joshua. Bill Clinton today faced a lecture/question from an MTV Intern on Gay Marriage.

Clinton's answer was that it was politically impractical to push it as Obama does. He got a lecture on it. Very telling.

The breakdown you describe for Elites of course would have no more messy compromises of the Clinton nature. Pure elitism.

3/25/2008 08:02:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

3/25/2008 08:50:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Rush caller says Obama is considering pulling out all the stops to try to win in PA:

Thinking of taking rev Wright on his Bus Trip.

"The Hate Talk Express"

3/25/2008 08:52:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

joshua:

Of course the liberal elites want to run the Democratic Party into the ground on purpose. Here's why. They seek to monopolize control over the Democratic Party and thus monopolize dissent in America, all the while letting the Republican Party control the official organs of government. This way, when there is a crisis that causes anger against the people in power, the only alternative to the Republican Party is this very elitist group.

Let's not idealize the Jacksonians, though. They appealed to debtors who didn't want to pay off their loans. Andrew Jackson was also known to pardon known counterfeiters. The Jacksonians were practitioners of identity politics of the worst sort, and pioneered the practice of stirring resentments by immigrants against our political system, with the effect that many Irish neighborhoods are Democrat to this very day. Roger Taney and Andrew Johnson were staunch followers of Andrew Jackson, and their racism was no better than the filth spewed by Jeremiah Wright. And the Democratic Party’s proposed policies to bail out debtors now are reminiscent of Andrew Jackson’s sympathies for debtors 180 years ago.

The Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson and even the Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson were every bit as elitist as the modern day Democratic Party. Sure, Martin Van Buren (Jackson’s campaign manager) trumpeted the importance of the “common man”, but never forget this was a party of indebted slave owners and indebted northern industrialists that promoted race-based voting by the Irish (and later Poles and Serbs and Jews and blacks and Hispanics…) and Scots-Irish settlers of Appalachia. Indeed, Andrew Jackson could be seen as the first “ethnic” candidacy of someone not of English ancestry. (He was Scots-Irish.)

The Democratic Party was no more the party of the “common man” when it was the Party of Jackson than it is now. It has been said that tradition is the act of making the same mistake twice, the second time on purpose. As an act of tradition, the Democratic Party’s commemoration of “Jefferson-Jackson Day” mires it in repeating the contradictions of the past. Barack Obama may talk about bringing people together, but he will have a difficult time convincing members of the Five Civilized Tribes of this when he honors Andrew Jackson, a man they still see as a tyrant.

Through his embrace of Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama upholds some of the strongest traditions of the Democratic Party. (This statement is not intended as a compliment.)

3/25/2008 09:08:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Morton Klein - Obama’s Pastor: Product of privelege not poverty

Barry went to Punahoe, Wright went to an all white (largely Jewish) School!

3/25/2008 09:28:00 PM  
Blogger geoffb said...

Two things.

I believe that the Democrats have structured their party so that the greatest sociopath ends up having the most power. Ends justifying means and love of power for it's own sake will do that.

Everyone is concentrating on the Super-delegates and whether they could be "persuaded" by someone like Ickes. This leaves out the "pledged" delegates.

There is nothing binding them other than their word. A politicians word at that. Supposedly a candidate would have only their own supporters on their slate of delegates but that presupposes that the candidate has a national organization that has been around long enough to vet their supporters.

Hillary has had one. Obama doesn't. I would bet that there are Hillary plants in the Obama delegates and that others are in the process of being turned by money or other means.

3/25/2008 09:32:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

While Klein, a Jewish kid, grew up in a predominately Afro American section in West Philadelphia as a child, Pastor Wright, didn’t.

He grew up the son of a revered pastor and mother an educator in leafy predominately white Germantown.

What Klein and Wright did share was an educational experience at one of the nation’s elite public high schools, Central High in Philadelphia.

Klein’s piece puts the kibosh to Obama’s excuse for his pastor’s hate-filled anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and anti-Israel screed as a product of an impoverished ‘earlier generation’.

3/25/2008 09:34:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Barry lied about the Selma march being responsible for his immaculate conception, so what's so bad about Barry inventing Wright's upbringing in his prolific immagination, right?

3/25/2008 09:40:00 PM  
Blogger Elroy Jetson said...

I fear that one of the end results of this epic confrontation of identities is another round of mandatory "diversity" classes the left seems to love to torture us with.
You see, if you do not believe that America is ready for a woman president (Hillary!), then you are sexist and are in need of further training (brainwashing). If you do not believe America is ready for a black president (Obama), then you are a racist and you need even more training (brainwashing).
What a nightmare!

3/25/2008 10:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Take your medicine and be quite, elroy!
---
Meanwhile, Marty Peretz is still voting for the man that communes w/antisemites!
Go Figure!

3/25/2008 10:35:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

Barack Obama has received another endorsement. Will he have the nerve to distance himself from this one?

3/25/2008 10:51:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Alexis,
Don't bet on it!
---
rebml said:
Mr. Obama has deceitfully hidden his anti-Israel bias. Why else would he remain a member of a church that proudly published a propaganda laced screed in July, 2007, written by Hamas terror leader Mousa Abu Marzook? Why else would he hire Robert Malley, Arafat apologist, as a mideast advisor? Why else would he have hired Samantha Powers, who endorsed Walt and Mearsheimer's blame AIPAC slant on American foreign policy?

Why else would he have told anti-Israel Arab American activist Ali Abunimal, 'Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race.
I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.'
This account by Abunimah appears on the anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada.

Marty, you're sticking your head in the sand about this guy.

3/25/2008 11:31:00 PM  
Blogger Bob said...

I saw Hillary claiming on tv that she was right there at ground zero the very day after. When in fact she didn't visit the place until two or three weeks later, in the company of Shumar and a bunch of others. At the time of 9/11 I remember thinking why doesn't Hillary get her ass down there. Well, in her imagination, later, she did.

3/26/2008 12:06:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

It's the thought that counts.

3/26/2008 12:20:00 AM  
Blogger Pascal said...

I've a letter from her – well, sort of – addressing her sudden revelation: So, I'm Human.

3/26/2008 05:40:00 AM  
Blogger Habu said...

elroy jetson

No meds needs ..yet..you're right on the beam with defining the conundrum facing the electorate thanks to the Democratic Socialists kook attracting flypaper.

If we get a black President you can bet the Congressional Black Caucas will back him 100%. And that is a bit scary given that EVERY member of the CBC is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Just read their positions and follow their lineage.
Democratic Socialists

3/26/2008 06:28:00 AM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

It is highly interesting to note that the Democratic Socialists of America are able to accept Tax Deductible contributions...

"Tax deductible contributions are made to the Democratic Socialists of America Fund (DSA Fund) and support our educational work."

Jeez o Peez.

I remember as a kid hearing people use the phrase "One Worlder" to describe idiots who thought it was possible to have a Utopia on Earth simply by unifying the world under one government.

That was at a time when in the USA a person could get on a bus, a train, airplane, or personal car and travel from one end of the contiguous United States to the other, from Vermont to San Diego or Key West to Seattle, lingering in towns tiny and cities sprawling all along the way, without once having to pull out Identification papers or having to be searched as a matter of course.

Ooops. Forgot about the California FRUIT & VEGETABLE BORDER POLICE ("OUTTA THE CAR, ASSHOLE, PLACE ANY NON-CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS ON THE PAVEMENT, AND GET ON YOUR KNEES!")

3/26/2008 08:58:00 AM  
Blogger Bob said...

heh, I remember them veggie police too. Probably was harder to get into California than it is to come in from Mexico nowdays. Pray for the outbreak of some awful fruit disease in Mexico.

3/26/2008 10:57:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Bush will enforce NAFTA Rules requiring US growers to find genetic solutions to any new Mexican diseases shipped in.

He will cite the dissenting opinions from yesterday's Supreme Court Ruling on the International Court/Mexican Murderer V Texas Case.

By the time the grower's case reaches the Supremes, US Growers will be wiped out, and the Mexican growers will own the market.

The US Chamber of Commerce will honor Bush for preserving our honor in the World Community.

3/26/2008 12:49:00 PM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

What, Doug?

Are you feeling Morose over the direction of things.

Got to feel a little LESS ose.

(I'll say a little prayer for you.)

>;-b

3/26/2008 12:57:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

some awful fruit disease in Mexico symptomized by hombres sashaying down the Avenida?

3/26/2008 01:25:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

so, doug, you're saying you're not gonna vote for obama?

3/26/2008 01:31:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"So, I'm Human" sez Hillary Clinton.

"So, I'm a Skeleton" sez Vince Foster.

3/26/2008 01:35:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

That's masterful juxtaposing buddy. The heads of her supporters could spin off.

3/26/2008 02:13:00 PM  
Blogger Bob said...

OK, sap that I am, I do not think the Clinton's killed poor old Vinny Foster.

Buddy, lest we become Kos, give proof.

I hate the Clintons, but I don't think they did that.

If I was Vinny, I could well imagine shooting myself, for being such a sap. Then, it would be a manly thing to do.

3/26/2008 02:23:00 PM  
Blogger Pascal said...

The Clinton's needn't have, Bobal, to see cleverness in Buddy's comment.

3/26/2008 02:31:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Buddy,
Everything I've linked really boils down to
*GUILT BY ASSOCIATION*
about the man's personal faith and racial identity.

It will have no bearing whatsoever on my vote.

I simply disagree with some of his *POLICIES!*

3/26/2008 02:55:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

thanks, pascal -- doug, just kidding ya -- i was using 'litotes' for a laff -- bob, no, you're right, all i have is the usual googleful of troubled-investigators and things-that-looked-"off"; the usual half-dozen major points that we all have read and heard many times over. If it was a murder, it happened most likely along the lines of the Henry II vs Thomas Becket affair: Henry II had nothing to do with it -- but others nearby had so much invested in Henry that they could not tolerate the danger to their position that Becket had become.

3/26/2008 03:07:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

and re ...lest we become Kos --ouch--point taken.

3/26/2008 03:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

As long as you understand my opinions and voting decisions are clinically analytical, thoroughly PC tested as inoffensive, and not motivated in the least by passion of any kind.

I might add, there may be some of Obama's policies that I agree with in part, and it is a long time yet 'til the general election, so, as always, my mind is completely open.

3/26/2008 03:39:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

oh my yes, completely open, yes yes yes. And mine too! Policy just as they state it -- that's what i'll vote on.

3/26/2008 04:08:00 PM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

Pure as the driven snow, is we all.

No bigotry or pre-judging here; all viewpoints welcome, even the incomprehensible and idiotic.

Nobody posting a comment here need fear being made into little cans of commenter paste for dogs.

("Can you direct the hoses to that little pinkish stain in the corner, please?")

3/26/2008 06:02:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

You might even say, especially the incomprehensible and idiotic, as those are somehow more natural, more pure & virtuous.

3/26/2008 06:09:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Grynch said...

Here's a much better video from the folks at BarelyPolitical.com...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHVEDq6RVXc

3/26/2008 07:53:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Hey, Dude!
You're Lame!

Rice hits U.S. 'birth defect'
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding.

3/28/2008 12:45:00 AM  
Blogger geoffb said...

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding."

This is somewhat better than calling it our "original sin". Birth defects can be cured by humans but original sin requires the intervention of a Savior.

3/28/2008 08:24:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

well said, geoffb. I think she hits it just right -- the birth of a nation, with some of the folks enslaved inside the borders of it, is a birth defect. There ain't no way to equivocate it -- it's there.

Of course, slavery is as old as humanity, the practice was critical to building history's great empires, it was widespread over most of the globe in the 18th century, and USA did fight a war to end it in the USA (which cost was equal to, in today's population, 7,000,000 KIA), followed by several more wars in 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, to end it elsewhere.

3/28/2008 09:07:00 AM  

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