Mar 16 2008
Chris Dodd Indicates Sinking Obama
Chris Dodd was on Fox News Sunday and just completely bumbled the Reverend Wright issue, which is a sign of how the issue is tanking Obama’s chances. Dodd could not answer why Obama has stayed around Wright for years, and answer why the words of this minister were not denounced much early much stronger. Clearly Obama lied to America the other day when he said he was not aware of comments as Chris Wallace dug up an earlier, much weaker rebuttal by referring to Wright as the crazy old uncle who says crazy things. And when Dodd had to face the fact Obama lied he could only beg for a change of subject. If Obama is lying to us now that means he will lie to us when President. We don’t want that kind of mess repeated.
The Dems definitely circled the wagons as Schumer stood by Dodd’s lame excuses and diversions. The two dems know the damage is taking hold across the board or they would not have defended each other. But America is not buying the diversion. The two senators said these were distractions and we need to talk about the issues. But Wright (and Geraldine Ferraro) were talking about the issues. They were talking about race relations in America and the lunatic left anti-American views.
America knows this and knows that the people who back or lead a campaign give an indication of where that candidate is going. Once you got the Dems on the mundane topics of economy and health care they were quite able to regurgitate their talking points. But when they had to face the hard issues bubbling up from their base they did not know how to deal with it and just wanted to move on.
The talking heads have lost their connections with the people – that is clear. And they have not figured out how to regain it. America is not giving these losers who have led us into hyper-partisan deadlock anymore leeway. No more benefit of the doubt. Either show some leadership and understanding of what Americans want (and it ain’t hyper-partisan sniping) or lose our backing. I can see they signs that this crop of leaders is out of gas and a new generation is about to take hold. Can’t happen soon enough for my tastes.
Update: Not coincidentally an Obama supporter spoke out today and emphasizes my point about the lies and how they are killing the the wonder boy Obama:
Guilt by association is totally unwarranted. Barack is not responsible for Wright’s views. However, how he responds to those views – and whether he is being straight with us, the voters – is critical as to whether he should lead our country.
This is the acid test Obama just failed. He tried to say he never heard these kinds of statements in 20 years, but as Chris Wallace noted he was trying to pass them off as harmless rantings of an old man a year ago or more. He tried to side step the issue then, and outright lied to the voters this weekend when he tried to claim he was unaware of the rhetoric from his church of 20 years – a laughable position. As Brit Hume noted, even if he missed every flame-throwing sermon somehow, had to be aware of the controversy.
Now we are faced with two versions of a repeat of the Clinton years: His wife and Obama who lies to America’s face as he tries to cover up missteps. Not sure America wants either choice right now.
I have not seen any news today. In fact I don’t watch TV news on Sunday any more. Considering the noise over all this however, I am sure that Obama’s people are trying to find a way to make him look as if he was not lying to us. It would have been better if he just fessed up a long time ago and left the church.
But Schumer is hopeless. The other day he was complaining that Bush did not come up with $400 billion to buy foreclosed property. After all the complaining about the war costs, he would have the president spend hundreds of billions of dollars just like that. And what do they do with the houses once they get them?
The truth is Schumer and the rest of Congress have not dealt with the problems facing America, they have instead spent all their time and energy attacking Bush. And now we are are facing real problems and the Democrats can not even stop fighting among themselves long enough to come up with solutions that are realistic.
Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if Bush has stopped all those no money down loans? They would have said Bush hates poor people.
I’m a not church going person. My back ground is “Church of England” or the Episcopal church. I know “Fire and Brimstone” is what’s happening in lots of churches across America and millions are listening, black and white.
In black churches it’s the white man has his boot on our necks, always has and always will. They have lynched us in the streets, brought us here in chains and will always keep us down. Africa is our home land, be proud of your blackness, your families, take care of your children.
In white churches it’s more then the “born again” message, it’s homosexuals are taking over the world, Mexicans are taking your jobs, we want the America we have always had.
Because Bush was a member of a church he was hated and feared by the press. Who knew what he would do.
I don’t know why people listen to this stuff. I don’t know why it feeds some souls. But I do know a church is a social gathering place where people find support in a society where families live in distant towns and many people feel isolated and lonely. Where what church you belong to gives you in roads to community activities and status.
What did Obama take away from Wright’s sermons? He says that he wants to unite all segments of society. That he wants the world to know we, black, white and brown and really one people, an America who can work together to do kind and great things in the world with out war. We can love those who hate us and can talk to anyone. The government of this country will take care of everyone who is suffering. We the people will take care of your health, your housing, your wages, educate your children, and give you the American dream. Suffering will disappear, war will end, Muslims will love us, the climate will not change, jobs will be plentiful and God will bless us all. The Clintons are offering much of the same.
Many Americans love over the top rhetoric, so don’t count Obama out yet. Americans are sympathetic to those who have been persecuted and the Dems have made an art of supporting the down trodden, Obama may get the support of many of the guilty. Watching the news this morning the sermons were hardly mentioned by Russert and Co. Bush’s war, Bush’s economy, no health care were as much talked about as Hillarys non disclosure of taxes and Obama’s church.
Kathie, I think you do the vast majority of church goers, both black and white, a great disservice. Although the hot headed fire and brimstone congregations exist, they are a very distinct minority – and again this applies to both black and white. Most certainly this is because a message of hate is the complete opposite of what Christianity is about. Now of course some believers and some congregations fail to live up to the standards of their faith, and of course they get a lot of attention from a press that fundamentally distrusts anyone who claims to have faith, but that doesn’t justify damning everyone else. This, theologically, is why Reverend Wright is greatly in error: the scriptures that are the basis of his faith tell him to treat those he views as his enemies with love and forgiveness, not hate, and that applies to his speech as well as his actions. So, this church of Obama’s is not just a “radical” church – it is a church based on very unsound doctrine. (for those more interested, it’s an offshoot of “liberation theology”, the half baked fusion of a deviant form of Chrisitianity with Marxism)
I suppose what I object to is that your statement “lots of churches” sounds like you mean “most churches”. Lots? maybe, this is a big country with probably about a million groups of people who call themselves a church. 5% of that would definitely be a lot.
But most? No, not even close, and that’s as true for black as it is for white. And *that* is what makes Obama’s affiliation with this pastor so shocking.
I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church and I never heard the kind of hateful invective here. I also know black people who go to church every Sunday and do not listen to this. Not all black churches are about hate.
I don’t remember Martin Luther King screaming God Damn America.
I expect Obama and his supporters to talk their way out because they live in denial. Almost all their positions depend upon it.
They have an international organization(UN) to endorse their views and the vehicle (MSM) to distribute their views or enforce a Silence. FOX would have never risked it except they had the tapes. Only people who have actually watched it with their own eyes will even believe it was said. Even then, I watched two of his supporters tell O’Reilly it was taken out of context. That explains why they played longer clips than I have ever seen on TV. Insurance.
This has to be the perfect HATE CRIME. Remember the ad that they ran against Bush. They implied that killing the criminals was not enough.
Do you see the MSM playing this as a HATE CRIME? Yep, against me. I am a whitey. If I said this, I would be put in prison. Thank God, I have never in my lifetime even had the thought.
Someone that thought this way did not keep silent for 20 years. Obama could not wear the flag pin, put his hand on his heart or say the pledge. To do so would have been a slap in his mentor’s face. What a pickle.
I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church and I never heard the kind of hateful invective here. I also know black people who go to church every Sunday and do not listen to this. Not all black churches are about hate.
Ditto Terrye.
Neither black nor white has been about all this hate. Maybe it has been happening all these years in the North?
It’s not a hate crime, because it’s not racism, because racism can NEVER be done BY blacks, it can only be done TO blacks.
And no kidding, that is exactly the definition that mainstream liberal thought espouses.
One amusing corollary to this kind of thought – if you think race should play no part in the definition of racism, then you must be a racist.
WWS I agree Wrights words are very disturbing to a whitemans ear. I agree that Obama found something to like in the sermons is also disturbing. I have no idea how Wrights words relate to who Obama is and how he would govern. I think many people like what I perceive as over the top rhetoric. I don’t know how wide spread it is, but MSM makes it seem quite wide spread. Are people who are drawn to these churches radical? It seems like it, but Obama words don’t sound so radical to a democrat’s ear. Is he hiding something, I don’t know. Is a man his church, I don’t know. Do “down trodden” blacks in society feel differently about America then whites, I know they do.
All these questions are important. If it were a Republican black running for President I think many of these questions would not come up. Republicans usually don’t see themselves as victims of everything American and Dems do. So I wonder if Obama as a Democrat is really that much different then any other democrat, who ever his pastor might be.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t know much about church doctrine, or how it affects people because I don’t go to church. But the black experience in this country is not healed. Wright says that loud and clear. Obama says he is trying to heal racial divides. Do we take Obama at his word? Well it doesn’t really matter to me, tho I would love to heal the racial pain of this country, I could never vote for Obama or Hillary on policy issues. It is interesting to watch the dems deal with 2 very flawed candidates, and I would not count Obama out because they both represent dems thinking and dems willingness to not judge anybody for anything. If you really think about it, how could either of these people have the support of anyone? They are both radical for different reasons.
Kathie, I just ran across a long but very good (in fact I’d label it a must read) article about Obama’s speeches and his thoughts. I think it answers every question you raised in a fair and thoughtful way, although maybe not as specifically as we would like. But that quality turns out to be the key to everything Obama says and does.
The Wit & Wisdom of Barack Obama
Some of it may sound familiar.
by Andrew Ferguson
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/887jicyo.asp
I don’t think it is just in the North that one hears this, it is a particular kind of religious activism, it is in enclaves irrespective of the part of the country.
And I don’t think it is just about white people’s ears either. Even people like Juan Williams think this is way over board. In fact Juan wrote a book, I think it was called Enough, in which he criticizes civil rights leaders for their rhetoric. They gave him hell about it too.
Thanks WWS, read it, this is the best line, I’m still laughing as I type this. “His fans, it turns out, aren’t the people they’ve been waiting for; they’re just the same old people, like everybody else.”
Obama says Wright represents the racial divide that has been preached by both black and whites through out our history, in this moment HE and we, you out there can heal it. People want to believe him and healers are the in thing. Just think if by voting for Obama you could heal the world! Well maybe it would help heal the wounds of racism but what about other things Americans care about?
How does the world of Obama look policy wise? Dems have been in control of both houses for a year, how have they done, black or white? The stock market has plummeted, gas prices have risen, telecom companies may not give us the information that we need to connect the dots, Iraq is going better tho we didn’t leave, terrorists are being killed at an alarming rate to those who think they are freedom fighters, green gas has caused food prices to go up and up, and the UN can’t feed everybody. But healing does sound good and anybody who has heard Wright knows for sure we need to be healed.
I grew up in a United Church of Christ in Wisconsin. From the age of 4 until 18 I attended every Sunday, Youth Group, Choir – the whole bit. It was nothing like the Church that Obama goes to or any other more recent UCC churches I have heard of lately.
We were taught compassion, love for your fellow man, forgiveness and redemption. But churches weren’t so openly political then. The fringes have infiltrated every intitution that were once “good” and made them self-serving political organizations. What has happened to many churches is the same thing that has happened to the educational system. Why are we so surprised? The finges have gone after the very places where millions of people or children have always felt safe and useful. What better places to conduct their indoctrination? What makes these choices so heinous is that these 2 particular institutions should be off limits from the infiltration of any
radicals but instead they have become the most useful for them.
I will say this, when my father was dying his church was a great help to the family. I don’t know what my mother would have done without them. They were good people.
What I said earlier about the crowd being more scary than Wright? I’ve read several times that the guy that slapped him on the shoulder as he said “Bill was riding dirty” is Obama’s NEW pastor.
I keep watching Dem supporters saying they don’t find anything wrong. Dodd was doing a heroic job and Shumer actually said that voters would not consider “these minor issues”. Minor.
You have big dog Senators saying that they do not think being a member of an church that says “God damn America” should be a major issue for someone running for President.
The Democrats are insane.
owl:
They just do not know what to say.
The narrative in the MSM seems to be going along the lines
of “it’s normal for a black person to be filled with hate and to
speak with images of violence” etc.
I have two points:
Firstly, If that is true, then that is too bad, but we cannot have
a man filled with hatred for America and it’s people in the
most dangerous job in the world. More time will need to pass.
Secondly, Obama ain’t “Black” He’s pretending. Genealogically
he is Arab – Caucasian. So he’s lying about that – too.
And before anyone accuses me of saying no Arab could be
a politician in the USA – I suggest Dr. Amir Taheri.
Point is, this Obama guy is not telling the truth about anything,
not even about who he is.
I suspect we will soon see a media frenzy about Wall Street and
recession fears. They will try to bury this story.
Dave, why do you think his father was Arab? There are black Muslims.
Kathie, take this for what you think it’s worth, this site has been linked to in a number of blogs I read in the comment sections.
Kenneth E. Lamb claims to have researched Obama’s father’s heritage in Kenya and found that Obama is only 6.25% African, 50% white and the rest being Arab.
He’s a pretty wordy fellow, you might want to skip and scroll a bit, I think he gets started on what he researched at about 1/3 of the page down.
http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/02/barak-obama-questions-about-ethnic.html
He was questioned about his sources in the comment section and refers to this blog entry:
http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/02/about-research-and-deep-pockets.html
Missy beat me to it, thanks Missy.
I was a little confused by Kathie’s second sentence,
“There are black muslims”.
Are you saying that Obama is a muslim?
I thought he was only lying about his genealogy – are you saying he is
lying about his religion too?
Whoa, that would matter!