Every once and a while (usually on a Friday so fewer people will read it), I write a post that is so politically incorrect, so outrageously provocative that I cringe when re-reading it at a later date. Not because it’s badly written (an impossibility on this site my long time readers will attest) or because the arguments are poorly made. Rather, I blanch at the audacity with which I plunged willy nilly into an issue that had liberals rending their garments and wailing in anguish that anyone would be so presumptuous as to challenge some cherished orthodoxy.
I actually hate controversy, preferring vanilla to rocky road as a rule. But questioning orthodoxy will always get you in trouble – a consequence of offending people’s sense of the way the world is or should be.
Sometimes, I’m wrong to do so if only because there are some 800 LB gorillas in the room you just don’t poke with a stick. Other times, my heart is in the right place but I end up being completely (or deliberately) misunderstood.
No matter. The question that I would like to examine in a serious manner is whether we can really believe that the probable Democratic candidate for President of the United States loves the country of his birth.
Having tossed that bomb allow me to fling another; does it really matter one way or another?
The legitimate questions that can be raised about Obama’s true feelings regarding the United States are due entirely to statements made by those that the candidate himself has informed us have had the most impact on his life; his wife, his pastor, and his mother. Couple that with what appears to me to be a dalliance with radical politics in his youth where Obama stoked the anger and rage in the ghettos of Chicago by painting a picture of America as oppressor when he was a community organizer, and the picture that emerges is of a man with decidedly mixed feelings about this country.
Who can blame him? I think if I grew up a black man in this country – even in the same economic circumstances – I might very well have a conflicted view of America. Some of my conservative friends would disagree but there has been real, honest to God oppression visited upon African Americans – I mean third world, tinpot dictator, intolerable, cruel, manifestly evil oppression. I remember when I was a liberal back in the 1970’s thinking that if I were a black man, I’d probably be a commie.
You cannot read a social history of the United States and come away with any other notion except it is a remarkable testament to the power of ideas and the fact of American exceptionalism that African Americans have fought and died in our wars, built our infrastructure, contributed to the scientific and technical achievements that have made us the envy of the world, and vastly enriched the culture – all the while being denied the simplest, most common rights and privileges enjoyed by the majority white population.
This is the world into which Barack Obama was born, raised, matriculated, and set out to make a life for himself. Even while some things were changing as far as those rights were concerned, no government could peer into men’s hearts and change the insidious evil of racial hatred. The government can mitigate the effects of racism. But it cannot cure the illness itself.
I digress because it is so easy to forget, especially when looking at Obama, that every black American carries the burden of the past with them no matter what heights they achieve in life. And with that burden is the knowledge that America’s schizophrenia regarding race – a country boasting of its freedom and liberty while failing to grant equal rights to some – weighs most heavily on those who have yet to climb the ladder of success.
But Barack Obama the candidate has given no sign that he is conflicted or or that his love of America is any less passionate than you or I. In fact, I would say that Obama is the first liberal since Hubert Humphrey who can give a 5 Star, 4th of July, patriotic stemwinder of a speech and make you believe it. But that speaks more to Obama’s oratorical gifts. What can we deduce about what he truly thinks of America from those who have had the largest impact on his life – people he himself has said that he admires and trusts.
First, his mother. I don’t care what her politics were. I am more concerned with what she thought of America. This moving article in today’s New York Times profiling Obama’s mother reveals a woman that could easily be defined as an internationalist in the strictest definition of that term:
“She was a very, very big thinker,†said Nancy Barry, a former president of Women’s World Banking, an international network of microfinance providers, where Ms. Soetoro worked in New York City in the early 1990s. “I think she was not at all personally ambitious, I think she cared about the core issues, and I think she was not afraid to speak truth to power.â€[snip]
Those choices were not entirely surprising, said several high school friends of Ms. Soetoro, whom they remembered as unusually intelligent, curious and open. She never dated “the crew-cut white boys,†said one friend, Susan Blake: “She had a world view, even as a young girl. It was embracing the different, rather than that ethnocentric thing of shunning the different. That was where her mind took her.â€
There is much more in the article that points to a strong willed woman who loved her son and wanted the best for him. But running through the narrative is this sense that she was a woman whose heart was far away from the United States – that she saved her love not for nations but for the ethereal notion of the brotherhood of man.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this, of course. But it raises questions about Obama’s own feelings about the United States. How were they developed? Did his stint at the exclusive prep school in Hawaii inculcate a sense of his “Americanism?” Evidently not:
“I doubted what Indonesia now had to offer and wearied of being new all over again,†he wrote in his memoir. “More than that, I’d arrived at an unspoken pact with my grandparents: I could live with them and they’d leave me alone so long as I kept my trouble out of sight.†During those years, he was “engaged in a fitful interior struggle. I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America.â€
I can’t shake the notion that this statement about raising himself to be “a black man in America” is revealing of Obama’s conflicted feelings about the country. Having spent so much time out of the country, shouldn’t he have been concerned about “raising himself” to be an American rather than a black American? It may be a small point but I believe it is revealing nonetheless.
Obama’s struggles with his black identity will lead to his embrace of a pastor who can, at best, be called “conflicted” about America and a wife whose own feelings about America can be called into question.
And let me tell you something—for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.
These words are not shocking coming from a black woman given history and circumstance. But they are troubling coming from the wife of a candidate for Presdent of the United States. What influence has she had on her husband’s thinking? Has she clarified or even reinforced his doubts about America or has he simply dismissed her misgivings?
Right about now those of my friends on the left whose heads have not exploded are probably doing a little seething. But I would say to those liberals who have come this far with me that these are perfectly legitimate questions to ask and seek answers. Obama has made it clear that his wife has helped him in his quest for a black identity. She has been the bridge to Obama’s self-acceptance into the African American community. Someone who has given Obama so much must have some influence on him.
Speculation? Or logical deduction? I suppose that depends on how open your mind might be.
One doesn’t need an open mind to glean what is in the heart of Obama’s long time preacher, friend, and confidante Jeremiah Wright:
“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes three-strike laws and wants them to sing God Bless America.“No! No No!
“God damn America … for killing innocent people.
“God damn America for threatening citizens as less than humans.
“God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and supreme.â€
Obama’s statement on these and other incendiary remarks is frankly unbelievable:
“Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy,†he said in the statement. “I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.â€Obama said he never personally heard Wright preach the statements at the center of the controversy, but that he first learned of them when he launched his presidential campaign.
Are we supposed to accept his statement that Obama was unaware of the Reverend’s beliefs until last year despite the fact he has known him as a friend and accepted him as a spiritual advisor for nearly two decades? Or are we to believe that Reverend Wright hid these views from his congregation since Obama attended services at the church on a regular basis?
Get beyond the repudiation of the words and sentiments of Wright and what is Obama saying? For more than a year, he has has been attending the church of a minister that he knew spouted outrageous anti-American sermons.
These are the things that make us question Obama’s true feelings about the United States. I am sure that he does not share the views of Wright nor perhaps of his wife either. But deep down, where only the candidate really knows and could tell us, what does he really feel about this country? Those who had the most impact on his life have made plain their conflicted feelings about America. Does Obama share this?
And ultimately, does it really matter?
I think that depends on the individual voter, doesn’t it? After all, I’m sure many of Obama’s African American supporters do not put as much stock in Obama’s relative depth of feeling about America than many others would. And spending 10 minutes perusing some liberal websites would be equally revealing with regard to the conflicted feelings about the United States felt by some on the left.
If Obama were, in fact, conflicted about America would that interfere with his ability to do the job of president? I don’t see how. It doesn’t make him any less loyal or patriotic – at least in the sense that he wouldn’t commit treason or sell out the country to foreigners. It certainly wouldn’t interfere with his ability to be a good executive.
So in the end, it really doesn’t matter to a lot of people what Obama really thinks about America. To some, like Mona Charen, it is nevertheless troubling:
Obama’s book is strewn with hints of his far left sympathies, as when he tells an African cousin who complains about the hardships of life in Kenya that things are no better in America. Or when he suggests that the lives of poor black young men in the inner city are blighted by white racism. He never says it explicitly, but it’s there.He has been very friendly with Rashid Khaladi, the fierce anti-Israel professor who took Edward Said’s post at Columbia.
My own theory, FWIW, is that Obama acquired his far left views at least in part to make himself as authentically black as he could to compensate for having a white mother. His mother, of course, was very left herself. But looking the way he does, and having been raised among only white people (mother and maternal grandparents) he felt the need to better identify with his black heritage. That struggle is what the book is all about.One can have sympathy for his psychological predicament . But that sympathy certainly does not extend to electing him president of a country that I sincerely believe he does not love.
Charen is unable to prove that Obama can’t do the job based solely on whether or not he loves America. I’d never vote for the guy in a million years. But whether he truly loves America as deeply as I do is far down the list of reasons why.
7:45 pm
What’s the deal with Obama’s far left mom? Why did she abandon her kid?
8:29 pm
I, for one, would not want as president any person that did not love our country, and that issue would be well up the list of qualifications; in fact, it is understood without question that a candidate for this office should and does demonstrate love of our country. It would be equally hard, if not harder, to prove that he could do the job given that he hates America, as least for me. The very fact that there is some question about it is a killer, without ever having to consider any other qualifications.
8:42 pm
The word of the post was “conflicted”, not love or hate, but I take it to mean that Obama has a love/hate relationship with the country. In some sense, everyone has such a relationship, as there are both wonderful and terrible things about America to love or to hate(be conflicted about), which is nothing new. But, on balance, a deep love of country is one of the essential ingredients.
9:55 pm
Excellent piece yet again Rick and I agree with your conclusions.
The Republicans need to be careful how much they hoot and holler in joy at this story. At this point it appears that Hillary and Obama stand a good chance of causing the Dems to lose because of the acrimony. Throw the race factor in and the Dems will surely paint the cause on the GOP —all it takes is a few quotes/audio clips from Rush, Ann, and it will spun in a way that makes the hooplah over his minister seem to be a GOP thing. Dems unite for common good and McCain gets beaten…
More people need to try to learn from your (most of the time ;)) objectivity.
10:30 pm
Wow. Too bad this question wasn’t posed to George Bush. Do you love your country Mr. Bush? “Why yes, I love nookler bombs, torture, colonialism, spying on the public, destroying the constitution, ruining the dollar, and mostly I love to run around yelling the sky is falling, the sky is falling, whenever asked an intelligent question about my actions as president.”
Let us ask of Obama; do you love your fellow human beings? I think he does, and that my friends puts us miles ahead of the past eight years.
10:51 pm
Rick: wow, amazing, never thought someone would have the testicular fortitude to tackle this subject; it needs to be, and you won’t see it in the MSM, that is for sure; and frankly it’s something I’ve “known” about Obama since he began running for President, and I found out he was a member of the Trinity Church, and I started doing my own research on the topic almost two years ago.
Frankly, you don’t go far enough; Obama does NOT “love” his country; his wife inadvertently has proven that by her own statements, which have never been analyzed in the context that they deserve, which is having grown up in a “Pastor” Wright type environment!
The clips of “Pastor” Wright the past two days, put into context, completely and correctly, her statement that “for the first time in my life I’m proud of my country”, and lends lie to the explanaition that she, her husband and the campaign tried to spin them ex post facto.
Rick, this is very articulate: “You cannot read a social history of the United States and come away with any other notion except it is a remarkable testament to the power of ideas and the fact of American exceptionalism that African Americans have fought and died in our wars, built our infrastructure, contributed to the scientific and technical achievements that have made us the envy of the world, and vastly enriched the culture – all the while being denied the simplest, most common rights and privileges enjoyed by the majority white population.”
But you know what? It doesn’t matter.
Racism is Racism, Hate is Hate; there was and is sadly “white racism”, and there, despite what the Leftists and the Liberals, there is “black racism”, and “Pastor” Wright is a Racist, and he is Anti-American, that is definitive fact!
As for Obama, he can deny it, he can pretend otherwise, but you cannot be a member of that church for 20 years, be married by him, take your kids there, and be married to a lady who essentially and obviously has the same views as “Pastor” Wright, and not on some level, believe the same exact things!
Sorry, that’s the inalienable truth!
Additionally Rick, I “know” Obama, I grew up overseas, in Africa manily, and the Middle East; my parents spent an additional 18 years in Africa, before I was born, and after I left the “nest”; me and my family know Africa and Africans.
I’ve known hundreds of “Obamas”, and his whole schitick of “i grew up black” is crap, as is the attempt to whitewash his mother’s views.
I knew hundreds like her too!
She was a radical, American hating socialist from the 60’s, who thought she was rejecting America, and sticking it to her parents, by dating and marrying a black man in the 60’s, and then following that up with an Indonesian man.
Rick: full disclosure, I’m “white”, have dated a half dozen black women since I was in college, and I’m in a mixed marriage now!
I KNOW what I’m talking about!
As for Obama, he didn’t grow up “black” in America, that is part of his whole fallacious schitick to garner support in the black American community.
Africans, don’t consider themselves “black”; they almost universally despise “black Americans”; they hate them really, they consider them spoiled, rotten, and arrogant, and they don’t consider them “brothers”, despite the Leftist rhetoric you will see sometimes!
Obama’s father was an African, and he would have acted like an African, and Obama was raised by his mother as a privaledged sone of an expat who should despise America.
Sorry, been there, seen it, know it!
Additionally, he went to $14,000 per year Prep schools in Hawaii, he traveled the world with his mother, in addition to his exclusive Prep school, he went to Columbia University and Harvard Law School for gosh’s sake! His wife went to Princeton and Harvard Law School!
Rick, I WISH that I had that type of educational background/history; sorry, coldn’t afford it, and my parent’s couldn’t, and I won’t be able to afford it for my daughters!
Sorry Rick, neither Obama, nor his wife, grew up “black in America”!
Bottomline is this Rick, neither Obama, nor his wife, nor their congregation, “love” America.
They’ve taken advantage of all the good things America has to offer (Obama’s wife earned over $100K per year, until he got a $1M dollar earmark for her Hospital, at which point her salary was DOUBLED to almost $300K!)
Rick, I’ve NEVER made even half that amount of money in my BEST year!
Obama and his wife, should LOVE this country, maybe TWICE as much as I do!
Nope, they didn’t grow up “black” and they still hate this country!
It’s Leftist, Anti-American, Liberal victimization idealology that created this Rick, nothing more, nothing less!
And you and I disagree, but Obama’s actions, DEFINITELY betray the fact that he is in fact, a Muslim, practicing “Taqiyah”; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyah
it fits the pattern so completely, it’s not even funny.
Here is a sentence from a NYT article on Senator Obama, that puts everything into context: “Though minister after minister told Mr. Obama he would be more credible if he joined a church, he was not a believer.”
....be more credible if he joined a church…....
WOW!
His ENTIRE decision to join a church was purely, completely, absolutely a POLITICAL CALCULATION!
And when he made this absolutely ruthless Political calculation, a very important one in his life, as it turned out; he joined a “church” that at it’s core is Anti-White and Anti-American!
I’d say that is pretty damning, if you ask me?
No Rick, you address a very important controversial subject, you just don’t go far enough!
11:56 pm
It doesn’t matter if Obama loves America. In my experience, those who claim to love America don’t really understand what America does to stay on top.
I have no sense of nationalism for America, but there is no other place on earth I’d rather be either. Just because I understand the wake of destruction it takes to stay on top, doesn’t mean I’m proud of it. It also doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do the same things, were I in charge.
Maybe if Obama doesn’t love America enough, he’ll attempt to mold America into a country that he does love. I would imagine that scares the crap outta the right, but it might just scare the crap outta he left as well.
12:35 am
Dale
Sounds like you have written that briefing for the guys upstairs for the morning briefing book with just the right tone.
Now lets do a little speculation and projection here..or analysis of the intel.
Lets say Hilliary who was born in the Chicago area has lots of hold friends who did their homework for her on Obama.
Lets suggest she is behind this whole story going public.
Where does that get us?
Obama gets stuck in a hard to work defensive position, he is painted right into the corner of a candidate of the blacks just like Bill tarred in with in South Carolina, and that is right after Obama won another state primary in Mississippi with heavy black support for his campaign.
Obama comes off looking like either a liar trying to make people believe that he never heard such things from his preacher of over 20 years or otherwise he did hear them and had the terrible judgment to stay at that church.
Thus his judgment skills get brought into question and his qualification for the Presidency.
This issue is trying to be damage controlled by Obama , but it may have to many legs. Add that to Rezko issues and Obama is fighting a lot of fires all at once.
If it sticks, this makes the delegates from Mi and Fl moot and Hill wins by default.
Now there are just to many stars in alignment there and it would take a lot of explanation to determine how this theory could be fully discounted.
Dirty tricks and politics are old friends, and we may be seeing a very vicious one unfolding in front of our very eyes.
2:31 am
[...] DOES OBAMA LOVE AMERICA? [...]
4:55 am
I think your premise is somewhat flawed here, Rick. Love of America is different than national pride in any other nation on earth, because of our unique history. Love of America is not about not committing treason, or selling out to foreigners. It is not about loving the territory or the government. Love for America is about embracing the almost metaphysical set of ideals laid out by the founders in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It is about the love of liberty, faith in the individual, a healthy distrust of government, among others.
There is no doubt that America has fallen short of, and continues to fall short of her founding ideals. The question to be asked of Barack Obama is: Does he embrace and believe in those American ideals even though America fails to perfectly meet them, or like most of the liberal left, does he believe that America’s failure to fully live up to her ideals invalidates them? Would he strive to make America more perfectly aligned with her ideals, or would he try to move away from them in the name of ‘fairness?’
In a nutshell, that is the existential threat that the left poses to America, and it has little to do with race. Race is simply a smokescreen and a tool used by the left. Read Martin Luther King, Jr. He wanted, as I believe the vast majority of Americans do today, blacks to fully inherit their birthright as Americans, to live in liberty and freedom, and have the opportunity to rise and fall on their own merits. So whether the questions are over race, or sex, or class does not matter. They are simply a tactic to divide and declare American ideals a failure, and justify the creation of a new social order of ‘fairness and equality.’
Does it matter if Barack Obama loves America? Perhaps not in the way you have couched the question. Unfortunately, I think you have fallen into a liberal frame for the question and the debate. In the end, he is a radical socialist and a statist, and by definition he does not love America in the terms I have expressed. I didn’t need to hear his Preacher damning the nation to figure that out.
7:23 am
A good question, but there is no purely objective answer.
It seems to matter most to people who could never bring themselves to vote for a black man or a Democrat anyway.
Two good points but I think a lot of Democrats would be concerned if Obama’s feelings for America were more than conflicted.
Ed.
8:31 am
[...] Evidently, not everyone has — but those folks weren’t inclined toward understanding anything about Obama in the first place. On the other hand, there are many who can, in fact, wrap their minds around the possibilities. Clearly people will come to their own conclusions, based in part on their own life experiences… or their own political tendencies. [...]
8:41 am
I love America because she produces so many extraordinary human beings like Dr. Sowell, Dr King, Dr Steele to name just a few; if Obama or his wife Michelle do not already see the inspirational wonders our Nation produces then they’re both bigger fools than is their spiritual advisor.
In any case, Obama’s political career is over since he can’t even bring change and hope to those closest to him.
9:26 am
What America does to stay on top is work hard, innovate, export the fruits of our labors, and reluctantly use the wealth and industrial capacity we have earned to involve ourselves in the problems of the rest of the world. After WWII we found ourselves facing off with a totalitarian expansionist empire of roughly equal strength, fueled by antithetical values, and bent on subverting ours. I can see how the ensuing struggle would produce a love/hate relationship for your own country.
Racism is not what it was 40 years ago, or even 20 years ago. This is an indisputable fact. What racism remains in this country is more subtle, but also universal among ethnic groups. Blaming whitey for your problems in today’s world is infantile. Like any past trauma, what matters is how you respond today. For any other trauma, the bottom line is; get over it. You were wronged in the past. OK, we get that. What are you doing today? Still acting on old resentments, or moving on?
9:38 am
#7
Wow, what a concept, being molded by leadership instead of circumstance, denial and personal ambition.
12:14 pm
Merlin: Hi have NO doubt that the Clinton campaign started this, with selected leaks and dirty tricks; of course they did!
But it’s the Republicans and McCain who will get blamed by the delusional Leftists!
You could have videotape of the Billary Symbiote taping a “Pastor” Wright sermon themselves, and then watching them anonymously dropping it off at FNC, and BDS-afflicted Leftist Nutbags would start screaming “Karl Rove did it, Halliburton funded it, and the Rethuglikkan Chimp-in-Charge Bullshitler” engineered the whole thing!”
Leftists: more deluded than Sybil, and dumber than a sack of ballpeen hammers! Gotta love them! In a pitiful and contemptable sort of way!
Chip: “It seems to matter most to people who could never bring themselves to vote for a black man or a Democrat anyway.”
Chip, not sure what you mean by that, but as people constantly try to categorize me, based upon my comments, let me completely baffle you: I haven’t been to church since my First marriage; that worked out so well, I haven’t been back, and that was 24 years ago! I haven’t prayed since I was in Sunday school last, which was about 44 years ago. I’m a registered Independent, and I’ve done something that very few people who post on Blogs have ever done, I’ve voted for BOTH “Republicans” and “Democratic” Presidential candidates.
I’m in a mixed Marriage, and I’ve dated Egyptian, Lebanese, Omani, American White, American Black, Filipina and Japanese women!
I’m not a “Republican”; I’m not a “Conservative”; I’m one thing, and one thing only, I’m an AMERICAN!
I’d vote for Obama in a heartbeat, IF he was an “American”; unfortunately, the Left in this country has so completely LOST THEIR MINDS, that they no longer qualify for that honorific. Besides, Obama is NOT “black”; I’m not a mathematician, but as understand it, currently, a person can have only TWO parents! That means, that regardless of the ethnicity of your parents, you can only be 50%/50% of something; you can’t be 51% or 63%. You can be 50%, or even 75%, etc.
So, Obama is 50% white blood and 50% black blood; that’s the same number as far as I’m concerend, but then, I was educated in the 60’s, so what do I know?
Bottomline, if Obama is 50% white and 50% black, WHE is he a “black” man? Who decides that? The US Government, your church, your parents? Is it kept track somewhere in a Database or a Register?
Please enligten me!
I have black colleagues at work, who start to talk about Malcom X, say he was “black” civil right leader, etc., and I just reply, you know what, I know he had one white grandparent, and he thus is 25% white blood, and thus in my book, that makes him a great WHITE civil rights leader!
Completely flummoxes them, they just usually mutter to themselves and walk away.
As far as I’m concerned, Obama is a MAN; a Leftist, and Anti-American, and I don’t give a damn if he thinks he’s “black” or the Racist Democrats label him as “black” so they can use the victimization card and accuse Rupblicans of racism; to me, he is a sadly confused, dishonest MAN, Leftist Anti-American MAN and I don’t want him as President of My country!
PS: “Old Dem” PROVES that Anti-American/Pro-Jihadis Leftist Nutbags such as himself, and his Democratic pals, should NEVER be allowed out of their cribs, and they certainly are incapable for running a country or being trusted with Power.
You can’t have Clowns like “Old Dem” in charge, when they hate the very country they want to lead, to the very core of their being, and their sole goal for garnering power is to destroy the country they want to run!
2:23 pm
“Having spent so much time out of the country, shouldn’t he have been concerned about ‘raising himself’ to be an American rather than a black American? It may be a small point but I believe it is revealing nonetheless.”
It certainly is . . . but more about you, and less about Obama. That statement seems to imply that the issue of his race is as secondary (at best) aspect of living as an American, something that doesn’t shape one’s existence as an American. All he needs to do is focus on the apple pies, and once he “gets” that (assuming he has to learn how to be an American, rather than he already IS an American) he’ll be able to politely reflect on issues of race over the 4th of July BBQ.
Spoken like a true non-black American.
3:12 pm
Interesting post, Rick, but I’m sorry if I don’t agree with some of your views. Case in point; a hurricane is headed toward your neighborhood. Do you evacuate those who you only care about (your neighbors) or do you fight like hell to protect those you love first?
I spent a year in Katrina damanged Mississippi. I can tell you, the people there cared about their loved ones first. That is human nature and a man who truely doesn’t love his nation, but rather is on a crusade to make it into something he thinks is better than what exists now, will make mistakes that cost others.
Obama seems to have one trait that trumps his love of nation; ambition. His book is one of a man who seems to connect more closely with his Kenyan roots than his American roots. He reflects the left wing opinions of his mother, who was a rebel in her own time, yet he distances himself from the side of him that gave the greatest imput. It was his personal ambition, not his love of country, that started him on his meteoric rise in politics. One only has to look at Obama’s own district, heavily black, and how it did not only not prosper and improve under his leadership, but how his friend, Tony Rezko, managed to add eleven more buildings making the urban blight even worse. Why was Obama not on top of this as his (own) people suffered in apartments that did not have adequate plumbing and more often than not, no heat. Did the man who is now offering “hope” and “change” give hope to his constituants or change the every growing blight in the 13th District? The anwser is “no”. Drug usage increased, gangs increased and boarded up unlivable buildings increase as Tony Rezko increased the coffers of Obama’s campaigns.
It is said that no one can understand the trials and tribulations of being black in America unless they are black. That the advances they have made are nothing less than miraculous. These are people who have never been to a Native American reservation where schools are sometimes 30 miles away. Where the housing makes the slums of New York look like Park Avenue. Where there are no jobs and alcoholism is rampant. When one thinks Native American now, they think casinos and wealth. Not so for those Native Americans who live in North/South Dakota and New Mexico and Arizona. There are no casinos on those reservations. They are just too remote. Yet the one thing that every Native American has that is common ground with the majority of Americans is a love for this nation. When they went to war, in the name of their nation, during WWII, they were not even allowed to vote. But for a few radical Indians, you will never hear from them the words of the Rev. Mr. Wright. But they do remember the Buffalo soldiers that practiced genocide againt their ancestors. My ancestors. And I am still waiting for an apology from the Mssrs. Jackson and Sharpton for the actions of those soldiers.
Those Native Americans who have managed to excape the dead-end of the reservation go on to productive lives and never look back. The feeling is that if you are tied to the past, you are doomed by the past and that getting beyond the past is the only way to live the American dream of being independent and getting ahead.
Obama is/always has been a political opportunist whose leftist views are covered by pretty rhetoric. We have all seen how well that has worked out for other nations who have bought into the “pretty” rhetoric of those who promised hope and change.
3:55 pm
Maybe I’m just a dense liberal, but I don’t even understand the underlying ideas behind this post. What does it mean to “love America”? Is it love for the consitution and our founding principles? It is adoration for every square inch of the enormous land mass? Is it complete devotion to everything its government does? Fellowship with all its citizens?
I guess the reason I’m confused is that I read a lot of right-wing blog entries by people who insist they love America and question whether Obama does as well. And yet these same America-lovers are often the same ones who express a great desire that huge swaths of the country—my own state of California, the entire Northeast—be destroyed by terrorist attacks or natural disaster. These same people frequently express the idea that people who agree with my political views should be killed. While they demand that every citizen uncritically follow the current administration’s wishes in all things relating to national security, they certainly feel free to call the other branches of government “traitors,” “scumbags,” “Islamo-lovers” and all sorts of other perjoratives. And I frequently read that we must be willing to eliminate most of the bill of rights so that terrorists won’t kill us.
So these America-lovers despise great chunks of their country, wish death on vast numbers of its citizens, loathe two-thirds of its government, and don’t care if the administration ignores the constitution.
So how is Obama’s love insufficient? Rather, how is your love for country expressed in a way that’s superior to his? Because I’ve got to say, I don’t buy the idea that wearing a flag pin in your lapel and a support the trooops magnet on your car makes you a patriot. Nor do I believe that hating liberals is the same as loving your country.
5:27 pm
...existence as an American. All he needs to do is focus on the apple pies, and once he “gets†that (assuming he has to learn how to be an American, rather than he already IS an American) he’ll be able to politely reflect on issues of race over the 4th of July BBQ.
Spoken like a true non-black American.
and your comments reflect more about YOU than they do about both me and Obama!
Spoken like a true Anti-American/Pro-Jihaid Leftist Democratic Liberal Nutbag!
Congrats, that was easy to infer….
3:13 pm
I am a conflicted voter, my sentiments are with the left but my reason is with the right. But I am not a conflicted American. This is not the time for a conflicted American. There is something to protect here, which is more important than what needs to be improved. We have established an empire, a world order that benefits us as well as others. We have a lot to lose. China looms. Russia looms. Resources dwindle.
We cannot afford this muddle:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701faessay86401/barack-obama/renewing-american-leadership.html.
better a warrior than a lawyer
2:53 pm
Why does it matter if Obama grew up poor or what religion he is? Only his qualifications should matter. The thing that makes him different is the color of his skin and the Nationality of his father. To pretend that he likes being discrimanated against really would be erroneous. I am by no means a Demoncrat but I am African American. I love America but I am not proud of it’t history. This two party system leaves a tough choice for a lot of us, most of the time. The more people tear at Obama the mor I”m convinced I shoud vote for him.
2:50 pm
Questioning his love of the country is appropriate and necessary. Proving it one way or another is impossible. Doing the job of being President has never required Love of the country. I can name several presidents and quote them on saying things that were equally as troubling as something that may have been said by Obama. He’s led a good life and it’s open for the world to see. His works show insight into who he is and that’s what matters. We’ve all been to churches that didn’t always meet our own convictions at the head. We’ve all said things that were questionable. His lifes work since becoming an adult has been making improvements on society. There is no better representative of the melting pot in which we call America. He loves his fellow American if nothing else. If I were a different person, I may fear what change he will bring. But as the man I am, I hope he does become president and that joined with congress he can affect this country in a positive way. No matter what anyone thinks of his love for his country.
One more thing. When you send American citizens to die for another country to prosper, does that mean that you love America any less? When you send money to Ethiopia but don’t give to hobos, do you love Africans more? Who the f^$k determines how love is measured? Get real. So many have so many reasons to feel so many different ways about this country. Leading this country should transcend it all. I can’t imagine who would pretend to know anyone’s true feelings,..especially those of a politician. The only question that matters is who will do the best job leading us? Presidents of the past have never truly represented us all. In past years Bush’s have been elected as well as Nixon, as well as slave-owners. He’s not superman but I think he’s the best representative of (us)U.S. in this time.
7:47 pm
“Barack Obama loves the country and has disappointments as well…” WOW! Hard-hitting stuff:~) I haven’t been so angry, frustrated and the past couple years downright depressed w/ America ever before.
It’s a disgrace that ‘we the people’ let our gov’t get away with the abject hateful governance that we do.
Where’s the vigor of the 60’s protestors- hell, at least w/ Vietnam most of us were so naive we simply didn’t know any better.
Barack Obama will be a great leader, and Joe Biden will be a valuable voice and counsel. That said, anyone that votes for another republican hack after these past eight years is heinous in my opinion!
8:32 pm
By the way- to “Josh” who sites http://www.foreignaffairs.org…a site run by a fairly famous American by the name of Haass. Yes, that’s right, two a’s and two s’s! Anyway, here’s the scoop on why Mr. Haass’s “non-partisan’ site seems downright partisan sometimes:From 1989 to 1993, Haass was Special Assistant to United States President George H. W. Bush!
Yes, he is a very serious Republican; now what JOSH!?