The below article, written by LA-based talk show host, Larry Elder, was posted on the website of the National Black Republican Association and e-mailed to me. I am pleased to post it here.
THE CASE AGAINST BARACK OBAMA, PART 2
http://townhall.com/columnists/LarryElder/2008/10/23/the_case_against_barack_obama,_part_2
By Larry Elder
Thursday, October 23, 2008
1) What about this business of Barack Obama and William Ayers?
Ayers and his wife, Bernardine, belonged to a radical terror group in the '60s and '70s called Weather Underground. The organization committed murders, bombings and attempted acts of terrorism. In a Sept. 11, 2001, article about Ayers' book "Fugitive Days," Ayers showed no remorse. Indeed, he said: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."
When Obama ran for state senator in Illinois, Ayers hosted what one person present called Obama's political "coming-out party."
Ayers and Obama sat on two boards together. One -- the Chicago Annenberg Challenge -- distributed more than $100 million from 1995 to 2001 to improve Chicago schools. Their own assessments show they failed. The money went for things such as peace initiatives, multiculturalism, Afrocentrism, bilingualism and courses that condemn capitalism and encourage attacking "oppressors."
Obama and Ayers also served on the board of the Woods Fund, an organization that distributed grant money to ACORN, which pushes its leftist agenda -- "tax justice," livable wages, anti-school choice, voter registration and affordable housing. The nearly 400,000-person-strong organization is currently under investigation by state and federal authorities in several states for voter registration fraud. The Obama campaign dismisses any connection to ACORN as tangential.
But on Dec. 1, 2007, Obama spoke at the Heartland Democratic Presidential Forum before leaders of community organizing groups, including ACORN. He said: "Let me even say before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we'll be calling all of you (community organizers) in to help us shape the agenda. We're gonna be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next presidency of the United States of America."
"Meet the Press" moderator Tom Brokaw called Ayers -- a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago -- a "school reformer." Ayers, on the other hand, calls himself a Marxist and a "small 'c' communist." A Venezuelan government Web site, translated to English, calls Ayers "the leader of the revolutionary and anti-imperialist group the Weather Underground, which initiated armed struggle against the government of the USA." Ayers sits on the directorate of a think tank funded by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
2) Is McCain's support for the Iraq war a political winner or loser?
McCain needs to clearly state that America and the world sleep easier without Saddam Hussein in power, and that Saddam intended to restart his chemical and biological programs. McCain makes a mistake by conceding, through silence, that the war was a mistake. A recent Rasmussen poll shows that more Americans than not believe that history will judge Iraq a success.
Obama was wrong about the surge, and continues to maintain -- despite clear evidence to the contrary -- that political reconciliation is not taking place. Even The Washington Post, which endorses Obama, editorialized against Obama's insistence on withdrawing troops by a date certain. Furthermore, the Post wrote: "Democrat Barack Obama continues to argue that only the systematic withdrawal of U.S. combat units will force Iraqi leaders to compromise. Yet the empirical evidence of the past year suggests the opposite: that only the greater security produced and guaranteed by American troops allows a political environment in which legislative deals and free elections are feasible."
3) Obama supports the use of our military to stop genocide in Darfur while showing indifference about a possible one in Iraq.
Brokaw, moderating a debate, asked Obama when American combat forces should be used to quell humanitarian crises that pose no threat to U.S. security. Obama -- specifically mentioning Darfur and Rwanda -- said, "When genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening somewhere around the world and we stand idly by, that diminishes us." But after a 2007 interview with Obama, The Associated Press wrote, "Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there." So Obama wants to use our military to stop genocide in Darfur -- a tragedy that we did not start. But he wants our military to withdraw in Iraq, possibly resulting in a genocide of our own making. Got that?
4) As for the current financial crisis, does Obama bear some responsibility?
In the subprime crisis, many people took out unaffordable loans, and lenders lent under government policies that encouraged them to make risky loans. As a lawyer, Obama and his firm filed a class action lawsuit against Citibank, alleging that the bank systematically shut out minority borrowers. According to The Associated Press: "The case was settled out of court. Some class members got cash payments, and the bank agreed to help ease the way for low- and moderate-income people to apply for mortgages."
Bottom line. When the Communist Party USA approvingly says Obama would "advance progressive politics for the long term" -- run.
More information about the National Black Republican Association is available at: www.NBRA.Info/
Smell that Gary? It's the horse - it was beaten to death weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteNot really, Lance. Until McCain and Palin began mentioning Ayres' name publicly, our good ol' mainstream news media tried to ignore it, just like they tried to ignore Jeremiah Wright until the tapes came out.
ReplyDeleteWrong, Gary. The Ayers relationship was discussed way back during the Democratic primaries. It was even brought up during at least one of the debates put on by the mainstream news media. Do you even watch CNN or MSNBC? Because I'm pretty sure they cover this sensationalistic story.
ReplyDeleteLance, I say let them keep beating this dead horse. It's only been hurting them, according to polls conducted on the matter. Let's see just how wide a margin McCain can lose by!
What I mean, Gary, is that this whole Ayers thing is tired and it's all much ado about nothing.
ReplyDeleteYou know that I have no need to defend Obama. I'm not even going to vote for him. So, when I first heard about this, I was open-minded about the possibility that he might be into some pretty bad stuff.
But with this, you have to play such a convoluted connect-the-dots game that I'm always left just scratching my head at the end of it. I mean, I don't support this Ayers guy, but even he isn't as bad as he's being made out to be - and his quote (that I've read ad nauseum) about how he wishes that he did more was taken out of context. (Again, I don't defend the man or his actions, but it's not like he's a terrorist on the level of Bin Laden or MacVeigh.)
Personally, I find Palin's deliberately duplicitous comments about Obama "palling around with terrorists" much more offensive than I do the fact that Obama served on a committee with this guy about something that has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.
Lance/Bryan.
ReplyDelete(I am killing two birds with one stone.)
It was Fox and talk radio that kept talking about it. Only a couple of msm outlets mentioned it. Yes, it came up in a debate (Gibson or Stephanopoulis I think) and they were excoriated by their colleagues for bringing it up.
It was Fox (mostly Hannity) and talk radio that kept it going until it made its way to the msm, which still downplays it (NYT, for example).
Yes, Ayres is now a "respected member" of the academic commenity-just like Angela Davis, yet his policies are still radical. He is working within the system now, but his school reform id radical left.
Obama may have been 8 years old when Ayres was bombing places, but he was in this 30s and 40s when he sat on boards with him and did seminars with him.
Whether you are talking about John Edwards, Wright, Pfleger, Ayres, Rezko etc, the msm won't even report these things about the Dems until they can no longer ignore them. Hannity was talking about Wright (and had him on his show) a year before he became a public figure, and Sean was hammering the relationship like a voice in the wilderness.
Surely, you can both see how the msm is doing everything in its power to get Obama elected.
Gary, I'll admit that the media definitely seems to have a love affair with Obama. Personally, I think it has more to do with his charisma than anything else, as you certainly didn't see this kind of a thing for Kerry and Gore.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that this Ayers thing is a non-issue. Nobody cares, except for conservative bloggers and partisan hacks like Sean Hannity. I really hate to say it, because it sounds like I'm simply parroting Obama's defense, but this whole thing really is nothing more than guilt by association. Bill Ayers isn't running for President, so nobody cares about Obama's associations with him so long as Obama wasn't a member of Ayers' terrorist organization.
As Bryan keeps pointing out, people care more about the economy, and they don't trust the Republicans to fix it anymore.
Lance,
ReplyDeleteYou are probably correct that the economy is the main issue now.
The press is not only caught up with Obama's charisma, but they still support the Democratic candidate. It is ideological.
What do you think the press would say if McCain had an association with a former bomber-even decades after he was a bomber? Let's say it came out that 10 years ago, McCain was doing some kind of work with a former KKK grand wizard?
Non-issue? Nobody would care? C'mon.
By the way, last night, Ayres was filmed by Fox walking around with a black t-shirt with a big red star on it. (I know, I know, big deal. I'm a real right-wing paranoid.) But what that tells me is that Mr Ayres is still a radical left guy (who also works with Chavez in Venezuela). This all goes to show that Obama is not telling us the truth about his real ideology.
One bad association in your life(Ayres)- No big deal, right?
Wright
Meeks
Pfleger
Rezko
Khalid Rashidi
At what point do we say, what you call "guilt by association" or what I call-"you are known by the friends you keep"?
Gary, I frequently comment on a conservative's blog. My former roommate was a conservative. My dad is getting more conservative as he gets older. I frequently collaborate with some teachers who are conservative.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean that I'm secretly harboring conservative beliefs?
So because of what Ayers wears (which may or may not even have any political significance), that has some sort of bearing on Obama's "real" (hidden) ideology? You are REALLY stretching it here, Gary.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I guess no one told the Republicans who sat on or funded the school reform group's board that it was a radical leftist group. Curious, that.
I agree with Lance that a lot of the media like him more for his charisma. I was watching someone from a media watch group on TV last night talking about a recent study done on media bias, and their basic conclusion was that the media tends to mainly favor whoever is ahead or seen as more likely to have more support, but that there was no clear evidence of blatant ideological bias.
Lance,
ReplyDeleteMaybe you are a latent conservative.
Bryan,
ReplyDeleteI don't know who that media "watchdog group" you were watching was, but that is a preposterous statement that the media has no blatant ideological bias. My God! can't you see it all around you? Is it different now than 4 years ago or 8 years ago? This goes back to when Nixon was president.
As for the t-shirt,I knew you were going to jump all over this, but if you have a 60 year old university professor walking around in that kind of t-shirt, what am I supposed to conclude? it's like he was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. Maybe I could wear it for a lark (I wouldn't), but when you couple it with Ayres' life story-well, draw your own conclusions.
As for Republicans who were on that board-I have no idea who they might have been- must have been Republicans like ex-gov Ryan- who is a convicted bribe-taker.
Go here for the facts about the board, including details on its Republican support.
ReplyDeleteBryan,
ReplyDeleteYou are placing way too much faith in these so-called fact checker sites. They are rife with conclusions based on their own opinions. You are treating them as if they are unimpeachable facts and not opinions in themselves.
The fact is that Obama has been very evasive about his history with Ayres.
Ayres, who is of my generation, was a terrorist. The weatherunderground, which I remember very well, was a terror organization. Ayres, by his own admission, was involved in bombs set off in the US capitol, Pentagon and NYC police hqs. The fact that these bombings never rose to the level of Oklahoma City or 9-11 doesn't change the fact that they were terrorists acts. McVeigh simply used more explosives and had greater success.
Ayres has bragged that he was "guilty as hell and free as a bird". He is unrepentent to this day. To say that McCain is misrepresenting what Ayres was is BS.
The only difference now is that Ayres is working within the system to achieve similar results. He is dispicable and should have been shunned by the academic community in which he has risen so high without so much as an expression of regret for his actions.
But you know what I think of academia.
Gary, as a subscriber to FactCheck, I can tell you that the Democrats get raked over the coals just as much as the Republicans.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how facts can be biased. Facts are just that - facts. Just because they happen to make one side look better than the other, that doesn't somehow indicate a bias.
And I'd rather put my faith in FactCheck or Academia than pundits like Sean "Strawman" Hannity.
Lance,
ReplyDeleteAs you well know, a technique of writing an opinion piece is using facts to support your argument, but even when using (certain) facts, you can still be left with an opinion. I can take out sentences from these fact check articles that are still opinions.
I am just saying, don't treat those things as conclusive truth. If fact-check uses a bunch of stats to come to a conclusion that the media isn't biased, then what credibility are the stats?
For example, my cursed Cubbies won more games than any other team in the National league this year. Best team, right?
Why are they not in the World Series?
I'm sorry, Gary, but you're being really vague in your critique of FactCheck. Where, exactly, have they gone wrong in this particular article?
ReplyDeleteSee, this is what it seems to me is the modus operandi of the modern conservative movement:
1. Start with the conclusion.
2. Cite facts to support your conclusion.
3. Ignore facts that negate your conclusion.
4. If facts that negate your conclusion continue to be presented, call the source biased.
Me, I think it's best to come to a conclusion last - and it's good to be willing to change your conclusion as new evidence comes along.
For me, this whole thing began with the question: "Does Obama have secret radical-leftist beliefs?" The evidence was presented. The evidence is flimsy. I'm going to stick with a "no" answer until I get something a wee bit more solid than "some guy he once worked with has radical leftist beliefs."
Oh, I hung out with a Christian the other day - a good friend of mine. I guess I must secretly believe in Jesus. After all, my ties to him are much closer than Obama's ties to Ayers, so it must be so!
Gee, Lance, I could have subsituted the word liberal for your 4 techniques.
ReplyDeleteI just went throught he Annenberg fact checker that Bryan suggested I look at. It's linked above.
It is chock full of their selected facts that support their conclusion that McCain is misleading about Obama and Ayres.
Check it out. Count how many statements are opinions. (their conclusions).
Well, Gary, if you want to play the "who starts with the conclusion first" game, let me ask you this - do creationists tend to think of themselves as liberal or conservative? You know, those people who in their very mission statements declare that no matter what the evidence is, the conclusion will be "Goddidit"?
ReplyDeleteCheck and mate. Heh. That'll always be my ace in the hole.
Regarding the article, Gary, there are indeed opinions on there, but they're opinions that are based on the actual facts of the situation. I have yet to see a conservative dispute these particular facts, outside of the sweeping "that's biased" sorts of arguments, which translate into "I can't dispute this logically, so I will just dismiss it."
Lance,
ReplyDeleteYou sure have a stereotyped image of conservatives and how our argumentative minds work.
First of all, I don't consider myself a "creationist" or an "evolutionist". I am not into arguing how the world began. Whatever conservative attitudes I have never came out of a college debating class or some college philosophy class. It is just a result of my life experiences and beliefs evolving. I have never participated in a formal debate-nor do I care to since they depend more on debating tactics than the truth.
I also don't need some fact-checker to tell me whether or not Bill Ayres is a scumbag-he is. I also don't need no stinking fact-checker to tell me whether Obama had an association with this guy or not-he did.
So there, and if I had you at the beerfest in Erlangen with a few liters of Kitzmann in front of us, I could easily convince you of the
righteousness of my arguments.
You sure have a stereotyped image of conservatives and how our argumentative minds work.
ReplyDeleteHey, I was just playing around on that one. I know that not all conservatives think alike. In fact, one of the best anti-Intelligent Design quotes came from Newt Gingrich. I was just trying to play the "guilt by association" game. Hmmm...why does that seem so familiar?
I have never participated in a formal debate-nor do I care to since they depend more on debating tactics than the truth.
I'll give the point to you on that one. Still, knowing what a logical fallacy is helps to sort out the good arguments from the bad ones. Logic is not a subjective thing. Either somebody is employing it or they aren't.
I also don't need some fact-checker to tell me whether or not Bill Ayres is a scumbag-he is. I also don't need no stinking fact-checker to tell me whether Obama had an association with this guy or not-he did.
Nobody's denied either of those things. Still, an "association" with him doesn't mean anything necessarily. I've been known to associate with people who don't share my views all the time. I'm just saying that it's flimsy evidence in order to conclude that Obama shares the same views.
So there, and if I had you at the beerfest in Erlangen with a few liters of Kitzmann in front of us, I could easily convince you of the righteousness of my arguments.
I'm sure that several beers would make your arguments seem pretty righteous. Mine sound better when you're sober.
Ha! Zing! Sorry, but you set yourself up for that one.
Let's review Obama's association with Ayres.
ReplyDeleteHe started his political career in Ayres' home.
He served on the Woods Foundation with Ayres.
He wrote the forward for Ayres' book.
He participated in seminars with Ayres.
OK, so he had professional associations with one bad guy that were not related to what Ayres did in the 60s-70s. We can cut him some slack, right?
But then you throw in Rezko, Wright, Meeks, Pfleger, Rashidi et al, and suddenly, we see a trend over his adult lifetime that is not so flimsy.
How's that for logic?
None of those things have anything to do with Ayers terrorist activities though. And from what I read (from a conservative website even) Obama wrote a one-sentence review of a book that Ayers wrote about the Juvenile Court System. (Hardly a "forward", now is it?)
ReplyDeleteAnd with all those other things, you have to do so many mental gymnastics to find some sort of a connection between him and the wrongdoing. You'll find an easier time connecting me to the assasination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
I don't believe that Obama is a radical leftist anymore than I believe that John McCain is a religious nutjob (because he gave an address to Jerry Falwell's school, if I recall correctly). Sarah Palin on the other hand...we've actually got the footage of her being blessed so she doesn't have to worry about witches. Yeesh!
Why am I having flashbacks of Oliver Stone's JFK?
Lance,
ReplyDeleteIf it was a review and did not actually appear in the book, I guess I stand corrected. (If you are right.) Funny that Obama never wrote any reviews or comments for any of my three books.
I never said that Obama had anything to do with the Ayres bombings. Is he a far-leftist? I suspect strongly that he is based on his associations over the years.
Hey, speaking of associations-have you ever played this game?
When I was a boy, Johnny Weismuller came to our house in LA. His father-in-law was a golfing and drinking buddy of my dad. In reading a biography of Leni Riefenstahl (Triumph of the Will producer (Nurnberg Party rallies), I found that she met Weismuller in LA.
Think about it- I shook the hand that shook the hand that shook Hitler's hand.
Now about that assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia: I was in the former Yugoslavia once. I correspond with you on my blog. Start to see the connection....Say, where were you in 1914?
Now back to Obama....
I can do you one better.
ReplyDeleteThe assasination of Franz Ferdinand led to WWI. WWI led to WWII. American soldiers were stationed in Germany as a result of WWII. My dad, an American soldier, met my mom, a German. If he wasn't shot, I wouldn't have been born.
What is my relationship to Gavrilo Princip that I'm not telling the American people about? Did you know that if you rearrange the letters of my name, take a few letters out and put a few letters in, it spells Gavrilo Princip?
I'll just say it right now. I shot Franz Ferdinand, and I have no regrets. I wish that I could have shot even more Archdukes. (I'm lookin' at you, Ernest the Iron.)
And I'll bet you are a friend of Barack Obama too. There is still time before the election to break this story.
ReplyDeleteBut, it's late and I'm going to bed.