Radical-in-Chief: PJTV Interviews Stanley Kurtz (Part One)
What does Barack Obama believe in? Who are his political allies? How did he meet them? What networks did Obama use and create on his rise to power? What is the current relevance of Obama’s beliefs, alliances, and political networks on his policy and tactical choices as president of the United States?
Author Stanley Kurtz set out to answer many of these questions during the 2008 presidential campaign, only to find himself directly targeted by the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign. It was evident at the time that both, and Obama himself, sought to hide much about his past. Now, two years later, Kurtz has completed his research into the young president’s past and current associations. The result is Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism. I finished reading the book last week, and found it extremely informative and deeply disturbing. Stanley Kurtz is among the most meticulous and thoughtful researchers writing on political topics, and here he has done a thorough job of sifting through the archives of major figures in American socialist groups and fronts, thousands upon thousands of pages of everything from personal correspondence to meeting announcements and fliers and everything in between, to establish Obama’s likely introduction to hard edged socialism in the early 1980s through his continuing alliances with socialist groups and figures today.
PJTV’s Richard Pollock recently interviewed Kurtz about Radical-in-Chief, and about what Obama’s socialist and community organizer ties mean to his presidency and to the country. Here is the first of three segments of Pollock’s interview with Stanley Kurtz.
Kurtz is sugar-coating it.
I don’t agree that Kurtz is sugar-coating it. What he has done is present the agenda of Obama in a reasoned and intelligent manner. Much like the way Obama has presented his socialist ideas to the public. I think the readers of this blog are intelligent enough to make a distinction between soft-pedaling and a low-key presentation of facts and legitimate observations of what Obama has been doing since he was first exposed to the nation.
I look forward to the other interview segments.
“Much like the way Obama has presented his socialist ideas to the public.”
So, Obama is presenting his socialist views in a “reasoned and intelligent manner”. But the Hater in Chief invariably scoffs on those exceedingly rare occasions when the topic of socialism comes up.
You might be more at home posting on the Koz playsite, my friend.
And btw, I wasn’t criticizing the estimable Mr. Kurtz. I appreciate what he is doing and thoroughly understand that he has adopted an approach that he feels could be persuasive to the Center. He’s dead wrong about it, but I don’t fault him for trying. The state-run press will treat him like everybody else who has written on the topic…treat him as a nut when they aren’t ignoring him. The depth of research and his deliberate avoidance of many of the manchurian’s more, shall we say, interesting associations, won’t matter a bit. They will do everything conceivable to denigrate him.
So yes, absolutely, he is sugar-coating it deliberately and for strategic reasons. It just won’t do any good. Nobody in the lunatic left will pay any attention whatsoever, and they will insure that everybody in the center knows full well that the Slimes and the msm talking heads consider him the equivalent of a Roswell blabberer.
But I also think Mr Kurtz might have found some more success persuading the Center if he had titled his book something other than “Radical in Chief”. “An examination of Obama’s political influences” would have been more effective to reach that audience; which makes me think that Stanley, like all of us, is most interested in making a buck, and only secondarily interested in persuading an audience. He sounds a bit conflicted to me.
Still, I enjoyed the interview and am looking forward to the next two. Might buy the book as well.
If you did not understand my point, then maybe you should think about what I wrote again.
Yes, Obama is presenting his agenda in a well-reasoned and intelligent manner – to present his agenda. As a reasonably intelligent individual, I reject his agenda “in toto”. However, when you consider his background, if you read his book, “Dreams from My Father”, then you would a better understanding of the man. He is not a shouter, he is a skilled wordsmith who knows how to communicate with his targeted audience or demographic on the subject closest to his heart – socialism. Dale Carnegie still has the best courses for public speaking. The one constant that is taught is that we will speak with confidence, clarity, and conviction when speaking about a subject we are passionate about.
He appeals to liberals with his well chosen words and deliberate, calculated manner of communicating. He exudes an aura of intelligence when in fact, I think him to be rather pedestrian in that aspect but he does know how to use the skills he has. When he is speaking to a less educated gathering, if you listen carefully, he changes the cadence, intonation, and inflection of his words. Subtle but effective. His unique skills using the teleprompter assures him of not making gaffes when delivering an important speech. Without the teleprompter and speaking extemperaneously, he is not much better at public speaking than GWB.
He is also skillful at making non-apologetic apologies for his occasional use of “anger words”. “Enemies” was the latest but he used it with a purpose and it was effective with his target audience. His non-apology was meant to enhance his image as one who is willing to overcome differences with adversaries. However, he has no intention of giving one inch unless he sees a major victory at the end.
Shortly after hearing him speak, I bought his book and read it cover to cover in one read. It confirmed my initial impression of Obama. He is a hard-to-the-core, far left, liberal socialist – just like him mother. What most do not comprehend is the influence of his mother over his values, etc. I believe moreso than from his father(s), grandfather, and grandmother or his extended family. She is closer to what Obama is than anyone else in his life. She is the one who regaled him with tales of his father’s so-called extraordinary life and accomplishments. She raised him in his formative years, no one else. Her father only reinforced what she taught him. Socialism.
So, hate to disappoint you but I don’t visit the Kos unless I am looking for vulgar entertainment and vile commentary.
“he is a skilled wordsmith”
I got your point the first time. You adore him.
The evidence is overwhelming that he didn’t write the book. If nothing else, the fact that the handful of things he wrote before it were so pitifully juvenile is proof enough. He has no talent as a writer, so your adoration is misspent. Bill Ayers turned a mess of egotistical and incoherant family stories into something that adoring fans like yourself could have heart palpitations over. Before discounting the evidence entirely, spend some time with Jack Cashill’s analysis on the net.
He doesn’t write his speeces either. And when he speaks extemporaneously, it’s clear that he is a guy with average intelligence, a galactic ego, but that he is thoroughly trained in well-known verbal maneuvers to deflect any inquiry…otherwise known as lying. Almost anybody can learn to do it. But most people would hate themselves for it.
You are right that Mr. Kurtz is not “sugar-coating” but he is certainly soft-pedaling, and I don’t understand why. Back in pre-election “08 he was releasing much well-researched information on Obama’s Chicago record, which was being almost entirely ignored by influential conservative commentators and columnists. When I emailed him expressing frustration over that fact, he briefly responded that he disagreed. !!??
He is being a pussy-cat when he his story deserves a firebrand. At the very least his publishers should be trying to get him on Fox News. It is telling tht the Axelrod team has never gone on the attack against him. They are evidently of the opinion that it is best to pretend that he doesn’t exist rather than draw attention to his damning research. Their course is to threaten his sources and local outlets.
Proreason, I disagree.
Stanley is not only NOT sugar-coating it, he is laying it out in the manner that SHOULD be driving the most acceptance.
He is draining it of emotion and dealing nothing but facts and evidence. If we had a free and fair press, this would be an atomic bomb.
We don’t, so it isn’t. What is frustrating to me is how little play it has received around the rest of the information stream.
I have been shouting from the rooftops that this is the primer for understanding virtually everything that has taken place, and connects the dots methodically. It should be a MUST HAVE for every non-leftist in America…not just a must read.
We ought to be fisking the meaning of this book, chapter by chapter…on these very pages. Further connecting the dots, internalizing ALL that those dots mean.
We aren’t…I’m still hopeful that we will…soon. We owe Stanley an enormous debt of gratitude. He isn’t sugar-coating anything, but we aren’t digesting what he has just put on our plate.
“He is draining it of emotion and dealing nothing but facts and evidence. If we had a free and fair press, this would be an atomic bomb.”
True enough, but he apparently (I haven’t read the book yet), omits a wide range of topics about his family and influences that would shed much more light on the man. For example, his family members were all radical. Their movements before and after his birth were unusual, to say the least. They moved 2,000 miles to Seattle from Kansas, and then his mother somehow ended up in the most radical high school in the country. His path crossed with Ayers dozens of times. Bill was certainly a key mentor from the Columbia years into the early 2000′s, etc, etc.
Now, Kurtz is a careful fellow and seems to have chosen to focus on things he feel are less hackle-raising than grandpa’s fbi record and mama’s hatred for America. You call that “draining the emotion”. I call it “sugar coating”. And as I’ve said, I wasn’t knocking Mr. Kurtz. I was merely saying there is a lot more there than he has chosen to research. I hope he’ll go after more next time.
But I like your posts anyway.
Proreason, he did no such thing in the book.
He went to the archives, conducted thorough and meticulous research and unveiled a string of dots, that connect through the years.
His focus in THIS book, was on what took place from the years at Columbia up through the years in Chicago.
It wasn’t his intent, I don’t believe, to “dismiss” or “sugarcoat” the years in Hawaii or Jakarta or at Occidental. Those years simply were not the focus of this book.
And, you need to read the book as I have, to get the full measure of Ayers…AND his brother. There was no short-shrifting of the Ayers impact.
But what Stanley Kurtz did was remove ANY ability of the left to say that this was an emotional “hit piece” screed, certainly with an ounce of credibility.
Because it was written with a methodical, meticulous , research paper style…rather than a storybook style…it is much harder to refute with a dismissive wave of the hand. It is also going to appeal to a narrower crowd, I’m afraid.
And, I’m also afraid that it will garner less attention than the overwhelming MUST READ attention it richly deserves. If and when you finish reading it, if you come away with a different opinion, I will gladly discuss our differences with you. But I implore you…and all other patriots to read it.
It connects the dots on cap and trade, on the health care bill, on ACORN/SEIU, on the New Party, on the illegal immigration issue, global warming, Fannie & Freddie meltdown, Jan Schakowsky and Bob Creamer, …I believe the last feeling you will come away with after finishing the book…is “sugarcoating”. You have been given bad information, I trust your judgment…and believe it will change when you read the book for yourself.
Jerome R. Corsi’s book The Obama Nation published before the 2008 election was more than adequate in revealing his radicalism. It was abundantly clear that the country was taking a serious risk. Barack Obama dodged a lot of the hard questions because of white race guilt—and his Harvard credentials. Many voters wrongly concluded that Obama could not be too bad because of his Ivy League education. The experience would supposedly have turned him into something of a moderate. After all, didn’t Bill Clinton tone it down a little bit after his earlier days as a nonviolent campus radical?
I just picked up a copy of Stanley Kurtz’s book at the Houston Public Library. It will take me a few more hours to get my head around it.
I am about halfway through the book and recommend it. Frequent readers of PJM may find the information more depressing than surprising, as I did. Even now, why are so many willing to look no further than his carefully crafted (and thin) veneer? If only this information could generate the same level of interest as wikileaks…it may very well be more important to the health of our nation.
David, I was there when this was going on, during the time period that takes up much of what Stanley wrote…and there were things I knew peripherally…but first hand. I just was never able to connect all the dots.
Horowitz’ “Shadow Party” and Stanley’s new book fill in the empty spaces (the dark matter) between the universes of what we thought we knew and what was really taking place.
Anyone who is even mildly aware and made uncomfortable by the leftist chokehold on this society, should be required to read these two books.
You, especially…will take away a mountain of new “dots” that you always sensed were present, but it will crystallize for someone like you almost immediately, in a way that you would not likely imagine prior to reading them. You know so much already, that nothing will be a surprise and everything will be a startle.
It will bring to you a new level of understanding, those who don’t know already as much as you do, could not possibly take away what you can. You will see things in a way that a seasoned coach watches game film…and an average fan cannot see on the very same film.
It is jarring.
Look people, the “Anointed One” makes his chess move’s and us babbling humans need to realize that the unbelieving conspiracy “heathen” understate the issues when they say that Obama is a radical. Alas, they know not the secrets we are all going to witness. The “Anointed One” is amazing (and according to Biden: he’s so brillant), and takes the people at the highly efficient Post Office and sends them right over to the Student Loan Program. The “Anointed One” knows all. Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed. Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire. YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity. All the while, the Obama mega-money-raising engine whirred on at high speed, until the result became inevitable: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the “Anointed One.”
I am not surprised to hear these stinking lies about our “Anointed One,” it should be apparent to anyone that this was coming down the pike. I do have a couple questions about future process steps concerning these developments? When the “Annointed One” decides to start bar-coding everyone, will we get to decide if the mark is on our hand or forehead? Allot of people will prefer the hand, (especially women of course), unless your a porn actress or something along those lines. Also, my girlfriend was wondering if the Administration will be getting fashion advice from Hollyweird or the New York City crowd? We are both agree that the Administration “Maoies” as the “Anointed One ” so lovingly calls them,will be getting uniforms similar to the SS uniforms in Germany in WW2. With big letters abreviating “Barack’s Socialists.” So shall we start calling them the BS?