Obama '08?

Sure it does. It's called 'details.' They do make a difference, yaknow.

Cycloptichorn

People are not satisfied with Obama's explanations, so they are now playing in shite. Yes, he was there; no he wasn't there. WTF difference does it make?

I heard Bush say "we are going to see the biggest reconstruction probject this country has ever seen" while he stood alone in Jackson Square after Katrina. Does that make a difference?

...."they are now playing in shite"....qouting CI....

The mass media has nothing else but to appeal to baser instincts in my opinion. I wish it were otherwise, but this is what they can make newsworthy and sells.

Yeah.

Philadelphia Story
Obama on race.

An NRO Symposium

Tuesday morning, Senator Barack Obama, presidential candidate for the Democratic party, delivered a speech on race in Philadelphia. National Review Online asked a group of experts in response: "Did Barack Obama do what he needed to do in Philadelphia today?" Here are their assessments.


Andrew E. Busch
It is too early to tell whether Barack Obama succeeded. What he needed to do was to move the campaign discussion off of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Even more, he needed to stem the flow of questions about how much of Wright's political thinking he shares.

Obama tied himself to the American Founders and declared his faith "in the decency and generosity of the American people." It was the sort of speech that will persuade those who want to be persuaded. He will lose few of his Democratic supporters.

It is hard-headed undecided Democratic officials that he most desperately needed to persuade today, though, as well as his non-Democratic supporters and swing voters in the general electorate. The speech may prove a tougher sell for them.

A certain disingenuousness hung over it. Although Obama rejected Wright's statements, he spent an enormous amount of time explaining them. When Obama conceded that "Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong, they were divisive," he seemed to imply that being divisive was worse than being wrong ?- or perhaps that Wright was more divisive than he was wrong. At any rate, Obama did not really explain how he could be shocked and dismayed by the statements of his pastor of 20 years.

Perhaps more importantly, there is only so much one speech can do. Objective realities intrude. We have only begun to scratch of the surface of Reverend Wright's fulminations. Wright is likely to be the gift that keeps on giving. Obama is testing the proposition that a speech can staunch YouTube. We'll see.

?- Andrew E. Busch is associate dean and professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.


Alvin S. Felzenberg
Today we may have witnessed the beginning of the end of Barack Obama's once-stunning campaign for the presidency. Not for the first time, the Illinois senator demonstrated, for all to see, that he is not qualified to service as the nation's president ?- at least, to paraphrase Mr. Obama, "not this time."

What the nation saw today was a candidate too self-absorbed to fulfill the promise of national unity and reconciliation he has repeatedly made since he launched what has to have been the longest-running ego trip in the history of presidential politics. Rather than tell his listeners precisely what he finds so objectionable in his "former pastor's" remarks (other than his having to account for his friendship with a bigot), Obama repeatedly resorted to the old standard that political charlatans have used through the centuries: ideological equivalence.

He condemns with equal vigor a stupid remark that Geraldine Ferraro ?- a self-admitted "affirmative action" vice-presidential candidate of yesteryear ?- made during an interview for a publication that no one can name, with a series of sermons delivered from the pulpit by a man who (as Obama reminds us) has lectured at some of the most prestigious seminaries in the world. He equates public declarations of hate (including a prayer that the nation Obama proclaims to love and wants to lead should be damned) with a private remark his grandmother purportedly made. (What does it say about the character of a man who would "out" as a racist a dead relative whom he credits with helping to raise him, just to make a political point ?- and a bad one at that?)

Senator Obama revealed just how little he knows about the nation he will not be privileged to lead next year when he described the coalition that twice elected Ronald Reagan president in record landslides as the coming together of angry and resentful whites. In Obama's world, double-digit inflation, high interest rates, high unemployment, a 13-month "hostage crisis," and accelerated Soviet adventurism had little or nothing to do with it.

Anyone who believes that is not qualified to serve as the nation's next president. But I repeat myself.

?- Alvin S. Felzenberg is author of the forthcoming, Leaders We Deserved and a Few We Didn't: Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game (Basic Books).


Michael G. Franc
The "Sister Souljah" moment slipped through Obama's hands.

The senator began well. In his moving and inspiring introduction, he reminded us that he has relations "of every hue scattered on three continents," and that his multi-racial and international heritage makes him uniquely qualified to heal a racially divided nation. But he shouldn't have stopped there.

The stage was set for a bold proposal that would go a long way toward putting our racial divisions behind us.

Imagine if he had said that, as president, he would move to end all the lingering race preferences scattered throughout our federal laws. Or imagine if he had pledged to use school choice to liberate the millions of low-income children of all racial hues from our nation's failing schools. He could have. But he didn't.

It's inevitable that race preferences will ultimately disappear. It's inevitable that parents will tire of the excuses of public school bureaucrats and demand real educational options for their children. And it seems inevitable that the transformative politician who leads us out of this wilderness will boast a racial heritage not altogether different from Obama's.

Inevitable, maybe, but not this time.

?-Mike Franc is the Heritage Foundation's vice president of government relations.


Peter Kirsanow
Obama delivered his usual soaring, well-delivered ?- at times, even magnificent ?- rhetoric. But ultimately, he hit a single when he needed a home run.

The Illinois senator needed to do three things to rid himself of the stench caused by his 23-year association with a man whose rhetoric evokes Louis Farrakhan on methamphetamines:

1. Unequivocally repudiate not just the racist and anti-Semitic statements of Rev. Wright, but the attitudes and beliefs conveyed thereby;

2. Reject Rev. Wright's anti-American statements and assure voters that he passionately loves America with all its faults;

3. Somehow convince the electorate that his long and close association with Rev. Wright ?- including donating thousands of dollars to his church ?- was not an egregious error in judgment bearing upon his fitness to be president.

He did the first two reasonably well, but failed miserably on the third.

Obama acknowledged hearing Wright make controversial statements, although not as offensive as those played recently on television. But he never explained why he hadn't immediately confronted Wright at that time. And his suggestion that Wright's statements were the product of surviving as a black man in the environment of the Fifties and Sixties, that one shouldn't be surprised to hear them in a black church, is a calumny: most black Americans of Wright's age, however wronged they might've been, no matter how bitter they have reason to be, would never say "God damn America," particularly in the days after 9/11. Furthermore, few churches ?- black or white, regardless of denomination ?- would long retain their congregations if their pastors raged that America brought 9/11 on itself and that we created the AIDS virus.

Convincing Americans that his association with Wright wasn't spectacularly bone-headed probably couldn't have been done, even with Obama's gifts of oratory. Not when he remained in the church for 20 years. Not when he gave thousands of dollars to it. Not when his wife's comments about her pride in America, shall we say, fail to sufficiently distinguish her views from Wright's outright antipathy toward America.

America is an amazingly tolerant place. You can live here and still damn her. You can accuse her of all manner of evil. You can even cheer when her citizens are butchered.

But if you seek to be America's president, you better, at minimum, ruthlessly repudiate anyone who blames us for 9/11. Moreover, if you seek to command the bravest men and women in the world in the fight against the perpetrators of 9/11, you should have immediately gotten into Wright's face and rebuked him for his vile comments.

Senator, it's genuinely admirable not to disown your friend, but you cannot rationalize his comments. And it wouldn't have hurt your candidacy grievously to have confessed that you wished that, when he'd made the inflammatory comments, you had popped the good reverend in the nose.

?- Peter Kirsanow is a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. These comments do not necessarily represent the positions of the Commission.


Kathryn Jean Lopez
I think Barack Obama was as honest as he could be today. He didn't distance himself from Jeremiah Wright. He couldn't. He couldn't because he knew full well who and what Wright is and ?- I can only guess ?- he couldn't distance himself because, in fundamental ways, Obama agrees with him.

I walk away from listening to that speech worried now more than ever that Barack Obama shares too many of Wright's radical, angry views. And I worry that Barack Obama fundamentally believes that America is great as long as Americans elect Barack Obama president.

Did Barack Obama do what he needed to do today? If his goal was to pick at white guilt and make Democrats and super-delegates feel bad that they were considering going back to Mrs. Once-Inevitable (that was his goal, I think: he was, after all, in Pennsylvania, home to the next primary), then yes, he did exactly what he set out to do. But, as Rush Limbaugh (whom Obama hit in a Right drive-by in his Wright speech, a rare taste of red meat from the saccharine senator) put it today on his radio show, he also marked a line in the sand, essentially saying, My campaign is about race. If you thought he was going to get us beyond divisive politics, you were wrong. It's what his campaign is based on.

From Firedoglake....a left of center blog comparing Obama's speech to Lincoln's at Cooper Union....by Phoenixwoman:

http://firedoglake.com/2008/03/18/from-cooper-union-to-the-constitution-center-

If by baser instincts you mean replaying Wright's comments, many of which are profane and lewd, yes I agree. It's hard to watch, yet this is what Obama and his wife voluntarily exposed their children to by taking them to an angry church run by a racist, anti-American pastor.

Nap,

you don't seem to understand that criticism from Republican writers is generally a sign that a Dem is doing things right.

Cycloptichorn

I would like to know if Hillary Clinton's minister came out on video saying that 9/11 was karma, God's judgement on a hateful america that was allowing minorities to overrun it....and then Hill came on tv and said she disagreed... but had heard such remarks coming from the pulpit on more than one occasion and decided to remain in the church... what you Obamaites would be doing and saying.... letting it ride? Calling a non issue? forgiving and forgetting? I say bullshit.

Of course you do; but it is, of course, meaningless that you do, as nobody cares.

Cycloptichorn

you are just the meanest little girl on A2K.... good thing nobody cares...

Naturally, the point is that the opinions of those who have invested so much personal effort in tearing Obama down, such as yourself, are hardly neutral ones.

Cycloptichorn

and those of you who believe Obama can do nothing wrong no matter what.... are neutral..... more bullshit whether anyone cares or not.

so answer the fookin' question... if the shoe were on the other foot would you be satisified?

I don't think that statements made by those who are not the candidates themselves, or are working for the candidate in some fashion, are material to the question of whether or not someone will make a good president. At all. So I wouldn't have too much of a problem with any comments like that; hell, I AGREE with many of those comments.

I think that all Religious folks are pretty much equally crazy.

Cycloptichorn

Obama Ends Bid to Become 1st Black President

(2008-03-18) ?- Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, in what was billed by his campaign as a "major speech on race" in Philadelphia today shocked the Democrat party by announcing he has abandoned his bid to become the nation's first black president.

"After a lot of prayer and conversations with my wife and Pastor Jeremiah Wright," said Sen. Obama, "I have decided that the United States is not ready for a black chief executive. So today, I'm launching a campaign to simply become President of the United States, without regard to race."

The son of a black, African father and a white, Kansan mother, Sen. Obama said he will formally suspend his attempt to achieve "a Civil Rights milestone", and will put all his efforts into "making sure Democrats have a nominee who can challenge John McCain man-to-man."

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign said she would petition the Democrat National Committee to "nullify all of the primary votes cast for Sen. Obama because voters thought they were doing something historic, rather than simply choosing the most qualified candidate."

"Think about it," the unnamed Clinton staffer said, "if Geraldine Ferraro had suddenly announced in 1984 she was running for vice president as a man, the Mondale-Ferraro ticket would have lost in a landslide."


http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2915

It doesn't wash with people who can't discern nuance.

Neither is President Obama, not for four years anyway not unless someone like you can find a good angle in a school book depository building.

Cyc is a girl? I bet that comes as a big surprise to the smoking hot babe he is with.

So you're saying this is a hypothetical double standard? Maybe, but it's kind of hard to find an equivalent example for Hillary given our history, isn't it? I'd argue that the Ferraro flap was a good counterexample, and yeah, I didn't think that reflected on Hillary. She pretty clearly didn't agree with her on that, and just being friends with her, well, that doesn't mean anything. We all have all kinds of friends.

Given what Obama has said about his relationship with Wright, I'm curious what the remaining issue is? Does anyone really believe that Obama secretly hates America or has a radical black panther agenda? What is it that his connection to Wright is supposed to say about him that is so important?

Free Duck, It's interesting isn't it? All these people trying to make something out of a minister who said some bad things and trying to put those words into Obama.

Narrow minds and ignorance are still prevalent in the US.