Tolerance on Display

Sad that a 14 year old gets it when so many adults don't:

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.
Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.
So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:
"McCain Girl."
"I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters," Catherine told us. "I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be."
"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.
"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.
One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.
Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be "burned with her shirt on" for "being a filthy-rich Republican."
Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election.

The Politics of Tolerance has been illusory at best. And all of us who have not supported the messiah have been slandered like this.

Since Barack is a "new" politician, any criticism of him has been labelled "divisive", "mean", or downright "raaaaaaacist". His supporters have been fanatics in exporting his "change", by force if neccessary!

Behind each one of these violent little Obama "change thugs", is a big violent Obama supporting "change thug" no doubt. Political stupidity in children comes from political stupidity in parents.

We have 4 years of this crap to look forward to.

The Death of the Politics of Change

Not that any of us expected Barack Obama to be an agent of real reform, but the speed at which he's distanced himself from his supposed platform of "hope and change" is amazing.

Within a day of winning the election, Obama picked ultra-partisan Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. In 2006, his message to the Republicans said it all, "Since my kids are gone, I can say it. They can go fuck themselves." Reportedly after Clinton was being investigated, Emanuel stood at a table listing Clinton "betrayers", and jamming the knife into the table after each name, screaming "Dead". Even in the dirty world that is Washington politics, Rahm stands out for his nastiness, for sending rotting fish to his political enemies to make a statement. Both as a Clintonista, and then again as a member of the House, he has been a ruthless, cutthroat advocate for the Democrat party, trying to bury Democrat scandals while overhyping Republican misdeeds. It was under his leadership that the Democrat party rallied around "Cold Cash" Jefferson.

Not to mention, Emanuel was a part of Freddie Mac, one of the government backed agencies that had to be bailed out due to blatant fraud. After leaving the Clinton camp, he had been given this position as a political favor. With Rahm Emanuel's support of the ultra-corrupt Richard Daley, he has helped continue the corrupt "Chicago machine, shaming donors into giving more money and getting his seat as a political kickback, tit for tat. Some have even charged that Daley helped bully Emanuel into power. "The mayor brought out the pay rollers to make sure that Emanuel steamrolled his opposition. I happen to live in the district and I remember the fellows on the sidewalks outside the polling places on Election Day. Beefy boys with thick necks and fat bellies, they passed out palm cards that pretty much said, 'Vote for Emanuel -- or else!'"

Politics of change? Hardly. Emanuel is the epitomy of what everyone hates about Washington.

To be fair, Emanuel could've been a nod to the party, a way to shore up support among the left. Either way he was a poor choice. But in the week he's been in power, it was hardly his only one.

Obama has been strongly considering Robert Kennedy Jr. for the EPA. He has called reporters Glenn Beck and John Stossel who disagree with global warming "corporate toadies." They are "committing treason. They are traitors." He accuses anyone who disagrees with him of being a "paid representative for the oil industries." He has repeatedly demonized those who are in favor of repealing the ban on DDT as "collaborate in drafting legislation to dismantle federal health, safety and environmental laws." For
years, Kennedy blamed Mercury for an increase in autism, citing any study that showed ANY negative effect for mercury. Whether it was narcolepsy or insomnia, autism or ADD, retardation or superhuman intelligence, the study went into a massive pile meant to overwhelm people with more evidence than they could ever go through.

Kennedy is hardly a bi-partisan guy. He's the type who screams fascist, traitor, or murderer at any who even questions (they don't even have to disagree) his narrative. In short he's the kind of guy who the left have been complaining about for years...but he's OK, because he's on their side. Politics of change? Not even close. Kennedy is another partisan hack, as extreme as you get. Not the type to build bridges across the aisle that Obama promises he'll be.

And the hits keep coming. No sooner had the leaks about Kennedy surfaced than it was learned Obama was considering Jamie Gorelick for Attorney General. Gorelick is the poster child for corruption and cronyism, and, if appointed, stands as a rebuke to every promise Obama made in his campaign to "fix Washington". Gorelick has been blamed, unfairly or not, for creating the wall of seperation between FBI and CIA during her role as Deputy Attorney General, which some have charged enabled 9/11. Whether true or not, such involvement should've precluded Gorelick's inclusion in the 9/11 commission. Yet she covered up any involvement of her own while on the committee. Including it's original intention of shielding the Clinton administration from investigation into illegal campaign contributions. Despite having absolutely no financial experience, Gorelick was appointed Vice Chair of Fannie Mae. The financial dealings of Fannie are extremely hard to understand, but the books were extremely cooked. How much of a hand Gorelick had in it, and how extensively she worked with Franklin Raines (another Obama advisor) is hard to tell, but it's not believable that she had no role in the widespread fraud and corruption of Fannie Mae. While Republicans were trying to reform the two government backed industries, Gorelick lied to the American people about the stability of Fannie. Then she walked away, right before a major accounting scandal, with 800 thousand obscenely bulging her pockets. Her overall earnings were 24 million. (17) While many complain about CEO bonuses, ironically, her name never comes up.

To most Americans, it might sound insane that someone with a direct role in the collapse of the housing market, which threatens to kill our economy, would be rewarded. Yet that's exactly what's happening here, as Barack wants to make her one of the most powerful women in the world, after her incompetant and downright criminal actions in the past.

Kent Conrad has also been tapped to have a position. This despite his own set of problems, being involved with Countrywide Mortgages scandal. In return for a special VIP loan, Conrad, along with Chris Dodd, steered a lot of taxpayer money to the corrupt organization. He also backed the bailout bill which partially went to Countrywide.

If that wasn’t enough, as Joe Lieberman fights to keep his committee chair against the Democrat party, angered that he backed John McCain, Obama has kept mum. Is this the spirit of cooperation Obama has promised? Refusing to stand up for a fellow Democrat who simply disagrees on Iraq and Israel? What hope do actual opponents have of hearing
their voice heard by Obama if he won’t even reach out to a man who votes with him about 75-85% of the time?

Refusing to reach out to moderates in his own party? Rejection of those who disagree? Surrounding himself with incompetents, cronies and partisans? He promised us a brand new kind of politics, and instead we get a rehash of the cronyism and corruption of the Clinton years, mixed with the blind partisanship of the far left Pelosi-Reed wing party of the past 8 years. I doubt any of us actually bought into all his promises of hope and change, but I, for one, at least expected him to keep up appearances until he got into office.

Another Step Towards Victory

Iraqis take control of once-bloody Anbar province

BAGHDAD - American forces on Monday handed over security responsibility to the Iraqis in a province that the U.S. once feared was lost — a sign of the stunning reversal of fortunes since local Sunnis turned against al-Qaida in Iraq.
But a Sunni Arab leader criticized the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for failing to embrace its newfound allies, underlining the threat that sectarian tensions still pose to a lasting peace.
Nevertheless, the transfer of Anbar province, the cradle of the Sunni insurgency and the birthplace of al-Qaida in Iraq, marked a dramatic milestone in America's plan to eventually hand over all 18 provinces to Iraqi control so U.S. troops can go home.
The 25,000 American troops remaining in Anbar will focus on training Iraq's military and police forces and standing by to help if the Iraqis are unable to cope with any surge in violence.

If Obama had had his way, we'd have been turning over Anbar to al Quida, not to the Iraq government. Remember that everytime says that Obama was right on Iraq. Al Quida would've been just like putting Saddam back in power.

That's not change. That's more of the same.

McCain hammers Obama

Yahoo News reports:

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, used his weekly radio address to make some of his most pointed attacks yet on Barack Obama's abortion record, ending a summerlong d�tente on a hot-button culture war issue that still deeply divides many voters.
...
Many political experts do not agree with McCain's characterization of Obama's views as extreme. According to polls conducted this summer, nearly two thirds of likely voters continue, like Obama, to support Roe, while almost 40 percent believe, like McCain, that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases.

Every "political expert" who disagrees with McCain is wrong. As Carville noted in his last book, something like 96% of Americans are against Partial Birth Abortion. Barack Obama is not. That would indeed make him an extremist. Michelle sent out a letter criticizing the ban as unconstitutional. Hardly a "normal" view.

We also have Barack Obama's ridiculous opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. This act was so uncontroversial that 100% of liberals in the Senate, 100% of pro-choicers voted for it, 98-0, the 2 missing later also supporting it. Barack Obama was against it, claiming that it put additional hurdles in front of a mother who wanted an abortion.

How are these views not extreme? Many Americans do indeed support abortion. But apparently Barack Obama is the only person in America who supports partial birth abortion and letting infants die without medical care.

Thank God it was clarified that he wasn't an extremist. Whew.

Barack's Identity Politics

No racial component here folks!

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — If Barack Obama's historic campaign to become the first black president boosts black turnout as drastically as he predicts, he could crack decades of Republican dominance across the South.
That's a big "if."
Still, an Associated Press analysis of U.S. Census and voting data from the past four presidential elections shows a potentially dramatic impact should Obama fulfill his pledge to elevate black participation by 30%.
That would add nearly 1.8 million votes in 11 Southern states, the analysis shows, enough to tip the balance in several that have been Republican strongholds.

And why would he expect such gains? And why only if he's president?

The only reasonable explaination is that he expects black people to show up in droves never before seen...because he's black. Gotta support a brother don'tcha know?

It's nice to see the candidate of hope and change is still beholden to identity politics.

Anotehr Brilliant Sowell Insight

It is amazing how seriously the media are taking Senator Barack Obama's latest statement about the latest racist rant from the pulpit of the church he has attended for 20 years. But neither that statement nor the apology for his rant by Father Michael Pfleger really matters, one way or the other. Nor does Senator Obama's belated resignation from that church.
For any politician, what matters is not his election year rhetoric, or an election year resignation from a church, but the track record of that politician in the years before the election.
Yet so many people are so fascinated by Barack Obama's rhetorical skills that they don't care about his voting record in the U.S. Senate, in the Illinois state senate, the causes that he has chosen to promote over the years, or the candidate's personal character and values, as revealed by his actions and associations.
...
Are Barack Obama's views shown by what he says during an election year or by what he has been doing for decades before?
The complete contrast between Obama's election year image as a healer of divisions and his whole career of promoting far-left grievance politics, in association with America-haters like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, are brushed aside by his supporters who talk about getting back to "the real issues."
There is nothing more real than a man's character and values. The track record of what he has actually done is far more real than anything he says, however elegantly he says it.

The constant Obama meme has been, it doesn't matter what he's done..he TALKS a good game. He may not be the racially unifying candidate...but he SAYS he is. He may not be a cross aisle man..but he SAYS he is!

In the end its not so much who Obama IS, but who he claims to be that matters to his voters.

Sanctimonious Fools

Further proving just how wrong those filthy rightwingers were about St. Obama, Trinty Church has recently issued a statement about Reverand White:

Mr. Moss invoked the 40th anniversary of the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., saying Mr. Wright’s character was being “assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.”
...
“It is an indictment on Dr. Wright’s ministerial legacy,” Mr. Moss wrote, “to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30-second sound bite.”
He cited Mr. Wright’s development of ministries: “places for senior citizens, day care for children, pastoral care and counseling, health care, ministries for persons living with H.I.V./AIDS, hospice training, prison ministry, scholarships for thousands of students to attend historically black colleges, youth ministries, tutorial and computer programs, a church library, domestic violence programs, and scholarships and fellowships for women and men attending seminary.”

All of this, of course, is a neat little "look over there" trick, designed to deflect criticism.

No one at all is criticizing Wright for his contributions to humanity. They are criticizing him for his anti-Semetic and overtly anti-American remarks. And his seeming anti-white bias has put a couple people off as well.

Let us not forget that it was a 15-30 second video, shot on a phone that brought down Michael Richards, screaming "You can talk, you can talk, you're brave now motherf**ker. Throw his ass out. He's a n*gger! He's a n*gger! He's a n*gger! A n*gger, look, there's a n*gger!" No one accused anyone of a hit job on Richards. No one said his remarks were taken out of context. No one demanded we look at how funny he was (or wasn't) on Seinfeld. His remarks were taken at their racist face value and denounced.

It is not character assassination to point out someone's own comments. It is not character assassination to show 3 and 4 and 5 minute clips of them talking. In one of these, the man even realizes that he has offended "some white people", and much like Richards, tells them to get over it. "He's preaching the Bible", don'tchaknow? As long as there is no mitigating context that we're missing, (and in Wright's case, there clearly isn't), playing his unaltered comments is nothing more than exposing people to his sermons. To compare him to the late great Dr. King is absolutely dispicible. Whereas King preached tolerance and told the black community to accept their white brothers and sisters (in an age where he was being sprayed with firehoses and attacked by dogs), Wright preaches about the evils of the white society to the black man (while he lives in luxury). The two couldn't be further apart.

Mr. Moss added that the questioning of Mr. Wright added up to “an attack on the legacy of the African American Church which led and continues to lead the fight for human rights in America and around the world.”

And of course the parting racist shot. If you are against anything we do, you are an unmitigated racist, who just hates the black man.

This further strains Obama's claim that he had no clue what Wright stood for. The very next minister defends Wright from these charges, echoing Barack Obama's very same tone. "We can't judge a 40 year career by a stupid thing said on occasion." The question is...why not? That's how we judge people in politics. How often is the assinine "Gays and single mothers helped cause 9/11" comment brought up, even now that the man is dead? It was a sad comment, and it rightfully tarred Falwell. The church simply wants a pass on Wright's disgusting and reprehensible comments because he's a black man, and black men, according to seperationist liberation theory, are supposed to stick together against white racist oppression (which this most certainly is...not honest criticism). Being black is the ultimate, get out of stupid free card.

While Trinity church would like to point to Reverand Wright's years of service to the black community as a way to define him...it's more appropriate to define him by his deep connections to virulent racist Louis Farrakhan, his support for suicide bombers in Palestine, his characterization of 9/11 as a way for "people of color to remind us they were still around", and his many trips to state sponsors of terrorism.

Playing the victim card just doesn't quite cut it here.