Category Archives: Barack Obama

Update 3: Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?

Africa, Barack Obama, Elections 2008, Human Accomplishment, Multiculturalism, Race, The West

“The Obama organization now claims that [Pastor Wright’s] latest attacks on Obama prove that ‘he and Mr. Obama are not that close, otherwise why would Mr. Wright do this now? Au contraire. Hell hath no fury like a radical pastor scorned. Sen. Obama and Rev. Wright had been as tight as thieves for over two decades. When Obama got religion on the presidency, he began gradually turning his back on his spiritual counselor. Being an unconventional Christian animated by anger, Wright has refused to turn the other cheek.”

“For the duration of their 23-year relationship, Obama considered Wright a mentor and a mensch. No color should be given to the claim that Obama didn’t know and love the real Wright.”

“To paraphrase the rapper Eminem’s hit song: So will the real Slim Shady and his sassy lady please stand up?”

That and more in my new WorldNetDaily.com column, “Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?”

Update: CNN’s Roland S. Martin, whom I mentioned in “Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?”, has responded to the column. I am not convinced the “be blessed” sign-off is all that sincere. My reply follows. Here’s Mr. Martin’s letter:

How culturally ignorant are you?

I read your column and talk about silly.

First, I was wearing an African formal outfit, which is the same one I have on the cover of my new book. I prefer to wear those rather than tuxedos to such events. If you choose to characterize it, do it correctly. Second, it was never intended for me to go on television. I was at the event because I had hosted their town hall meeting the previous day. But I’m not at all ashamed to wear my African outfit, and plan to do so again.

Second, you owe Soledad an apology. She was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt. If you want to show your cultural ignorance by criticizing me, go right ahead. But at least have the common sense to look at a woman on television and get her clothes right. Or maybe get yourself a new TV.

Be blessed,

Roland S. Martin
www.rolandsmartin.com
Author, “Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith”
Syndicated columnist, Creators Syndicate
TV One Commentator
Host, “The Roland S. Martin Show”
WVON-AM/1690, Chicago
Weekdays, 6am to 9 am CST
CNN Contributor

ILANA replies:

Dear Roland,

I appreciate the response to my WorldNetDaily column, “Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?” And I do have an old TV.

Still, you have to admit that my sartorial misreading (compounded by my old TV set) does not quite explain your lack of critical analysis of the Reverend’s performance. (The comment by Reverend Ray on my blog fills in more gaps.)

Blessings to you too,

Ilana Mercer
Columnist, WorldNetDaily.com,
Author, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash with a Corrupt Culture
Director of Development, The Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies,
Proprietor, www.ilanamercer.com

Update 2: The private conversations with Mr. Martin turned productive and even pleasant (I’m pleased to say that most of my exchanges with reasonable people end this way).

Note that I’ve never attacked Wright on the political issues he raises. I agree with very many of the things the Reverend protests against, not least the war in Iraq and our atom-bomb war crimes (which have been debated on this blog, here).

But I reject Wright’s premise: He curses and blames white people, white government, and endemic racism for all ills. His animus toward Western culture, whose avid defender I am, is what makes him so odious.

Where does Wright think the distinctly Western ideas of human rights— the dignity of the individual and the respect for diversity—come from? Africa? They are all outgrowths of the Enlightenment, uniquely western. Not African; western. As you see, my revulsion at Wright and his ilk goes much deeper than the beefs conservatives have with him—that he dared damn the US government in its thuggish ways.

What repulses me about people like Wright is the manner in which they slam the West while using its tradition. The ideas of individual rights and the dignity of mankind are the product of the fertile minds of the pale, patriarchal, penis people: white men!

Another thought occurred to me: Wright’s style is more in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets than the Christian preacher. But even that kind comparison does violence to the magnificent prophets of the Hebrew Testament. They railed against The People—the stiff-necked Hebrews. They beat on their own people mercilessly for their sins. Wright doesn’t rouse his people; he sics them on others—teaches them to hate whites and blame them for black inadequacies.

Perhaps Jews became so self-propelled because, if a Jewish boy didn’t have a Jewish mother after him nagging him to become the best peddler or Talmudist in the village, he had a fire-breathing prophet huffing down his neck, shaming him into uprightness.

Update 3 (May 4): With reference to David Szasz’ interesting (and long) post hereunder, as I pointed out earlier this year, there’s another member of the unholy trinity who even better epitomizes the Manchurian Candidate. Think a former POW who was brainwashed by communists to betray–even kill–his own? Hmmm…

Reverend Wright Revolts Once Again

Barack Obama, Democrats, Race, Racism, The Zeitgeist

CNN televised Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s address to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). This lunatic’s delivery left the limited Rick Sanchez, front man for CNN, gasping. But then, his colleagues, chiefly Soledad O’Brian, whom Wright endorsed during his rant, put him at ease. Wright’s sermon was light, fun, humorous, designed to show the totality of this much-maligned preacher. She and colleague Roland Martin were dressed in Homer Simpson-type mumus or caftans for the solemn occasion. Fix News’ retards—Geraldo Rivera and his “analytical entourage”—echoed Soledad’s solidarity with Wright.

Having listened to Wright’s insane sermon, I can only marvel at mainstream media’s ability to shed darkness on whatever topic they tackle—an ability that comes with a great deal of God-given stupidity.

Other than stark raving mad, Wright’s delivery was dripping with bile. He is a cynical, smug, sardonic so-and-so. Love? Compassion? His is the strident voice of racial grievance. And envy. The man is green with envy. His sheer envy of “European” achievements is palpable. Why else would he devote an entire hour to listing “European” achievements, deriding them, and then defining an inability to emulate these achievements as nothing but difference? Wright also latched on to fashionable brain bifurcation balderdash—he puts great stock in right brain/left brain discredited pop pedagogy—to explain black dereliction and drop-out rates. (So does Mike Huckabee)

The entire sermon was dominated by collectivist racial theorizing:

Black children learn a certain way, speak a special way and think in ways different to whites, said Wright. African music is different from European music, and here the holy man emitted a caterwauling which was supposed to come off as a cantata. The emulation was derisive, mocking. To contrast the so-called pomposity of the cantata, the MF launched into Brother musical mode, jovial and jolly. Black music was different, not deficient, to white music, said he. The one, he implied, was filled with Joie de vivre, the other just jejune.

Wright even attempted to distinguish typical white from black chords or timing. What a moron. Classical music— certainly Bach—showcases time signature fluctuations—the kind that require a high level of musicianship.

Again, undergirding this disturbing diatribe was the man’s contention that different is not deficient. And when it comes to evaluating cultural products, there is no such thing as objective standards. Naturally, it is in the interest of Wright to declare BB King as good as, only different from, Bach, because, well, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Mahler—they’re sublime. BB King is very small compared to these giants. For obvious reasons, Wright would like to encourage the Zeitgeist on the path it has embarked on in abolishing all objective standards by which learning, accomplishments, and cultural products are judged.

This Afrocentric racial “theorist” aims to instill racial pride in Africans by conjuring contempt for “European” culture. This has been his mission for decades—at least for the duration Barack Obama spent in the pews of Trinity United Church of Christ. Obama’s mind must be full of this empty incitement.

Updated: Obama Slimes Small Town America

America, Barack Obama, Elections 2008, Individual Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

As Huffington Post reporter Mayhill Fowler tells it, at first, she didn’t want to report what she’d heard from the mouth of the messiah.

“I was not initially going to write about Senator Obama’s remarks about Pennsylvanians. Because, frankly, I didn’t want to bring down the campaign,” Fowler told CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim (one of the few sane women on that channel).

Then she thought better of it: “I gave it more thought and I decided that the remarks bothered me enough that I wanted to write them up.”

Fowler follows Obama around in her capacity as a roving reporter. Here’s what she overheard and recorded, as Obama attempted to “explain” rural Pennsylvania to “a group of his wealthier Golden State backers at a San Francisco fund-raiser last Sunday”:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Against the clucking and cooing of the Obama groupies at CNN (also known as “the best political team”), William Schneider, CNN Senior Political Analyst, and a rarity on that channel for rendering an objective, unbiased, close analysis, said this:

“Well, it’s certainly true that a lot of voters are angry and bitter over the war, over trade, over the economy. But he got into trouble for one precise reason, and that is because he said that people turn to religion and guns, by which I assume he means things like hunting, and that they criticize trade and illegal immigration because they are bitter and frustrated with their lives. Now that’s a causal assertion: religion, guns, and criticism of trade and illegal immigration because they are bitter and frustrated with their lives. (My emphasis)

Schneider continued:

“A lot of voters are going to find that statement untrue and insulting to their values and condescending. So I think to be fair we have to hear a fuller explanation from Senator Obama of what he meant. Maybe an explanation and maybe an apology would be in order. But we need to hear more about what was his intention in making that causal statement.”

In response, the Obama campaign spokesman, Tommy Vietor, changed the subject:

“Senator Obama has said many times in this campaign that Americans are understandably upset with their leaders in Washington for saying anything to win elections while failing to stand up for [sic] the special interests and fight for an economic agenda that will bring jobs and opportunity back to struggling communities. If John McCain wants a debate about who is out of touch with the American people, we can start by talking about the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that he once said offended his conscience but now he wants to make permanent.”

As Schneider then pointed out (in the face of the furrowed faces of his CNN female colleagues) that the Obama response fails to explain “the assertion that people’s bitterness and frustration are causing them to turn to religion and anti-trade sentiment and criticism of illegal immigrants… a lot of people are going to find that condescending and insulting.”

Let me depart from Schneider, who asked merely that Obama furnish “a fuller explanation.”

What you just heard was Obama unplugged. This is the real Obama. Why would anyone who cares about truth want an apology or a retraction? Obama finessing his visceral alienation from authentic America is Obama lying. Why would anyone wish to be lied to? Obama saying he’s sorry is Obama simply vowing to keep a lid on his disdain for traditional patriotic Americans, so that the high farce of electioneering can continue.

This value judgment, like the saga of Rev. Wright, is extremely significant for what it tells us about who Obama is and what he disdains: guns and God—not the God of Rev. Wright, but the God white, rural, gun-toting America carriers close to its heart.

Update (April 13): I notice a tone of contempt for rural, economically unsuccessful Americans has crept into a comment below. The pejorative “Archie Bunkers” for this segment of the population is of a piece with Obama’s slamming of the same people. There is no difference between such comments from my valued reader and the stance of contempt toward “Those People” taken by Obama—the observations are coming from the same “place,” except that our commentator is an economic conservative.

Here’s the issue that utterly evades most who’ve been making light of Obama’s bad-mouthing of God-fearing, white, rural, gun-toting America: These Reagan Democrats or protectionist Republicans are first and foremost wedded to God, guns, and small-town existence. Their lack of success and adaptation—looked down upon by my valued commentator—is secondary to who they are. Obama’s attack was leveled not at their failure to adapt economically—that’s government’s shortfall, in his worldview. Obama assailed these people for their “outrageous” fealty to a God that is not his (I remind you, I am irreligious, but sympathetic to faith), and affinity for their own (they dislike the invasion of their country).

Conservative or left-liberal, if you’re with Obama—justifying his viscerally hateful comments—you’ve been indoctrinated in a hatred of the people of this country (and I don’t mean the new-arrivals).

Update 4: Petraeus-Crocker Crock Continues

Barack Obama, Constitution, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, John McCain, Military, War

Petraeus-Crocker crock continues—on all sides.

Clinton mourned that “the longer we stay in Iraq, the more we divert resources not only from Afghanistan, but other international challenges, as well.”

She’d like to deficit spend elsewhere in the world: pursue a better “mission” or “war.”

So Clinton weighing the opportunity costs vis-à-vis Iraq is a dubious thing at best. I did like that she raised the hidden costs, or rather, the costs the general won’t speak of—the same general who by now must be seen as a partisan who supports the administration’s policy, not merely the mission with which he’s been entrusted. Petraeus has crossed over into the political realm.

Some of the hidden costs: “Among combat troops sent to Iraq for the third or fourth time, more than one in four show signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress…”

A good constitutional point Clinton raised, and to which the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker responded feebly, was this: the government of Iraq intends to vote on whether to provide the legal authority for U.S. troops to continue to conduct operations in Iraq.

Why in bloody blue blazes doesn’t the United States Congress get to vote on that???

Crocker, predictably, consigned decisions to be rightfully made by “We the People” to the “appropriate” realm under the Bush Administration’s constitutional scheme: the executive branch.

Petraeus had Princeton smarts with which to retort. But he too fell flat with a lot of bafflegab about equations, this or the other co-efficient, “battlefield geometry,” and “non-linear” political progress.”

Updates later.

Update 1: SHIITE FROM SHINOLA. It won’t concern the war harpies readying themselves to can-can for McCain, and sock it to those “Ayrabs,” but I thought the more thoughtful among you ought to know that McCain still can’t tell Shiite from Shinola:

McCain: There are numerous threats to security in Iraq and the future of Iraq. Do you still view Al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?
Petraeus: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.
McCain: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shiites overall?

Al Qaida is Sunni.

Update 2: Watch the way Petraeus, each time he seems about to make a policy recommendation, skillfully pulls back from this unconstitutional abyss. This is not an affirmative action appointee. It goes without saying that Petraeus is defending a pie-in-the-sky policy much more than a viable military mission. The former is beyond his purview. But, then, constitutional overreach is the name of the game for politicians and their pet generals.

Update 3: I note that Barack Obama “repeated his view that the US invasion was a ‘massive strategic blunder.’” Is that all it was? Was the war not also a massive moral blunder? For how else does one describe the willful attack on a Third World nation, whose military prowess was a fifth of what it was when hobbled during the gulf war, had no navy or air force, and was no threat to American national security?

Well, at least someone—Barack—said something bad about the war.

Correctly Obama also noted that “What we have not seen is the Iraqi government using the space that was created not only by our troops but by the stand down of the militias in places like Basra, to use that to move forward on a political agenda that could actually bring stability.”

Obama was on target again by pointing out that the US “should be talking to Iran as we cannot stabilize the situation without them.”

He also tried to thread the needle, so to speak, by cleverly cajoling the Petraeus-Crocker team into conceding that perhaps the parameters used to gauge the appropriate length of the stay in Iraq are unrealistic. Perhaps Iraq today is as good as it’ll ever get. I agree; a democratic peaceful Iraq would necessitate dissolving the people and electing another, to paraphrase Bertold Brecht.

There is no doubt that Obama has the best grip on the war among the unholy trinity. Maybe his dedicated socialism and closeted Afrocentrism are look-away issues given his good sense on the war. What do you think?

Let’s see whether the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, lives up to Ron Paul on foreign policy and the warfare state.

Update 4 (April 9): “THE WAR IS NOT A CAMPAIGN EVENT.” Michael Ware’s word. Ware, as I’ve long held, is the best war-time correspondent. He happens to work for CNN. Here’s a snippet from his take on the “unreality” of the “made-for-television show” we’ve just been watching:

“Look, in terms of the military and diplomatic picture that was painted by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, by and large, subject to, you know, certain detail and — and different conclusions, it’s a fairly accurate broad brushstroke.

Are they glossing over a lot of things? Yes. Are they failing to admit certain glaring realities? Of course. But this is the nature of warfare. What struck me, sitting in these — in these hearing rooms today, is, if — A, what surprised me was the lack of probing questions, really, from the members of the panel.

And in terms of the three presidential candidates, as they stand right now, I mean, obviously, today was more about their campaigns than actually about the war itself. Now, I have come almost directly from the war. I mean, some people are living this thing. It is not a campaign event.

So, to hear people and see the way people are actually using this, it really does create discomfort in me. And I don’t know how the ambassador and the general feel. I mean, this is the reality of war. War is an extension of politics by any other means. But it still hits home.”