More about Barack Obama's history

Is Barack Obama too radical to be President? I certainly think so. Look at this site (with an explanation on this site), this site, this site, and this site, for a start.

The American public needs to know about this.

Obama, presumptive Democratic nominee

Today we will probably find that the primaries will either give Barack Obama enough delegates to be nominated or come so close that Hillary Clinton will need to give up.


No great surprise. For the last month or more, he's been so far ahead that she had no hope of catching him. But she kept trying. And I can't say I wasn't happy she did, because all the negatives she raised will only help John McCain in November.


What I'm really wondering is how she can (as she will have to, to prove her loyalty to the Democratic Party) campaign vigorously for him, without being called on some of the things she has said to imply Obama's unsuitability for the office. (I don't mean to say he's suitable for the office; but then I'm not going to have to come back and defend him after making the kind of remarks she did!)


To leave the references to Hillary Clinton behind, did anyone notice that Obama finally had to formally leave the Trinity United Church of Christ (Jeremiah Wright's former pulpit)? But it would seem to me that to discover, after 20 years as a parishioner, that the church was spreading ideas he didn't like, is a sign of naïveté that ill befits someone seeking the Presidency. So this decision was really too little and too late to change anything in my mind.

The kids in Texas

The State of Texas seems to have done something far beyond what they intended to — they have created public sympathy for the polygamist group that calls itself the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints.


By taking 400 kids from their parents, and dispersing them to foster homes all over the state, they created a scene of scared kids who (when the court found that the State had acted unlawfully, and had to return them to their parents) showed how glad they were to be with their parents again. Those pictures of a mother hugging her young daughter probably made more people tolerant of the oddness of the FLDS church than ever would have been before Texas acted.


It's probably a victory for religious freedom and the First Amendment. But 400 scared kids were quite a price to pay.

Fidel for Obama!

Looks like Sen. Barack Obama got himself a new backer: Cuba's Fidel Castro! (see this story.)

Of course! They are both of a similar mind — America is evil and needs to be changed.

One more reason to support John McCain for president!

"Failed foreign policy"?

Barack Obama keeps referring to "Bush's failed foreign policy." Well, to me it looks like one that is succeeding, although not yet completely. When George W. Bush became President, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Kurds and anyone else who disagreed with him in Iraq, and the Taliban was presiding over an Afghan government that would criminalize a kid for flying a kite, or a girl for going to school. Today, Saddam Hussein is in his grave, and the Taliban is fighting a rear-guard action to try to take back portions of Afghanistan, while both Afghanistan and Iraq have governments that are far closer to democratic than the ones they replaced. I would call that success, not failure — at least partial success, anyway.

Meanwhile, Sen. Obama has proposed a foreign policy that truly can be described as failed. One might ask — how could his foreign policy be considered to have failed, when it hasn't been tried? Well, it has been tried — not in the United States in the 2000's, but in Great Britain in 1937! A certain Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister that year. Like Obama today, he believed you could talk to genocidal dictators in the same way as you might to honorable men who lead democratic governments. He met with Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, and gave him what he wanted, control over the nation that was then called Czechoslovakia. And he returned from Munich proclaiming that he had brought "peace in our time." "Our time," apparently, lasted two more years, until Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began, at least for the European nations. (We stayed out of it until we were ourselves attacked by Hitler's Japanese ally.)

But Sen. Obama doesn't seem to know this history. He wants to show that the way to go is the way that Chamberlain tried 70 years ago. It failed then, and it won't work now.

The California Supreme Court's gay marriage decision

We have often, on economic and foreign policy matters, found common cause with the people who call themselves conservatives. But on most social issues, they are on opposite sides of the issue from my own feelings. I am sure this will be equally true with regard to the new California Supreme Court decision.

I have never understood why conservatives, who believe that in the economic sphere the government should be minimally involved, letting the market mechanisms do their thing, suddenly, when the issue is social, take the position that the government should take a stand and ram that position down the throats of the people. If two gay people get married, who does it hurt? It certainly doesn't affect a straight person's ability to marry whomever he or she wants.

Some people have said that there is no equality issue here, that gay people are trying to win special privileges that straight people do not have -- I suppose, because straight and gay people alike have the right to take an opposite-sex spouse. Well, Anatole France is quoted as saying: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread.” Obviously, just in the same way as rich have no particular reason to "sleep under bridges, beg in the streets or steal bread," gay people have no particular wish to take an opposite-sex spouse.

Some people have claimed that, by requiring the state to recognize gay marriage, the rights of clergymen who do not want to officiate over such marriages are somehow interfered with. Well, to my knowledge, no Catholic priest has ever been forced to officiate at the marriage of a divorced Catholic, and no Jewish rabbi has ever been forced to officiate at an interfaith marriage. If clergymen are now allowed to refuse to marry people whom their own religion forbids to get married, they certainly will continue to be allewed to do so. We are talking about state recognition of marriages, and we live in a country with Church/State separation.

Another point is that, in a referendum, the California citizenry voted to ban gay marriage. I am sure that in any Southern state (and possibly some Northern ones) the citizenry, if provided with a referendum vote on the subject prior to 1954, would have approved of segregation. But we do not allow the majority to take away the minority's rights. That is a fundamental principle of the American democratic system.

So I cheer the California decision.

A letter-to-the-Editor that I fully endorse

The following letter appeared in today's Washington Examiner paper. It was so good that I repost it here as my own thoughts:

Barack Obama will be judged by friends he kept

Re: “Don’t judge Obama by Rev. Wright’s words,” From Readers, May 5

Let’s put this to rest for once and for all: Barack Obama will be judged by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s actions. Any reasonable person who sat through 20 years of this mean-spirited, anti-American rhetoric and did not walk out in disgust must have either been in a coma or agreed in part to what was being preached. You are judged by the friends you keep, the views you display and the morals you practice. All of which can be influenced at your religious center of faith. If John McCain or Hillary Clinton had been attending Aryan Nation meetings or KKK rallies, you bet they would be scolded and berated. Unfortunately, folks, it goes both ways. Get over it!

This country has finally broken the barrier keeping women and African-Americans from becoming serious contenders for the presidency. But they should certainly count on the fact that they will be vetted — as would any other candidate — on the way they view the world. I, for one, want to know that before I cast my vote.

Marc Sieracki
Springfield

So NOW He's "outrageous"???

The latest news is that Barack Obama has called Jeremiah Wright's comments "outrageous." Really, it's taken him this long to see the kind of racist demagogue that Wright is? You'd think that 20 years in the Trinity UCC would have given him time to observe Wright! I really can't believe Obama is just now discovering what Wright thinks about the USA, about race relations, and such!

Can Obama really distance himself from Wright?

Now Sen. Obama says that the Jeremiah Wright who is expressing himself in such racist terms "is not the same man I've known for 20 years." Can we really believe such nonsense? There are lots of signs that this is not so. I certainly do not believe him; I put more credence in Wright's words that Obama is saying what he has to now because he is a politician!

Romney for VP?

There is a move afoot to nominate Mitt Romney for VP on the McCain ticket. While I was opposed to Romney for the top spot — his vacillation on the issues worried me — for VP I think that's not a bad idea at all. As this site states, Romney would bring a lot to the ticket. The only thing I wonder about: Would John McCain be willing to take him as VP nominee? It is clear that Romney would take the offer — he's even said so, and his withdrawal speech made it clear that he wants to unite the party. But I've seen word that there is not a very good feeling about Romney in McCain's mind — there were some problems between them even before this campaign.

Obviously, we don't know what — if any — communications there have been about this between McCain's and Romney's associates. But I would like to see McCain/Romney as a ticket in 2008.

One positive thing you can say about Obama

He knows how to play by the rules. He's taken extreme advantage of the Democratic Party's rules in this primary season. When Hillary Clinton wants to see that the people of Michigan and Florida get counted, Obama points to the Democratic Party rules and makes sure everyone understands that they can't be counted under those rules. (See this post.) He wins big in caucus states, where only small numbers come out so that a few voters can influence a lot of delegates. Meanwhile, in the big states with lots of delegates, he relies on the proportionality rules that the Dems have put in place, so even if he loses, he still gets a slew of delegates. Many people (including Bill Clinton) have pointed out that if the Democrats had allowed winner-take-all primaries and (like the Republicans) a number of major states had used them, Hillary would be leading in the delegate count, probably by a lot. This, among other things, is why John McCain got the Republican nomination relatively early, while the Dems are still going at it.

Of course, the actual Electoral College system used in the general election does use winner-take all (at least in 48 of the 50 states). So Obama vs. McCain would be fought under different rules. I wonder whether Obama will be able to re-orient his candidacy to play by the different rules that will apply for the general election.

Obama, the divider.

I just saw a new blog post, which says it better than I could, about Barack Obama. Read it here.

The Supreme Court's death penalty ruling

The Supreme Court has just ruled that the death penalty could continue. And I approve. Sure, in many countries around the world, public opinion has gone against the death penalty, and the US has come in for criticism for maintaining it. But I feel that not having the death penalty for murder actually cheapens human life — namely, the lives of the victims.


If a person who has killed someone gets anything less than the death penalty, the punishment has not suited the crime. Nothing short of the death penalty can pay for taking another's life, and for that reason nothing short of the death penalty is a fair punishment for such a crime.

Appeals to humaneness make no sense here; the murderer was not sparing of the lives of his victims, so why should we be more sparing of the perpetrator's life?

Obama ... unite the country?

I keep seeing supporters of Barack Obama claiming that he can unite the country. This seems to be the most incredible claim I could imagine.

Obama has been rated the most liberal member of the entire Senate in 2007 by National Journal. He outdoes Bernie Sanders, an avowed Socialist, and Senators like Russ Feingold and Tom Harkin. How can such an extremist unite the country?

John McCain has worked with liberal Democrats like Feingold and Ted Kennedy to introduce legislation; in fact, his ability to do this hurt him among very doctrinaire conservative Republicans. But even he could not find common ground with Obama. If this is so, how can anyone expect copperation between Obama and someone not of the extreme left?

What a choice!

If I were faced with making a choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, there is no question but that I'd go with Clinton. She is clearly as dishonest as her husband, and both Clinton and Obama are very much more liberal than I am, but while Obama is a radical with the "throw out everything and start over" mentality of a visionary, Clinton is more of a pragmatist, who might be dissuaded from trying to implement radical changes by a need to play practical politics.

But fortunately, I don't have to make this choice. By the time I see either name on a ballot, he or she will have beaten the other, and the competition will be John McCain. And I don't have to think about who will get my vote. It will be McCain.

Barack Obama and hate

It seems that not only has Obama's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, had an awful lot of anti-white prejudice associated with it; it's also said nice things about the Islamic terrorist group, Hamas. (See here.)

It is impossible to believe that Obama could attend this church for 20+ years and be unaware of what it and its leaders stand for. This is a man who wants to unite America?

It's getting vicious!

James Carville (a supporter of Hillary Clinton) recently compared Bill Richardson to Judas Iscariot for giving his support to Barack Obama although he'd been given Cabinet positions in the Clinton administration. This goes to show how vicious the Democratic nomination fight is getting.

How glad I am to be supporting John McCain at this point. The Democrats are making McCain's election in November more likely by their behavior!

"Please order in English"

A cheesesteak restaurant in Philadelphia put up a sign, "This is America. Please order in English." As a result, he was charged with discrimination. But fortunately, he was recently vindicated. Yes, this is America, and Joey Vento, the owner, was ruled within his rights by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.

Why was he even charged with discrimination, though? Millions of immigrants came to this country and learned the majority language. My father came to this country about 80 years ago as a child, and the local druggist made him learn English by not letting him order an ice cream in his native Yiddish after a while. The druggist understood Yiddish and had taken his orders for a while in that language, but he knew that this 11-year-old kid that eventually became my father would need to learn English to function in America. And my father, by the age of 15, had graduated from the 8th grade, though four years previously he had come to this country devoid of the English language. And by the time I was around, years later, my father spoke English without a significant foreign accent.

Joey Vento was right to do what he did. And thank Heaven that the final decision came the way it did, even if it was years in the making.

Limits of discussion

Today I saw a comment in which the poster described me as "delusional." This goes beyond the bounds of propriety.

It is all right to disagree with me on here, and to give a cogent argument. Insulting me goes beyond the pale, and I will exercise my rights as owner of the blog to delete such posts.

The Ferraro/Obama spat

Geraldine Ferraro said one thing that you just can't!

It is just not cricket in this Democratic primary campaign to say what everyone already knows — that Barack Obama, a man who four years ago was an obscure Illinois state senator, would never be considered Presidential material if he were white. Of course, she also said that he wouldn't if he were a woman — which just isn't so; just look at Ferraro's preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, who is only slightly more qualified for the office, or in fact, you might look at Ferraro herself, who was a Vice-Presidential nominee with essentially no qualifications!

The Democratic Party simply cannot abide anyone saying things like that, but that party has simply given itself over to group politics. It isn't what someone stands for, or that person's qualifications, that matter to the Democrats, but just whether they can contribute to the party's desire for "diversity" in gender, race, or whatever.

Just look at their rules for picking convention delegates — certain seats are reserved for women and others for men. (Of course, that any of the seats are reserved for men is something of a surprise!) You can't just vote for convention delegates; you vote for male delegates and female delegates.

The hypocrisy of the Democratic Party is amazing. But what can you expect? That's why I'm happy to be a Republican.