This Obama supporter posted a long piece on “The Jewish Lobby” right on Obama’s presidential campaign website.

To say that what this “Socialist for Obama” writes is anti-Semitic, hateful, inaccurate, insulting, idiotic, paranoid tripe is a given.

But when you realize this is on Obama’s website, you really have to start wondering about not just the candidate, but people’s whose job it is to vet the site and make sure excrement like this doesn’t appear.

The fact that it is still there could mean that Obama campaign workers agree with what’s written. At the very least, it shows how incredibly tone deaf the Obama campaign is if they don’t think this is offensive.

A few choice excerpts:

NO LOBBY IS FEARED MORE or catered to by politicians than the Jewish Lobby. If a politician does not play ball with the Jewish Lobby, he will not get elected, or re-elected, and he will either be smeared or ignored by the Jewish-owned major media or catered to by politicians than the Jewish Lobby. If a politician does not play ball with the Jewish Lobby, he will not get elected, , and he will either be smeared or ignored by the Jewish-owned major media.

All Jewish lobbies and organizations are interconnected and there are hundreds upon hundreds of them. The leaders of the numerous Jewish Lobby Groups go to the same synagogues, country clubs, and share the same Jewish investment bankers. And this inter-connectedness extends to the Jews who run the Federal Reserve Bank, US Homeland Security, and the US State Department.

In other words, “Jews stick together.” Americans must know how extremely powerful the Jewish Lobby is and how it operates to undermine America’s interests both at home and abroad. At home – by corrupting America’s political system, and abroad – by dictating American Foreign Policy against America’s best interests.

Hey Kids! Let’s play pretend…

Let’s pretend that this blog post appeared on John McCain’s website. Let’s pretend it was seen by lefty bloggers. Let’s pretend that your average lefty blogger isn’t a screaming meemie of an anti-semite but rather a rational human being.

Can you imagine the hue, the cry, and the hue again that would be raised against McCain? The guy would be run out of the race on a rail.

 But the Annointed One can get away with this because 1) Lefty bloggers really don’t care about this kind of hate speech; and 2) Obamamessiah can do no wrong. 

 And here are some suggestions on how to battle the “Jewish Lobby:”

HOW CAN WE STOP THE JEWISH LOBBY?

Here are 3 options:

1) Commit suicide.
2) Write to your Senator warning him that taking bribes from Jews is a sin.
3) Never vote again.

OR:
+ Pray To The Lord Jesus Christ To Either Convert The Jews Or Conquer Them Through The Power Of His Cross!

This has been on Obama’s presidential campaign site since 9:13 Eastern time this morning. It is now after 1:30 and this offensive piece of trash is still up.*

Cause for concern? Or are we going to hear the old refrain (and getting older every day) “These are not my values blah blah blah…” Perhaps we’ll hear something like “This is not the Socialists for Obama that I know…”

Simply, remarkably, unbelievable. Welcome to “The New Politics” folks.

• My mistake. This blog has been up since 9:13 PM last night – and is still up as of 1:45 PM the next day.

This piece originally appeared in The American Thinker

I’ve listened to several speeches over the last year by Barack Obama and read the transcripts to a few others and what strikes me the more I read and understand what the candidate is saying is the truly revolutionary nature of his campaign and that he is dead serious about turning this country leftward – radically leftward – in all areas of government and private life.

Now Americans by tradition are a mostly centrist bunch. We are extremely wary of politicians who promise dramatic change unless the times call for it. Even then, we rarely slip too far to the right or left – befitting a mature, responsible citizenry of a republic. Reagan may have been the most ideological president of the 20th century but no one can say he didn’t compromise to get most of what he wanted. Pragmatic conservatism was the order of the day with Reagan presiding over a revolution in the way people looked and felt about government.

But Obama comes from a different planet than Reagan. And you can start noticing the differences when Obama first graduated from college and, like many young people, began searching for something to give his life meaning:

He went to socialist conferences at Cooper Union and African cultural fairs in Brooklyn and started lecturing his relatives until they worried he’d become “one of those freaks you see on the streets around here.”

They had good cause to worry about Obama’s radicalism. You can trace his journey to the hard left by looking at his early employment record. Graduating from Colombia in 1983, Obama went to work for the staid, establishment capitalist concern Business International Corporation.

He didn’t stay there long. He moved on to the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) – one of a network of Ralph Nader creations that boasts a consistent anti-business record of achievement – with mixed results.

But he must have been searching for something else – something that could get him more directly involved in radically altering the system. In 1985, he found just what he was looking for; he answered a help wanted ad for a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago.

There are several different takes on Obama’s experience as an organizer. This hagiagraphic piece in US News paints a saintly picture of Obama – a selfless, hard working, mainstream black man only wanting to help the poor.

The reality was a little different. Trained in the Saul Alinsky method of organizing, Obama became quite adept at bringing the resentments and rage felt by African Americans against the white establishment to the surface:

He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards. As with the panhandler, he could be aggressive and confrontational. With probing, sometimes personal questions, he would pinpoint the source of pain in their lives, tearing down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they could make things better.”

It was during these years as a community organizer that Obama apparently met and befriended (or was befriended by) a young, passionate, radical priest named Father Michael Pfleger who was making quiet a name for himself as the youngest pastor in the Archdiocese of Chicago, ministering to a mostly African American congregation at St. Sabina’s on the south side. The two struck up a friendship that continues to this day.

What is it about Pfleger that attracted the young Obama? Was it Pfeger’s attempt to bridge the black experience in the protestant tradition with that of the Roman Catholic Church? This piece on Pfleger from 1989 shows that 1) the good father hasn’t changed much; and 2) why Obama may have been drawn to the then young priest:

But St. Sabina on Chicago’s South Side is not the typical black Catholic church. Ebony wood carvings, Ashanti foot stools and kinte cloths make the altar area look more like an African art gallery. Banners of red, black and green, the colors of African liberation, hang from the rafters, along with excerpts from the Black National Anthem. A 20-foot mural of a black Jesus looms over the altar.

Mass usually lasts two and a half hours, in which Father Pfleger assails racism and intolerance.

Recently, he defended Father Stallings. ‘’The cardinals say, ‘You’re mad,’ ‘’ Father Pfleger said, his voice rising. ‘’You’re damn right I’m mad. And I need to be mad. We need to be mad. There comes a time when you can’t be satisfied waiting and waiting and being told changes come from within. You can’t change it from within if you’re not in the room that’s making the decision. If you got no power, you can’t do nothing.’‘

For a young man seeking to internalize his black identity in a white world, it is no wonder Pfleger and Obama hit it off.

But beyond what Pfleger could do for his soul, Obama recognized Pfleger as a comer in the Byzantine world of Chicago politics where preachers and moneymen hold hands with politicians and political operators to grease the wheels of commerce, charity, and corruption.

The power relationships in Chicago depend on two things; one’s ability to shake the money tree in order to get what you want and the equally important knowledge of where to go and who to see to shake that tree. There are literally dozens of foundations and community groups that dispense grants to help neighborhoods and Father Pfleger utilized this network of grant givers to slowly build something of a secular community empire that attempted to affect the lives of his parishioners and residents of his neighborhood at the most basic of levels. After school programs for kids, workshops on how to work with a landlord to fix the plumbing, a program for seniors on medicare – the list of good deeds done by Pfleger in the community – with a little help from his political friends – is nearly endless.

Pfleger’s political power base was his south side church and the network of community groups that dotted the political landscape of the nearly powerless African American ghetto in that part of town. His incendiary rhetoric had already brought him to the attention of radical preachers like Jeremiah Wright while he showed his political skills by tapping south side politicians for grants to fund his community outreach programs.

Pfleger is a very serious Christian and takes the words of Jesus Christ at their most literal. I have speculated before that one thing that attracts Obama to radicals like Pfleger, Wright, Ayers, Dohrn, and James Meeks is their utter and total certainty in the righteousness of their cause. And if you listen to Pfleger for five minutes, there is no doubting the man’s sincerity about making whitey pay for centuries of oppression.

I will have more on Pfleger in an article I am writing for another publication. But for now, we can simply ask ourselves why we should think Obama has changed his stripes from the radical community organizer, admirer of radical priests and preachers, to this supposedly centrist, non ideological creation of the presidential campaign.

I find it hard to believe he has altered his basic political beliefs from the far left idealism of his youth. And I find it equally difficult to believe that eventually, someone in the media is going to ask him to reconcile the two faces of Obama – the radical agitator and the smooth, adroit “post partisan” candidate for president.

He’s going to get away with it, of course. No one will dare point to the fact that once again, Barack Obama has disposed of a problem, not by addressing the cause but rather the political garbage that goes along with it.

After 20 years association, the near nominee has decided to end his association with Trinity United Church.

Was it because of the racist, hate mongering sermons of Jeremiah Wright?

Was it because his church has embraced Louis Farrakhan?

Was it because the church allowed a Roman Catholic priest to preach sermons that ape the worst of Reverend Wright’s rants against whites and America?

Was it because almost everything about the church was far from mainstream Christian thought and that he finally rebelled against the message of hate that spewed from its pulpit for 20 years?

Not according to the candidate himself:

“We don’t want to have to answer for everything that’s stated in the church,” the Democratic front-runner said. “We also don’t want the church subjected to the scrutiny that a presidential campaign legitimately undergoes.”

Obama said he was resigning “with some sadness.”

“This is not a decision I come to lightly,” he said. Watch Obama discuss departure »

The resignation comes days after the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a visiting Catholic priest, mocked Obama’s Democratic rival during a sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois.

In the sermon, Pfleger wipes his eyes with a handkerchief and suggests that Sen. Hillary Clinton wept because she thought that as a white person and the wife of a former president, she was entitled to the presidency.

Pfleger is a Catholic priest at St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church on Chicago’s southwest side. He is also a friend of Trinity’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, from whom Obama distanced himself in April.

Obama said the Pfleger controversy made it clear that, as long as he remained a member of the Trinity congregation, remarks from the pulpit would be “imputed” to him, even if they conflicted with his personal views.

In addition to being friends with Wright, Pfleger is also a long time friend of Barack Obama, a relationship that goes back almost as far as the candidate’s relationship with Wright. While in the state senate, Obama steered around $300,000 to various programs headed up by Father Pfleger while the bigot priest gave Obama $1500 in political contributions over the years. Obama has also claimed Pfleger as one of his “spiritual mentors” and the priest has been hanging around the campaign off and on over the past year, offering his “mentoring” whenever the candidate has hit a rough patch.

I bring this up because CNN didn’t think it was newsworthy to mention the close, personal relationship Obama has with Pfleger – which is another reason why the candidate is going to slide on the real reason he is quitting the church.

Representative Robert Wexler of Florida gives the media its marching orders:

Some Obama supporters, including U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida, said that disconnecting from the church signaled a chance for the campaign to move on.

“I think it bodes well for us in the general election that we can put whatever issues there were behind us in respect to the church,” Wexler said.

Don’t worry, Bob. The media already never heard of Trinity Church, or Wright, or Moss, or Meeks, or Pfleger. They are now officially “non-associates” of Barack Obama and can be safely ignored.

What then, to make of Obama’s quitting Trinity Church? Once again, Obama has proven himself to lack any kind of political courage. He makes the Cowardly Lion look like Audie Murphy. He once again tries the straddle approach – trying to disentangle himself from a political problem without alienating his base. And once again, political expediency and not conscience or moral outrage guides his actions.

The calculating nature of this move is made obvious by asking the one, simple, question that no one in the media has yet even raised by my reading so far; what the hell took you so long, Barry? No one believes the candidate when he says he never heard Wright utter his foul diatribes against America and against white people over 20 years of sitting in the pews at Trinity Church. That doesn’t even pass the laugh test. Nor does anyone believe him when he says he was “surprised” at Father Pfleger’s rants. Everyone in Chicago is familiar with Pfleger’s views on whites and on America. Much more so than Wright, Pfleger has been a fixture on local news and is good for a colorful quote or two whenever the media needs one on race or housing or on the Iraq War.

To repeat, what took you so long Obama? The fact is, as long as belonging to Trinity was a political plus – contacts with the movers and shakers in the black community as well as demonstrating his “authentic” blackness to his constituents – Obama embraced his church.

But now, running for president and having his pastor and church exposed as radical adherents to Black Liberation Theology, Obama throws them under the bus without hesitation. (Would that he was so decisive in matters of policy.). They have become a drag, a hindrance to his ambitions and must go the way of his other friends and associates he has summarily dismissed from his royal presence.

You wonder what Tony Rezko is thinking after spending years in promoting the young Obama to where now he stands on the threshold of the presidency and because of his trial, the candidate makes out as if he barely knows Rezko. Same goes for Bill Ayers who plucked Obama from obscurity and made him head of Ayer’s baby – the Chicago Annenberg Challenge – only to see the candidate describe his close relationship with Ayers as him being “just a neighbor.”

He tried to downplay his relationship with Wright, with Pfleger, with Reverend James Meeks (another radical bigot) – anyone and everyone who has proven themselves to be a danger to his ambitions has either been tossed on the garbage heap or dismissed as inconsequential.

Anyone see a pattern here?

Let us take Obama at his word for the moment and pretend that he has a ghost of a chance in realizing his campaign promises to bring “change” to Washington. Doesn’t matter how (the candidate hasn’t told us anyway). Whatever plan he comes up with will demand political courage. He will be going up against the most entrenched of interests who will fight tooth and nail to maintain their privileges and access.

But Obama has shown no sign of possessing the kind of political courage it would take to realize any of his goals with regard to “changing” Washington. This should be obvious even to his most rabid supporters. He has never gone against his party. He has never crossed the aisle to work in a bi-partisan manner on anything consequential. (His anti-Iraq war stance took about as much political courage as an alley cat has. He wasn’t running for any federal office and his state senate district makes Berkley look like Utah as far as ideological makeup is concerned.). In short, Obama is a Flim-Flam Man who has gotten away (so far) with relying on a friendly media to cover his ass for him as he tries to put radical after radical in his past behind him.

Pretty soon, the media is going to have Obama looking like a mainstream politician – something I didn’t think was possible but now believe that is the ultimate goal of the campaign. The sad fact is, as long as Obama doesn’t murder some one between now and the election, he stands a very good chance of winning.

I suppose if you want to spin Obama’s relationships with radicals like Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, and Bernadine Dohrn, you could say that a man shouldn’t be called out for the friends he keeps, that guilt by association has no place in American politics and we should just leave the messiah alone because, after all, he doesn’t share their radical beliefs.

Or does he?

Every time the issue of Obama’s radical associations seems to die down, more revelations come to light that calls into question the founding philosophy of Obama’s “post partisan” politics. And these most recent shockers do not fall into the category of casual associations from the candidate’s past. Instead, information has come to light that shows the likely nominee for president from the Democratic party actually made common cause with radicals – formed political alliances with them to further his career.

Furthermore, it is evident that in return for their support, Obama used his position as state senator and board member for the Woods Foundation to funnel public and private money into the coffers of these radical groups thus cementing a relationship that is still paying dividends for Obama to this day.

The New Party, ACORN, and the Arab American Action Network are not by any stretch of the imagination mainstream political or social organizations. They are radical anti-capitalist, pro-Marxist, and in the case of the AAAN a group supporting the terrorist activities of the Palestinians.

The New Party is an unabashed Marxist “fusion” party from which Barack Obama actively sought out and received an endorsement for his state senate candidacy. Never heard this story before? It’s not surprising Obama wouldn’t include it in his official bio:

Co-founded in 1992 by Daniel Cantor (a former staffer for Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign) and Joel Rogers (a sociology and law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), the New Party was a Marxist political coalition whose objective was to endorse and elect leftist public officials—most often Democrats. The New Party’s short-term objective was to move the Democratic Party leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of new Marxist third party.

Most New Party members hailed from the Democratic Socialists of America and the militant organization ACORN. The party’s Chicago chapter also included a large contingent from the Committees of Correspondence, a Marxist coalition of former Maoists, Trotskyists, and Communist Party USA members.

The New Party’s modus operandi included the political strategy of “electoral fusion,” where it would nominate, for various political offices, candidates from other parties (usually Democrats), thereby enabling each of those candidates to occupy more than one ballot line in the voting booth. By so doing, the New Party often was able to influence candidates’ platforms.

Obama enthusiastically approached the Marxists, seeking their help in his senate campaign, This from the NP’s own website:

About 50 activists attended the Chicago New Party membership meeting in July. The purpose of the meeting was to update members on local activities and to hear appeals for NP support from four potential political candidates. The NP is being very active in organization building and politics. There are 300 members in Chicago. In order to build an organizational and financial base the NP is sponsoring house parties. Locally it has been successful both fiscally and in building a grassroots base. Nationwide it has resulted in 1000 people committed to monthly contributions. The NP’s political strategy is to support progressive candidates in elections only if they have a concrete chance to “win”. This has resulted in a winning ratio of 77 of 110 elections. Candidates must be approved via a NP political committee. Once approved, candidates must sign a contract with the NP. The contract mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with the NP.

The political entourage included Alderman Michael Chandler, William Delgado, chief of staff for State Rep Miguel del Valle, and spokespersons for State Sen. Alice Palmer, Sonya Sanchez, chief of staff for State Sen. Jesse Garcia, who is running for State Rep in Garcia’s District; and Barack Obama, chief of staff for State Sen. Alice Palmer. Obama is running for Palmer’s vacant seat.

Into this blatantly radical organization, Obama placed his political fortunes. It paid off handsomely. This also from the NP’s website:

The NP’s ‘96 Political Program has been enormously successful with 3 of 4 endorsed candidates winning electoral primaries. All four candidates attended the NP membership meeting on April 11th to express their gratitude.

[snip]

Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NPers to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration…

Just what was this support worth? According to Stanley Kurtz’s article in NRO yesterday, Obama was able to use ACORN volunteers for his campaign – volunteers almost certainly procured through the good auspices of the Marxist New Party:

At least a few news reports have briefly mentioned Obama’s role in training Acorn’s leaders, but none that I know of have said what Foulkes reports next: that Obama’s long service with Acorn led many members to serve as the volunteer shock troops of Obama’s early political campaigns — his initial 1996 State Senate campaign, and his failed bid for Congress in 2000 (Foulkes confuses the dates of these two campaigns.) With Obama having personally helped train a new cadre of Chicago Acorn leaders, by the time of Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama and Acorn were “old friends,” says Foulkes.

So along with the reservoir of political support that came to Obama through his close ties with Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, and other Chicago black churches, Chicago Acorn appears to have played a major role in Obama’s political advance. Sure enough, a bit of digging into Obama’s years in the Illinois State Senate indicates strong concern with Acorn’s signature issues, as well as meetings with Acorn and the introduction by Obama of Acorn-friendly legislation on the living wage and banking practices. You begin to wonder whether, in his Springfield days, Obama might have best been characterized as “the Senator from Acorn.”

It would seem that the “New Party” may very well have been the political action arm of the “non-partisan” ACORN if Obama was able to secure the political shock troops for his state senate campaign from their ranks.

This, my friends, is not “guilt by association.” The probable next president of the United States actively sought the support and made an alliance with a dyed in the wool, unashamed, unabashed Marxist group dedicated, among other things, to bringing down the capitalist system in America.

Does this make Obama a communist? Absolutely not. But it reveals a radical streak in his politics that cannot be overlooked. One must either posit he is the most cynical of political opportunists or he agrees with at least some of what the New Party stands for.

If Obama were to claim that he eschews New Party ideology, how can he explain his long, close association with ACORN? I quoted earlier from Stanley Kurtz’s eye opening NRO article on Obama being the “Senator from ACORN.” Kurtz explains ACORN’s radical ideology:

Sol Stern explains that Acorn is the key modern successor of the radical 1960’s “New Left,” with a “1960’s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism” to match. Acorn, says Stern, grew out of “one of the New Left’s silliest and most destructive groups, the National Welfare Rights Organization.” In the 1960’s, NWRO launched a campaign of sit-ins and disruptions at welfare offices. The goal was to remove eligibility restrictions, and thus effectively flood welfare rolls with so many clients that the system would burst. The theory, explains Stern, was that an impossibly overburdened welfare system would force “a radical reconstruction of America’s unjust capitalist economy.” Instead of a socialist utopia, however, we got the culture of dependency and family breakdown that ate away at America’s inner cities — until welfare reform began to turn the tide.

While Acorn holds to NWRO’s radical economic framework and its confrontational 1960’s-style tactics, the targets and strategy have changed. Acorn prefers to fly under the national radar, organizing locally in liberal urban areas — where, Stern observes, local legislators and reporters are often “slow to grasp how radical Acorn’s positions really are.” Acorn’s new goals are municipal “living wage” laws targeting “big-box” stores like Wal-Mart, rolling back welfare reform, and regulating banks — efforts styled as combating “predatory lending.” Unfortunately, instead of helping workers, Acorn’s living-wage campaigns drive businesses out of the very neighborhoods where jobs are needed most. Acorn’s opposition to welfare reform only threatens to worsen the self-reinforcing cycle of urban poverty and family breakdown. Perhaps most mischievously, says Stern, Acorn uses banking regulations to pressure financial institutions into massive “donations” that it uses to finance supposedly non-partisan voter turn-out drives.

According to Stern, Acorn’s radical agenda sometimes shifts toward “undisguised authoritarian socialism.” Fully aware of its living-wage campaign’s tendency to drive businesses out of cities, Acorn hopes to force companies that want to move to obtain “exit visas.” “How much longer before Acorn calls for exit visas for wealthy or middle-class individuals before they can leave a city?” asks Stern, adding, “This is the road to serfdom indeed.”

It is inexplicable how this group operates so freely in places like Chicago. They are about as non-partisan as a Baath party convention in that if they have ever supported a Republican for anything, it was probably an accident. The bureaucrats whose job it is to see that the law is followed by groups like ACORN are intimidated by their tactics as well as how much stink they could raise with local politicians. Ergo, they skate.

Just what did the potential next president of the United States do for these thugs? He trained their leadership cadres in organizing techniques. Also, through his position as a board member of the Woods Foundation, Obama funnelled money to his friends on a regular basis:

Although it’s been noted in an important story by John Fund, and in a long Obama background piece in the New York Times, more attention needs to be paid to possible links between Obama and Acorn during the period of Obama’s service on the boards of two charitable foundations, the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation.

According to the New York Times, Obama’s memberships on those foundation boards, “allowed him to help direct tens of millions of dollars in grants” to various liberal organizations, including Chicago Acorn, “whose endorsement Obama sought and won in his State Senate race.” As best as I can tell (and this needs to be checked out more fully), Acorn maintains both political and “non-partisan” arms. Obama not only sought and received the endorsement of Acorn’s political arm in his local campaigns, he recently accepted Acorn’s endorsement for the presidency, in pursuit of which he reminded Acorn officials of his long-standing ties to the group.

Supposedly, Acorn’s political arm is segregated from its “non-partisan” registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, but after reading Foulkes’ case study, this non-partisanship is exceedingly difficult to discern. As I understand, it would be illegal for Obama to sit on a foundation board and direct money to an organization that openly served as his key get-out-the-vote volunteers on Election Day. I’m not saying Obama crossed a legal line here: Based on Foulkes’ account, Acorn’s get-out-the-vote drive most likely observed the technicalities of “non-partisanship.”

Nevertheless, the possibilities suggested by a combined reading of the New York Times piece and the Foulkes article are disturbing. While keeping within the technicalities of the law, Obama may have been able to direct substantial foundation money to his organized political supporters. I offer no settled conclusion, but the matter certainly warrants further investigation and discussion. Obama is supposed to be the man who transcends partisanship. Has he instead used his post at an allegedly non-partisan foundation to direct money to a supposedly non-partisan group, in pursuit of what are in fact nakedly partisan and personal ends? I have no final answer, but the question needs to be pursued further.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to those of us who have watched Obama preach about the “new politics” and his idea of post-partisan governing while playing the same old games with the Chicago political machine that any hack alderman plays to get ahead. It is absolutely shameless and he gets away with it because the press corps is, frankly, lazy. You don’t have to dig very deeply to find this stuff. It’s all over the internet.

Is it relevant to the campaign? Let’s ask the American people if they think it is “relevant” that a candidate for president made a political alliance with Marxists? Let’s ask the voter if they think it “relevant” that a future president carried on a close relationship for many years with an organization with a horrible reputation for vote fraud as well as promoting an agenda so at odds with what America is all about that the candidate feels it necessary to hide his activities on behalf of the group. I daresay the voters would have a much different answer about “relevancy” as those in the press who turn up their nose at these revelations.

It has been the game plan of the radical left for 40 years to worm their way into power by obscuring their true agenda of socialism, isolationism, and multi-cultural dogma with platitudes and nebulous concepts like “change” and “hope.” The trick is to sound as inoffensive and “safe” as possible without arousing suspicions of their true intent.

Does this mean that Obama is a stalking horse for the radical left and that once in office we will see his true colors? I doubt it. More likely, Obama has used the radicals as he uses the corrupt Chicago Machine; if they can help him advance his career, so be it. He will make these deals with the devil because perhaps he believes he is above the sort of quid pro quo politics that ordinary politicians are beholden to. But if he is elected, what’s the payoff for these people? They are going to want something for their support you can be sure of that. Just what is Obama prepared to give them?

I don’t think there’s any doubt now that Obama has spent a good part of his political career dabbling in radical leftist politics. When did he change his mind and come back to the mainstream? It appears his candidacy for the US Senate convinced him he could get farther without the radicals as he could with them. It is there that he dropped associations with Woods Foundation, ACORN, and probably said goodbye to Ayers, Dohrn and that other radical friend, Rashid Khalidi whose wife’s Arab American Action Network received $70,000 in grants from Woods.

Obama can’t run from his past. And maybe its time the press held his fee to the fire and demanded an explanation for these alliances and associations.

There are days that I really hate politics – days when my cynicism and contempt for the politicians, the process, the whole bloody, unholy mess of spin meisters, pundits, press, bloggers, and commentators from all sides of the ideological spectrum make me want to chuck it all and write about sports, or gardening, or cats.

Readers of this site know that this too, shall pass; that tomorrow or the next day or day after that, I will resume my role as cantankerous curmudgeon railing against the left, the right, and the squishes in the middle as if this feeling of utter, depthless depression about the state of the nation never existed.

Part of it is, I’m sure, the coming slaughter of conservatives at the polls in November. The ignorant, smug, self-righteous liberals who visit this site (as opposed to most lefty visitors who are thoughtful and eager to engage in dialogue) who keep telling me to “get used to it” haven’t a clue themselves what is about to transpire with this coming election.

We are about to hand the presidency to the most ill-equipped, shallow, unschooled, and naive candidate in American history. Less than 4 years ago, Barack Obama was an obscure Illinois state senator with a paper thin record of accomplishment and a work history that included organizing inner city residents by bringing their resentments against white America to the surface thus motivating them to vote and put pressure on city hall.

If one asks the question how he rose so quickly to the heights he finds himself now, all you have to do is look at his sponsors in the Chicago political machine; state senate Majority leader Emil Jones (who helped pad his non-existent resume by putting his name as a sponsor on bills he never worked to pass), the as yet unfleshed out Tony Rezko connections to the operators and moneymen who were invaluable in his 2004 senate run, and Mayor Daley himself whose brother Bill, former cabinet official in Clinton’s administration and the man who ran the Gore 2000 campaign, an unpaid consultant to the Obama campaign who possesses one of the most valuable Rolodex in the Democratic party.

And let’s not forget the man who has brilliantly packaged the Obama message of “change” and “hope” by obscuring the candidate’s unabashed liberalism with enough amorphous, non-ideological platitudes to pave the road to heaven twice over. David Axelrod has many gifts. But perhaps his most valuable contribution to the Obama campaign has been in message discipline. Never before has a liberal Democrat stayed on point through appearance after appearance, debate after debate, talk show after talk show.

And, of course, the candidate’s own numerous political gifts have rounded out a campaign that looks unbeatable at this point.

Given all of this, just how bad (or good) would an Obama presidency be?

I have written previously how this election reminds me of 1980’s debacle for the Democrats. And while I still think this is true, there is a major difference between then and now; Democrats today are much less united (outside of the Iraq War) on what needs to be done to “fix” things than Republicans were a generation ago. Back then, the mantra of “lower taxes, less regulation, higher defense spending” was an easy sell and GOP candidates from top to bottom embraced the themes that Reagan hammered home day after day on the campaign trail.

But the left today is not in as much agreement as to what needs to be done although the outlines of some programs will see broad acceptance among Democrats on Capitol Hill. There will no doubt be a primal thrust at the beginning of an Obama administration for some kind of national health insurance. All depends on whether Obama insists on his own plan (that does not include mandated participation) or whether he breaks down and realizes there is nothing “national” about what he is proposing unless people are forced to sign up and pay into the insurance fund.

Some of the more entertaining moments during the debate occurred when watching Hillary criticize Obama’s plan for not covering all Americans while twisting and dodging about the draconian mandates contained in her own plan that would force Americans to buy health insurance – even if they don’t want it. And if they don’t buy it, enforcement provisions will almost certainly involve the IRS. What other government agency is set up to do it?

Will Americans feel the same about national health insurance once they realize what it means – what it really means – as far as forcing citizens at the point of the IRS gun to pay up or suffer the consequences? We’re an independent minded citizenry and don’t like to be told what to do but my guess is we will meekly submit to this massive intrusion of our liberties because citizens are convinced only the government can act to supply them with competitive insurance rates. Regardless of whether that’s true or not it doesn’t matter. We’re going to have national health insurance by the time the cherry blossoms are blooming in the tidal basin next year.

On the surface, it appears that Democrats are united in their desire to end the Iraq War. However, here too, you have a wide range of options being pushed forward by Democrats that almost certainly guarantees there will be token withdrawals of troops from Iraq and little more.

Unless a President Obama is willing to fire Gen. Raymond Odierno (who will be top commander in Iraq this time next year), CENTCOM commander Petreaus, and a host of lesser lights and replace them with generals who will tell him what he wants to hear on Iraq (don’t put this past Obama – Bush did it, why not him?), it is likely we will have virtually the same number of troops doing pretty much what they are doing now in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Obama’s on again-off again advisor Samantha Power said the same thing and common sense alone makes Obama’s “plan” to reduce troops by a brigade a month little more than a pipe dream.

The reason Obama will give – Bush screwed things up so bad that the troops are needed to prevent catastrophe – will be close to the truth so all but the Dennis Kucinich wing of the party will probably cut him some slack.

The real test of Obama’s leadership will come when dealing with the economy. Whether we are in an official recession won’t matter as much as the fact that economic activity will almost certainly be sluggish with most vital sectors experiencing slow or no growth. There will also no doubt be considerable slack in the labor market as well. The question is will the Democrats and Obama take actions that will help spur growth or will they give into their worst impulses and raise taxes, gut NAFTA, and take other actions that might exacerbate the situation?

I have zero confidence that anything the Democrats propose will make the situation better. Overall, the Democrats are unfriendly to the idea of a globalized economy and given the opportunity (or forced into it by their masters in the labor unions), they will find a way to throw a monkey wrench into free trade agreements while perhaps making it illegal to “outsource” goods and services to other countries. This will force other nations to react to what we are doing and the entire edifice of global trade will be threatened.

This will almost certainly mean slower growth and more difficulty in getting the economy back on track. Of course, the blame will successfully be placed at the feet of Bush and the Republicans where some of it belongs but without the inconvenience of having to own up to policies that have actually made the situation worse.

As far as foreign policy, I am actually less nervous about Obama than I was a few months ago. The reason is I don’t think Obama as president will emphasize foreign policy the first few years of his presidency but rather keep his nose to the domestic grindstone. Allowing things to float at this point – with the exception of Iraq and Afghanistan – wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will go nowhere as will negotiations with Syria. Pakistan is already a lost cause. Russia will continue to be a thorn in our side as will China but there might be areas – nuclear nonproliferation – that would benefit all countries and where Obama might actually do some good.

The Iranian situation will resolve itself with or without President Obama’s help. If he actively tries to prevent Israel from removing what they believe is an existential threat, his presidency will be over. And since the US is going to get blamed for anything Israel does anyway, my guess is he will tacitly support any Israeli action against the Iranian nuclear program.

Would he attack Iran? Despite his bellicose comments about not allowing the Iranians to develop nuclear weapons, since there will likely be no evidence that the Iranians are constructing nukes, it is extremely unlikely that a President Obama would greenlight any attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Israel, of course, doesn’t have that luxury and once it is clear that Iran could enrich uranium on an industrial scale to the 85-90% level, all bets are off and US support or no, they will hit the Iranians with everything they’ve got.

Admittedly, the fallout from such an attack could be extremely serious. But Syria won’t commit suicide for their Iranian allies by starting a war they can’t win and Iran’s military is something of a joke – outside of some rockets that could hit Israeli cities with conventional explosives. The fact is, for all their bluster, Syria and Iran can’t do much damage to the Israelis and they know it.

Diplomatically, it might be a different story. It would almost certainly cause the Arab street to explode – Jews attacking Muslims – and it would almost certainly cool relations between us and our “moderate” Arab allies. But as I’ve mentioned previously, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia aren’t looking to expand their own “peaceful” nuclear programs because they need power plants. They fear Iran and any action taken by anyone – even the Israelis – to remove the nuclear threat will be greeted by outrage on the outside but relief behind the scenes.

How Obama manages all of this – and I fear it is a virtual certainty he will have to face it – will test both the man and his presidency. Is he up to the challenge? I am of the school of history that believes great leaders are sometimes born but more often rise to the occasion having given little indication they were up to managing great happenings. Think Lincoln. But also think James Buchanan who sat paralyzed in the White House while state after state seceded from the union. Buchanan had great experience in government having served two terms as a senator and 4 years as Secretary of State. But all that experience went for naught when he froze during the greatest crisis the union ever faced.

The next 4 years will see the US tested as perhaps it hasn’t been since the end of World War II. Our alliances, our security, our leadership in the world – all will present enormous problems for the next Commander in Chief. Couple that with a moribund economy and a restless citizenry searching for a unity of purpose and you have perhaps the most daunting challenges a new chief executive will have faced at least since Reagan and possibly since FDR.

I know one thing. Obama will be the only president we have. Doing everything we can to support him – at least as far as our consciences allow – could make the difference between success and failure.

“He maketh me to lie next to him in green pastures.” (HT: Fellows)

“Cult of Obama?” No such thing. Nosir. A figment of the corporate press’s imagination. A Rethuglican dirty trick. A Karl Rove plot. A Hillary Clinton smear.

Now admittedly, the alternative publication that published the above photo got it from another alternative rag (doesn’t anyone in Oregon read, like, you know, straight news?) and makes the valid and defensible point that the picture is a tongue in cheek representation of Obama, satirizing (not “irony or whatever” you ignorant twits) the feelings of those Obamaniacs who, with doe-eyed worship, gaze upon their champion as if he were more than a politician, more than a man, more than a mere mortal.

What the dilettantes don’t get is that the very act of satirizing the mushy headed fools proves that they exist, that there is a very large segment of Obama supporters who view their man as a savior of sorts. I wrote recently about the pause it should give those of us who are enamored of republican principles when examining this Obama phenomenon. There is the smell of danger to some of his rallies – out of control citizens who swoon in his presence or lose themselves in his well modulated but ultimately empty words.

Not recognizing the danger or denying that it exists has been the standard operating procedure of Obama supporters on the left for the better part of a year. Individual citizens making informed decisions is one thing. A mindless mob being manipulated by a politician is quite another.

This is not to say that Obama has dictatorial tendencies or harbors some kind of messiah complex. But mass movements are funny things and all sorts of people get thrown up into leadership positions. The temptation to thuggery can get almost irresistible.

In the meantime, we can laugh at the Obamaniacs and their obsessive love for someone who, after all, is just a politician. My guess is they will become hugely disappointed in their savior long before he or someone else would have the opportunity to create mischief in the republic.

I first saw this shocking clip over at my good friends on Maggie’s Farm who got it from MacRanger.

I am informed it’s an older video and has made the rounds a couple of times so if you’ve seen it, perhaps you might have a theory on why this hasn’t gone viral.

It is 52 seconds of the dumbest, the most frightening ideas on defense policy I’ve heard from the nominee of a major party. We’re in Dennis Kucinich territory here folks.

Here’s the transcript courtesy of one of the commenters at American Thinker (where some of this post originated):

“First, I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president, I will end it.

Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems…and I will institute an independent Defense Priorities Board to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.

Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal I will not develop new nuclear weapons…I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material…and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off of hair-trigger alert…and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.”

In 52 seconds, he rattles off what an Obama presidency would mean for our national defense; slowing down of existing programs to build new weapons, cutting “tens of billions” of dollars in “wasteful” spending, scrapping missile defense completely, and setting up an “independent defense priority review board” (you can imagine the anti-defense liberals sitting on that board) to make sure we don’t waste any money building “unnecessary” weapons.

That’s not all. Obama wishes upon a star for a “nuclear free world” and to that end, he will not allow any new designs for nukes nor will be build any new ones. He wants to talk to the Russians about re-targeting our missiles and “deep cuts” in our nuclear arsenal.

This is dangerous and stupid. Slowing down current weapons projects only makes them more expensive over the long term (but it looks good politically because of the money saved up front). He calls the anti-missile system “unproven” – and thank God for that because the only way to “prove” that it works is to shoot down an incoming missile. Recent successes have been incredible – shooting down a target traveling at Mach 7 is no simple matter. And almost every test shows improvement.

Why scrap the system now after spending tens of billions of dollars and when we are close to success? Lunacy!

In fairness to Obama, everyone knows that we could find tens of billions in savings in the defense department. The question – as it is with his idea for an “independent” Defense Priorities Board – who decides what’s “wasteful” and what is “necessary?

It’s a question that has bedeviled defense planners since the end of World War II. In the 1980’s the Democrats took the easy way out; they voted against every new weapons system that came on line during the Reagan build-up. The M-1 Abrams Tank, the B1, the B2, cruise missiles, Trident Submarine – the list is endless.

Then there’s the matter of his pledge not to design or build any “new” nuclear weapons. This may be a huge problem since nuclear warheads are not like the fine wines I’m sure Obama keeps in his cellar – you can’t just store them away and forget them. Nukes require constant maintenance and the replacement of parts and materials every few years as the plutonium follows the laws of nature and, atom by atom, begins to degrade.

Will a President Obama continue to create fissile material to replenish our existing stockpile of weapons? He doesn’t say, does he?

I shudder when I think his 1960’s style liberal friends will have a go at the defense budget. Considering the fact they don’t think we face any threats, we’ll be lucky to keep the Army band.

Then there’s his pie in the sky notion of a nuclear free world. Everyone wishes for that. Heck, I wish that the moon was made of Velveeta cheese but wishing will never make it so. And somehow, I just can’t picture him and Putin on the same page about much of anything. Obama, the charmer, the ideologue and Putin, the aggressive, canny, ruthless autocrat.

Maybe we can convince a grown up to hold his hand during those negotiations.

In effect, Obama wants to gut the military to make sure we never go to war again. He has said as much on the campaign trail. And if a time ever comes, God forbid, where we would find it necessary to project our power to the far flung corners of the earth in order to protect Americans or American interests under an Obama presidency, I fear the military would be forced to tell him that it wouldn’t be possible.

Obama is McGovern, Carter, and John Kerry all rolled into one when it comes to maintaining and improving our defenses. He would be a disaster as president and this video shows very clearly why.

75,000 at Obama Rally in Portland Yesterday

What could possibly be wrong with 75,000 people attending a political rally?

Admittedly, not much on the surface. And perhaps if the times weren’t so perilous and the candidate who was the beneficiary of that huge crowd wasn’t so problematic, we could really celebrate such an outpouring of support, free from the nagging doubts that plague many of us about Barack Obama and his past associations and present ideological beliefs.

Except my republican soul (note the small “r”) is a little frightened at this mob scene. Politicians should be plebeian in their appeal – being one of us and not standing above us, Caesar-like in their beguilement of the masses. Truman and Eisenhower were plebes; modest in their habits and with no illusions regarding their own failings. There is something to be said for such solid republican values in a presidential candidate and when someone such as a Kennedy or Obama rises above the masses, presenting themselves as perhaps something more than a servant of the people, we are bound to look in askance at such a phenomenon.

Joseph Kennedy told his family at the beginning of JFK’s campaign that they were going to sell the candidate “like soap flakes.” Papa Joe wasn’t just talking about advertising. He was revealing a strategy that for the first time joined the talents of Madison Avenue with the power of Hollywood celebrity to create powerful, irresistible imagery that would elevate Kennedy to hero status and place him on a different plane altogether than any other politician in the country.

It worked beyond expectations. The Kennedy image makers took a sickly, rather bookish 42 year old manchild known for his excesses of the flesh and turned him into a vigorous, glamorous, serious man with a patrician’s attitude of noblesse oblige and a “star quality” unique for its time among politicians.

Of course, this image making worked out quite well until Kennedy was forced to confront Kruschev in Vienna where the peasant -a survivor of a brutal war and numerous murderous purges under Stalin – took the measure of the patrician and found it wanting. The Russian was so certain of his moral ascendancy over Kennedy that he browbeat the younger man, drawing Kennedy into a debate over the superiority of communism over capitalism where the American’s stammering answers to Kruschev’s harangue convinced the Russian that if he placed missiles in Cuba, Kennedy would do nothing in response.

Kennedy spent a considerable amount of time in Hollywood when he was younger and became fascinated with the science of celebrity. What makes one person a movie star and another an extra? As far as JFK could see it wasn’t looks – many extras floating around at Hollywood parties that he and his brothers frequented were as good or better looking than the movie stars of the age. Kennedy decided it was the star’s ability to “project” personality on to the movie screen. He believed that by surrounding himself with movie stars like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Marylin Monroe, and his brother in law Peter Lawford, he would unlock their secrets and, like a magic talisman, their celebrity would rub off on him.

Obama needs no such lessons in how to be a celebrity. He has learned along the way to project his personality (or the personality he chooses to affect) on to an audience, drawing them in to his arms as a mother draws her children. He uses rhetoric to both soothe and ignite his audience. His words are passionate but the candidate himself remains “cool;” a nice trick that makes him extremely accessible to those listening to him. Where most politicians try and instruct the listener, Obama asks questions that the audience already knows the answers. And that answer is him.

Perhaps that is what gives me the most unease when I listen to Obama. It is not the power of the party or his ideas that he attempts to win his audience to; it is a very personal power to which he seeks to wed his fans to his campaign. The solution to our problems, he tells us, is belief; a belief that he can change the country, that he can heal our wounds, restore our soul, and make our cup runneth over.

Any other politician trying this would fall flat on their face and we’d either laugh at them or identify them immediately for the demagogues they are. But because he never fails to include his “empowerment” mantra with his “belief” shtick, one gets the feeling that by joining his campaign, you are entering a privileged society of believers. I don’t want to call it a religion because it is not. But the atmosphere at many of his speeches certainly approaches that of a revival meeting where one’s belief in the preacher will lead them to paradise.

Reading what many Obama supporters say about it their candidate, it is easy to see that they view him as the classic knight on a white charger where he and only he can rescue us from our own folly. Given all that we don’t know about this man, does that make him dangerous? Perhaps no more so than any other candidate. No one saw Nixon as the white horse type and look what he turned out to be.

But dangerous he is – for his beliefs, not for his personality or the character of this mass movement he has inspired. So when I see 75,000 people screaming his name with the kind of abandon reserved for rock stars or religious figures, I worry more that the candidate won’t be able to live up to the lofty expectations he has engendered in his legions than he would use such a movement for nefarious purposes.

And given his incredible lack of experience and zero track record in getting anything done, I would guess that if he is elected he would generate more disappointment among his followers than any other president in memory.

Just what office is Barack Obama running for? Commander in Chief? Or perhaps Keeper of the Constant Whine? Or maybe Lord High Commissioner of the Bitch?

To Obama, it’s always something. Bush challenges his foreign policy positions and he whines about a “political attack” rather than responding.” McCain rightly points out that Obama has absolutely zero foreign policy experience (except that advanced course in foreign relations he took when he was 8 years old and living in Indonesia – or whatever Obama’s claim to superior experience is this week) and the candidate weeps like an 11 year old girl, complaining about McCain using the “old politics” to diss him.

Now Obama is whining about not being able to win in Kentucky on Tuesday. First, he blames Fox News (?). Then he fingers an email campaign in the state against him. Finally, he lamely explains that he just doesn’t have the time to sit down face to face with the good folks from Kentucky and work his magic spell on them:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, facing a likely defeat in next Tuesday’s primary election, won’t travel to Kentucky before the voting, but said he hopes to have much more time to win over Kentucky voters before the November general election.

He also blamed Fox News for disseminating “rumors” about him and said that that and e-mails filled with misinformation that have been “systematically” dispersed have hurt him in Kentucky.

“When we’re able to campaign in a place like Iowa for several months and I can visit and talk to people individually, I do very well. That’s harder to do at this stage in the campaign,” Obama said in a brief telephone interview Friday. “And once we get past the primary, we’ll able to focus more on those states where we need to make sure people know my track record.”

In contrast, Obama’s rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, will make five stops in Kentucky over the weekend, including appearances at two university campuses.

Obama spoke to more than 8,000 supporters in Louisville Monday night — his first time in the state since August. He said he had hoped to spend more time in Kentucky earlier this week but was called back to Washington, D.C. for votes on Tuesday.

He even whines about having to serve the people of Illinois while he’s campaigning for president. The fact that he’s missed 40% of senate votes since the beginning of 2007 (McCain has missed 58%) sort of makes his excuse about not being able to spend more time in Kentucky because he had to rush back to Washington and vote ring a little hollow.

But it is his carping and whining about Fox news doing him in as far as Kentucky is concerned that really takes the cake. It couldn’t be that you are hugely unpopular in the state now, could it senator? And yeah, go ahead and play the race card – we fully expect it by now and look forward to you wearing it out in the general election – but the fact is senator it’s not so much that there aren’t racists in Kentucky; there are. It’s just that there are hundreds of thousands of more people who think you are too inexperienced, too liberal, too much of an elitist, and too dangerously naive to vote for you.

The truth hurts, Barry. You can get your minions in the press to write articles between now and the election about the reason you lose so spectacularly is because the good folks in states like Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky all keep white robes and hoods hidden in their closets and really can’t stomach the idea of a black man becoming president. That kind of analysis is about as deep as your thinking on foreign policy – which judging by the thugs in the world who look forward to your election victory is not only incredibly shallow but reflects a dangerous self-denial on your part as to just what the endorsement from groups like Hamas really means.

In your arrogance, you tar those who find your positions on the issues wanting with the label of racist. There is no legitimate reason to oppose you, in your opinion. Only racists, fear peddlers, rumor mongerers, and other low life scum refuse to vote for you.

But hey! Once people get to know you, they love you. You will melt the opposition in their hearts by the magical healing powers of your silky smooth, mellifluous voice. You will over come the hardness of their opposition by the sheer goodness of your bi-racial soul.

Phooey!

The more I see and hear Barack Obama, the less I think of him as a man and as a candidate. He hides behind his race as if it was his momma’s skirts. Nothing is ever his fault or the fault of the positions he has taken on issues vital to the safety and security of the United States. It’s either people who don’t vote for him are racists or war mongering fascist neocons who refuse to get with his new program of not being so beastly to our enemies. He is thin skinned, quick to anger, overly sensitive, and a whining, sniveling child who can’t take criticism like a man and respond as an adult.

The more he whines the more the press bends over backwards to cover for him. He makes a statement about there being 57 states and gets a pass. McCain confuses Shias and Sunnis and he’s a senile old man. He calls a reporter “sweetie” and his apology is accepted – end of story. McCain apologizes for anything and it’s never enough.

I hate the idea of having to defend McCain but the fact is, the press coverage of the 2008 campaign is even more lopsided than it was in 2004 – something I thought could never be topped. And as long as Obama cries crocodile tears whining Foul! every time he is criticized, the press will continue to back his outrageous claims of “unfairness” and dirty politics.

I don’t buy the argument circulating on righty blogs that because Bush didn’t specifically name anyone in his “appeasement” remarks before the Israeli Knesset he was not really talking about Obama, or Democrats. It’s pretty disingenuous not to acknowledge who exactly Bush had in mind when making the comment. Indeed, the American people know full well who Bush was referring to because they believe the same thing about Democrats and Obama – that they are hopelessly naive when it comes to the true nature of our enemies and that Obama’s careless remarks about meeting with those nations who harbor us ill will without preconditions smacks of nothing less than a Chamberlainesque eagerness to engage in diplomacy simply for diplomacy’s sake.

The fact that everyone knows who Bush was referring to and the fact that the substance contained in the remark reflects the widely held belief of a very large percentage of voters should have given Obama an opening to retract the remark and share his thoughts on engaging Iran, Syria, and other terrorist supporting nations in a useful dialogue.

Instead, Obama and the Democrats hit the ceiling, calling Bush every name in the book and whining about their hurt feelings. Their reaction reminded me of a line from the movie All The Presidents Men where the Washington Post has published an article accusing the White House of wrongdoing and the reaction to that article from the Nixonites. Ben Bradleee observes “They doubt our ancestry, but they don’t say the story isn’t accurate.”

Obama called Bush’s words “an appalling attack,” “dishonest,” divisive, “fear-peddling,” fear-mongering,” but for some reason, never got around to responding to the substance of Bush’s charge; that Obama and the Democrats cannot be trusted with running American foreign policy because their outlook on the world is is based on false assumptions about, our friends, our allies, our role in the world, and most of all our deadly enemies.

Bush actually did Obama a favor. He gave him a golden opportunity to lay out his “realistic” ideas on American foreign policy so that it would get the widest possible hearing. The problem, as Obama and the Democrats well know, is one of perception – a perception they try their best to finesse rather than tackling head on. It’s not about talking tough and making threats. It is about calling our enemies, well, enemies . They could try that for starters.

And it doesn’t help when Obama gives an interview to David Brooks of the New York Times and talks about satisfying the “legitimate grievances” of Hamas and Hizbullah as if giving one inch to those terrorists wouldn’t put our “friends” (another word the Democrats have a hard time annunciating) in Israel and Lebanon in danger. To even recognize those terrorists have anything “legitimate” in the way of an agenda is as close to appeasement as you can get without going over the line.

After all, that was Chamberlain’s problem. He believed (like Seattle Times editor Bruce Ramsey) that all Hitler wanted was to unite the “German speaking people of Europe” under one flag. The problem, of course, is that those pockets of German speakers lay outside of Germany’s borders – in fact, had always been separate from Germany – and therefore made Hitler’s claim on the Sudetenland and Danzig illegitimate if Chamberlain had bothered to check.

Actually, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Chamberlain was bound and determined to give Hitler everything he wanted in what has to be considered the most spectacular misjudgement in the history of diplomacy. The British Prime Minister believed there was a limit to Hitler’s appetite for conquest. Too late, he realized the truth.

As far as Obama, he seems to have an enemy identification problem – as do most Democrats. They reserve their harshest criticism for their own president while taking it relatively easy on the beasts and thugs who should come in for the bulk of their disapprobation. Do they have a clue how warm and fuzzy that makes people like Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad feel? With their over the top, exaggerated, bitter attacks on Bush’s policies and Bush the man, (deserving of plenty of criticism but not the personal hatred thrown his way by so many in the Democratic party), the Democrats play directly into the hands of our enemies.

Do they think the American people haven’t figured this out already? Evidently no. So instead of responding to Bush like adults, Obama and the Democrats whine about how Bush hurt their feelings by calling them “appeasers” which he didn’t but for the sake of Democrat’s high blood pressure, we’ll grant them that small point.

And the obedient servants of Obama and the Democrats in the media are beside themselves with joy. Here is a Democrat who “hits back.” Here is a Democrat who won’t take these “smears” lying down. The media is so pleased at Obama’s tantrum that they can barely contain their glee.

But while they are hugging themselves perhaps they should ask why the candidate couldn’t have hit back and rebutted the charges made by President Bush? Substantively, the charge is still out there, hanging over the campaign and the Democratic party. And until someone, somewhere in the party starts talking about defending America’s vital interests in a way that doesn’t sound like we would sacrifice some of them on the altar of being well thought of by the rest of the world, Obama and the Democrats will continue to have their national security bona fides called into question.