[Rhodes22-list] Barark Obama supporters -- some serious reading here -- (may be called political by some)

Mon Apr 14 17:14:14 EDT 2008

Ed,

Put a fork in him, he's done!  We haven't even gotten to Bill Ayers and many
of the other sleazeballs in his life yet.  Except, the big O's name did come
up in Rezko's trial in Chicago yesterday.  No smoking gun yet but the trial
has a ways to go.  O'baby and Rezko were real tight in 04' when the
extortion plot against the Illinois State Teachers retirement fund was at
its peak.  They were just 'buds' a few years later when "The Chosen One"
came-up short on cash to buy Michelle a shack to live in.  This will be fun
to watch.  I'm already planning to spend some time downstate in 2010 near my
parents during his re-election campaign for the Senate.  Time for this guy
to go!  Attached is what a writer who grew-up near me had to say.

Brad

------------------------------------------

The Worst Thing I've Heard Obama Say

*By Melinda Henneberger*

Yes, it is galling to be tagged as out of touch by Hillary "Is that sniper
fire I hear?' Clinton. Only, she happens to be right: Barack Obama's
suggestion<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/obama-no-surprise-that-ha_b_96188.html>that
economically suffering small-town Americans are haters who cling to
God
and guns out of bitterness is a way bigger deal than he seems to realize,
even now. Five years into an unpopular war, and with the economy tanking,
the widely held and absolutely poisonous perception that Democrats tend to
look down on Mr. and Mrs. Middle America—and on their religious faith in
particular—may be the most serious obstacle to the party's presidential
hopes this year. Yet here's Obama not apologizing: "If I worded things in a
way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," he told the
*Winston-Salem
Journal*. Poor wording was not the problem; on the contrary, it was his
precision that was so unfortunate, and his ability to pack half a dozen
unintended insults into a single sentence uncanny. And in San Francisco, no
less? Roger Ailes couldn't have planned it better, unless he'd maybe
followed up the event with some impromptu windsurfing in the bay. Here's
what preceded the problem sentence:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of
small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and
nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration,
and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said
that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not.

With this, who could argue? So far, so good. But then, straight into the
ditch:

"So it's not surprising then that they get bitter,'' (Angry, OK, but bitter?
I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe someone they liked that way.)

"they cling to guns'' (If they had jobs, maybe they wouldn't be gun nuts?)

"or religion'' (Or religious nuts, either? This is an especially weird
conclusion since Obama himself is a devout Christian; was he pandering to
the segment of the party that does see believers that way?)

"or antipathy to people who aren't like them'' (So no wonder such a lot of
them are haters?)

"or anti-immigrant sentiment''  (Who blame their troubles on people who'll
live in concrete-block squalor while picking fruit for next to nothing.)

"or anti-trade sentiment''  (And don't see the big picture on globalization
and free trade like you Davos-goers do.)

"as a way to explain their frustrations.'' (In lieu of a Harvard Law
degree.)

I grew up in the kind of town Obama is talking about and went back there to
talk to people about their political motivations for my
book<http://www.amazon.com/If-They-Only-Listened-Politicians/dp/0743278968/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208096025&sr=8-1>about
women voters in pockets of the country where, as Obama says, the
factories have closed, the jobs have gone away, and people see scant
evidence that anyone in either party actually gives a hoot. As I wrote in
the book, my hometown of Mount Carmel, Ill., population 8,000, sits on a
bluff overlooking the Wabash River. It's a pretty little farm town—or was,
before the Target moved in, wiped out Market Street, and then moved on, like
a bad storm. When I brought my New Yorker husband home for the holidays for
the first time 20 years ago, he couldn't believe how long it took us to run
a couple of errands on our bustling main street; compact as it was, we
stopped so often to talk that he said he felt like he'd wandered onto the
set of Bedford Falls in *It's a Wonderful Life*, with a crowd of neighbors
yoo-hooing, "Merry Christmas, George!'' But these days, whole minutes can go
by in which nothing moves on Market Street; social services are the only
growth industry, and the traffic lights only blink now, instead of changing
from red to green, so you don't have to sit there waiting when there's no
other car in sight. The tool factory that had been a major employer since
the 1930s closed a few years back, and my best friend from high school
finally had to move away just last fall, after the coal mine where her
husband worked shut down.

When I went back there, and visited similar small towns in Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and West Virginia, one thing I heard over and over—from registered
Democrats!—was that their national party leaders were elitists who couldn't
seem to relate to their struggles. Again and again, they brought up Kerry's
windsurfing and polyglot wife and Hollywood friends and brand spanking new
hunting attire as proof positive of the kind of elitism that was turning
them into Republicans. Perhaps worst of all in their eyes was his habit of
mocking Bush's intelligence; every time Kerry laughed about how dumb the
president supposedly was, they assumed he thought the same of them. But it
doesn't have to be that way.

Here's how a high-school teacher in Fairfield, Ill., put it: "I used to be a
Democrat, and I'm still very much independent. I voted for Clinton [in '92
and '96]. I'm religious but not a fanatic; I see a lot of gray. My mother
has Alzheimer's, so I'm for stem-cell research, and I'm not against people's
right to an abortion.'' But Kerry "just struck me as arrogant,'' while Bush
inspired "the feeling that this was a more open person who would not be "I'm
important and you're not.' ''  And yes, Fox News exists to whip up such
sentiments, but *it only works when Democrats foolishly hand them fresh
material. *I don't for a second doubt that Obama genuinely cares about the
people he just put down -- or question whether it's his party's policies
that would help low-income Americans more. Which makes this Democratic
penchant for cultural condescension all the more baffling and inexcusable.

Sure, many Americans in places like my hometown are angry and they do
"cling'' to guns and God, though not in that order. It's *connecting *the
two that's belittling in the extreme to the "typical white person''—to cite
a phrase I chose to overlook at the time. Now, if Obama is sticking by the
essence of what he said out of stubbornness or arrogance, that's one kind of
problem. But if he really doesn't see why this could be a game-changer,
that's worse. And though I've been pretty unrelievedly positive about the
guy, it's the first thing he's said that's made me question his ability to
win.
Published Sunday, April 13, 2008 10:34 AM Filed under: Barack
Obama<http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/tags/Barack+Obama/default.aspx>,
Hillary Clinton<http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/tags/Hillary+Clinton/default.aspx>,
'08 election<http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/tags/_2700_08+election/default.aspx>,
"cling"<http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/tags/_2600_quot_3B00_cling_2600_quot_3B00_/default.aspx>

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Tootle <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>
> Barark Obama supporters look here.  He is saying what ...
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/opinion/14kristol.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
>
> Now some call this writer conservative.  I say he lost that years ago and
> must be called Washington groupie.  He is not a real conservative... so
> what
> is his point?
>
> I got berated for using the term, 'fellow travelers'.  This writer is more
> direct with citation, would you believe?
>
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA
> Bob, just consider the guy with the peg leg is just a typical government
> program director.
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p16687767/Cowboys%2Band%2BPirates.tif
> Cowboys+and+Pirates.tif
> --
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