• Very good article:

    Obama’s Speech – A Glorious Failure
    By Rich Lowry

    In his hour of political need, Barack Obama went to his base – the media. He delivered a speech about the nation’s racial divisions that couldn’t possibly get anything but lavish praise from the press, burying for now the controversy over his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

    A gifted writer, Obama can plumb depths most politicians can’t, and he spoke truths about the state of race relations in America in an unusually frank and subtle way. But Obama’s speech, like his congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ that he described so lyrically, contains multitudes. Swaddled in all the high-mindedness was rhetorical sleight of hand about the Rev. Wright.

    Ultimately, he sought to justify his relationship to a pastor who believes the U.S. government spread the AIDS virus and has called on God to “damn America.” This makes comparisons, say, to Lincoln’s “House Divided” address perverse. Lincoln delivered a tightly argued speech elevated to greatness by its moral discernment and purpose. For all its eloquence, Obama’s speech didn’t hang together logically and had at its core a moral relativism explaining away Rev. Wright’s hatreds.

    Obama explicitly denied that he was excusing Wright’s views, even as he did it in exceptionally high-toned sophistry. The reason Obama had to give a 38-minute speech is that he was incapable of saying four unadorned words, “I made a mistake.” He could have said long ago that his gratitude to Wright for bringing him to Christianity and his bond with the church community blinded him to Wright’s lies about America and hateful rants. Most of the public would have understood, and forgiven him.

    Obama did rap Wright on the knuckles. He said Wright’s videotaped ravings “expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.” Well, of course they did. Seeing racism as endemic and America as unredeemably corrupt is central to the Rev. Wright’s black liberation theology; indeed, it would be a passable definition of it.

    In prior interviews, Obama implied that he had never heard the Rev. Wright say anything untoward, but in the speech he admitted he heard “remarks that could be considered controversial.” On CNN, he said those remarks had to do with things like “infidelity and family life,” as if the Rev. Wright never aired his poisonous worldview except in a couple of videotaped sermons acquired by ABC News. This is dubious, which is probably why Obama’s campaign is resisting media requests for dates when he attended services.

    Obama made two arguments for why he couldn’t reject the Rev. Wright. One was that the Rev. Wright lived through the era of segregation. So did many others. Surely, there are plenty of black pastors in the country who have suffered more than Wright without letting a left-wing racialist ideology taint their Christian message of love and mercy, let alone telling paranoid lies from the pulpit.

    The other was he “can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.” This was a poetic simulacrum of profundity. Does that mean Obama can reject no black man or woman because it would constitute rejecting the black community? Did the Hillary Clinton campaign reject the Italian-American community when it rejected Geraldine Ferraro?

    In the end, Obama made the case for the respectability of a man who is a hater – and did it, amazingly enough, in a speech devoted to ending divisiveness. At one moment, Obama said we needed a searching national dialogue about race; at another, he suggested we needed to get beyond all that and unite around a clichéd left-wing agenda of anti-corporatism. But whatever Obama is advocating at a given moment, his solution is always himself in his glorious personhood, the salve to the country’s ills.

    For now, Obama’s speech worked. But questions about his judgment and candor will linger.

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/obamas_speech_a_glorious_failu.html

    Question: If this had been released before Iowa, would Obama ever have had a chnce?

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Nope.

    I do not think most Americans think we are a racist nation against Blacks.  If we did, then why would all the racist laws that gave blacks preferential treatment over whites be getting over turned and in California as the starting ground of all places!

    Furthermore, why is he afraid of letting a revote in MI and FL happen?  His stance on the issue only stands to disenfranchise large portions of the political party so he can get the nomination when the party no longer really wants him.  At least, it looks to ME like it’s a stance taken out of fear.

    Honestly, Obama strikes me as a card carrying member of the Black KKK now.  I used to pull for him.  I had every conservative on this board pissed at me because I was carrying Obama’s water.  Now I’ve dropped the bucket.  I’ll go vote for Hillary now.

  • 2007 AAR League

    hey, i was an obama fan too.

    i have multiple listings of how he can inspire and such.  i just thought he was too green.  now i have more reasons to think he shouldnt be president.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @balungaloaf:

    hey, i was an obama fan too.

    i have multiple listings of how he can inspire and such.  i just thought he was too green.  now i have more reasons to think he shouldn’t be president.

    Really?  I got the over all impression that the only friends I had when I was supporting Obama were dyed in the wool Liberals who, really didn’t think of me as a friend, but were not going to lambaste me while they thought I’d actually switch sides and vote for him.

    Actually, I got the impression the Liberals everywhere were hoping that after storming the polls and forcing John McCain on Republicans we’d either be so turned off on our party to not vote or to switch to their sides.  Guess they didn’t expect us to do it BEFORE they had coronated a winner!

    Now I am SERIOUSLY considering Hillary Clinton.  At least the only idiotic thing she’s supported in the past was Universal Health Care (which even McCain supports) and NAFTA (which she now says was a bad move.)  She at least concedes that the War on Terror and the War in Iraq have to be fought, and even went so far as to vote for them as a Senator.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that those sermons my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. My trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling my journey, the stories gave me a means to strive for the Democrat nomination for President.

    Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that I can get back into first place as it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
    {
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    But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.  Being in second place is not that bad.  We started in second place but I want everybody to be absolutely clear - I’m not running for vice president, I’m running for president of the United States of America.
    {
    break
    }
    I don’t want anybody here thinking that somehow, “Maybe I can get both.” Don’t think that way. You have to make a choice in this election. Are you gonna go along with the past, or are you gonna go towards the future? Are you gonna do the same old thing, or are you gonna try something new? - Barack Obama

    Note, the above is just a section of his speech.  The thing was wordy and you had to really drop off a lot of crud about Faith and Hope and Change to get at the meaning of his speech.

    However, it is interesting that he is acknowledging he is in second place and trying to motivate his supporters to jettison him back above Hillary.

    Anyway, Hillary has two chances.

    (1) She can get the most popular votes, which is still possible.  Then claim that with winning the big states, having the most votes AND not being a racist, she is the best candidate and get the super delegates to nominate her.

    (2) She can get FL and MI seated at the convention.  Without a revote she would get 100% of the delegates from both states being the only one to receive any votes IN those two states. (She was the only one on the ticket, no one COULD vote Obama or Edwards when the primaries were held.)

    It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our African-American children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.  - Barack Obama


  • @Cmdr:

    (2) She can get FL and MI seated at the convention.  Without a revote she would get 100% of the delegates from both states being the only one to receive any votes IN those two states.

    Only for Michigan. Barac was on the ballot in Florida and won 33% of the vote.
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/fl/florida_democratic_primary-261.html

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @Smacktard:

    @Cmdr:

    (2) She can get FL and MI seated at the convention.  Without a revote she would get 100% of the delegates from both states being the only one to receive any votes IN those two states.

    Only for Michigan. Barac was on the ballot in Florida and won 33% of the vote.
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/fl/florida_democratic_primary-261.html

    Confirmed, Florida Government’s website:

    Edwards: 14.9%
    Obama: 32.9%
    Clinton: 49.8%

    Got one right, Tard.  Good job!

    So that means Hillary should get at least half the delegates in Florida with a third to Obama.

    And I also would like to correct myself BEFORE someone else does, Hillary was not the ONLY one on the ticket in Michigan either, she shared the ticket with Kucinich (resigned I believe) and Dodd and Gravel (both quit as well, if I am not mistaken.)

    In Michigan Hillary received 77% of the votes for a specific candidate, thus, she should get at least 77% of the delegates from that state as well.  Though, to be honset, since the other three guys quit, that really should be the full 100% there as well.

    I mean, we wouldn’t want to disenfranchise the voters in those states.  Didn’t the dems all rally behind counting every last vote in 2000?  So let’s count every last vote!  Give Hillary her due!  She had to stay married to a lying, cheating, no good dirty rotten scoundrel for decades for this chance!  What has Obama ever had to sacrifice!  Did Obama’s wife drag HIS name through the mud while simultaneously cheating on him with another man and letting the entire world know about it?  Heck no!  Barry’s grown up as a rich snot nosed little brat and had everything handed too him on a silver platter, then turned around and associated himself with some of the worst citizens this nation has ever had to own up too as members!

    It’s Hillary’s turn!  Won’t anyone PLEASE think about the Children!  What will we tell our kids if we let a racist into the White House and hold the woman down.  This poor, beat up, woman who’s been treated like a piece of garbage by her abusive man!  Won’t anyone think about the children!  Bunch of masongonist pigs!

    (Imaging I have a tear running down my right cheek while a flag burns as a back drop to a man beating his wife and telling her she’s a no good whore.  It’s more dramatic that way.)


    Okay, I’m ready for the smears now.  I know at least 80% of you thought I was actually being serious - well, serious about Hillary being the victim anyway.


  • If you want to shorten my name, “Smack” will do, otherwise i’ll have to come up with a similar name for you, and the mods will get involved and nobody wins.


  • @Cmdr:

    Now I am SERIOUSLY considering Hillary Clinton.  At least the only idiotic thing she’s supported in the past was Universal Health Care (which even McCain supports) and NAFTA (which she now says was a bad move.)  She at least concedes that the War on Terror and the War in Iraq have to be fought, and even went so far as to vote for them as a Senator.

    Are you sure McCain wants Universal Health Care?

    Can you define what Universal Health Care means and do they have different views of UHC?


  • This is about as specific as McCain gets on the “issues” page of his website:

    “Reform the tax code to eliminate the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance, and provide all individuals with a $2,500 tax credit ($5,000 for families) to increase incentives for insurance coverage. Individuals owning innovative multi-year policies that cost less than the full credit can deposit remainder in expanded health savings accounts.”

    Two problems:

    1. Median income families with children don’t pay hardly any income tax at all (median household income is $48000. Assume AGI of $40,000. Standard deduction of $10000, plus $3300 for spouse, yourself, and two kids. Taxable income= $25000. Tax= $2900. Two Child Tax Credits makes total tax $900)

    So a typical two-kid family will save $900 a year, not $5000.

    2. McCain runs into the same problem as Barac and Hillary. $5000 a year DOES buy fairly good coverage (assuming no preexisting conditions, which is a BIG assumption) How many families will go for that? 20 million? That’s $100 billion a year in tax credits. That + Iraq + Afghanistan + Medicare + Social Security = financial catastrophe.


  • It could still be a full $5000 benefit… AND a social welfare program under McCain’s plan.

    What he does not state is whether or not it is a REFUNDABLE Tax Credit (which it sounds like he might be, but that is not 100% certain).

    If it is a refundable tax credit, then it would be like EIC…  You can get back more in a refund than you paid during the year.


  • @Cmdr:

    Really?  I got the over all impression that the only friends I had when I was supporting Obama were dyed in the wool Liberals who, really didn’t think of me as a friend, but were not going to lambaste me while they thought I’d actually switch sides and vote for him.

    Actually, I got the impression the Liberals everywhere were hoping that after storming the polls and forcing John McCain on Republicans we’d either be so turned off on our party to not vote or to switch to their sides.  Guess they didn’t expect us to do it BEFORE they had coronated a winner!

    Now I am SERIOUSLY considering Hillary Clinton.  At least the only idiotic thing she’s supported in the past was Universal Health Care (which even McCain supports) and NAFTA (which she now says was a bad move.)  She at least concedes that the War on Terror and the War in Iraq have to be fought, and even went so far as to vote for them as a Senator.

    Jen, sounds to me that you are trying to make everyone think that you’re “actually switching sides and voting for” Hillary…

    Just say you’re voting for McCain, a Republican, and end the “forum suspense” on “who Jen votes for”… really now, nobody cares.


  • @ncscswitch:

    It could still be a full $5000 benefit… AND a social welfare program under McCain’s plan.

    What he does not state is whether or not it is a REFUNDABLE Tax Credit (which it sounds like he might be, but that is not 100% certain).

    If it is a refundable tax credit, then it would be like EIC…  You can get back more in a refund than you paid during the year.

    If its like that, then you really open the floodgates. Still, it would be preferable to Hillarys all-or-nothign plan. But no matter how you slice it, its gonna cost a lot. America just doesnt have the money anymore  :-(

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @stuka:

    Jen, sounds to me that you are trying to make everyone think that you’re “actually switching sides and voting for” Hillary…

    Just say you’re voting for McCain, a Republican, and end the “forum suspense” on “who Jen votes for”… really now, nobody cares.

    I can’t.  Because I don’t know who the Democrat nominee will be.  However, if the election were between Hillary Clinton and John McCain TODAY my vote would be for Hillary Clinton.

    About 4 months ago, my vote was for Obama over McCain.


    However, if Switch is right, and employers will no longer be allowed to offer health care and the citizens will be giving a $2500 check each to get health care instead, then I’m really impressed with how McCain has listened to the people of this nation and been able to change his rhetoric to fit the new demands.

    I don’t buy for a moment he’d do anything that conservative (and it’s pretty liberal still) but it’s better then what he called for last year.

    Seriously, the best health care reform would be tort reform followed by restrictions on companies preventing them from offering health care at all.  This would force all citizens onto a level playing field when dealing with insurance companies and allow people to feel free to change jobs without worry about losing coverage or being denied coverage with the new firm.


  • if you don’t like any of the big three, are there any (real) alternatives?


  • I will vote Libertarian until the Big Two finally self destruct…

    I can;t stand either major party… at least what they both have become in the last decade…


  • “Black KKK”….does not compute.  :?

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @Jermofoot:

    “Black KKK”….does not compute.  :?

    Jeremiah Wright = Strom Thurmond

    Jeremiah Wright leads his organization
    Strom Thurmond lead the KKK (his organization.)

    Both the KKK and Jeremiah’s klan believe the government is out to get them and that another race is responsible for all their troubles.

    Thus, Barrack Obama is a card carrying member of the black version of the KKK lead by Jeremiah Wright.  His statements that his Grandmother is a racist and that all women are just like his grandmother (aka also racists) really sheds some light on what he thinks about whites.

    As President, do you think he’d be unbiased in deciding what laws to sign?  Honestly.  If he had a choice to sign legislation sent to him to do harm to whites in some way, whether writing checks to blacks or forcing whites to sit in the back of the bus, or any other legislation that Congress sends him that may be anti-White, can you honestly tell yourself his racism WONT be a factor in his choice?

    At least Hillary isn’t racist against white, black, latino or red as far as I know.


  • @Cmdr:

    @Jermofoot:

    “Black KKK”….does not compute.  :?

    Jeremiah Wright = Strom Thurmond

    Jeremiah Wright leads his organization
    Strom Thurmond lead the KKK (his organization.)

    Both the KKK and Jeremiah’s klan believe the government is out to get them and that another race is responsible for all their troubles.

    Thus, Barrack Obama is a card carrying member of the black version of the KKK lead by Jeremiah Wright.  His statements that his Grandmother is a racist and that all women are just like his grandmother (aka also racists) really sheds some light on what he thinks about whites.

    As President, do you think he’d be unbiased in deciding what laws to sign?  Honestly.  If he had a choice to sign legislation sent to him to do harm to whites in some way, whether writing checks to blacks or forcing whites to sit in the back of the bus, or any other legislation that Congress sends him that may be anti-White, can you honestly tell yourself his racism WONT be a factor in his choice?

    At least Hillary isn’t racist against white, black, latino or red as far as I know.

    Jen, you are borderline conspiracy theorist. Actually, I wish he was as racist as you say…. white people could use a little pushing around from time to time…

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    @stuka:

    @Cmdr:

    @Jermofoot:

    “Black KKK”….does not compute.  :?

    Jeremiah Wright = Strom Thurmond

    Jeremiah Wright leads his organization
    Strom Thurmond lead the KKK (his organization.)

    Both the KKK and Jeremiah’s klan believe the government is out to get them and that another race is responsible for all their troubles.

    Thus, Barrack Obama is a card carrying member of the black version of the KKK lead by Jeremiah Wright.  His statements that his Grandmother is a racist and that all women are just like his grandmother (aka also racists) really sheds some light on what he thinks about whites.

    As President, do you think he’d be unbiased in deciding what laws to sign?  Honestly.  If he had a choice to sign legislation sent to him to do harm to whites in some way, whether writing checks to blacks or forcing whites to sit in the back of the bus, or any other legislation that Congress sends him that may be anti-White, can you honestly tell yourself his racism WONT be a factor in his choice?

    At least Hillary isn’t racist against white, black, latino or red as far as I know.

    Jen, you are borderline conspiracy theorist. Actually, I wish he was as racist as you say…. white people could use a little pushing around from time to time…

    Conspiracy theorists don’t have facts to back them up.  I have actual speeches by the guy and sermons from his closest friends and advisers.

    There’s a difference.

    Hell, I don’t even have speeches from Strom Thurmond when he lead the KKK!

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