Sunday, June 08, 2008

Sent

University of Santa Clara Law School professor Steve Diamond asks, "who sent Barack Obama". He explains the context of the word "sent".

In Chicago politics a key question has always been, who "sent" you? The classic phrase is ... from an anecdote of Abner Mikva's, the former White House Counsel (Pres. Clinton) ... As a young student ... he walked into the local committeman's office ... and was immediately asked: "Who sent you?" Mikva replied, "nobody sent me." And the retort came back from the cigar chomping pol: "Well, we don't want nobody that nobody sent."

So it is reasonable to ask, who "sent" Barack Obama? In other words, how can his meteoric rise to political prominence be explained?

Diamond's answer is speculative, but informative because it provides a look back into the youthful life and times of the man who might be the next President of the United States.

The most recent effort was by Jonathan Kaufman in the Wall Street Journal who argued that a critical connection for Obama was his links to some in the wealthy and prominent Jewish community in Chicago. This article contains some important insights and is well worth reading. But, I think Kaufman gets it wrong.

So, who did “send” Obama? The key I think is his ties not to well connected uber lawyer Newton Minow, as Kaufman suggests, but more likely to the family of (in)famous former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers – not just Bill Ayers, but also Bill’s father Tom Ayers and his brother John as well. Obama was a community organizer from about 1985 to 1988, when he left Chicago for Harvard Law School.

He has much, much more at the link above. I am not persuaded that this was the prime Obama connection, though it convincingly demonstrates that Bill Ayers was not just a peripheral player in the Obama saga, but probably a very pivotal one. And if the Ayers connection was the start, over time there were others. Evelyn Pringle notes that in the Byzantine labyrinth of Chicago connections Obama's relations with Daley and Blagojevich were almost institutional. "Barack Obama has a long history of working with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and governors of Illinois, including the current Governor Rod Blagojevich, in doling government funding for housing development in Chicago. His history is hardly a model of success, except for the hundred of millions in profits made by the chosen few slumlords."

It is the prospect of learning about who sent whom that has journalists flocking to the Rezko trial looking for scoops. Douglas Ball of Toronto Life recently ran into the well known journalist James Bone in the first quarter of 2008. Bone was convinced he was onto something big.

I ran into James Bone outside Amy St. Eve’s overflow courtroom, who filled my head with his assessment that Rezko is some sort of international (Middle East) bagman who is a much more significant figure than Chicago or other media realize. And here I thought Rezko’s significance pretty much had to do with raising money for Obama, having dinner with Obama, and helping (a bit) when Obama bought his house.

Ball detected a political connection of a different sort. "James Bone, you might remember, is the famously dogged and ferocious reporter for the Murdoch-owned London Times assigned to the Conrad Black trial. Murdoch is a supporter of Hillary Clinton. Is it merely a coincidence that one of his reporters is now digging up dirt on an Obama pal caught up in corruption charges?" So the question in this case was also, who "sent" Bone. It is depressing to realize how vulnerable ordinary citizens are to the machinations of political cabals. Perhaps the only thing that representative Democracy has to recommend it is that it sets up a system of competition between rival groups of politicans. In that way rivals are always "sending" people against each other and with any luck, tie each other up enough for ordinary life to go on.




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86 Comments:

Blogger Teresita said...

So it is reasonable to ask, who "sent" Barack Obama? In other words, how can his meteoric rise to political prominence be explained?

Who sent Ronald Reagan? Jimmy Carter did, with his disastrous four years as President. Bush would have been an acceptable one-term president, just like his father. He had a good run with his response to 9-11, Afghanistan in 2001-2002, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and his brilliant re-election campaign in 2004. But in 2005 everything turned into crap, starting with the Golden Mosque bombing, the creation of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Katrina, Harriet Miers, Scooter Libby, ramping up government spending, accepting a nuclear North Korea, losing Congress to the Dems, on and on. So who sent Obama? Dubya sent Obama.

6/08/2008 06:18:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

I think the word "sent" here is used in the more limited sense of being recommended by a close acquaintance acquired without any apparent or visible means of introduction. For example, Tony Rezko created a company called Companion Security whose principles were a Chicago lawyer named Daniel Mahru and former Windy City cop Daniel Frawley. Companion entered into a shady contract with an Chicago-area Iraqi-American called Aiham Alsammarae, who was at one time the Iraqi Minister for Electricity and later became a fugitive for theft. (And is now apparently back in the good graces of everyone, his indictment having been quashed by the Iraqi Supreme Court).

Anyway, Rezko's creature, Companion Security had a $50 million contract to train Iraqi cops by flying them to Chicago for training. When the contract came under fire Companion appealed. To guess who? Barack Obama. John Batchelor recounts the events.

Mr. Rezko said, “…We protested the cancellation.” How did they protest? It appears that part of the protest was to send Mr. Frawley to Senator Obama in August 2006 to seek help reviving the deal.

Senator Obama declined to help, though not right away. According to Obama staff spokesman Tim LaBolt in mid 2007: "The Senate staff had two meetings, one conference call, and sporadically e-mailed with representatives of Companion Security about their request for Senator Obama to write a letter introducing the company to senior officials in the Iraqi government. That is not the kind of action Senator Obama usually takes for individual companies, and our staff concluded on that basis to decline the requested assistance."

Also, according to a report by the Chicago Sun Times, Mr. Frawley negotiated over a six-month period with Senator Obama's staffer Seamus Ahern at the Moline, Illinois office. The explanation at the time was that the senator regarded Companion Security as an employment opportunity for the troubled Quad Cities area around Moline.

It is confounding to the point of incredibility that the senator’s staff, in its routine due diligence with constituents seeking Mr. Obama’s assistance, was unable to discover that Mr. Frawley was in partnership with Mr. Rezko and Mr. Mahru. To believe that Mr. Obama’s office had no knowledge of the context of the Companion Security contract is to believe that no one asked for Mr. Frawley’s bona fides, no one contacted the Iraqi government about the bona fides, no one in Mr. Obama’s office thought to call the governor’s office to discover on what basis the Savanna training site had been offered.

And what did Mr. Ahern of Senator Obama’s Moline office talk to Mr. Frawley about over months? Was there a question as to how an ex-Chicago policeman who has no Arabic comes to represent an Illinois company with a $50 million CPA contract with Baghdad? Did they ever learn the contract was cancelled? Did they learn that the contract was to provide security for the Chamchamal plant? Did anyone look up the Chamchamal power plant reporting from the year before and see how Rezko’s Rezmar boasted to the Chicago press of the deal? What did Mr. Obama’s staff discuss in those “two staff meetings, one conference call,” and “e-mails?” And who were the Companion Security representatives, plural, who discussed apparently deceptive facts with the senator’s less than persnickety staff?


Barack Obama says of the now-convicted Tony Rezko, "this is not the Tony I used to know", there'a world of meaning between the lines. When Companion showed up at is door, Obama to his credit, declined to help. But you can't help thinking that Frawley was entertained for over seven months because he was "sent" by someone Obama didn't really know.

6/08/2008 06:47:00 PM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

Who sent Barack Obama?

Louis Farrakhan.

Why do you think Obama hooked up with Wright in the first place? Because Wright was hooked into Farrakhan. Why do you think Obama defended Wright for so long? Because Wright is connected to Farrakhan.

Who in turn is part of the Daley machine. And connected to various ME gangsters and terrorists.

Farrakhan delivers the Black Vote to Daley, in return for a cut on the money/graft and political protection from his rackets with various guys like Khadaffi and Iran.

6/08/2008 08:41:00 PM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

This is the same question that seems never to have been asked about William Jefferson Clinton, who may have been a Rhodes Scholar and a Graduate of Yale Law School, but has proven to be an utterly mediocre leader. Of course, his mediocrity has much to do with the problem that the affairs and needs of the nation he lead were irritating distractions from his central preoccupation with satisfying the needs of his penis.

I remember seeing a few minutes of the extended speech he gave at the 1988 Democratic Convention. I suspect that the primary reason that speech didn't torpedo his career is that most people had access to an off-switch. It would be interesting to determine the opinions of folks who actually were forced to sit through the thing.

Well, come to think of it, many other rotten leaders have suffered from the same sort of narcissistic self-obsession.

I have to assume there was a LOT going on in the third-world environment of Arkansas, which was chosen as the place for Bank of Commerce and Credit International to apply for a charter to begin operations in the United States. Because, oh, the banking regulations were laxer even than those of Luxembourg, The Cayman Islands, or Nigeria, and besides, the governor was not known to be a stickler in the matter of formalities. I found it highly interesting that the legal documents for BCCI and several of its associated companies were drafted by the Rose Law Firm, with the assistance of Webster Hubbell and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Y'all recall BCCI, doncha? Jimmy Carter's longtime friend and advisor (and director of the Office of Management and the Budget) Bert Lance was a central figure in bringing that institution into the U.S. BCCI has been linked to Pakistan's illegal efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, drug cartel money laundering, CIA secret accounts, and the plundering of a number of U.S. financial institutions over which it gained control. Lost some 20 billion dollars, and left a lot of folks poorer, but a select few much enriched.

So, there are lots and lots and lots of handsome, intelligent, guys. Buncha Rhodes Scholars every year. If being a Rhodes Scholar were the key to being selected for the Presidency, we could have fifty or sixty potential genius presidential candidates every damn year. So how the f**k did a nobody like William Jefferson Clinton get elevated to being a viable CANDIDATE? He was elected, of course, as a result of H. Ross Perot's third-party candidacy. That is, Clinton did NOT receive a majority of the popular vote, not by a long road.

Maybe four or five decades from now, when everyone who is getting rich from these shenanigans is mostly dead, we'll find out what was REALLY going on.

But I suspect the likelihood of knowing now is vanishingly small.

6/08/2008 08:59:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

The growth of the Obama-Rezko connection is described in Salon, which is hardly right-wing.

After law school, Obama went to work for the firm of Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland. During Rezko's stint in ghetto rehab, Davis Miner represented three community groups in partnership with Rezmar. Through them, the law firm helped Rezko obtain $43 million in government funds.

At last week's debate in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton stung Obama for "representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slum-landlord business in inner-city Chicago."

If Clinton was trying to stick Rezko on Obama, that was the wrong line of attack. At Davis Miner, Obama did a total of five hours of legal work for Rezko, under the supervision of more-experienced attorneys. Obama didn't really become tight with Rezko until he ran for the state Senate, in 1995. Rezko, who can spot a comer, was first in line with a check. The day the campaign started, Obama received $2,000 from two of Rezko's fast-food businesses. Eight years later, when Obama was campaigning for the U.S. Senate, Rezko hosted a fundraiser at his suburban mansion.


Apart from being a slum landlord, Rezko has also been accused of trying to take control of a $40B Illinois teacher's pension fund so that he could loot it.

The world of Chicago politics and international intrigue seems to loop around. Not only was Tony Rezko tight with former Saddam moneyman Nahdmi Auchi, guess who put up bail money for the pizza magnate? Aiham Alsammarae.

The Chicago Sun Times reports:

A former Iraqi official and ex-international fugitive helped spring Tony Rezko from jail earlier this month, putting up homes that comprise nearly one-third of the $8.5 million in property and cash securing Rezko's bail, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The three homes belonging to former Iraqi Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae — a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen who broke out of a Baghdad jail in 2006 — are part of a long list made public in Rezko's case Friday following a Sun-Times request.


"Sent" can be a very interesting word.

6/08/2008 09:45:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Agree with Whiskey -- Louis Farrikan and his Nation of Islam. Who "sent" Farrikan? Why, possibly Saudi Arabia and its program of world-wide donations.

The Saudi's have been trying to buy their very own nuclear bomb, they've been very very close to the last two Bush's, so why not just skip the middlemen (the voters of America) and buy themselves a President of the United States of America? And what's the fastest route -- and the most easily greased way of doing it -- than going through your fellow Muslims in America?

Because, according to the Koran, once you're born a Muslim with a Muslim father, then you *are* a Muslim unto death. With Nation of Islam bodyguards and all.

6/08/2008 10:34:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

But in 2005 everything turned into crap, starting with the Golden Mosque bombing, the creation of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Katrina, Harriet Miers, Scooter Libby, ramping up government spending, accepting a nuclear North Korea, losing Congress to the Dems, on and on.

/////
In 2005 bush also went over to the dark side on the NAU. He moved from a de facto to a dejure policy

In doing so he became a nobody sent by nobody. alas he reflects poorly on the rest of us poor schmoahs

that's what McCain is up against.

when the cyclops asked odysseus his name. what was odysseus's reply?
//////
So who sent Obama? Dubya sent Obama.///
agreed

6/08/2008 10:42:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Following the Rezko trial one is struck by how little difference there is between the Parties. The Democrat and Republican dealmakers seem to owe less allegiance to their parties than to the brotherhood of crime. Rezko's criminal associates were bipartisan; he tried to get Fitzgerald derailed by working through some Republican dealmaker to influence the White House, apparently unsuccessfully. But the fact that he tried means he believed he had a chance.

Rezko's world is one of concessions, elaborate scams, kickbacks and rackets where the principle utility of the law is create degrees of separation. "Ethical" standards are met if you can put enough legal cutouts between yourself and the deed. What distinguishes the "clean" politician from the "dirty" is a good lawyer.

Following the Rezko trial is a glimpse into a parallel universe which is more real than the carefully staged shows, choreographed events and high-flown rhetoric shown to the oohing and aahing public.

Racketeering policians, political preachers, scams which leave old people without heat; teachers without their life savings; which aim to loot war-torn countries. Ex-terrorists, Middle Eastern bagmen, "community organizers", billionaires, celebrities, lawyers. It's a surreal world or maybe the real one.

6/09/2008 12:10:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

to understand the dark side on bush and the nau its helpful to notice that the federales are losing the war against the narco trafficers. in respone the us government is proposing to send them 1.4 billion dollars. However, currently the mexicans won't have it because the us wants some abiblity to track performance of the money they send.

The plan, proposed in October by U.S. President George Bush, would give Mexico and other Latin American countries US$1.4 billion over several years to fight drug trafficking.

But Mexican lawmakers object to several conditions, including performance evaluations and guarantees that civilian investigators will be allowed to look into allegations of abuse by the Mexican military.

the mexicans contend that this is an infringement on their sovereignty.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/06/08/ap5093371.html?partner=moreover

6/09/2008 12:32:00 AM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

Mad Fiddler --

Bill Clinton was sent by the DLC, various Hollywood cronies from Arkansas, and Tyson Chicken. I would hardly call him Mr. Clean, but his backers were not at odds with ordinary Americans the way Farrakhan and likely as Nanhcee points out, Saudi Arabia.

Bill Clinton represented compromise and triangulation in the Democratic Party. It's why he is hated today by true believers. Yes he was the man who pretty much killed sexual harassment in America, and could not control his own sexual appetites, in pathetic fashion. He at least refrained from taking the economy, which is something other Dem Presidents like Carter could not stop from doing.

Clinton's biggest failure was that he knew that failing to kill bin Laden AND AQ when he had a chance meant disaster later on, but decided he would not pay the political price to do so. He was also ill-informed about the reality of military affairs, overestimating the ability of special forces and often contemptous of the military as a whole.

But, hardly the worst President.

6/09/2008 12:37:00 AM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

If the American right expects to help McCain beat Obama, they better get a less surreal narrative quick.

The idea that Obama is a double-double-double agent for communism, radical Islam and scarey Chicago activists is a little too obviously paranoid.

The only voters who would buy into any of that are people who would never under any circumstances vote for a liberal like Obama.

I received a chain e-mail recently extolling the many horrors of Obama. There was actually some pretty hard-hitting stuff in the list, but those were preceded by a dozen of the genre that Obama actually DID study at a madrassa and is actually an Arab and has actually plotted to overthrown the government.

Once you get past a few of those, how can you give any credibility whatsoever to the subsequent charges that, for example, Obama has exaggerated his achievements and shifted positions a bit on the war in Iraq--seemingly valid points.

Wretchard: you seem a little bit too smart to be slumming into conspiracy-theory territory. Maybe you shouldn't get caught up in the Obama obsession??

The thing is, swing voters -- the ones both sides have at stake -- aren't going to immediately embrace the Obama's a Muslim double-agent for communism stuff, though they may take it under advisement.

The trouble, for McCain supporters, is that when they hear him speak or when the visit his Web site, he says too many things that too directly contradict the allegations.


Much of the right blogosphere now seems to be focused tightly on the task of turning moderate conservatives into hard core conservatives -- hardly a formula for helping McCain, who has most moderate conservatives in his pocket.

6/09/2008 01:24:00 AM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

clarification:

The trouble, for McCain supporters, is that when they hear Obama speak or when they visit his Web site, he says too many things that too directly contradict the allegations.

6/09/2008 01:26:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

NAU Disco Dance

Variations on the theme

Bike Race

6/09/2008 04:13:00 AM  
Blogger watimebeing said...

Chicago activists are not scary, what they've done with the peoples money and trust is.

The narrative about Saddam's bag man's connection to Chicago and Obama are real. How loose or strong those connections are is yet to be uncovered. Resko's dealings and connections to Obama, like those of Wright and Aires, are too frequent and too pivotal to be ignored. Obama is too new on the landscape to have vetted him either through legislative history or any record of accomplishment that citizens can look to with certainty. All we know is that he has back petaled on two significant stories, well with the Jerusalem thing that makes four, if you also include the talking to our enemy stuff and the clinging to religion and guns story makes five and the..., well you get the picture.

'OH' is unknown, and the effort to control what we can know and what is and is not off limits to look at is troubling.

Their needs to be scrutiny and their needs to be an accounting made. The failure to air these connections and the failure to seriously look deeply into Obama's dealings with the political flotsam in Illinois is a legitimate concern.

He isn't running for dog catcher, ya know.

6/09/2008 05:10:00 AM  
Blogger 3Case said...

"Who sent you?"

Translation: How are you entitled?

Isn't that the way in a Soviet system?

I'm not so interested in his provenance as I've seen this script before (1976) and lived through what followed. Having done that, I really don't want to do it again...and that's without taking into account the sniveling and excuses afterward of all the Obamamaniacs...after Soros has made himself the World's richest man on our backs/suffering and the various machine pols have fatted themselves and their families further ("Who sent you?").

6/09/2008 05:16:00 AM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

The most obvious problem with the Obama conspiracy theories is that any man clever enough to be secretly "connected" to communism and radical Islam while serving nearly a decade as a state and national senator would have no desire to give the game away by becoming president.

But go ahead, keep chasing ghosts -- for Obama supporters it's the strongest evidence yet that his critics are out of ammunition.

6/09/2008 05:33:00 AM  
Blogger mouse said...

First job I ever got in my life I got just walking in right off the street.

"We don't got no openings," I was told. --This was not my inside information, I persisted.

"You could fill out an application," said the very busy fellow.

He looked at my name. "You know Teddy?"

"My dad," I said; "We might have an opening," he said. --I'd just scored after-school-hours janitor at the local print shop, best job I ever had in my life. This is what "Who sent you?" means: "Who's your Daddy?"; or in Barack's case: "Who's your agent?"

Recently, supposedly, Barack and Hillary had had a private, secret, one hour meeting behind closed doors, just the two of them. I read that and my antenna jumped. Supposedly, when they emerged from the room, "both were smiling". Do you truly think that there is any possibility that Barack could face Hillary alone in a room for one whole hour and still emerge with his manliness intact?

I don't believe the story for one minute, I think it's part of a script. I've never ever seen less in a man than I see in Barack. The question isn't: "Who sent Barack?" the question isn't even: Who is Barack? The question is: Who writes the script for the face? Who pulls the strings? Who might govern Washington?

6/09/2008 07:01:00 AM  
Blogger mercutio said...

A Messiah, by definition, can be sent only by the Lord.

But on the mundane political scene, who sends whom? On the local level--county, city, ward--the process can be pretty straight-forward. The local party leadership/machine vets the candidate. Most of the time the vetting process works. There's going to be an election. If the seat is secure, the powers can send anyone they want. State-wide races are more dicey, however, and national ones even more so.

Yes, let's consider who sent Obama. It's all of the power interests mentioned in the comments, above. But let's give credit to Obama, too. He is the great prince of the meme currents. Is he a Prince Hal (Shakespeare, Henry IV), who throws off the low-life hangers-on and ascends to the throne with justice for all? Perhaps, but is he also just a tool of the memes? I was going to write "slave to the memes," but the memes don't allow that, for good and bad.

People, including Obama don't escape from their own ideas very easily. Messiahs have a destiny to fulfill, voices to obey.

6/09/2008 07:07:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

JFK was, in part, sent by Sam Giancanna and the mob. After he was elected (with their help), he and his brother went after them in the Federal courts. Understandably annoyed there was discussion by Sam and his cohorts about whacking them in retaliation.

JFK ended up dead. RFK ended up dead. And we're still talking about grassy knolls.

At least Sam and his mob had American ethics and were willing to put themselves out for their country which they demonstrated by working with the government on various projects.

Which the Muslims will never, ever, either do or accept.

So yes, indeed. Who sent B Hussein? And his greedy wife.

6/09/2008 07:19:00 AM  
Blogger MachiasPrivateer said...

My suggestion is Richard M. Daley.

Note that the Clinton operatives have been trying to subvert the Daley Machine in order to build up support for Hillary. The allocation of patronage jobs to the Hispanic Democratic Organization has led to two things, an ongoing corruption investigation with convictions by Patrick Fitzgerald, the Hired Truck scandal, and reduced patronage for the pre-existing recpients (e.g the Irish, Poles etc.)

Faced with federal heat for a program likely to undermine his authority in the Machine, is it any wonder he would feel free to separate himself from the Clintonistas?

Note that Obama's political adviser is David Axelrod http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Axelrod_%28political_consultant%29 who started out with Daley.

6/09/2008 07:25:00 AM  
Blogger Cedarford said...

In that spirit, Andrew Ferguson wrote in the Weekly Standard talkimg about Obama's Hyde Park neighborhood,

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/197wxqsf.asp

*********************
The clout of Obama's Jewish billionaire sugar daddies should not be underestimated. They have control of about 1/3rd of the U of Chicago Board of Trustees through direct membership, proxies employed by them who work for the leading Jewish families, or other blacks they previously underwrote and advanced the careers of - like Valerie Jarrett. The President of the BOT is John S Crown, Co-Director is Valerie Jarrett. (Who is Michelle's old mentor and boss, senior campaign staff, and of course, one of the Obama's early door-openers to the Foundations, black part of the Daley Machine. In Chicago, careers interchange between law firms, the Daley machine, patronage jobs like Michelle Obama had, various NGOs, and U of Chicago and Northwestern.

The sugar daddies mostly sugar mommas, actually, of the Crown, Klutznik, and Pritzker Families also have big clout over the Merchantile Exchange, real estate projects the Daley machine approves, and the Daley Machine itself. Many of the leftist heirs and heiresses knew Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn personally from back in the 60s when they also attended U of Chicago and U of Chicago Law School with them and also were members of the SDS themselves (Marilyn Katz, Bettelu Klutznik Saltzman) with the couple before they went into the Weather Underground.

It IS valuable to note that it is exceptionally rare for a 1st year law student to intern at a top law firm. Those offers normally happen 2nd summer, and somebody with big strings got Obama into Sidey & Partners long before Harvard students and faculty advisors steered their vote to the black guy they liked as a compromise candidate over more brilliant aspirants.

Besides John Ayers possibly putting in a word for Barack with his long-time Sidey Associates (he evidently got Bernadette Dohrn a job there), all the Jewish billionaire Families through Obama's discovery as a Ivy background "community activist" by their SDS progeny were also in a position to influence Sidey & Partners because the Crowns, Pritzkers, and Klutzniks were all major clients of the firm.

(They were also all clients of David Axelrod, as were various Daley machine sorts, John Ayres, and "outside blacks" who Team Axelrod has worked with for 15 years after cutting their teeth on Mayor Washington to make them more charismatic and able to give "inspiring" speeches.)

There is also the possibility that some powerful people enamored of Barack paved the path for his Harvard Law School acceptance. (Exactly how Barack did at his transfer college and Columbia, his SATs and LSAT, is unknown - he will not release transcripts of test scores, grades, or what courses he took. We do know that Barack passed the Bar on his 1st try, as do most Harvard Law Grads. Michelle didn't. She apparantly failed 2 times in 1988, passed in 1989, then dropped her law license in 1993 when she took a "diversity enforcer job" with the Daley Machine working for Valerie Jarrett and never practiced law again.)

Did the rich Jews do it all? Unlikely. Same with John Ayers helping his radical son's wishes happen for Barack, "doing it all". His Nation of Islam, Jeremiah Wright ties? They didn't "do it all" either. Nor did Rezko, who appears to be a bagman for ME money disbursed in the Chicago area to politicians.

But all were powerful mentors and all did things to advance Obama even before Harvard Law School. Who did what, and when, is still being sorted out.

6/09/2008 07:46:00 AM  
Blogger David M said...

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 06/09/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

6/09/2008 10:47:00 AM  
Blogger mercutio said...

McDaddyo wrote:

"The most obvious problem with the Obama conspiracy theories is that any man clever enough to be secretly "connected" to communism and radical Islam while serving nearly a decade as a state and national senator would have no desire to give the game away by becoming president."

"But go ahead, keep chasing ghosts -- for Obama supporters it's the strongest evidence yet that his critics are out of ammunition."

Got to agree with that.

A party looks for a standard bearer, not a co-conspirator, except in the usual political sense of let's-devise-a-winning-strategy-and-use-every-ally-to-whomp-the-other-party."

If you want to see a parallel to Sen. Obama, refresh your memory regarding Sen. Wellstone at Wikipedia. Sen. Wellstone was as liberal-radical as they come. The party recognized talent and skill with language. The party endorsed him.

Who sent him? Every radical cause supported him. But he launched himself, by working the grass roots and inspiring young voters. I watched it up close.

He always remembered my name and my relatives. He respected and got perks for veterans. I disliked almost everything he supported, but I probably voted for him twice.

6/09/2008 11:38:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

What, exactly is McDaddyo's point?

That you can spend high school taking drugs and socializing with other druggies,
work your way up in politics on the south side,
exchange government grants with lifelong America hating terrorists,
(launching your political career w/them)
do personal business with big time crooks,
send your money to, and your kids to listen with you to racist, America hating Farrakhan following demagogues,
vote to the left of the one open socialist in the Senate,

...and then describe yourself as a moderate, unifying healer devoted to hope, and still be taken seriously by those that have their wits about them?
(all nonbelievers are "conspiracy theorizing deniers")

Conspiracy Alert:
Is it possible that some of those millions from "little people" that make their way to Barry every month in 20 dollar increments might be from the very billionaires and millionaires Barry has always courted, after being laundered in the same way that Hillary's money came by way of hundreds of impoverished Chinese donors?

No doubt the MSM is feverously that angle.

6/09/2008 12:37:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

(No doubt the MSM is feverously pursuing that angle.)

6/09/2008 12:41:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Impasse on Spying Could Lead to Tighter Rules

With Congress deadlocked over the government’s spy powers, more restrictive rules may return, leading some officials to worry about gaps in intelligence.

Government and congressional officials said in interviews that they saw it as a dangerous step backward. A return to the old rules, they said, would mean that numerous government lawyers, analysts, and linguists would once again have to prepare individual warrants, potentially thousands of them, for surveillance of terrorist targets overseas.

Telecommunications companies would also have to spend considerable time shutting down existing wiretaps, and then to start them up again if ordered under new warrants, officials said. In some instances, the broad orders given to the companies starting last August cover tens of thousands of overseas phone numbers and e-mail addresses at one time, people with knowledge of the orders said.

A senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration was concerned that reverting to the older standards and requiring individual warrants for each wiretap would create a severe gap in overseas intelligence by raising the bar for foreign surveillance collection.

6/09/2008 01:07:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

Much of the right blogosphere now seems to be focused tightly on the task of turning moderate conservatives into hard core conservatives -- hardly a formula for helping McCain, who has most moderate conservatives in his pocket.
//////////////
The US congress in going to swing heavily democratic no matter what happens. mccain has no coat tails.

I'm going to vote for McCain myself because he's better than nothing.

but its also the case that conservatives have to steel themselves for some seriously pitched battles with mccain on things like border issues and sovereignty. mccain is an internationalist. he will be no help. rather the reverse.

6/09/2008 01:11:00 PM  
Blogger Nichevo said...

C4,

Never minding your eternal fixation with the Jews - this is rather dishonest of you:

Blogger Cedarford said...

In that spirit, Andrew Ferguson wrote in the Weekly Standard talkimg about Obama's Hyde Park neighborhood,

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/197wxqsf.asp

*********************
The clout of Obama's Jewish billionaire sugar daddies should not be underestimated. [...]

Anyone would think you are quoting from the article, i.e. that Ferguson is rattling on about the Jews, not you. Just a little mendacious.

I would ask 'at long last have you no shame' but I scorn the obvious. If it were my blog I would make you eat it.

I mean, yack on as you like, but don't pretend that anybody at a major medium agrees with you. Ferguson would be within his rights to call upon you for an explanation.

And no, I have not read the rest of your post, I stopped right there. Having encountered one lie, why try for more?

6/09/2008 01:32:00 PM  
Blogger Benj said...

Who Sent Barack?

I wonder if Wretchard is aware that Abner Mikva probably has larger claim to being the One than any of the people he cites...Here's a passage from the Wiki entry on that score.

“[Mikva] is a long-time political supporter of Senator Barack Obama. A New York Times article (June 4, 2008 - Man in the News by Michael Powell) noted that Mikva offered Obama a law clerk position in his judicial office after Obama graduated from law school. Obama declined the offer in order to work as a community organizer in Chicago. Mikva became Obama's political advisor and suggested he learn more effective public speaking from observing preachers. The NY Times article quotes Mikva: "“He listened to patterns of speech, how to take people up the ladders. It’s almost a Baptist tradition to make someone faint, and, by God, he’s doing it now.”

I don't think Mikva is the Man - Don't think there really is One guy behind O. The truth is no-one sent Obama but himself. Though he had help along the way from dozens - hundreds! - of influential people. He was the one who decided to go get a job in Chi-town as an organizer after he graduated from college. It was a pretty ballsy choice for an Ivy Leaguer/New Yorker - and his entire political trajectory flows out of that decision. When the great SNCC organizer Bob Moses went South in 1961, he spoke about going "inside the iceberg." Well - chi-town wasn't so cold to Obama. And it wasn't nearly as dangerous as Ol Miss...But, it was a still an unobvious move - (Compare O's choice to McCain choosing to follow in the footsteps of his pop and grandfather despite his own misgivings about a naval career – no one would question M.’s physical courage, but O has a more original head ) - O has made some more conventional moves since but no-one he worked with back in that day seems to think he's sold-out. Those folks know him best. Might be wise to pay attention to their views if you’re truly trying to figure out where he’s coming from.. (PS Wretch - Have you read what they have to say about O or checked the guy's books yet? Seems weak to continue to sponsor mystery-mongering inside your club when the guy's history is pretty much an open book...)

The question you're asking is an ugly one - It reminds me of the approach of vulgar Marxists. And there's an Arab version too - "Min Warrah?" - "Who's behind him?" which was repeatedly offered up by Edward Said. He directed it, in particular, at Kanan Makiya whom he insisted must have some material motive for criticizing arab regimes and intellectuals (and making the case for the war in Iraq)...

It was a low, dishonest way of argufying against the War. It's a low dishonest way of argufying against OBama. Though - (pace Wade!) I wouldn't say in high dudgeon: "there's no place for that in this campaign" - because there's no need. Ya'll seem to be really reaching right now – As per Wretch (third time around) "When Companion showed up at is door, Obama to his credit, declined to help." That " to his credit" is beautiful - reminds of LBJ and the pig-fucker. You remember that? - When the campaign aide says to LBJ, you can't call your opponent a pig-fucker. LBJ says, "Let him deny it." So - though you give "credit" to Obama – you’re not actually giving him some, just tarring him for the umpteenth time...

Here's the left version of the material critique of Obama from the mid-90s. It locates the liberal Foundations as his Senders. (FYI the author is Adolph Reed - a black radical -whom Hitchens used to say was the smartest social critic in America ) Reed has deep Chicago connections and is a heavy critic of Jackson and Farrakhan. If there had been even a hint that O had been "sent" by either of them Reed would have been all over that...

"In Chicago, for instance, we've gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation-hatched black communitarian voices; one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable do-good credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program -- the point where identity politics converges with old-fashioned middle-class reform in favoring form over substance. I suspect that his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S.black politics, as in Haiti and wherever else the International Monetary Fund has sway. So far the black activist response hasn't been up to the challenge. We have to do better.²

Reed rejected Obama (then and now) because he believes (as I do) in class-based politics. But Reed's a pretty straight socialist - Obama's politics are too various, too liberal-minded, too willfully patriotic, too open to Capitalism w/ a human face...

Before Wretch started making common cause with Arab nationalists and Marxists, I think he was closer to the truth when he allowed O was a Black Swan. O is clearly an excecptional orator/politician/American.

Isn't it time to deal with it rather than pretending there's nothing new under the sun.

6/09/2008 01:48:00 PM  
Blogger M. Simon said...

The plan, proposed in October by U.S. President George Bush, would give Mexico and other Latin American countries US$1.4 billion over several years to fight drug trafficking.

The plan, proposed in October by U.S. President George Bush, would give Mexico and other Latin American countries US$1.4 billion over several years to SUPPORT drug trafficking.

Fixed.

6/09/2008 02:33:00 PM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

The Obama campaign has to be pleased with blogs like this in that they create bilious straw men the candidate can smite with a single smile.

More important, perhaps, the keep the attention always focused on Obama, never on McCain.

Inasmuch as the economy is in the toilet and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are unwon, all the math is pointing toward the Democrat winning.

It is clearly McCain who is swimming against the tide and if his ideological base has virtually nothing to say about him, it's a very good sign for Obama.

6/09/2008 02:37:00 PM  
Blogger M. Simon said...

Class based politics is a fools errand.

It never works because a new uber class always forms. The capitalist model at least forces the uber class to deliver the goods. No washing machine no money. The TV doesn't work? I want my money back.

All you get from class based politics is straight looting. Then with nothing left to loot you get stagnation. Your TV failed to function as promised? The Government is NOTtaking it back. Suckah.

6/09/2008 02:43:00 PM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

McDaddyo --

Surely you have not overlooked all the blogs on the Obama site filled with anti-semitism? Charles Johnson at LGF has toted them up, screen-capped them, they total at this point up to 100.

Or the Terrorist organizations blogging on Obama's site for him? Or Obama's "plans" hidden on his website as PDF to "prosecute American War Criminals" aka the Military?

Or Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Eminem not being scary and causing white voters to flee to safety to McCain?

Obama is the Black Candidate of Black Nationalism. That created the massive votes against him by blue collar whites in the end of the primaries when he'd already wrapped it up. They've already cast one vote against him and are in the habit.

McCain's task is to paint Obama for what he is: Black Nationalist who hates whites and Americans (easy, go to Rev. Wright), corrupt and unethical (easy, go to Tony Rezko and Chicago pols), in the pay of Farrakhan (easy, go to Wright and his connections to Farrakhan) and stupid/weak/anti-American on foreign policy (go to Obama's flip-flops each day: Iran is tiny and no menace, Iran is a menace; Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel, no it is not).

What is very dangerous for Obama are two things:

1. Detailed money trails to Saudis or Farrakhan or both. They reinforce he's for sale to the worst buyer and unpatriotic which his disdain for the Flag and Rev. Wright already set in people's minds.

2. Video of someone saying something anti-American/anti-White with Obama clapping along, or things in that vein.

6/09/2008 02:45:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

Inasmuch as the economy is in the toilet
///////////////////
the economy is not in the toilet.
///////////////
and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are unwon,

true but the aq is losing badly right now and the iranians are not happy campers. the war is going fast in favor of the USA.


all the math is pointing toward the Democrat winning.

right now the math is pointing to the dems crushing the pubbies in Congress.

It is clearly McCain who is swimming against the tide and if his ideological base has virtually nothing to say about him, it's a very good sign for Obama.
//////////
mcCain has no ideological base. he is generally conservative except when its important. then he's a media guy.

I think that McCain will win because obama is unelectable period

6/09/2008 02:54:00 PM  
Blogger M. Simon said...

Inasmuch as the economy is in the toilet and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are unwon, all the math is pointing toward the Democrat winning.

Obama has one little problem. He doesn't do unscripted.

He also has a little problem of saying things and then retracting them. Or his advisers say things and get thrown under the bus. Or he needs a tool and throws granny under the bus.

After a while people begin to notice.

A lot of Clintonites find McCain acceptable. Iraq is certainly a problem, but maybe the Democrats have misdiagnosed it. Maybe the problem was not the war, but that at one time there seemed to be no prospect to establish a self governing Iraq. With at least the prospect in hand Americans might be willing to see it through if the costs don't rise too much.

And the economy? Definitely on shaky ground. What does Obama promise? To raise taxes. I don't see how that helps.

6/09/2008 02:55:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

Blogger M. Simon said...

The plan, proposed in October by U.S. President George Bush, would give Mexico and other Latin American countries US$1.4 billion over several years to fight drug trafficking.

The plan, proposed in October by U.S. President George Bush, would give Mexico and other Latin American countries US$1.4 billion over several years to SUPPORT drug trafficking.

Fixed.
////////////////
well yes. if there is no oversight most of the mony will just disappear.

6/09/2008 02:59:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

whiskey_199 said...
McDaddyo --

"Surely you have not overlooked all the blogs on the Obama site filled with anti-semitism? Charles Johnson at LGF has toted them up, screen-capped them, they total at this point up to 100."
---
Charles and the boys in a race against time to maximise the screen caps as the churchgoers do an emergency virtual ethnic cleansing of the pages.

6/09/2008 03:58:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Detailed money trails to Saudis or Farrakhan or both.

If I was a candidate this is what I'd be doing fer shur. And we're not just talking George Soros. Be interesting if an ex-candidate didn't do this because she was receiving funding from the same sources and didn't want to turn over too many Carter-like rocks.

The lesson of Watergate is to follow the money if you want to know who did what to whom. We kept being told how much more B. Hussein was raising than Mz. Hillary but I don't recall ever reading where it was actually coming from.

6/09/2008 04:01:00 PM  
Blogger Teresita said...

Charles: I think that McCain will win because obama is unelectable period

I hope so, Charles, but Obama is recasting the Democratic Party as a national party, which means McCain better not settle for just the NASCAR dads.

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama’s general election plan calls for broadening the electoral map by challenging Senator John McCain in typically Republican states — from North Carolina to Missouri to Montana — as Mr. Obama seeks to take advantage of voter turnout operations built in nearly 50 states in the long Democratic nomination battle, aides said.

6/09/2008 05:53:00 PM  
Blogger watimebeing said...

"no-one he worked with back in that day seems to think he's sold-out..."...Might be wise to pay attention to their views."

I do not trust their view on economics or government, why other than as a point of reference should I pay attention to what they say about 'OH'.

Now the reference to Hitch I can appreciate, as the man is very black and white about what is there and is very objective about what is not. My appreciation of 'OH' is that of who he surrounds himself with, who he mentors under and what those actions say about his character. I really could careless about what folks say about him, as it take too much time and too much energy to figure out why people hold certain opinions.

There is a lot of fluff being tossed up, and a lot of misdirection and quite honestly every time 'OH' tries to make light or unimportant the nature of his connection with this or that source of tarnishment, the next three steps are taken either to clarify or excuse, the first step. It is becoming ritual.

To the Reverend Wright..."'OH' supporters ask, Is that all you got? As if the twenty years contradictions were not enough (he went there to learn how to talk, you know not to learn what to say!).
And the English professor Ayers, how many boards, how many meetings, how many friendly passings by getting the paper in the morning and taking out the garbage? Only they didn't take out the real trash now did they?
Let me call you sweet heart, 'OH' turned down one job, only to pick up another with a firm that dealt with the first as a client. Damn! That is courageous, and such a bogus stroke of change. The audacity here is the attempt to sell this collection of connecting sewage pipes as 'OH' floating above it all. Quite a story, bonus points if you can tell it with a straight face. I am used to folks calling me a true believer, and an optimist, but the show in support of 'OH' is truly beyond anything I ever imagined possible, or plausible. Heck he isn't close yet to having religious authority but already he is being canonized on the left.

Give me a break!

6/09/2008 05:59:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Obama is a consumate politician and adept at putting together coalitions. His associates run the gamut from the Pritzkers, to the Ayers to the Rezkos and the Johnsons, to the Wrights. And beyond the first circle, there are more.

But the key to holding a coalition together is the Prize. All coalitions are held together by the prospect of a shared benefit. Obama is promising the antiwar, subprime, pro-Israel and anti-Israel crowd their every wish come true. But my prediciton is that when the time comes to divvy up the spoils, the only clear winner will be Barack Obama -- if he manages to pull it off.

Can he pull it off?

Just recently I had a conversation with a man I learned had made a stock market killing long ago shorting securities that would fall with Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Gough Whitlam was the Australian equivalent of Trudeau and Kennedy and is venerated by the left. At the time when the entire press could not conceive of Whitlam's fall, he saw (because he consciously decided to ignore the papers) that purely on the face of things, Whitlam's catastrophic administration could only end in it's fall.

After Whitlam fell, a noted constitutionalist demonstrated that Whitlam had to fall. But relatively few people realized this obvious fact because the conventional wisdom was that Gough Whitlam was a great guy who couldn't lose office. And by going against the hypnotized crowds he made money on the market. This was to him, an eye-opening demonstration of what Naseem Taleb would later advise in his book, the Black Swan. If you want to predict events, concentrate on the relevant facts. Ignore the newspapers -- they mislead each other because they read each other.

It's easy to forget that only a few months ago, we were assured of two things. Hillary would be the Democratic nominee and Iraq was lost. If you only read the "big" pundits you conclude no other. Neither came true. Hillary Clinton herself was misled by reading the papers. She didn't see Obama coming.

Today, we are told by the same people who got it so wrong with Hillary and Iraq that Obama is the One. That may or may not be the case. But the belief in one or the other should be based on more than the prevailing mood in the press. Ultimately reality wins, no matter what the press does. They can distort and delay, but they cannot truly alter the nature of events.

I think the facts in this case show a relatively weak Republican candidate versus a very articulate Democrat who also has a huge inventory of liabilities. It is so huge that it actually gets in its own way because it boggles the mind. Given that McCain and Obama's styles are fixed quantities, I think the deciding factor will be how much of Obama's liability inventory oozes to the surface.

6/09/2008 06:21:00 PM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

``This was to him, an eye-opening demonstration of what Naseem Taleb would later advise in his book, the Black Swan. If you want to predict events, concentrate on the relevant facts. Ignore the newspapers -- they mislead each other because they read each other.''

Taleb's book is about UNPREDICTABLE events.

His whole point is that the accurate measurement of risk requires accounting for the event that cannot be predicted.

His previous book, which has much overlap with the Black Swan thesis, is called "Fooled by Randomness'' which gets to his main point, which is that our brains aren't programmed well to deal with randomness, so we seek narrative explanations that require bending the data.

He does, of course, have nothing but scorn for journalists and journalism because they try to explain things and insist on making causal links in too many cases without qualification.

The conspiracy theories about who "sent" Obama are the quintessence of what Taleb lambastes -- the tendency to seek data that suits the explanation, rather than explanations that fit the data.

6/09/2008 06:42:00 PM  
Blogger peterike said...

Obama is not a "communist" for the simple reason that there are no "Communists" any more. This was one of the great victories of the Left when they steamrolled the nation into thinking McCarthy was a crazy man. These days, "Communists" are creatures of legend, like unicorns, who never really existed and if they did they weren't all that bad anyway. Like the Devil, the Communists greatest trick has been making you think they don't exist.

But they do. They just call them "Progressives" now. So of course Blarney isn't going around talking about Marx and spouting death to the owners of capital. Oh they're quite a bit more sophisticated about it these days, dontcha know. But the end game is pretty much the same.

As for Blarney's "connections," hmmm, lemme see. There's Frank Marshall Davis, an early Blarney mentor and a Communist of the old school. Alice Palmer, who presided over Blarney's "coming out" party, naming him her successor. Said party taking place -- shocking coincidence! -- at the Ayers/Dohrn residence. Ms. Palmer was herself a long time official of the U.S. Peace Council, and if the name doesn't give it away that's what we used to call a "Communist front group," but now we just call a Progressive Organization.

Then there's "former" advisor Robert Malley who is a director of a far Left Soros-funded org, the International Crisis Group.

And that time in 1998 when Obama spoke at the memorial service for Communist Saul Mendelson. And, in general, how Blarney has constantly floated in and out of the far Left circles of various members of Democratic Socialists of America and the numerous other hydra-heads constantly springing from such groups. Indeed, the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed his first run for state senate. And I suppose the fact that dozens and dozens of far-Left "progressives" are supporting him, well, that's just because they like "visionary" mainstream liberals.

You know if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, etc. etc.

Were a Republican candidate similarly saddled with endless dozens of, say, white supremacist friends, he would last all of five seconds. But it's ok to be a Communist, because there are no Communists.

Anyway, to end with some humor, this video's for Benj who, it occurs to me, likes to refer to Blarney as "O" because it's so evocative of the Big O that he gets every time he looks at the guy.

http://townhall.com/video/HamNation/1450_06052008

6/09/2008 06:42:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

But I don't think the real Obama liabilities are going to directly arise from the Rezko case. I agree with Rick Moran in thinking that the Rezko torpedo may finish Blag but pass Obama by.

It's possible that a separate investigation from Operation Board Games may lead to Obama. Apparently an FBI informant observed BHO coming in and out of Tony Rezko's on a daily basis during certain periods. If there's another branch to that investigative tree that makes BHO or someone close to him the focus, then that could lead to something. That's an "if". However the Rezko branch is probably not going to be it.

But Fitzgerald is certainly one of the few people in the country who knows, today, what the real picture is. And he is in a position to materially manage the shape of that exposition. With all this stuff still out of sight the rational man, even though he may still expect Obama to win, is facing a large variability in his expectation. Who'll be the next President of the United States? It depends.

6/09/2008 06:48:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

The real indicator that there might be a problem is the monotonic nature of the stuff that seeps through the cracks in the campaign's mask. Powers, Malley, Ayers, Wright, Rezko and now all this anti-semitic stuff that was on Obama's website all leak in the same direction. Each time it is shut down with a denial. This is not the Tony, Jeremiah, or website I used to know. Let's move on.

Some people will argue that this seepage isn't an indicator of the candidate himself as the people or crowd behind him. They'll gladly concede that Barack has some strange admirers, but that's only because he's so "inclusive".

6/09/2008 07:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Byron York pointed out that Barry kept getting a higher percentage of the black vote after Bubba's tasteless comments in North Carolina.

...opined that if Barry gets 98% instead of the usual 92%, that might make the difference in some states.

6/09/2008 07:53:00 PM  
Blogger Chris said...

Fascinating backstories abound here. Not a frequent commenter but a regular lurker. Wretchard said something regarding Fitzgerald that set off the proverbial lightbulb. It may not matter who "sent" BO, so much as who will control him. Could that end up being Fitz? He has all the dirt, knows where the bodies (metaphorical and otherwise) are buried and also knows his way around DC.

I'd say he could have any job he wanted in an O administration.

6/09/2008 07:59:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

His behavior in the Libby trial certainly did not inspire confidence.

6/09/2008 08:22:00 PM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

It may not matter who "sent" BO, so much as who will control him.

Ding, ding, ding, ding! Bingo - give that man a cigar!

The one thing we do NOT want in a President is someone who is "bought" going into the White House. Someone who answers to something other than to the American electorate.

All evidence is pointing to the increasingly clearer picture of BHO being a bought person. A slave, even.

Either Obama himself is an anti-Semite, or whoever is funding him has made it very clear that his top priority should be to throw Israel under the bus. Now, gee -- what group of people in the world think like that?

6/09/2008 09:40:00 PM  
Blogger Fred said...

I think an Obama presidency will be a real setback for black Americans, because the smart money says it's going to be Jimmy Carter Act II - and Act II is gonna be much worse than Act I.

If black Americans vote for Obama in lockstep, how are they going to recover from the inevitable disaster to follow from that poor choice? It will, unfortunately, damage their credibility as a voting block for many years to come.

If I were black I would NOT be voting for Obama. But, then again I'm not liberal/Left, which pretty much takes care of that. And furthermore, can anyone say with a straight face that 98% of black Americans are liberal/Left? C'mon, that just cannot be. I don't vote for old white guys just because I'm white. That's just retarded reasoning.

6/09/2008 10:00:00 PM  
Blogger Benj said...

Wretch said: "I think the facts in this case show a relatively weak Republican candidate versus a very articulate Democrat who also has a huge inventory of liabilities."

That's not a bad summary of where we're at in the horserace. The "liabilities" amount to the connections Obama has made over the years as he pursued his political career and thought through how to revive the liberal imagination. He wasn't going to do that sticking w/ triangulators (like the Clintons) - He had to engage the radicals who had the memories-of-Movement Days and find a way to bring what was all-the-live in their sense of history and dreams of solidarity back to the heart of American discourse. O's moral and intellectual trajectory may make it impossible for him to win. Though, as I say, he 's already won from my pov because he's showing (again and again) that political "issues" are, ultimately, moral matters and that the middle class ideal of the Individual is not unalterably opposed to Community.

Someone like Cory Booker - Mayor of Newark, big Obama backer w/ none of the Old/New left baggage (hell he's the Manhattan Institute's homeboy )- might be the one who can ride Obama's love train to the White House down the line. But Obama seems to be earning the role of sublater-in-chief. Whatever happens in this election, I think he'll be a man who helps young Americans make up their minds for years to come...

Mcddadiyo is absolutely right re Black Swan vs. conspiratorialism. I'm big on double truths but I really don't think Wretch can have this one both ways...You either acknowledge O's Black Swan qualities (and read him w/ the respect due to anyone w/ an exceptional imagination). Or you stay in the gutter with conspiracy-mongers, LBJ, vulgar Marxists, and Ed Said - Min Warrah?

- Who's behind Wretch? - Never asked myself that when I came upon The Belmont Club - Is that because I'm a hopeless innocent or because I figure anyone can read what Wretch writes and make up their own mind whether he's making sense (and/or adding something to the national conversation...)

Glad Wretch allows O is "very articulate" though maybe that's meant to be a dis - Kinda like that line re OBama deserving "credit" that he dropped on us earlier in this thread? Or is this a half-acknowledgement that Obama might have actually said something somewhere that was worthy of a thought or two? If that's so, why not stop looking for subtext? (After all that's what second-rate students of cultural studies do.) Why not just take O straight. In my experience American life seems a little less daunting when you assume your fellow citizens aren't playing you. Why don't we all buy out of the life of O'Reilly AND Olberman right NOW..

BTW - Occurs to me that "very articulate" might be a flip code-word intended to diminish O ("very articulate" for a black person?). ORdinarily I'd figure it was just a neutral phrase (if slightly tin-eared) w/o any extra valence - But after Wretch's outrageous suggestion that the dems' battles were like the ones between Hamas and Fatah (You notice Ax throwing anyone off a roof lately - and don't give me "under a bus" because even that stupid phrase is a metaphor...) Maybe you'll agree it's not good for America when commentators start going for overkill - It's wack when folks can't distinguish between fellow citizens and America's deepest enemies. Worse that wack - it's a betrayal actually. That fatah/Hamas comparison reminds me of the sort of specious "arguments" made by Bush-baiting academic leftists. I know Wretch doesn't mean to trash America but...

Which brings me to people here posting re ugly anti-American stuff on Obama's website. Anyone here worry re the crazy racist/anti-semitic stuff that gets posted here on the regular? I'm not a censorious sort - ranters don't bother me - but I was struck by Wretch's recent chilvarous defense of Nanhnee - in part because so much other mad stuff has gone by w/o comment. Hope to hell W.'s choice to line up against Ash was unrelated to the fact that the man had just blown up the most recent anti-Obama talking point re the AIPAC speech...

6/09/2008 10:11:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

hope so, Charles, but Obama is recasting the Democratic Party as a national party, which means McCain better not settle for just the NASCAR dads.

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama’s general election plan calls for broadening the electoral map by challenging Senator John McCain in typically Republican states — from North Carolina to Missouri to Montana — as
///////////
Look at those states mentioned. Obama black majorities will move from 92 to 98 percent.

but anything gains obama gets from blacks in missouri and north carolina will be buried by white democrats voting for McCain. I would be very surprised if Montana voted for some big city chicago black guy. Might happen. but more likely the hatred for bush would translate into third party votes or no shows.

I'm hearing the press trying to elevate obama to kennedy but the far more likely scenario is mcgovern.

6/09/2008 10:26:00 PM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

Is Pajamas Media leading a campaign of hate against Muslims or merely documenting it?

6/09/2008 10:31:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

I can see from Daddyooh and Benj now that my posts and comments are hitting the mark. Great. He's vulnerable.

6/09/2008 11:20:00 PM  
Blogger Cedarford said...

Nichevo - Sorry, but your 9/6/08 post at 1:32 PM railing against me for mentioning the billionaire Jewish families that have patronized Obama and his wife since the early 90s is an exercise in your personal stupidity.

Wretchard mentioned that the story on the Pritzkers, Crowns, Klutznik clan, etc. was laid out by Jonathan Kaufman of the WSJ. Not Andrew Ferguson, who, as I wrote in my descriptor before the link, had an article describing the nature of Obama's unique Hyde Park neighborhood.

By the early 90s, Barack was flitting off with the Crowns to the Aspen Institute, and with the Pitzkers to intros of their latest black protege to Hollywood and Chicago's most elite. Michelle Obama felt secure enough in their patronage and the patronage of the Daley Machine (via another Jewish billionaire black protege Valerie Jarrett, and two other wealthy Jews with high places and influence Downtown - Bettelu Klutznik Saltzman and Marilyn Katz) that she gave up her law degree back in 1993.
The influential Jews on the U of Chicago BOT, plus Jarrett - who they slotted there as vice-chair to John S Crown's chairmanship got Obama his "senior lecturer" spot while he was still in his 30s, and put Michelle into an executive slot with few responsibilities and a queen's pay.

Marilyn Katz and Saltzman were former SDS members who helped in the Obama intro into the radical chic world of Bill Ayres, before he was grooved into Harvard Law and Sidey & Associates, (which also turned into his intro to Team Axelrod and uber lawyer/Jewish leader Newton Minow )- which did regular business with Bill Ayres powerful father, Chicagos richest Jews, and Sidey.

The same two radical ladies were the ones that asked Obama to give an antiwar speech in 2002 he has made much political capital on.

Another powerful Jewish mentor of Obama was longtime radical Jewish activist Jane Schakowsky.

As I said in my original piece, the Jews are just part of the puzzle of "Who Sent Obama". There are many circles Obama cultivated or was cultivated by, and in the "Chicago Way", they all interlock.The Byzantine labyrinth of Chicago Indeed!

Jeremiah Wright and Nation of Islam do favors for the Daley Machine and Jewish business interests and U of Chicago and in turn get patronage funds from all of them. Their "black folks leadership" clout and the Jewish billionaire's clout also means that media has been nice to Black Messiah for most of his careeer.
Bagman Rezko and his ME money is partnered with NOI members as well as Obama, and spread around Daley machine and State politicians.

It is a Gordian Knot. It will be a long time unravelling -but we know a few things from what is known already:

1. The leading Chicago Jewish families are pro-Israel, but Leftist progressives. They have been buttering Obama and Michelle's bread since the early 90s. It is all but impossible that they would do so if Obama was a "secret Muslim with anti-Israel intents".

2. Obama is awfully good at networking. many of his most powerful patrons were cultivated by him, and he by them, before his Golden Ascension to "1st Black Editor of the Harvard Law Review" - and I wouldn't rule out his editorship and his initial selection to Harvard Law being helped by his patrons.

3. All the circles Obama has tapped to advance himself and Michelle have been well to the Left of mainstream, and well-immersed in "Chicago-style" way of doing things. Which belies Obama's claim that he is a "new type of pragmatic politician".

4. As Benj suggested, add another circle for Avner Mikva and other uber, masters of the universe lawyers, mostly Jewish, who have joined Chicagos richest Jewish families in backing the man. Davis Miner, Sherry Lansing, Sanford Grossman, Newton Minow, his daughter and Obama Harvard Law prof and Advisor Martha Minow - who all spotted the prize black early...

6/10/2008 04:03:00 AM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

You don't get to be a presidential candidate without a vast network of influential supporters.

In that regard, Obama seems little different than any of the others.

If we compare him to Bush, we can say that Obama is infinitely more resourceful in cultivating a network, but that's mostly just because he had too, where as Bush Jr. didn't.

I really don't see the point of suggesting that somehow Obama didn't earn his law degree, clerkships, etc. The man is obviously brilliant--just listen to him speak or read his books. Clearly a cut above the typical candidate. That, in itself, doesn't mean he'll make a great president, but it does put the lie to the ludicrous suggestion that someone "sent" him.

6/10/2008 05:58:00 AM  
Blogger peterike said...

You don't get to be a presidential candidate without a vast network of influential supporters.

In that regard, Obama seems little different than any of the others.


Wow, that is some wicked moral equivalence there! Of course you don't get to the Presidential candidate level without big backers. But there's quite a difference if your backing is, say, a bunch of oilmen or a bunch of Socialists and Communist front groups. I suspect that difference is wasted on most Obambam supporters.

The man is obviously brilliant--just listen to him speak or read his books.

Please. I've listened to him, and I've heard nothing even remotely brilliant. Vacuous hot air is not "brilliant." Obambam is an intellectual mediocrity (published articles while president of Harvard Law Review? None!) who gives a good (prepared) speech. Claiming that makes him "brilliant" is like saying an actor is brilliant because he did a great job in a movie. There is very little difference between the two.

6/10/2008 06:17:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Whooo-hooo! Go, Wretchard, go!

The convoluted reasoning and thoughtful(less) paranoia is indeed a sight to behold for rational human beings.

BTW, McDaddyo dragging in Muslims from left field again. Means he's got nothing left to say substantive on the thread topic (or anything else) and is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

6/10/2008 06:21:00 AM  
Blogger mercutio said...

Mcdaddy-o wrote:

"The man is obviously brilliant--just listen to him speak or read his books."

I'm reading "Dreams." It ain't brilliant. I've listened to him speak. He's formulaic. You can fill in the ending of every written and spoken sentence.

It's best for people not to believe their own b.s., or that of their leader.

6/10/2008 06:21:00 AM  
Blogger Fred said...

C4,

Have you ever stopped to think that your caterwauling about Jews is getting old? Most of these Jews you like to rope in to your conspiratorial swamp are no longer Jews, as in "practicing their faith." I've got news for you: here in America we should no longer define ourselves by our ethnic roots. Being an American is a POLITICAL IDENTITY, since the essence of our country is a document proclaiming the natural rights of humanity.

Judaism, in America, is a religion. That is how it should be seen. Now, if a Jew no longer believes in Yahweh, does not attend synagogue on the Sabbath, and observes nothing - not even the watered-down reformed branch - he or she is no longer a Jew. If their allegiance is to some version of Marxism - then they are Marxists, not Jews.

Get it?

6/10/2008 07:23:00 AM  
Blogger Fred said...

Demosthenes with the pebbles in his mouth had more substance to his speeches than That Golden Mouth Shape Shifter from Chicago.

6/10/2008 07:37:00 AM  
Blogger Benj said...

Wretch said - "I can see from Daddyooh and Benj now that my posts and comments are hitting the mark. Great. He's vulnerable."

It's rarely winning to boast about the effectivenss of your argufying. Kinda like trumpeting the size of your prick. Generally a sign there's not much there there...So what's going on here - Wretch's daddy calls him on the way his conspiratorialism traduces the Black Swan thesis - Wretch's reply? - No reply...I suggest Wretch's equation of hamas/fatah with the factions in the democratic party lacks, ah, proportion. - Does Wretch rethink - Nah - No backsies EVER!...Wretch invokes Abner Mikva's line to define/critique Machine sensibilities that (supposedly) shaped Obama - Turns out Mikva is an Obama mentor from way back (who ain't bought out yet). Any second thoughts from Wretch about whether it's still entirely apt to see Obama as the echt Machine candidate? No way - Wretch is always 100% right ...I note a certain connection between the question asked by Wretch -"Who Sent OBama?" and the Arab Nationalist Ed Said's favorite query "Who's Behind him?" - Is Wretch embarrassed to be on the same page with the bad Said - Nope, everything's "Great." Nothing but blues skies - why?

"He's vulnerable."

Well Wretch - the point of OBama's politics is that we're ALL vulnerable. You and Me and every American. And he's not afraid to feel his way toward common ground with those who don't share all of our political views. As long as they're NOT out for blood. You might say that daring to be vulnerable is the essence of his politics - I'm reminded that Wade once mused here about conservatives seeming "heartless." - He was right to worry...Though of course emotion shouldn't trump mind in a demos. Doubt Obama should scare anyone there - He's got soul but he's cool, calm, collected...

Quickie to Mark re "Brilliant "- I think Daddy is basically right re the obviousness of Obama's intellectual gifts - But I think O is better than "brilliant" ("achingly good" was the phrase the NR's Rich Lowry used to describe "Dreams" - that'll do though it's a little over-the-top.) There's a lot smart folks in this world. (Invulnerable Wretch is one of em.) O's no dummy but I think he recognizes the need for a kind of liberal-mindedness that's better than clever...

6/10/2008 08:16:00 AM  
Blogger watimebeing said...

This is fast becoming a Sam Cooke revival...

From "You send me"

to "A change is gonna come."

To "Working on a chain gang"

I, ah, couldn't resist.:)

You are right Benj, we've been down this road before, with you claiming the path means one thing and me suspicious that the path meant another. But the history is so scant, of actual works and production of workable policy, and the trail is long of sketchy association and so full of criminal connection that folks would have to think me bereft of all common sense to believe in such a miracle. Especially without positive tangible proof.

Well 'OH' has two strikes against him coming into this picture. First, his brand of politics is further to the left, and unashamedly so, of Eugen McCarthy, and second his position within the State of Illinois during the reign of Governor Balagovich.

It is all "a riddle"

6/10/2008 01:48:00 PM  
Blogger Fred said...

One final comment on the phenomenon of Jew-hatred here on FF, and what I've observed on other weblogs. Scapegoating is now clinically recognized as one of the important features of personality disorder. Please read M. Scott Peck's book, "People of the Lie." Scapegoating is a manifestation of an evil personality and evil itself is a manifestation of hatred of God.

Jew-hatred is scapegoating.

Therefore, an important reason for the existence of Jew-hatred is hatred of God.

6/10/2008 01:52:00 PM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

When I say Obama's "brilliant" I don't mean in the way Einstein was or Bill Gates is.

I mean that, among presidential candidates, he stands out as exceptionally articulate and knowledgable.

The right-wing meme that Obama's somehow an intellectual underachiever is perhaps the most ludicrous of a series of charges that have no link to reality.

And it's nice to see Fred thinks it's bad to hate Jews. Perhaps he's on the way to realizing it's also bad to hate Muslims.

6/10/2008 02:42:00 PM  
Blogger Fred said...

FYI, "mcdaddyo" I never said I hated Muslims. I certainly do hate Islam, and I do hate Allah, who was Muhammad's sock puppet deity.

We have a traditional way of looking at things in Christianity: hate the sin, not the sinner.

6/10/2008 03:31:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Reclaiming Virginity Through an Operation

An increasing number of Muslim women in Europe are having surgery to create the illusion of virginity.

6/10/2008 03:54:00 PM  
Blogger Cedarford said...

Frd - Judaism, in America, is a religion. That is how it should be seen. Now, if a Jew no longer believes in Yahweh, does not attend synagogue on the Sabbath, and observes nothing - not even the watered-down reformed branch - he or she is no longer a Jew. If their allegiance is to some version of Marxism - then they are Marxists, not Jews.
Get it?


That is a rather spectacular display of ignorance, Fred. In most cultures they were in, in present-day Israel, Jews defined themselves as a race, and an ethnicity. Zionism and the right of return were framed as a racial matter 1st, with religion a secondary agenda. 1/3rd of Israelis are atheists or very, very lose Reformists.

Religion has nothing to do with Jews being at the forefront of radical politics and change since 1854, and everything to do with Jews sense of persecution and desire to transmute any society they reside into one more to their liking. And bypassing Democracy and working behind the scenes or through courts is faster.
Nor does religion have anything to do with high Jewish achievement. Atheist Jews in the Soviet Union are high performers as a rule. Ethiopian Jews are very religious and total dunces.

Fred - Scapegoating is a manifestation of an evil personality and evil itself is a manifestation of hatred of God.
Jew-hatred is scapegoating.
Therefore, an important reason for the existence of Jew-hatred is hatred of God.


That is an impressive piece of psychobabble horseshit some neocon shoved down your eagerly gulping throat.

Do you know how silly that sounds?

Devout Catholics threw out Jews for collaborating with the Muslim invaders when they recaptured territory. Not because "Catholics hated God".

Russian Orthodox today hate what the Jews in E Europe and Russia did in liquidating over half the priesthood and layman and dynamiting 70% of their churches. Not because they "Hate God".

Devout Muslims hate Zionism. They do not hate their own God.

In the West, devout Christians are wary of Jews for their lead role in Communism, for heavy involvement in violent revolutions, and for pushing a range of radical Left agenda items through the industries, institutions Jews heavily influence or outright control.

Money is power. Something bin Laden, back when he was worth 200 million, would have been the 1st to say then. It is invaluable in pusuing radical politics, establishing behind the scenes organizations and networked individuals committed to radical change of the mostly oblivious masses and their culture and faith.

6/10/2008 03:58:00 PM  
Blogger Fred said...

"Devout Muslims hate Zionism. They do not hate their own God."

"Allah" is not the same as the Christian or Jewish God. "Allah" is Muhammad's sock puppet deity. A complete fabrication of a man with profound narcissistic personality disorder, who believed his own lies and rationalizations.

See Ali Sina's "Muhammad: A Psychobiography." A very penetrating analysis of the genesis of Islam. Muhammad made it all up to suit his ambitions and hatreds.

I still stand by the psychology of scapegoating as sound, as applied to a theological analysis of the hatred of Jews. You need psychological help, but you are not likely to be the kind of person to seek it.

6/10/2008 04:28:00 PM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

Fred: You did say: ``My wife hates Muslims.'' And proceeded to explain that you think she's justified.

Aren't Christians also supposed to withhold judgment?
``Judge not, lest ye be judged.''

I would think that prohibition would be especially clear and compelling when it comes to fellow religions.

6/10/2008 04:30:00 PM  
Blogger Fred said...

mcdaddyo,

If you were a woman you too would hate Islam (unless you were, like Khadijja)a co-dependent one. No, I don't blame my wife for hating Muslims. If some rich Arab guy, who considers you a whore, tried to date rape you, you would hate them. But, I hate Islam.

Islam is not a religion. It is a cult and an ideology of conquest and domination. Again, let me state that "Allah" was Muhammad's sock puppet deity. Muhammad made "Allah" sanction whatever he happened to need at that moment. If an Iranian like Ali Sina can undergo training to be a Muslim cleric, undergoing many years of study and training, and come away convinced of these things about Muhammad and Islam, and can defend those views eloquently, I hardly think that you can bring anything convincing to the table. But, if you want to keep on believing that Islam is a religion worthy of respect, that's your business, not mine. I'm not going to convince you otherwise and you are never going to change my mind. Mexican standoff, we call it.

6/10/2008 04:45:00 PM  
Blogger peterike said...

You don't have to look very hard to figure out that Islam, as a "religion," is half-baked nonsense. Here's the secret key: it's the only religion the hard Left has no problem with. Why? Because like their Progressive religion, Islam is about control. It surely isn't about God.

6/10/2008 05:20:00 PM  
Blogger Gary Rosen said...

"C4,

Have you ever stopped to think"

Fat chance. Not a shred of evidence in anything he's ever posted.

Fred, you are of course right that what C-fudd has is a personality disorder. Antisemitism isn't about Jews, it's about antisemites. They are nitwits, misfucks and losers who don't have the guts to own up to their own shortcomings and failures so they harbor a burning, all-consuming resentment against those more successful than them. Jews have been quite successful over the centuries in many ways yet are always a vulnerable minority so they are the perfect target for these slugs. Once I pointed out the rather obvious and mundane fact that Jews have survived for several millenia, and Fudd went into a hysterical, sweaty, screaming sissy fit.

Another example of his self-absorbed idiocy are his attempts to deflect the overwhelming fact of his antisemitic obsession. For instance, in this thread he says "Did the rich Jews do it all? Unlikely." as if that would make it less obvious rather than more that he has a one-track mind. In a similar vein, after being derided for irrelevant off-topic rants about "Jewish ACLU lawyers" he started posting about "Jewish and Gentile ACLU lawyers". He's so evenhanded!

C-fudd has never, not once, engaged in any honest or thoughtful exchange with anyone here or on any other website, which is why he has been barred from many. His mind-numbingly long, turgid posts are desigined only to conceal the pathetic little dingleberries of Jew-hatred he is compelled to grunt out so painfully. It is pointless to engage him with reason, which is why I am happy to provide the contempt and derision he so richly deserves.

6/10/2008 09:58:00 PM  
Blogger Nichevo said...

"Cedarford said...

Nichevo - Sorry, but your 9/6/08 post at 1:32 PM railing against me for mentioning the billionaire Jewish families that have patronized Obama and his wife since the early 90s is an exercise in your personal stupidity."

How would you know? You obviously didn't read it, or failing that, understand it. If you had, you would have explained how the layout of your rant was not deceptive in implying quotation of Ferguson. Because you would have understood that I was accusing you of a literary crime, not a political one.

Happy to say I not only managed to avoid reading your original post but also the evident drivel in your followup. As you always have the same things to say I feel it is a significant productivity achievement to avoid reading you at all.

I don't deny that you ever write anything interesting; if I chance to skim a piece of yours and it never uses the word "Jew," it has a chance of showing some original thought. I occasionally post supportively at these times, but then you might find it patronizing.

Not that I mind your usual blathering - it warns others, and if it helps get it out of your system, it might be good for you - like Shrek says, better out than in.

But it is certainly not useful for anyone to read. After all, anyone who would be interested (or credulous) almost surely believes as you believe already.

6/10/2008 10:45:00 PM  
Blogger Gary Rosen said...

"I don't deny that you ever write anything interesting; if I chance to skim a piece of yours and it never uses the word "Jew," it has a chance of showing some original thought."

Baloney. In between the Jew-baiting, C-fudd provides only Buchananite boilerplate lipsticked up with logorrheic pomposity and turgidity. What you're saying, I think, is that occasionally you agree with the douchebag. Hell, *I* even agree with him occasionally. But I'm sure any of us could wade through "Mein Kampf" or "Das Kapital" and find isolated assertions we agree with had we the time and stomach. Pay no mind.

6/10/2008 11:18:00 PM  
Blogger Gary Rosen said...

Of course the Jew-baiting itself is the quintessential example of "Buchananite boilerplate", so it is all of a piece ...

6/10/2008 11:24:00 PM  
Blogger McDaddyo said...

Fred: you sound confused.

You say that good Christians don't hate Muslims, but that all women, except the "co-dependents'' should hate Muslims.

Are you saying women can't be good Christians?

The source of your confusion is surely your insistence on ignoring the distinction between individual and group behavior.

If a Christian woman tried to date rape me, I would never even consider blaming her religion.

Yet you present it as somehow axiomatic that because an Arab tried to date rape your wife, all women should hate Muslims in general.

Maybe you should try to help your wife find a more rational, if not Christian, way to deal with that episode.

6/11/2008 02:27:00 AM  
Blogger Benj said...

Wade - no prob with your healthy skepticism. Good to have you there in my head as a counter to my own beamish side...While I think it's flat-out silly to be worried re O's fantasised Arab connection, I'm not real happy re his ease that Fannie Mae fixer who's vetting his VPs...Course I wouldn't have been thrilled to deal with Ax either - one (of many) reasons why I'm a (happily) marginal man and O is mainlining? On your end, though, isn't it time to direct some of your skepticism toward Wretch (and fellow Clubbers who keep pushing his memes on Obama). Forget me and my crit of Wretch's (wannabe)aristo invulnerablity. But do focus on the desperate nature of his effort to deny the possiblity of a moral force coming from the left. I'm not going to go back over all the recent history here - but Wretch's reliance on the stew cooked up by Ms. Pringle is symptomatic. As his fans wonder at Wretch's capacity to dig up info on Chi-town while being back in Sidney, Wretch chooses not to mention that the reporter he's relying on has a history of the most boring/vulgar kind of Bush-Bashing...Or that a year ago that same reporter was upholding John Murtha as a exemplary congressman. (Do you knowMurtha's record re earmarks? ) Pringle is the sort of journo that Wretch would normally regard w/ absolute contempt. But when she sets out to muck up Obama s'all good...

I think you invoked the phrase "due diligence". Doubt it's Sam-I-Am time on that front, Wade. More "Nobody Hurts You Harder Than Yourself" - Wretch has added a lot to our poltiical discourse when it comes to Iraq. But I think he's polluting it now...

PS re our past discussion about the provenance of the Surge. There was a good piece by Fred K. celebrating McCain and beating up on Obama on that front. In the course of the piece he mentioned how Obama had leaned on the stated opinions of Abizaid and Casey (back in 2006) to justify his failure to support the Surge. The references reminded me there were very real disagreements about tbe way forward within the Admin and DOD and the military throughout 2006. Probably wrong to underestimate the degree to which the Surge amounted to a break with previous policy...

6/11/2008 08:55:00 AM  
Blogger Fred said...

"Maybe you should try to help your wife find a more rational, if not Christian, way to deal with that episode."

"mcdaddyo" - Both my wife and I know that an Arab will not try to rape a Muslim/Arab woman. It is halal, forbidden, under Islamic Law (Sharia). But, it is permissible to rape a kafir woman, and do with her whatever one wills.

You expect us to regard that sort of thing with a cool rationality? What in God's name is wrong with you? In our code of law and in our religious traditions it is not permissible to rape or fornicate with ANY woman. Their religion or culture does not matter.

As Bill Warner has written on numerous occasions, Islam is a dualistic cult, with a dualistic outlook, and a dualistic morality. It knows NOTHING of the Golden Rule.

Christianity is a superior religion, based, first of all, on a Creator who respects the laws of nature and ethics given. Not a capricious brute like Muhammad's sock puppet, "Allah." "Allah" is Satan, pure and simple. Dress it up however you like. If I've offended your religion, I rightly don't give a s**t. The world would be a much better place without Islam in it. One of the greatest tragedies of human history was the birth of this Satanic cult.

6/11/2008 11:53:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Fred, I'm sort of wondering if McD knows what a sock puppet is, and all its connotations. You've used the term several times to describe the Allah / Mohammad dynamic, but does he understand what you mean when you call it that? That you are, in effect, calling Allah a figment of Mo's fevered and thuggish imagination.

No burning bushes, no miracles, no water to wine, no fishes and loaves ... none of those good things are attributable to Allah. Just a whole lot of "thou shalt's" because I say so, and beheading / smiting / conquering -- which any barbarian worth his salt could also present as his credentials.

6/11/2008 01:13:00 PM  
Blogger watimebeing said...

I do find a lot to be concern with, re "OH"'s chosen associations. Here is a very simple why. The type of operative who would work as Resko has worked, is very careful in who he associates with. Very diligent in who he offers deals to, very selective on who he cultivates.

Beside being an up and coming star, Something about "OH" told Resko that "OH" was a politician with whom he could make a deal. The house and other more direct connections were part of schemes to buy influence and the buyers were no slouchers. This rings more than mere jingle bells and more like full volume alarms and warnings of twisters spinning my way in such a way that I really find it difficult to defend not digging deeper and cannot believe the ChiTrib let "OH" off so easy.

The lady used publicly available sources, (most of it MSM) so I know a lot of her stuff invokes a well deserved yawn and a hardy "so-o-o-o?". There are parts that are worthy of further investigative efforts. If the DA isn't checking it out, some ace reporter ought to be digging like there is a Pulitzer hanging on every line.

Meanwhile old habits die hard, and "OH" tendency to select embarrassments is telling about him and taking a toll on trust.

The club is what it is, with a variety of opinion, insights, and perspectives. I find I learn by reading the opinions here. I even learn by arguing sometimes.

Re Iraq, I think knowing what needs to be done is different that being able to state it. Reading of Sherman and Grant's actions in the west, reinforces that sentiment. After working in Mosul I think Petraeus learned what was needed, and had the intellect and courage to be able to state it in a way that made sense. Rumsfeld's, history, even back to Vietnam, has always seemed to me, to be one of seeking the general or the operative who could put those ideas into words and make the ideas work. I think that is what was found in General Petraeus. Casey didn't get it, Shinsecky(sp) didn't believe in it and neither did those others, whose assessments lacked the elements of understanding necessary for counterinsurgency. Baker and crew also demonstrated a clear lack of grasp of Coin, which may have been a bit shallow on their part, I don't know.

In fact most of the Democrat opposition to the surge, by asserting that there is no military solution, demonstrates the same lack of understanding at best, while at worst would deny any effort at a successful resolution because it does not fit their political pattern, or philosophical bent.

I am waxing windy hear I fear.
Mea Culpa.

6/11/2008 07:52:00 PM  
Blogger El Rider said...

There are no coincidences in Chicago politics. The corrupt Daley machine sent Barack Obama, it's the Chicago Way.

6/12/2008 11:02:00 AM  
Blogger Benj said...

Wade - I hear you re the Dem's failings on Iraq. For what it's worth, I remember watching (and being mildly impressed) when O questioned Khalizad back in 06. As you’ll recall, the Admin’s hope then was that, with the formation of a new gov, the sectarian violence would come down - Remember Together Forward! But there was no indication at that point - and I recall O pressing K. gently on this score - the Admin had any plan in place to damp down the violence if Iraq's gov couldn't get it done...No-one in the Admin was saying check the update of the COIN manual - that's where we're headed...Wasn't the mantra Stay the Course - we're handing over respon to the IA and we'll be Out Someday? As the months passed, that approach did not inspire confidence in anyone and I think that's why the Admin got its head handed to it in the Fall election. (Pubs were right to say that Dems were wrong when they asserted the election confirmed Americans wanted to quit on Iraq ASAP - But there was NO question that things must change - In retro, I'll bet Bush's record on the War will look better to Americans than it does now, but he's not going to be entirely vindicated (and I doubt Rummy's rep will evolve much) since he was essentially forced by domestic events to do the Surge...PS I'm stuck on that pro-war Brit Journo's line back around 2004 - "So far everyone has been proven to be wrong about something." He didn't know how prescient he'd be...

My sense is that one problem with the pro-warrior's take on recent Iraq history is a bias toward American Authority - (Just as there's a bias on the anti-War side against the Hegemon.) "Whatever Is Is Right" - I think that's Hegel - and it's horseshit. But I'm almost tempted to go there right now myself. A Belmont Clubber recently noted he wasn't all that worried about O because Bush has done the "heavy lifting" in the GWOT. I think there's a lot of truth in that - seems to me pretty obvious O is poised to take advantage of what's been accomplished already rather than reverse it. And, I think you might even allow he brings very tangible things to the international table that put him in a position to amplify the American case for Western values. Not least his own face (as per Sullivan) and the fact that he's a better argufier (certainly than Bush) for the virtues of liberal-mindedness /tolerance/Free inquiry/minority rights etc. (Isn't it likely that confronted with something like the Danish Cartoons thingy, O's public statements would beat the hell out of Bush's?)

It's (sorry) crazy to imagine this guy's the Arab’s Mole - or a comsymp - or any kind of dogmatist. He's got about 800 pages on the record proving he's pretty open-minded even if he comes at the world from the left. While you harp on his lack of achievements, I'm less inclined to diminish his words. I'd be with you if O was a JFK and Arthur Schlesinger wrote his books or a Johnny Mac who requires a team of 3 to put together his (not bad) best-sellers. But O writes em on his own. He's got an interesting mind AND he's a good organizer - a RARE (Black Swan's) mix. Nope, he ain’t running for dog-catcher, but, isn’t he proving to be more qualified for the bully pulpit than just about anyone in American public life?

PS know you were joshing but your little mea culapae reminds me (on mo time) re Wretch's chief failing lately - that oracular voice dealio means he can't admit when his steers have taken readers over the bridge. Pringle is the prize there. But there's a been more than few moments lately when an honest head would've walked back - recall the Steyn/Hewitt episode traducing O.s' memoir...But no mea culapes have been forthcoming. I'd be a little more impressed with Wretch's (less than profound) meditations on the nature of evil, if he allowed that he himself had just made a mistake or two or three!

6/12/2008 11:42:00 AM  
Blogger Gary Rosen said...

"isn’t he proving to be more qualified for the bully pulpit than just about anyone in American public life?"

Only if your idea of the "bully pulpit" involves telling people just what they want to hear, all the time, even when it contradicts what you told someone else yesterday.

6/12/2008 10:33:00 PM  
Blogger Captain USpace said...

.
There is some group of Evangelicals who think God sent America Obama as punishment. An Obama presidency is America's punishment.

Posters about him reflect this puppy dogs, doves and rainbows feeling.

If Obama can stay pretty clean, do some good things as Senator, and then become Governor of IL, he could be unstoppable in 2012 or 2016.

I would dearly love to see a Jewish, African-American woman as POTUS. It's not race or gender that makes it for me though. It's political beliefs that matter, and socialism is bad for everybody, (accept those high in government or high-level academia) especially poor people, of all races. Obama is a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist, no thanks.

His 'Change', 'Hope' and 'Progress' mantras are actually somewhat self-mocking. Making your own Obama posters is totally addicting.
I laughed so hard I almost had a breakdown. LOL!

:)
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
befriend a bomber

pushing for change at all costs
sacrifices must be made

.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
only feel and hope

please force people to change
change can only be good

.
All real freedom starts with freedom of speech. If there is no freedom of speech, then there can be no real freedom.
.
Make Some Obama Posters NOW!
.
Appeasement Talk Bothers Appeasers
.
Help Halt Terrorism Now!
.
USpace

:)
.

6/13/2008 12:03:00 AM  
Blogger Fat Man said...

"That “Guy Who Lives in My Neighborhood”: Behind the Ayers-Obama Relationship" by Steve Diamond at Global Labor and the Global Economy on June 18, 2008 h/t powerline

6/22/2008 03:03:00 PM  

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