"I don't trust him," is something people say to hide their racism.

This describes someone..... but I don't think it is Obama.

Mensa. What an exercise in self-aggrandizement. (How's that for a dumb redneck from the red clay mountain region of Virginia? 14 letters; 4 syllables.)

once you said that, the rest of your post became meaningless. if you have no evidence that he is in fact a racist, presumably you mean against white people, then you have no bias but your own to base the comment on.

on the other hand, i have no proof that he isn't. because you can't prove a negative, right?

but, what i do think is that because obama is of mixed race, he has the unique view of the bi-racial person to know what it's like from both sides.

i cannot think of a better way for america to come to terms with it's past and current diversified people than to have a bi-racial person be the first president that's not a white dude.

I have it on good authority (from a captain in the NYPD)
that dishonest men are ofen very stupid too.

He referred to the robbery of a neighborhood bar wherein the dishonest man
and his nearby address were well known to everyone in the area.
He limped in behind a hip high aluminum walker and robbed the place,
apparently in the belief that the walker woud conceal his identity.
It did not work. When police arrived, the victims said something like:
"ol LeRoy, who live on the corner over the candy store with his mama,
Ida Mae, come in here with a walker and robbed the place."





David

Nope, it doesn't make you a racist in my eyes at all. In my original post, I made sure to qualify it with "many times." I don't assume anything. I am just going by what I've seen from people I know. There are many reasons a person might not trust him, of course. But in this thread, I'm talking about a certain subtle racism that I think exists, and this is definitely one of those phrases that raises my eyebrows, especially when it comes with no real explanation of why.

Almost sorry you said that. I was getting ready to come back with the supposition that every Black person who votes Obama is doing it solely on basis of race, and all the affluent whites who say (wink) they are voting for him are making very sure we know they are not racist.

I'll save it for later.

Interesting. You'd vote for two war criminals but not for Obama.

Not all bigotry is "racism". Maybe the problem is not that he is part African-American.

There is a very strong anti-Muslim bigotry that is now at as powerful and sinister as racism or Antisemitism has ever been.

Bigotry is not always rational... which is why it is frustrating that the insinuations are so affective in spite of the fact they are untrue.

Tho I 'd vote for Condi, and like it,
I 'd really HATE to vote for Powell; granted that he is not as far left
as Oboy, but still, that 'd be gross




David

I can t imagine Y anyone in America woud be anti-Moslem,
like we did not see them (who had taken foreign aid from us)
jumping for joy on 9/11; that 's OK, right ?

Barack Obama the Angry Black Man.

Maybe we should just be gratefully surprised that that's one iconic cultural stereotype that hasn't in fact really come up or gone much anywhere in these elections. (Aside from the more specific Radical Black Militant/Muslim meme, I mean).

It probably helped that Barack, in all his equanimous, "steady eddy" self-control is about as far removed from the typical image of the angry black man as any national African-American politician. He's just really hard to peg as one, for most people.

Hi JTT. Mensa makes no restrictions re: writing ability, emotional maturity, spelling ability, willingness to compromise, etc.

The only thing we have in common is the ability to achieve a high score on a certain kind of test.

And that's all you can count on for some of us. Most Mensa members, thankfully, do have some of the abilities and qualities I mention above, along with a wealth of others. Most of us are pretty nice folks!

I don't think Obama is the one with issues, here.

Phoenix said

He is an associate of Obama. They have met on numerous occasions, often alone. Who is Powell, really? Do we know him, really? Powell praised the Million Man March (though covering his ass by saying he deplored the racist and anti-Semitic" stuff). Powell said it was just grand to get so many "black men together", revealing his own racist attitudes. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E0D91039F934A25753C1A963958260

I dont trust Obama because he is a politician. Race has nothing to do with weather I trust him or any politician. I feel the same way about lawyers who usually become politicians. But I will vote for him because he is the best of the ones who it makes sense too vote for.

I've never quite understood this notion. Would you rather choose from the membership role of the National Veternarian's Association? Have all America's plumbers draw straws? I suppose I'm not as cynical as you. But as you add, you do make a choice between, as the cliche goes, lesser evils. I've no problem with that - I could be married to Barbara Bush.

Kicky

I think the matter is more complicated than that. For sure, the "don't trust him" is a constant theme that has been pushed (even in the primaries) against Obama. I'm sure for a number of Americans, Obama's race is a significant component in their adoption of this silliness but I'm certain the same notion would have been forwarded even if he were not African American.

Oppositional strategy will center around two aspects - the opponent's perceived weaknesses and his strengths. So if I were setting up such a strategy against Obama, I'd focus on his relatively short time in the Senate and I'd try to figure some way to make his unsual charisma/charm/eloquence suspect. Both of those would head right into "do we know enough about him yet?" and "history suggests we ought to be very careful of excessively charming individuals". Thus, "empty suit", "who has he been chumming around with before he came on the scene yesterday at 3 PM" etc. Certain doors just present themselves and so the oppo people walk through those doors.

But if one wished to take the low road (and the modern right certainly drives this route with scant remorse) then you'd dig deeper...obviously, taking the middle name to imply connection to the Islamic or the Arab and to terrorism. This has been, I think, the fundamental thrust of the smears and attempts to make citizens frightened of him. But yes, 'scary black man' has been run too, and conveniently tied into the arab/muslim notions...otherness, unAmericanness, dangerousness.

Trust as I underestand it amounts to a sort of a belief in consistency of some part...

I mean, I TRUST Oinkbama and the goofy bastards who hang with him; that is, I trust them to be doing the wrong kind of **** 99.999% of the time. No way in the world I'd VOTE for him.

This is the built in excuse for the Obama camp if they lose.....RACISM.

This demonstrates how the uneducated feel when their ideas are ignored by the electorite.

I can not trust Obama due to his character, his demonstrated ability to vote 100% with his party, his lack of a clear economic plan and is inexperience in foreign policies.

There. Am I a racist?

I suspect you aren't racist, but merely partisan, but as to your arguments:

1) Character: You are voting for a serial cheater who would compete well with Clinton for chasing tail and a VP who has used her office to settle personal scores. You are voting against a man who is obviously highly committed to his family and against a VP candidate who is likewise committed to his family. No matter how many times Obama's "connections" to Ayers, et al. are debunked, you refuse to let it go, but McCain's well documented and extremely close relationship to Keating gets a pass. McCain's close ties to the gambling industry, pass. Obama's work on behalf of veterans, ignored. You favor McCain who was given every break by his family's connections to counter his lack of performance against Obama who worked his way up through the public school system to graduate from Harvard Law.

2) Party voting record: Why is this a fault? If you were campaigning for Liddy Dole or another Republican, you would trot this out as a plus. From my point of view, the Republicans have been off track for several years now, so why would Obama vote with them? When the right is steering off a cliff, I turn left.

3) Lack of a clear economic plan: The plan on Obama's website is reasonably fleshed out for an election season plan that has to be negotiated with Congress. McCain's plan is more sparse, but you don't care. McCain's plan has been panned by economists all across the nation, but it still has your support. Is this rational? Obama's plan has not been met with wild cheering, but at least it doesn't stink to high heaven.

4) Foreign policy experience: You're right. Obama's only defense here is that he has as much foreign policy experience as several recent presidents did on their first days in office and Obama has shown that he's willing to listen to advice and select a wide variety of advisers. McCain has experience, but somehow that translates into "we should stay in Iraq" and "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran".

The visceral hatred toward Obama displayed on this site and on the campaign trail points to something fundamentally wrong. I don't like McCain as a politician because of his own actions. Eight years ago, I voted for him, but since then he has embarked on a course I can't follow. I don't hate him. Those who thing Obama is a Muslim, terrorist, etc or for that matter think that Obama and Ayers are "palling around" despite the inability of the entire nation's resources to find such a link need to ask themselves why they are going there. It's not his lack of foreign policy experience.