Of Character And Crowns**
Posted by TRO on May 4, 2008
Knowing that Barack Hussein Obama has been hurt by his 20-year close relationship with that racist, anti-Semite, anti-American Reverend Wright, the left is now starting to try to establish a similar connection between McCain and some controversial preachers who support him.
Now it would be a legitimate political attack on McCain if the two situations were remotely alike, but clearly they are not. On the one hand we have a two decade-old close, personal friendship with the man who married Barry and his delicate little flower of a wife Michelle and baptized their children, and on the other hand we have a politician who is courting his base by accepting the endorsement of some TV preachers who mean little to anyone outside of their viewership and who have had no influence on McCain’s life to date, nor will they have in the future knowing McCain’s maverick attitude towards his own party.
The left can try to make that comparison, but I don’t believe that Independents nor moderate Dems are going to buy it. I certainly don’t. But then again, I read on another blog that those of us who don’t are either hypocrites or racists, so take what I believe with a grain of salt being that I am a gun-toting, God-clinging white guy whose brain is wired differently from progressive liberals and blacks. It’s just my burden to bear I guess.
Still, my burden is not as heavy as Barry’s according to Michelle, who says he has almost reached his boiling-point over having to answer questions about his character and judgment.
Wow, his boiling-point huh? I wonder what happens when he reaches it. Does steam come out of his big ears? That would be cool it if did.
I really don’t know why the lovely Michelle and the great Barry don’t know this, but anyone running for president should expect to have his or her character and judgment questioned. I mean every damn person who ran for that office before was questioned in that manner, so why is Barry exempt? Oh yes, as Don Surber says, we should just go ahead and coronate the guy. He is bringing hope and change for heaven’s sake, so why the hell should we question him at all? That’s want his supporters have decided. He’s the guy no matter what his past relationships - terrorists, racists, shady Chicago slum-lords - and we should just shut the hell up and place that crown on his head.
One has to wonder though. What will Barry and Michelle do if he is elected? The questioning of a candidate’s character and judgment doesn’t stop after the inauguration. Hell, that’s when it really gets started.
Just ask G.W. Bush.
QUICK UPDATE:
Here’s a very interesting article, the thrust of which is why Oprah left the Reverend Wright’s church back in the 1990s, but which also explains why Barry joined and ultimately remained.
Friends of Sen. Barack Obama, whose relationship with Wright has rocked his bid for the White House, insist that it would be unfair to compare Winfrey’s decision to leave Trinity United with his own decision to stay. “[His] reasons for attending Trinity were totally different,” said one campaign adviser, who declined to be named discussing the Illinois senator’s sentiments. “Early on, he was in search of his identity as an African-American and, more importantly, as an African-American man. Reverend Wright and other male members of the church were instrumental in helping him understand the black experience in America.
So he joined the church to find his African-American “identity,” as defined by Wright and his church (We sure know how they define it, don’t we?) - something that was necessary to win any public office in Chicago - but now has dumped Wright to help shed a bit of that identity to win over the white working-class voters he is losing every day.
Calling the man an empty suit is too kind really.
** Changed the title again. I just do that sometimes.
May 5, 2008 at
One sure sign of a raging narcissist is when they expect to be treated completely differently, and far better, than everyone else. Hillary has done this throughout her entire career and always gotten away with it. Now Obama does it. They are both cut from the same nasty cloth. It’s become the trademark of the Democratic Party. They have no problems with vicious personal attacks on others, but don’t you dare question them about anything at all. If you do then you must be immediately labeled a hater.
May 5, 2008 at
Sorry this is kinda long. I just dropped by to tell you I tossed a (non-political) Meme your way over at my blog…
http://varkentine.blogspot.com/2008/05/year-is-2008-placeben-varkentines-mind.html
…and found this irresistible to comment on.
First, a little “West Wing” excerpt to set the scene:
BARTLET
We agree on nothing, Max.
LOBELL
Yes, sir.
BARTLET
Education, guns, drugs, school prayer, gays, defense spending, taxes, you name it, we disagree.
LOBELL
You know why?
BARTLET
‘Cause I’m a lily-livered, bleeding-heart, liberal, egg head, communist.
LOBELL
Yes, sir. And I’m a gun-totin’, redneck son-of-a-bitch.
BARTLET
Yes you are.
LOBELL
We agree on that.
Now:
I wonder if it isn’t kinda “well, duh,” to accuse anyone running for president of narcissism. Surely, the fact that anyone thinks they can lead their country is a sign of a *massive* ego.
In the case of Obama, Clinton, and McCain, they also have the knowledge that millions of people think they can too. You’d get a little self-centered. I’d get a little smug.
It’s hardly any of their worst problems.
Trouble is Hillary for most of her career, and Obama in this election, have been treated completely differently; to the poorer, than Republican candidates (McCain, Giuliani)–and this is provable:
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15437.html
I also think–and I’ve said this here before, I’m pretty sure–most Democrats, certainly I, would *welcome* Obama being asked some tough questions (as opposed to those in the debate disaster).
What we don’t welcome is killing him for things pundits let the other candidates, Clinton *and* McCain, walk water on.
Also, I’m curious: Can either of you give me just three examples of Democrats making undeniably mean-spirited, hateful comments (as opposed to fair, legitimate criticism)?
I would hope this goes without saying, but these should be Democrats anybody really listens to. Digging up a comment someone anonymously left on a MoveOn board doesn’t count.
I’m talking on the level of:
Norman Podhoretz, who said Bush’s critics think Muslins aren’t human beings.
Rush Limbaugh, who called the 12-year-old daughter of Democrats a dog.
Ann Coulter, who compared Obama to a brainwashed assassin for the Communists.
Are there any?
May 6, 2008 at
I would argue that nasty comments made in Moveon.org press releases and on major liberal blogs like the Daily KOS, MyDD, the Huffington Post, the Democratic Underground (more a message board of crazies than a blog), by left-wing columnists and celebrities, and by the hosts of various Air America programs are as relevant as anything Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh say, since both Coulter and Limbaugh are opinion journalists and not news people nor official representatives of the Republican party (Norman Podhoretz is also mostly a commentator, although he was a foreign policy adviser for Rudy Giulani’s presidential campaign. Interestingly enough he was a former leftist who moved into the neo-conservative area later on.), but since you put me to the test I will try to include a broad range of insults.
How about we start with all the Nazi comparisons for Republicans in general and GW Bush specifically? Just check out this nice summation:
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg090403.asp
But let’s not just look at Nazi comparisons, which, like I said are too numerous to mention:
1. Randi Rhodes: Former Air America personality and Rush wannabe, who compared Bush and his family “to the Corleones of “Godfather” fame and said on-air, “Like Fredo, somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw.” She then imitated the sound of a gunshot.
2. Democrat Senator John Rockefeller: “McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”
3. Howard Dean said of John Ashcroft, “he’s no patriot, but a direct descendant of Joe McCarthy.”
4. John Kerry and Dick Durbin have suggested, respectively, that American troops are “terrorizing kids” in Iraq and are akin to the torture masters of Nazi Germany or Pol Pot’s “mad regime.”
5. In 1994, Al Gore referred to supporters of Oliver North in Virginia as “the extra-chromosome right wing.”
6. Arianna Huffington: “The political class has allowed the Neanderthal wing of the GOP to drag the political debate so far to the right, that even Democrats find themselves getting cozy with ideas that not so long ago would have been the exclusive domain of arch-conservatives.”
7. Howard Dean: “I hate Republicans and everything they stand for.” “There’s a struggle between good and evil and we’re the good.”
8. HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher compared First Lady Laura Bush to “Hitler’s dog” during his Friday night cablecast, after flashing a parody photo of Mrs. Bush with a black eye, as if she’d been a victim of domestic abuse.
9. Charles Karel Bouley at The Huffington Post: “I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer NOT grow in you. Work for Fox News, spinning the truth in to a billion knots and how can your gut not rot? I know, it’s terrible. I admit it. I don’t wish anyone harm, even Tony Snow. And I do hope he recovers or at least does what he feels is best and surrounds himself with friends and family for his journey. But in the back of my head there’s Justin Timberlake’s “What goes around, goes around, comes around, comes all the way back around, ya.”
10. Moveon.org: “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?
11. Leftist cartoonist Ted Rall: “Over time, however, the endless war in Iraq began to play a role in natural selection. Only idiots signed up; only idiots died. Back home, the average I.Q. soared.”
12. Charlie Rangel: “Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?” (My home state.)
13. Cindy Sheehan: “(George Bush) is ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was.”
14. John Kerry: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
15. Al Gore: “The (Bush) administration works closely with a network of rapid response digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for ‘undermining support for our troops.’”
16. Walter Cronkite: “So now the question is, basically, right now, how will (the Osama Bin Laden tape) affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I’m a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, that he probably set up bin Laden to this thing.”
17. Bill Moyers: “I think if Kerry were to win this in a tight race, I think there would be an effort to mount a coup, quite frankly.”
18. From a fund raising ad put out by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club: “And then there’s Rumsfeld who said of Iraq ‘We have our good days and our bad days.’ We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say ‘This is one of our bad days’ and pull the trigger.
19. Barry Obama: “We know who you’re talking about, Barack Obama, when you talk about Pennsylvania and the Midwest, about small towns where the jobs have left. We know who you’re talking about when you talk about those who “get bitter” and “cling to guns or religion.”
20. Randi Rhodes: “A spoiled child (Bush) is telling us our Social Security isn’t safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here’s your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of 4 gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little b*stard. [audio of gun being cocked].”
21. Jim McDermott, Democrat Congressman: Said that “we’re losing in Afghanistan,” accused the President of planning to expand the war into Iran, and said “we’re running a gulag – one over in Guantanamo, and several in Iraq.” Yet, the congressman argued, “nobody cares” about the war because “as long as we can hire mercenaries to fight this war for us” the war would continue. McDermott said that the “mercenaries” were recruited from those who could not get jobs, or who could not get into school, or who were in jail due to having committed felonies
Anyway, that’s just 21 of them that I found in about 30 minutes. Granted most of them are not from official Democrat party officers or elected Democrats, but your three examples were not either. The fact is, most officials of both parties are too smart to make big-time insults, although there are notable exceptions. That kind of stuff is left to the opinion journalists and other media types, and in the case of the Democrats, Hollywood celebrities, to do. And, yes, there is plenty of nasty on both side of the aisle, but let me tell you that the left beats the right hands-down when it comes to stuff like this. I mean I didn’t even try to go into the horrid stuff that is really said on most liberal blogs. I don’t want an X-rating for my blog.