Where Art Thou, Hillary?
I think buyer’s remorse will soon set in among Democrats. Off the teleprompter, some very strange things come from Obama: reparations for Native Americans and African-Americans; inflating our tires properly and “tune-ups” (do we still have points, distributors, and 10,000 mile plugs?) will all obviate the need for more drilling; “they” (recall Michelle’s “they” and how they raised the bar serial speeches) will mention the fact that Obama looks different, or at least unlike the “presidents” (sic) on one-dollar bills; he will be meeting with Sarkozy and Merkle for the next 10 years… You get the message
“Hoping and changing” day in and day out?
If his handlers are not careful, Obama will “58-state” his way to a 10-point deficit before the convention. They must get him back on the teleprompter, avoid the town halls, and ‘hope and change’ his way back to rock star status (I know that it is wearing thin, but his ex tempore quips are far more damaging.)
Speaker Pelosi should simply swear off private jet trips.
Stopping exploration off the shelf and our coasts is a losing political proposition (as Obama knows when he just flipped on the issue), not only because of the economic factor—even a mere million barrels pumped save us over $100,000,000 a day in revenue kept here at home. But there’s the moral argument as well: there is something very wrong in opposing drilling on environmental grounds while hoping others less careful continue at it–while those who oppose drilling don’t seem any less inclined to use oil (cf. the Pelosi request for a mega-jet for frequent transcontinental trips).
More Praise from Obama, but…
Ludacris is about as “talented” as Rev. Wright was “brilliant.”
What Does This Mean?
Barack Obama:
“I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged. I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it’s Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.”
Thoughts:
1. Does he know that WWII in our schools is mostly Rosy the Riveter, the Japanese Internment, and Hiroshima–and not much if at all D-Day, Okinawa, or the Bulge? The Civil War is already taught as essentially Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, not Grant and Sherman. Our students already know all the things wrong with the US, and few of what is right, past or present. Honest discussion of American sins is important, but if one doesn’t appreciate that they pale in consideration to others’, or that the culture has created a moral and successful society like none other, then what would be the reason to continue to support its centuries-long institutions? So is our history really more “tragic” than say France’s (compare our respective Revolutions); Russia (cf. the Great Terror); China (compare the 70 million that Mao did away with one way or another); Germany (no need to comment); the post-colonial African states?; maybe the history of Mexico?
2. This complaint is consistent with Obama’s call for more “oppression studies” in our schools. And it seems to be the first call for reparations by any mainstream candidate in our history. Is he serious, and wants a cash grant to anyone who can prove that he has Native-American or African-American ancestry? And the Irish? Hispanics? Asians? One-time money gift–or continual stipend as in the manner of Social Security? And to those like Obama who are of African rather than African-American ancestry? And do we bring back the Old Confederacy racial protocols to ascertain to what degree one of mixed heritage gets 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 of an award?
3. Anyone who has been around a university the last 30 years knows that any bright, well educated student who chooses to make his or her identity essential rather than incidental to their persona–Hispanic, African-American, or female–is snapped up for graduate or professional schools in preference to the proverbial white male. Affirmative action has been going strong for three decades. What again, then, does he mean by “not just offer words, but offer deeds?” Obama should know that for all his own talents, it is rare to have someone with his meager law record selected as Harvard Review Editor, or hired at the University of Chicago Law School, or after a mere two years in the Senate, a presidential candidate. The point is not that his race explains his success, but in America alone it either was irrelevant to it, or, more likely, a great force multiplier.
4. Expect the press, as in the case of Obama’s call for an alternate Pentagon to mirror image the military at the same cost (of half a trillion per year), to simply ignore these quite astounding statements.
Others Listen.
One of the reasons that others abroad trash the US is that they have been versed by our elites in the art of blaming America for their own self-induced miseries. Cf. the latest communiqué from Teheran (at the meeting of the so-called non-aligned nations):
“The rich and powerful countries continue to exercise an inordinate influence in determining the nature and direction of international relations, including economic and trade relations, as well as rules governing these relations, many of which are at the expense of developing countries.”
I agree in some sense, and so suggest that the developing countries create their own non-Western antibiotics, chemotherapy, oil-refinery infrastructure, and automobile industries, and in the meantime forego wealthy nation-contaminated jet travel, I-pods, and Viagra. But apparently the Iranian leadership wants both to practice gender apartheid, autocracy, statism, tribalism, religious intolerance, suppression of free expression, AND import chemicals, industry, medicines, machinery, etc. from those who don’t embrace such failed protocols, AND whine that they are still poorer and less powerful. At some point a Churchillian Western should reply back “we created your oil industry, now sell you the expertise to maintain it, buy your product for $120 a barrel that costs you $5 to pump—and hope you can Westernize in this brief window of windfall profits before we get off oil and leave you to your own devices.”
Lay Off the Race Card—it’s a losing proposition.
I wrote this for the NRO corner:
Why is Obama foolishly evoking race time after time? [Victor Davis Hanson]
And it’s still only July…
Obama’s problems with race have nothing to do with his half -African ancestry or his own experience with racism and unfairness, but boil down to his deftly wanting it both ways: reminding the Germans he is a different sort of American from what they’re used to (false, they knew Rice and Powell well enough), while preempting by suggesting others will evoke race, but in a negative context. But his polls, I wager, will begin to slip from all this, because all this sophisticated triangulation is about to blow up in the public mind.
1) The voter is starting to hear serially from Obama about race; they were promised a racially transcendent candidate, but so far Obama seems obsessed with identity, either accusing others of racism, or using heritage himself for political advantage. This is a tragic blunder.
2) He has the same want-it-both-ways with odious racists: Rev. Wright is a former spiritual advisor, and “brilliant” scholar who nevertheless serially slurs America, whites, Italians, Jews, etc. Ludacris is “a great talent” and “talented” to such an extent Obama wants him in his I-pod menu, and has met with him—but also a racist to be shunned. Ditto Pfleger. A pattern is emerging: Obama associates with or tolerates racists when such quasi-intimacy cements street-cred as an authentic minority or someone cool in the anti-Bush mode; but then when they inevitably revert to form, he not merely casts them off, but is “shocked” at their usual expression, and so like speed bumps they litter the roadway as he barrels ahead.
3). The “typical white person”, grandma under the bus riff, Pennsylvania “clingers” rant etc. , ‘no more disown Rev, Wright/ but now leaving Trinity Church’, etc. themselves are immaterial, but in toto provide a thin margin of tolerance when something like Ludacris or Obama’s latest accusation of racism surfaces.
4) Right now Obama does not need to solidify his 90% African-American base or the Moveon.org white liberal adherents; but instead he must remember why he lost all those primaries to Hillary and to what degree his campaign since then has addressed those concerns that lost him those electorates. When a West Virginian hears that Obama is accusing others of racism, or hears him promise that racial reparations will now be a matter of government deeds not words, or a rapper brags he is a favorite of Obama and then slurs Clinton, McCain, Bush in thinly disguised racist terms, it starts to create an image of someone who is not bringing people together, but precisely the opposite.
Why all this? Inexperience and hubris—the same overconfidence that makes him say we need a Pentagon-sized new civilian aid department, to inflate our tires to avoid drilling, and must stop merely talking about reparations and starting doing something about them. His handlers need to return to the teleprompter, since all these incidents have in common the impromptu moment.
07/31 09:12 PM
I’d like to offer some deeds to Obama. How about the enormous number of Northern whites who died to give blacks their freedom in this country? Where in human history did blacks rise up to liberate white slaves?
Blacks indeed need deeds. They need to learn math, science, reading, writing, and history in school. They need to stop killing each other and having babies out of wedlock. They need to get married and stay married and serve as a role model for their children. They need to work hard and save money and buy a house. Those deeds would lead to massive increases in wealth in the black community.
What’s troubling about this turn of events is that the Civil Rights movement has gone from a pursuit of equality of opportunity to one of equality of outcome based upon grievences for societal sins committed long ago and attoned for with rivers of blood and cemeteries of corpses. Reverend Wright has supplanted Reverend King. Ludacris has supplanted Bill Cosby. Barack Obama has supplanted Edward Brooke. Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas are treated with sneering condescension. Entitlement based upon past oppression has become more important than political ideology. Ultimately, the presidential election is a contest of ideals – that’s the good news. The bad news is that should the powers that be in the Democratic Party wake up to the realization that Obama is a fraud perpetuated upon them and snatch the nomination away from him there will likely be blood in the streets. Or if the Democratic Party either doesn’t have the courage to deny Obama the nomination or actually endorses the toxic cocktail emulating from the campaign, Obama cannot muster the necessary electoral votes to prevail. Then, I fear, his defeat will not be seen as a loss based upon a debate upon the issues that the Democrats lost, but rather as another example of the core racism of the American people. The Jeremiah Wrights amongst us will scream from the pulpit that there’s was the correct interpretation of the state of affairs vis-a-vis African-Americans; the malignancy of Black Liberation Theology will gain credibility where it once held none. This is not good, people, however this election turns out.
I hope I’m wrong.
Couldn’t agree more about the buyer’s remorse. I wonder how many people voted for Obama but are finding that they don’t respect themselves in the morning.
As for Hillary…I’ll bet it’s tormenting her no end to see Obama stumbling now that it’s too late to do her any good. And to think, one of her own ideas – confiscating oil company profits – stolen by Obama! (A terrible idea, of course, but still. It was her idea, dammit, hers!)
Scott
Accusing China of killing 70 million people is unfair because it is out of context; It was necessary in order to build capitalism!
Obama, the new improved version of the triangulating Bill Clinton, may fall victim to the very technology that has in large part been a boon to his candidacy. Yeah, McCain’s not computer literate, but so what? Millions of his supporters are, and they have access to every shifting, contextualized and subsequently disavowed statement Obama makes:
Reparations? With the economy (possibly) crumping, better not even mention that word. Disavowed! Didn’t mean a government pay out to everyone in America who is descended from an octaroon. I… I… uh, I meant better schools.
A black man in a political ad juxtaposed with two white bimbos is racist by its very nature. Disavowed! Didn’t mean to accuse you of playing the racist card, while I blatantly played the race card. And I’m still the post-racial candidate I promised y’all.
We can’t drill our way out of the energy crisis and, like Nancy Pelosi, I’m trying to save the planet. Oops, polls are down. Disavowed! I’m for limited drilling as long as we cover pristine deserts with windmill farms.
A certain amount of flexibility is allowed a candidate, but Obama is starting to play the American electorate for fools. Were it not for his efficient campaign staff clarifying his daily statements he might have imploded long ago. And after months and months of campaigning, it’s still difficult to assess how he would govern if he were elected. Like Bill Clinton would be my best guess — obsessed with polling the way celebrities are obsessed with their public image, i.e. the antithesis of true leadership.
And everyone should thank Al Gore for the Internet. We surely need it for this election.
A small prediction: If Obama fails in November, I expect to see race riots in all the usual places. South LA will burn again, and Chicago will not be a safe place to walk the streets at night. Whether we like it or not, that seems to be the accepted method to express displeasure with the *white establishment*.
Almost 90% of our population is white or non-black. A large number of them are neither financially comfortable nor feeling particularly guilty over racist sins of forebears long or recently dead. Latte liberals (at least until their income is affected) excepted, many voters do not feel compelled to support intensified affirmative action, reparations, or entitlement programs seemingly intended by Obama’s agenda. It will take a very oily and serpent-like charm to convince them so.
We’ll see just what rhetorical powers of persuasion Barack really has.
Obama, the Bill Clinton reprise. Returning from his travels abroad, Obama seems fixated on addressing the issues that concern the Democratic Party faithful, issues that supposedly poison American society. No, not the Economy, the War or our Energy crisis. He’s talking about race, gender and assorted other minority issues Democrats love to obsess over. The 90′s all over again, except for the Republicans’ reticence to use abortion, same-sex marriage etc. to counter. McCain clearly has more important things on his mind, and rightfully so.
Channeling the Buddha, our would-be Navel Gazer-in-Chief has spoken to the masses of the world and they are converted. Peace and harmony will break out upon his election. Time then for all self-absorbed Democrats to re-focus on themselves, contemplate the karma of the American soul, expunge the demons of our past and redress all grievances. In our next national reincarnation, we will have a flawless history bequeathed to us by Bodhittsava Obama, the Enlightened One.
Perhaps Obama should recall the history of Buddhism in its original homeland. That enlightened philosophy no longer holds currency in South Asia, supplanted by Islam’s armies. Same for Afghanistan. And in their short reign, the Taliban sought to extirpate all vestiges of the country’s pre-Islamic past, blowing up two of the largest buddhist monuments in existence. For the wannabe navel-gazers in this country, that’s karma.
The right wing noise machine is remarkably skilled at making good people look bad, and corrupt Replicans look like valiant leaders. If you want to talk about buyer’s remorse, how about the present White House occupant? Rove and company certainly are master salesmen. They continually get foxes elected to patrol the henhouse. The USA is being led down a path to Hell. They have the military muscle to make the whole world uncomfortable, and have shown us that they are inclined to use it at will. American democracy is faltering badly.
Saw McCain on C-SPAN today. A townhall meeting in Racine, Wisconsin. I thought it was a decent showing. He looked rested, alert, and on his game. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but he’s right on Iraq, excessive government spending, taxes, and judicial appointments. I have been feeling a bit down about the campaign, but Mac showed me that he’s still a fighter. ‘Twould be interesting to see a McCain/Obama town hall meeting, but it’s obvious Obama wants no part of such activities for all the reasons you have delineated. Pity!
Dear Professor,
My computer was getting fixed and I continued with Mr.Feith’s book. It’s slow because I’ve heard it all before, believed it, and believe it still. So it’s all about committee meetings and personal conversations.
I think Powell and Armitage are shmucks. I liked Rumsfeld. I think I’ll always like Bush. I hope to see the Stone movie. It might be fun.
I asked you once about Powell and I thought you hedged. Unlike Rice and Thomas, I wonder if he rose to positions just because it looked right.
But I just came to the part where Feith quotes you. You write so much, it’s easy to forget significant thoughts but this was fascinating. From what I understood, you suggested that if the US would have come down through Turkey like it did from the south, fought, injured, killed, and defeated the Sunni’s in the ‘Sunni Triangle’, there may not have been the violence and insurrection that plagued the US for years.
It was a close call in the Turkish parliament, but you can’t blame them for being afraid of a type of Kurdish Kashmir conflict. Still it cost us.
Obama’s starting to bore me. I’m so very happy it appears that the tide is turning. I can’t wait until we see the silliness at the Democratic convention. I think it will be a riot.
McCain’s doing the best thing. He’s just kind of having fun with the campaign. A jab. An uppercut. Nothing out of the park just yet. Bring on the debates.
One part of me hates to do it but it will be worth the $25 for a chance at lunch with Mrs. Clinton. I’d give over my seat to you. For the sake of national security.
I hope you’re wrong too, Turfmann. but I doubt you are. At least part of what you observe would surely come to pass.
The dems are beyong a little bit pregnant with their candidate. Most difficult to undo what they’ve created. On the other hand it they started maneuvers to replace him there would be a mass of sympathy for him, from several quarters. The replacement, even Hillary, would be a non-starter in my opinion.
But, what sane Nation, particularly in wartime, will allow anyone as shallow as Obama to lead them? A man proven to know little about the country he wants to lead, and even less about the real World he has to deal with.
For a while I was in despair over what I percieved to be a seriously inept McCain campaign. At the rate of fire that Obama is sustaining in shooting himself in the foot, I now think I have been wrong. Getting out of the way while your opponent is self destructing and limiting serious expenditure to poking fun seems to be an effective strategy.
It appears that our candidate for change simply wants to dust off or reinvigorate every monumentally failed strategy endured since the late 1920s.
I was sure that we were being unfair on the “not looking like other Presidents on the dollar” until I checked the internet and verified that Mugabe picture is not on the Zimbabwe dollar…..I am assuming that this is where he is getting his economic advice.
TLM: ‘after months and months of campaigning, it is still difficult to assess how he would govern if he were elected’…
I agree. After all the soaring rhetoric that his followers and the MSM applauded, it was almost impossible to find any meat on the bones. “Hope” and “Change” repeated day after day ad nauseum didn’t tell us very much. True, a few ideas came through, mainly cribbed from someone else, as he pranced from left to center, spouting ‘his’ new (changed) views, that he thought might influence more voters.
It seems that the only way we can get a real feel for the policies he favors is when he ignores his speech writers and handlers and speaks extemporaneously. His proposed Civilian National Security Force, that would cost half a trillion a year, that the MSM has conveniently ignored, and some mention of which seems to have ‘conveniently’ disappeared from the internet. And now the ‘reparations’ he envisions? How much has affirmative action already cost the country — 5 trillion? 6 trillion?
As Charles Krauthammer wrote in a recent column, at first people asked “Who is this guy? Now they ask “Who does this guy think he is”?
I think he answered that when it was recently reported that he spoke at a closed door meeting of top Dems, and said, in part: “This is the moment that the world is waiting for. I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions”.
Our only hope is that enough voters will be turned off by his dissembling and hubris, and will all vote. It is being reported that Obama’s young cheerleaders are being trained and sent out to gather more sheep for his flock, and that his campaign plans to spend 20 million to capture more of the Hispanic vote.
We are living in interesting times…
1. Barack is proposing $1,000 per family funded by a windfall profits tax on oil companies. What about us cornfarmers? We have windfall profits; the highest grain prices ever!
2. Barack can’t buy my vote for anything less than $5,000. If the check is good, he’s got my vote.
3. Ralph Peters on BookTV called Barack a coward for refusing to debate McCain and take questions from regular people who aren’t prescreened.
If Obama can’t face down Bill O’Reilly (who doesn’t have an army) then how is he going to deal with Iran, Russia, China and North Korea.
Barack the coward needs to be explored some more.
1. Obama wants to pay everyone $1000 as an “energy rebate” funded by a windfall profits tax on oil companies.
What about a windfall profits tax on us cornfarmers? We are making record money.
2. Obama can’t buy my vote anything less than $5000. If the check clears before the election, he’s got my vote. Better yet, meet me behind Welsh’s Bar in Pender Nebraska and bring the money in small bills.
3. Ralph Peters on Sunday on BookTV called Obama a coward for refusing to take questions from real people and not debating McCain in a Townhall style format. Obama won’t answer questions from Bill O’Reilly. Fox News doesn’t have an army.
How is Barack going to deal with N. Korea, Russia, China and Iran when he can’t even face Bill O’Reilly.
This point of Obama as coward needs to be explored some more.
Re Doug:
The right wing noise machine has been barely audible this election. Obama keeps referring to its pending resurrection to no avail. Now even he has had to retract his implication that the McCain campaign has used or will use Rovian tactics.
“Making good people look bad”?
This is a political campaign. Both candidates are good people. We’re trying to decide which one would make a good president.
“They have the military muscle to make the whole world uncomfortable, and have shown us that they are inclined to use it at will.”
Bill Clinton declined to use that military muscle to thwart the known threat Al Quaida presented to this country. The result of his inaction, 9/11, made us more than a little uncomfortable with Muslim terrorists, and Mideast dictators.
“American democracy is faltering badly”.
Possibly. But not for the reasons you imply.
JP:
“This is the moment that the world is waiting for. I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions”.
If Obama talks to fellow U.S. legislators that way, he must truly believe his own rhetoric. At least he used the appropriate first person singular, instead of the royal “we”, as in “We are the ones…”
Some scholar may have to invent a new word to accurately describe Obama’s overweaning pride. Help us out VDH. Mere hubris no longer pertains.
TLM
Maybe ‘ginormous ginignorance’?
From the comments posted on some of the political blogs, a lot of people are beginning to wake up to what Obama-the-Rock-Star really is deep down, and they are becoming more scathing every day:
> empty suit moron
> I would vote for the Joker from Dark Knight before I would vote for Obama
> the Obamessiah is all things to all moonbats
> overbearing foolishness
> anti-American Marxist
> windbag from the Windy City
> snake oil salesman
> Obummer
> does his village know their idiot is missing?
> shyster Marxist politico
> all sizzle, no steak
> Obama can’t gain gravitas through osmosis
> I thought Obama was above being a mere human of any description, considering his demigod status; above and to the left obviously.
> Obama is suffering from electile dysfunction
How long he can keep on with his charade without giving away the game is the question. Granted, his brain washed followers will blindly follow, but we can hope that the rest will see through his empty rhetoric.
Many Americans seem to forget the real threat, the real reason the US is at “war”. The oil is running out, and there is no viable replacement, not now, and not on the horizon. If the US government would plow resources into alternate energy sources instead of trying to control middle eastern, Canadian, and other oil deposits, they might find an alternative. Obviously, that’s not going to happen, so we are fed lies by mob bosses masquerading as politicians, and presented with propaganda disguised as news networks.
I regret calling Mr. Powell and Mr. Armitage names in an August 3rd post and apologize for doing that. They deserve better for their service to the country.
And I apologize to Professor Hanson if my statement caused a stain on his site.
Reparations? Are you kidding? We have been giving black people the eqivalent with affirmative action so negroes like the Obamas can get accepted into schools and stay in and graduate because of the color of their skin. A degree from a fancy school does not mean Michelle Obama is anything other then an angry black woman who is only angry because she is black and her brothers and sisters are for the most part failures in life and leaches on society. What about all those people in NO who couldnt afford insurance which destroyed their house and now isBushes fault.
If the Obama family cant see that the USA is best place for opportunity for anyone now, then they truly are blinded by power. For them to continue to criticize our country and act like their victims of racism perpetuated by their own race whether its modern day black racism or blacks selling each other into slavery, shows what kind of people they are.
To honesly ask for reparations while a lot of your race is in prison, on welfare, and cant even speak properly is a joke. For all the complicity whites had in slavery, it was whites who fought to eliminate it and gave their lives so blacks could be free.
The whole thing makes me sick and if Obama actul believes that a debt is still owed, then you wonder if the gets half of a share because he is no more black then he is white.