[Rhodes22-list] Political - Reading Assignment for Rockafeller Republicans?

[Brad Haslett]

Ed,

Perhaps asking people to read is a bit unfair.  Here's a video-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BtJG0BonMQ

Brad

On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 9:27 AM, Tootle <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>
> Brad,
>
> Now how many Obama supporters will either read or understand?
>
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA
> "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
> nothing." -Edmund Burke
>
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett-2 wrote:
> >
> > Ed,
> >
> > Here's some interesting reading.  I'll send the link to the NYT's and
> > attach
> > the Weekly Standard article (the more informative of the two).  What I
> > found
> > interesting about the Standard article was the requirement in Chicago for
> > 25% minority participation in city construction projects and 70% on one
> > particular project.  I probably told you the story about us going to work
> > for three black "contractors" from Indianapolis when we first landed on
> > the
> > MS Coast.  They owned a pickup truck, three cellphones, and a clipboard,
> > and
> > knew absolutely nothing about construction.  They were very forthright
> > with
> > us, "we're the only black 'contractor' on the coast, we're getting all
> the
> > juicy ROE's (right of entry)".  We worked for them for two weeks (since
> we
> > owned equipment and knew what we were doing) but discovered they had fled
> > town (for good) when we pressed them for payment.  That was not an
> > uncommon
> > experience in the first few weeks after Katrina and was what encouraged
> us
> > to pursue no further public work and do only private projects.
> >
> > Brad
> >
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/us/politics/03affirmative.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1217768990-2g13xxT6nmafXBY6ayueFw
> >
> > --------------------
> >
> > [image: The Weekly Standard]
> >
> >
> >
> >   Barack Obama's Lost Years
> > The senator's tenure as a state legislator reveals him to be an
> > old-fashioned, big government, race-conscious liberal.
> > by Stanley Kurtz
> > 08/11/2008, Volume 013, Issue 45
> >
> >
> > Barack Obama's neighborhood newspaper, the *Hyde Park Herald*, has a
> > longstanding tradition of opening its pages to elected officials-from
> > Chicago aldermen to state legislators to U.S. senators. Obama himself, as
> > a
> > state senator, wrote more than 40 columns for the *Herald*, under the
> > title
> > "Springfield Report," between 1996 and 2004. Read in isolation, Obama's
> > columns from the state capital tell us little. Placed in the context of
> > political and policy battles then raging in Illinois, however, the young
> > legislator's dispatches powerfully illuminate his political beliefs. Even
> > more revealing are hundreds of articles chronicling Obama's early
> > political
> > and legislative activities in the pages not only of the *Hyde Park
> > Herald*,
> > but also of another South Side fixture, the *Chicago Defender*.
> >
> > Obama moved to Chicago in order to place himself in what he understood to
> > be
> > the de facto "capital" of black America. For well over 100 years, the
> > *Chicago
> > Defender* has been the voice of that capital, and therefore a paper of
> > national significance for African Americans. Early on in his political
> > career, Obama complained of being slighted by major media, like the
> > *Chicago
> > Tribune* and the *Chicago Sun-Times*. Yet extensive and continuous
> > coverage
> > in both the *Chicago Defender* and the *Hyde Park Herald* presents a
> > remarkable resource for understanding who Obama is. Reportage in these
> two
> > papers is particularly significant because Obama's early political
> > career-the time between his first campaign for the Illinois State Senate
> > in
> > 1995 and his race for U.S. Senate in 2004-can fairly be called the "lost
> > years," the period Obama seems least eager to talk about, in contrast to
> > his
> > formative years in Hawaii, California, and New York or his days as a
> > community organizer, both of which are recounted in his memoir, *Dreams
> > from
> > My Father*. The pages of the *Hyde Park Herald* and the *Chicago
> > Defender*thus offer entrée into Obama's heretofore hidden world.
> >
> > What they portray is a Barack Obama sharply at variance with the image of
> > the post-racial, post-ideological, bipartisan, culture-war-shunning
> > politician familiar from current media coverage and purveyed by the Obama
> > campaign. As details of Obama's early political career emerge into the
> > light, his associations with such radical figures as Reverend Jeremiah
> > Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, Reverend James Meeks, Bill Ayers, and
> > Bernardine Dohrn look less like peculiar instances of personal
> misjudgment
> > and more like intentional political partnerships. At his core, in other
> > words, the politician chronicled here is profoundly race-conscious,
> > exceedingly liberal, free-spending even in the face of looming state
> > budget
> > deficits, and partisan. Elected president, this man would presumably
> shift
> > the country sharply to the left on all the key issues of the
> > day-culture-war
> > issues included. It's no wonder Obama has passed over his Springfield
> > years
> > in relative silence.
> >
> > * THE CENTRALITY OF RACE*
> >
> > Any rounded treatment of Obama's early political career has got to give
> > prominence to the issue of race. Obama has recently made efforts to
> > preemptively blunt discussion of the race issue, warning that his critics
> > will highlight the fact that he is African American. Yet the question of
> > race plays so large a role in Obama's own thought and action that it is
> > all
> > but impossible to discuss his political trajectory without acknowledging
> > the
> > extent to which it engrosses him. Obama settled in Chicago with the
> > declared
> > intention of "organizing black folks." His first book is subtitled "A
> > Story
> > of Race and Inheritance," and his second book contains an important
> > chapter
> > on race. On his return to Chicago in 1991, Obama practiced civil rights
> > law
> > and for many years taught a seminar on racism and law at the University
> of
> > Chicago. When he entered the Illinois senate, it was to represent the
> > heavily (although not exclusively) minority 13th district on the South
> > Side
> > of Chicago. Indeed, race functions for Obama as a kind of
> master-category,
> > pervading and organizing a wide array of issues that many Americans may
> > not
> > think of as racial at all. Understanding Obama's thinking on race, for
> > example, is a prerequisite to grasping his views on spending and
> taxation.
> > Thus, we have no alternative but to puzzle out the place of race in
> > Obama's
> > broader political outlook as well as in his legislative career.
> >
> > When it comes to issues like affirmative action and set-asides, Obama is
> > anything but the post-racial politician he's sometimes made out to be.
> > Take
> > set-asides. In 1998, Obama endorsed Democratic gubernatorial hopeful John
> > Schmidt, stressing to the *Defender* Schmidt's past support for
> > affirmative
> > action and set-asides. Although Obama was generally pleased by the U.S.
> > Supreme Court's 2003 acceptance of racial preferences at the University
> of
> > Michigan, he underscored the danger that Republican-appointed justices
> > might
> > someday overturn the ruling. The day after the Michigan decision, Obama
> > honored the passing of former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson Jr.,
> > eulogizing
> > Jackson for creating model affirmative action and set-aside programs that
> > spread across the nation.
> >
> > In 2004, a U.S. District Court disallowed the ordinance under which
> > Chicago
> > required the use of at least 25 percent minority business enterprises and
> > 5
> > percent women's business enterprises on city-funded projects. In the
> > immediate aftermath of the ruling, Obama and Jesse Jackson were among the
> > prominent voices calling for a black leadership summit to plot strategy
> > for
> > a restoration of Chicago's construction quotas. Obama and his allies
> > succeeded in bringing back race-based contracting.
> >
> > Prominent among those allies were two of Obama's earliest and strongest
> > political supporters, Hyde Park aldermen Toni Preckwinkle and Leslie
> > Hairston. These two are known as fierce advocates of set-asides and key
> > orchestrators of demonstrations and public-relations campaigns against
> > businesses that question race-based contracting. When, in 2001,
> > construction
> > work was planned for South Lake Shore Drive, a major artery that connects
> > Hyde Park to the rest of Chicago, Preckwinkle and Hairston seized the
> > occasion to call for an extraordinary 70 percent minority quota on
> > contracts
> > for the project. They even demanded that, for the sake of race-based
> > hiring,
> > normal contractor eligibility requirements be waived. Then when work on
> > South Lake Shore Drive was not awarded to minority contractors, a group
> > consisting of Preckwinkle, Hairston, two neighboring aldermen, and
> > numerous
> > activists staged a surprise raid on the construction site, shutting it
> > down
> > and forcing the contractor to hire more blacks. A raid on a second
> > construction site collapsed when several blacks were found already at
> work
> > on the project. (The aldermen said these African-American laborers had
> > been
> > hired at the last minute to stymie their protest.)
> >
> > Biographical treatments of Obama tend to stress the tenuous nature of his
> > black identity-his upbringing by whites, his elite education, his home in
> > Chicago's highly integrated Hyde Park, personal tensions with black
> > legislators, and questions about whether Obama is "black enough" to
> > represent African Americans. These concerns over Obama's racial identity
> > are
> > overblown. On race-related issues Obama has stood shoulder to shoulder
> > with
> > Chicago's African-American politicians for years.
> >
> > Occasionally, Obama has even gotten out in front of them. In 1999, for
> > example, he made news by calling on the governor to appoint a minority to
> > the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC), a body that had previously
> > attracted
> > little notice among Chicago's blacks. In 2000, the *Chicago Defender*
> > named
> > Obama one of a number of "Vanguards for Change," citing him for "focusing
> > on
> > legislation in areas previously unexplored by the African-American
> > community
> > including his call that a person of color be appointed to the ICC." Obama
> > did bring a somewhat different background and set of interests to the
> > table.
> > Yet the upshot was to expand the frontiers of race-based politics.
> >
> > And the story doesn't end with Obama's support for set-asides. A *Chicago
> > Defender* story of 1999 features a front-page picture of Obama beside the
> > headline, "Obama: Illinois Black Caucus is broken." In the accompanying
> > article, although Obama denies demanding that black legislators march in
> > perfect lockstep, he expresses anger that black state senators have
> failed
> > to unite for the purpose of placing a newly approved riverboat casino in
> a
> > minority neighborhood. The failed casino vote, Obama argues, means that
> > the
> > black caucus "is broken and needs to unite for the common good of the
> > African-American community." Obama continues, "The problem right now is
> > that
> > we don't have a unified agenda that's enforced back in the community and
> > is
> > clearly articulated. Everybody tends to be lone agents in these
> > situations."
> >
> > Speaking in reply to Obama was Mary E. Flowers, an African-American state
> > senator who apparently broke black caucus discipline and voted to approve
> > the casino's location in a nonminority area. Said Flowers: "The Black
> > Caucus
> > is from different tribes, different walks of life. I don't expect all of
> > the
> > whites to vote alike.  .  .  .  Why is it that all of us should walk
> > alike,
> > talk alike and vote alike?  .  .  .  I was chosen by my constituents to
> > represent them, and that is what I try to do." Given Obama's supposedly
> > post-racial politics, it is notable that he should be the one demanding
> > enforcement of a black political agenda against "lone agents," while
> > another
> > black legislator appeals to Obama to leave her free to represent her
> > constituents, black or white, as she sees fit.
> >
> > Obama's fight to unify the black caucus on the casino vote was undertaken
> > in
> > partnership with state senator Donne Trotter. Yet nearly every
> > biographical
> > account of Obama lavishes attention on Trotter's claim that Obama was
> just
> > a
> > "white man in black face." The significance of that bit of campaign hype,
> > offered while Trotter was running against Obama for Congress, has been
> > exaggerated, perhaps because Trotter's epithet helps to defuse the notion
> > that Obama himself practices race-based politics. Yet Obama does exactly
> > that. His public legislative cooperation with Trotter, and with other
> > black
> > Illinois politicians, yields more insight into Obama's political plans
> > than
> > any electoral rhetoric or private intra-black-caucus backbiting. To the
> > extent that Obama can be accused of having shaky "black credentials,"
> that
> > very accusation pushes him to practice race-conscious politics all the
> > more
> > energetically.
> >
> > When the 2000 census revealed dramatic growth in Chicago's Hispanic and
> > Asian populations alongside a decline in the number of African Americans,
> > the Illinois black caucus was alarmed at the prospect that the number of
> > blacks in the Illinois General Assembly might decline. At that point,
> > Obama
> > stepped to the forefront of the effort to preserve as many black seats as
> > possible. The *Defender* quotes Obama as saying that, "while everyone
> > agrees
> > that the Hispanic population has grown, they cannot expand by taking
> > African-American seats." As in the casino dispute, Obama stressed black
> > unity, pushing a plan that would modestly increase the white, Hispanic,
> > and
> > Asian population in what would continue to be the same number of safe
> > black
> > districts. As Obama put it: "An incumbent African-American legislator
> with
> > a
> > 90 percent district may feel good about his reelection chances, but we as
> > a
> > community would probably be better off if we had two African-American
> > legislators with 60 percent each."
> >
> > Obama's intensely race-conscious approach may surprise Americans who know
> > him primarily through his keynote address at the Democratic National
> > Convention of 2004. When Obama so famously said, "There is not a Black
> > America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America-there's
> > the
> > United States of America," most Americans took him to be advocating a
> > color-blind consciousness of the kind expressed in Martin Luther King
> > Jr.'s
> > dream that his children would one day be judged, not by the color of
> their
> > skin, but by the content of their character. Anyone who understood
> Obama's
> > words that way should know that this is not the whole story. In an essay
> > published in 1988 entitled "Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the
> > Inner
> > City," Obama tried to make room for both "accommodation and militancy" in
> > black political engagement. He wrote,
> >
> >  The debate as to how black and other dispossessed people can forward
> > their
> > lot in America is not new. From W.E.B. DuBois to Booker T. Washington to
> > Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X to Martin Luther King, this internal debate
> has
> > raged between integration and nationalism, between accommodation and
> > militancy, between sit-down strikes and board-room negotiations. The
> lines
> > between these strategies have never been simply drawn, and the most
> > successful black leadership has recognized the need to bridge these
> > seemingly divergent approaches.
> >
> >  However his views may have evolved in the ensuing 20 years, Obama surely
> > knew that the King-like rhetoric of his keynote address would be taken by
> > most Americans as a repudiation of the kind of race-based politics he and
> > his closest allies have consistently practiced throughout his electoral
> > career. It's difficult to gauge the extent to which Obama may have
> > consciously permitted this misunderstanding to take hold, or the extent
> to
> > which he still believes that the opposition between "integration and
> > nationalism, between accommodation and militancy" is a false one. Neither
> > alternative is particularly encouraging.
> >
> > * LIBERALS AND RADICALS*
> >
> > Throughout the 2008 campaign, Obama has made a point of refusing the
> > liberal
> > label. While running for Congress against Bobby Rush in late 1999 and
> > early
> > 2000, however, Obama showed no such compunction. At a November 1999
> > candidate forum, the *Hyde Park Herald* reported that "there was little
> to
> > distinguish" the candidates, who "struggled to differentiate themselves"
> > ideologically. Acknowledged Obama, "[W]e're all on the liberal wing of
> the
> > Democratic party." Indeed, the common political ideology of the
> candidates
> > was a theme in *Herald* coverage throughout the race. Rush's background
> > suggests what that ideology was: A Chicago icon and former Black Panther,
> > Rush received a 90 percent rating in 2000, and a 100 percent rating in
> > 1999,
> > from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. Both years the American
> > Conservative Union rated him at zero percent.
> >
> > So how exactly did these two liberal candidates "struggle to
> > differentiate"
> > themselves in debate? During a candidate forum, for example, when Rush
> > bragged that since entering Congress, he hadn't voted to approve a single
> > defense budget, Obama pounced, accusing Rush of having voted for the Star
> > Wars missile defense system the previous year. Since that contest,
> Obama's
> > liberalism hasn't exactly been a secret to the folks back home. In 2002,
> > Obama himself could speak hopefully of plans "to move a progressive
> > agenda"
> > through the state legislature, and local observers commonly identified
> > Obama
> > as a "progressive." When it endorsed him for the U.S. Senate in 2004,
> > the *Chicago
> > Defender* proclaimed Obama "represents renewal of the liberal,
> > humanitarian
> > cause." The *Defender* went on to assure readers that Obama would support
> > "progressive action" in Washington.
> >
> > The most interesting characterization came from Obama himself, who laid
> > out
> > his U.S. Senate campaign strategy for the *Defender* in 2003: "[A]s you
> > combine a strong African-American base with progressive white and Latino
> > voters, I think it is a recipe for success in the primary and in the
> > general
> > election." Putting the point slightly differently, Obama added, "When you
> > combine  .  .  .an energized African-American voter base and effective
> > coalition-building with other progressive sectors of the population, we
> > think we have a recipe for victory." Obama consciously constructed his
> > election strategy on a foundation of leftist ideology and racial bloc
> > voting.
> >
> > The overwhelming majority of Obama's "Springfield Report" columns in the
> > *Hyde
> > Park Herald* deal with state or local issues. It's interesting,
> therefore,
> > that one of the tiny handful of Obama columns explicitly dealing with
> > national politics is a 2000 column pleading with readers to support Al
> > Gore
> > rather than Ralph Nader for president. Obama opens his column noting that
> > he's heard many people complain that Al Gore and George Bush are beholden
> > to
> > the same "big money interests." In pressing his case for Gore-which
> hinges
> > on Republican/Democrat differences on issues like Supreme Court
> > appointments, abortion, affirmative action, the environment, and school
> > vouchers-Obama makes a point of agreeing with some of Nader's criticisms
> > of
> > the major parties. Obama raises no objections to Nader's agenda and
> > implicitly presents himself as someone who might support Nader, were it
> > not
> > for the danger of a wasted vote aiding the Republicans. It's also
> striking
> > that so many of the policy considerations Obama counts as decisive are
> > classic sixties-derived issues-precisely the sort of polarizing
> > culture-war
> > conflicts Obama nowadays claims to have transcended. In the end, Obama
> > needn't have worried. Hyde Park voted 91 percent for Gore, 6 percent for
> > Bush, and 3 percent for Nader.
> >
> > Obama's strong liberalism is nowhere more evident than on the subject of
> > crime. Throughout his Illinois State Senate career, crime was a top Obama
> > concern. Crime is also a key contact-point between Obama and his most
> > celebrated radical associate, William Ayers. We've heard a good deal of
> > late
> > about Ayers's Weatherman terrorism back in the 1960s and his lack of
> > repentance. Ayers refuses to answer questions about his relationship with
> > Obama, while Obama has dismissed Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my
> > neighborhood." Yet several Obama-Ayers connections are known: Obama's
> 1995
> > political debut at the home of Ayers and his wife (and fellow former
> > terrorist) Bernardine Dohrn, Obama's joint service with Ayers on the
> board
> > of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a couple of appearances with Ayers on
> > academic
> > panels, and what the *New York Times* called Obama's "rave review" (not
> > actually a full review, but a warm endorsement) of Ayers's book on
> > juvenile
> > justice, which Obama dubbed "a searing and timely account" in the
> *Chicago
> > Tribune*.
> >
> > For all the attention, the actual content of Ayers's 1997 book, *A Kind
> > and
> > Just Parent*, as well as the political context of Obama's interest in it,
> > have so far passed unremarked. Obama supporters paint Ayers as having
> > mellowed since his radical days, pointing to his wonkish interests. Yet
> > Ayers's radicalism pervades his book on Chicago's juvenile court system.
> > Founded in 1899 (long before juvenile murder rates shot off the charts),
> > Chicago's juvenile court was the first in the world, intended to serve as
> > "a
> > kind and just parent" to offenders. Ayers's title, he explained in the
> > book,
> > is meant to "bristle with irony" as a commentary on an American "society
> > out
> > of control." Ayers expressed the same sentiment more bluntly in an
> > interview
> > published in the *New York Times* shortly after 9/11, when he not only
> > dismissed the notion of the United States as a "just and fair and decent
> > place," but said the claim "makes me want to puke." * A Kind and Just
> > Parent
> > * is a thoughtful, well-informed, and beautifully written book, which
> > provides revealing and sometimes disturbing glimpses of life at a Chicago
> > juvenile detention facility. The book also virtually defines the phrases
> > "liberal guilt" and "soft on crime." Ayers agon-izes over a high school
> > field trip years ago, on which he and other white students toured a
> > juvenile
> > court system largely populated by black boys. When recounting horrific
> > crimes-and even his own mugging-Ayers focuses on the terrified insecurity
> > of
> > the perpetrators, rather than the harm they inflict. Testifying at the
> > trial
> > of a young felon he'd been tutoring, Ayers calls him "nervous, a little
> > shy  .  .  .  eager to please." The prosecutor responds: "Would you call
> > shooting someone eight times at close range 'eager to please?'" Actually,
> > Ayers effectively does do this, opening his book with the claim that a
> > young
> > murderer had "slavishly followed the orders" of his gang leader, rather
> > than
> > acting of his own free will.
> >
> > Ayers opposes trying even the most vicious juvenile murderers as adults.
> > Beyond that, he'd like to see the prison system itself essentially
> > abolished. Unsatisfied with mere reform, Ayers wants to address the
> deeper
> > "structural problems of the system." Drawing explicitly on Michel
> > Foucault,
> > a French philosopher beloved of radical academics, Ayers argues that
> > prisons
> > artificially impose obedience and conformity on society, thereby creating
> > a
> > questionable distinction between the "normal" and the "deviant." The
> > unfortunate result, says Ayers, is to leave the bulk of us feeling smugly
> > superior to society's prisoners. Home detention, Ayers believes, might
> > someday be able to replace the prison. Ayers also makes a point of
> > comparing
> > America's prison system to the mass-detention of a generation of young
> > blacks under South African Apartheid. Ayers's tone may be different, but
> > the
> > echoes of Jeremiah Wright's anti-prison rants are plain.
> >
> > Given his decision to recommend Ayers's book in the *Tribune*, it's fair
> > to
> > say that Obama is at least broadly sympathetic to this perspective. When
> > Obama offers examples of ill-conceived legislation, he often points to
> > building prisons: Instead of building another prison, why not expand
> > health
> > care entitlements? Biographer David Mendell cites Obama's irritation with
> > fellow legislators who "grandstand" by passing tough-on-crime
> legislation,
> > while letting bills designed to bring "structural change" languish.
> > Debating
> > Bobby Rush in 2000, Obama bragged that he had "consistently fought
> against
> > the industrial prison complex." Obama's *Hyde Park Herald* column echoes
> > these points.
> >
> > The most intriguing thread linking Obama, Ayers, and crime, however, runs
> > through Ayers's wife, Bernardine Dohrn. Dohrn founded the Children and
> > Family Justice Center at Northwestern University, and along with her
> > associates there, she regularly and energetically opposes "get tough"
> > crime
> > laws. Ayers draws on his wife's wisdom in *A Kind and Just Parent*, and
> > Dohrn, like her husband, publicly presents her work on juvenile justice
> > not
> > as a repudiation of her youthful radicalism, but as a continuation of it.
> >
> > The Ayers-Dohrn-Obama nexus was jolted into action in late 1997 and early
> > 1998, when a major juvenile justice reform bill was introduced in the
> > Illinois General Assembly. Written by prosecutors and sponsored by a
> > Republican ex-prosecutor, the bill was neither simplistic nor partisan.
> > Well
> > aware of evidence that sending juveniles to adult prisons can backfire
> and
> > actually raise recidivism rates, sponsors met rehabilitation-minded
> > critics
> > halfway. The proposed bill was an early example of "blended sentencing,"
> > in
> > which juveniles who have committed serious crimes are given both a
> > juvenile
> > sentence and a parallel adult sentence. So long as the offender keeps his
> > nose clean, doesn't violate parole, and participates in community-based
> > rehabilitation, he never has to serve his adult sentence. But if the
> > offender violates the provisions of his juvenile sentence, the adult
> > punishment kicks in. That gives young offenders a powerful incentive to
> do
> > right, and puts toughness at the service of offering kids a second
> chance.
> >
> > Blended sentencing is generally viewed as an innovative compromise. To
> > those
> > on the far left, however, blended sentencing is just another
> mean-spirited
> > "get tough" crime measure in disguise. That's why, when the Illinois
> > blended
> > sentencing bill was introduced in 1997, both Obama and Bernardine Dohrn
> > were
> > cited by the *Chicago Sun-Times* as key local critics of the bill. Steven
> > A.
> > Drizin, an associate of Dohrn's center (who is thanked in Ayers's book)
> > was
> > a member of the study commission that helped produce the bill, yet
> > remained
> > an energetic critic, not only of blended sentencing, but of nearly every
> > other prosecutor-favored provision in the bill.
> >
> > Meanwhile, Obama worked closely with the Illinois Black Legislative
> Caucus
> > to slow the bill's progress, expressing skepticism about the blended
> > sentencing provisions. While one report speaks of Obama negotiating with
> > Cook County state's attorney Richard Devine for a compromise, there is
> > good
> > reason to believe that Obama's actual aim was to scuttle the entire bill.
> > We
> > have this on the authority of someone who may very well be Michelle Obama
> > herself. Michelle Obama organized a University of Chicago panel about
> Bill
> > Ayers's crime book in November 1997, just as the battle over the juvenile
> > justice bill was heating up. That panel featured appearances by some of
> > the
> > key figures discussed in Ayers's book, along with Obama himself, who was
> > identified in the press release as "working to block proposed legislation
> > that would throw more juvenile offenders into the adult system." In
> > effect,
> > then, this public event was a joint Obama-Ayers effort to sink the
> > juvenile
> > justice bill-Obama's decision to plug Ayers's book in the *Chicago
> > Tribune*the following month was part of the same political effort.
> >
> > In January 1998, a front-page headline in the *Defender* touted Obama's
> > claim that the juvenile justice bill might be on the verge of failure.
> > Obama
> > hoped that black caucus opposition to the sentencing provisions might be
> > matched by concerns among some Republicans that the bill could force
> > expensive jail construction (based on the prospect that the deterrent
> > effect
> > of blended sentencing might fail, thereby forcing more juveniles into
> > adult
> > prisons). Obama's hopes were wildly off-base. In the end, the juvenile
> > justice bill passed overwhelmingly. Given his ambitions for higher
> office,
> > Obama was no doubt reluctant to vote against the final bill. A
> > last-minute,
> > minor and uncontroversial adjustment to the blended-sentencing provisions
> > by
> > the governor appears to have provided enough political cover for the
> > bill's
> > sharpest critics including Obama to come around and support it.
> >
> > Also in 1998, according to the *Hill*, a Washington newspaper, Obama was
> > one
> > of only three Illinois state senators to vote against a proposal making
> it
> > a
> > criminal offense for convicts on probation or on bail to have contact
> with
> > a
> > street gang. A year later, on a vote mandating adult prosecution for
> > aggravated discharge of a firearm in or near a school, Obama voted
> > "present," and reiterated his opposition to adult trials for even serious
> > juvenile offenders. In short, when it comes to the issue of crime, Obama
> > is
> > on the far left of the political spectrum and very much in synch with his
> > active political allies Ayers and Dohrn.
> >
> > Obama's signature crime legislation was his effort to combat alleged
> > racial
> > discrimination by the Illinois police. In 2003, the *Defender* said Obama
> > had "made a career" out of his annual battle for a bill against racial
> > profiling. For years, profiling legislation was bottled up by the
> Illinois
> > senate's Republican leader. When senate control shifted to the Democrats
> > in
> > 2003, Obama's racial profiling bill finally passed-just in time to give
> > his
> > drive for the U.S. Senate nomination a major boost. At the time, Obama
> > touted his profiling bill as "a model for the nation." It's also said
> that
> > Obama showed a willingness to listen to police during the negotiations
> > that
> > led to the final bill. With the Democrats in control, however, the police
> > had little choice but to work with Obama. As Obama himself made clear at
> > the
> > time, the police never abandoned their opposition to the bill.
> >
> > Police doubts were entirely justified. Obama's bill is a deeply flawed
> > example of precisely the sort of grievance-driven race-based politics
> that
> > fuels legislation on affirmative action and minority set-asides. All of
> > these "remedies" falsely leap from statistical evidence of racial
> > disparities to claims of discrimination. In the case of racial profiling,
> > disproportionate police stops of black or Hispanic motorists in no way
> > prove
> > discrimination.
> >
> > In her path-breaking 2001 study, "The Myth of Racial Profiling," Heather
> > Mac
> > Donald assembled the evidence. It showed that racially disparate patterns
> > of
> > drug-interdiction stops in New Jersey, one of the first states supposedly
> > proven to have practiced racial profiling, in fact reflected racial
> > differences in the transport of drugs. Drug trafficking is not evenly
> > spread
> > across the population (as profiling activists improperly assume), and for
> > the most part New Jersey police were simply going where the drugs were.
> > Wrote Mac Donald, "When white club owners, along with Israelis and
> > Russians,
> > dominated the Ecstasy trade, that's whom the cops were arresting." When
> > the
> > big shipments shifted to minority neighborhoods, arrests followed. That's
> > good crime intelligence, not racism. The reason virtually every major
> > law-enforcement organization opposes racial-profiling legislation is that
> > these bills invariably fail to provide benchmarks based on actual
> > group-based variations in crime rates. Without such benchmarks, there is
> > no
> > basis for leaping from statistical disparities in traffic-stops to
> > accusations of police racism.
> >
> > Obama's February 16, 2000, *Hyde Park Herald* column was a textbook
> > example
> > of the racial-profiling fallacies Mac Donald exposed. Arguing for
> > legislation to require* *the collection of traffic-stop data by race,
> > Obama
> > made the bogus leap from disproportionate traffic-stops and searches to
> > accusations of racism using the same, baseline-free ACLU-supplied
> > statistics
> > Mac Donald critiqued. Obama then made a still greater leap: "Racial
> > profiling may explain why incarceration rates are so high among young
> > African Americans-law enforcement officials may be targeting blacks and
> > other minorities as potential criminals and are using the Vehicle Code as
> > a
> > tool to stop and search them." The notion that the high black
> > incarceration
> > rates are due to racist traffic stops is utterly fanciful. (Mac Donald
> > lays
> > out the evidence not only in her profiling piece, but also in a second
> > important study, published this year, "Is the Criminal-Justice System
> > Racist?") Obama's column takes a leaf right out of Jeremiah Wright's
> > playbook, stoking the worst sort of race-based conspiracy theories.
> >
> > Indeed, Obama's racial profiling crusade shows his political alliance
> with
> > Wright, Pfleger, and Meeks in action. We know from Obama's 1988 "Why
> > Organize?" essay that a long-term goal of his was to politically organize
> > "liberationist" black churches:
> >
> >  Nowhere is the promise of organizing more apparent than in the
> > traditional
> > black churches. Possessing tremendous financial resources, membership,
> > and-most important-values and biblical traditions that call for
> > empowerment
> > and liberation, the black church is clearly a slumbering giant in the
> > political and economic landscape of cities like Chicago.
> >
> >  We also know from a 1995 profile that Obama viewed his legislative role
> > as
> > an extension of his grass-roots organizing career. So it's unsurprising
> to
> > see in the *Hyde Park Herald* of February 28, 2001, that Obama's
> > "grass-roots lobbying effort" for racial profiling legislation is to
> > feature
> > not only the ACLU and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education
> > Fund,
> > but also appearances by Meeks and Pfleger. The *Chicago Defender* notes
> > the
> > additional presence of Reverend Michael Sykes, an associate pastor of
> > Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ. So Obama's drive for racial
> > profiling legislation brought to fruition his long-time goal of
> > politically
> > organizing Chicago's most liberationist black churches. Of course Wright,
> > Meeks, and Pfleger are known for their demagogic accusations of white
> > racism. Obama's racial profiling bill fit squarely in that tradition. As
> > with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, it's evident that the liberationist
> > preachers were also his valued political allies.
> >
> > Like other racial-profiling activists, Obama frequently cites New
> Jersey's
> > experience as proof of his case. A little-noticed 2007 study by
> University
> > of Chicago professor Paul Heaton sheds some fascinating light on the
> > profiling crusade in that state. Heaton found that as a result of
> > anti-profiling reforms, annual arrests of minorities for motor vehicle
> > theft
> > in New Jersey declined by 20-40 percent. Unfortunately, during the same
> > period, motor vehicle theft increased in minority areas. Heaton
> concluded:
> > "It appears that official and public scrutiny of profiling behavior by
> > police can lead to substantial reductions in arrests of minorities,
> > although
> > this enforcement reduction may carry the unintended consequence of
> > encouraging crime in minority areas." In other words, Heaton's work tends
> > to
> > corroborate Heather Mac Donald's analysis-not Barack Obama's.
> > Disproportionate traffic stops are largely a response to disproportionate
> > crime, while using simplistic statistics to falsely accuse police of
> > racism
> > yields more crime, not less.
> >
> > * A NEW WAR ON POVERTY *
> >
> > Important though it is to Obama, the crime issue runs a distant second to
> > his deepest passion: social welfare legislation. "Big government
> liberal,"
> > "redistributionist"-call him what you like, Obama's fondest hope is to
> > lead
> > America into another war on poverty. Everything in his state-legislative
> > career points in this direction, and Obama calls for a renewal of
> > expensive
> > national anti-poverty programs in his book *The Audacity of Hope*. True,
> > Obama's promotion of government partnerships with private-sector housing
> > contractors (like Antoin "Tony" Rezko) was supposed to open up novel,
> > post-Great Society solutions to the problem of poverty. Yet, as a
> > devastating *Boston Globe* report on Obama's Illinois housing policy
> > recently showed, the results of Obama's new war on poverty are just as
> > counterproductive as those of the old war on poverty. Neighborhoods
> > supposedly renovated now lie deserted by the private developers who took
> > Obama's government handouts and ran-quickly building or renovating
> housing
> > units, but failing to maintain them.
> >
> > Race and crime issues excepted, Obama's Illinois legislative career as
> > covered in the newspapers essentially boils down to a list of spending
> > measures. Many of Obama's proposed expenditures were tough to oppose.
> > Because he was working under a Republican majority for the bulk of his
> > time
> > in the Illinois State Senate, Obama became a master of incrementalism.
> His
> > pattern was to find the smallest, most appealing spending proposal
> > possible,
> > pass it, then build toward more spending on the same issue. An Obama bill
> > exempting juvenile prisoners from paying for nonemergency medical or
> > dental
> > services isn't something you'd want to vote against. Obama's small,
> > targeted
> > spending measures tended to pass and to be followed by more: Obama called
> > for a $30 million youth crime prevention package; Obama requested
> > additional
> > funds to expand the regulation of electrical utilities; Obama asked for
> > $50
> > million over five years to overcome the "digital divide"; Obama proposed
> > to
> > fund anger management classes for children age 5-13; Obama ran for
> > Congress
> > promising to restore federal block grants to pre-Republican levels, and
> so
> > on.
> >
> > In a 2007 speech to Al Sharpton's National Action Network (NAN), Obama
> > touted his Illinois legislative experience and challenged members of
> > Sharpton's group to find a candidate with a better record of supporting
> > the
> > issues they cared about. (Incidentally, Sharpton named Jeremiah Wright's
> > daughter Jeri Wright, publisher-editor of Wright's *Trumpet
> Newsmagazine*,
> > to head NAN's new Chicago chapter in 2007. He named Wright's successor,
> > Reverend Otis Moss III, its vice president.) Intrigued by Obama's
> > challenge
> > to Sharpton's group, Randolph Burnside, a professor of political science,
> > and Kami Whitehurst, a doctoral candidate, both at the Southern Illinois
> > University-Carbondale, decided to put Obama's Illinois record to the
> test.
> > The two scholars made a study of bills sponsored and cosponsored by Obama
> > during his Illinois State Senate career.
> >
> > Published in the *Journal of Black Studies*, the results are striking.
> > Burnside and Whitehurst produced two bar graphs, one representing bills
> of
> > which Obama was the main sponsor, arranged by subject, and a second
> > displaying bills Obama joined as a cosponsor. In the chart depicting
> bills
> > of which Obama was the main sponsor, the bar for "social welfare"
> > legislation towers over every other category. In the chart of Obama's
> > cosponsored bills, social welfare legislation continues to far exceed all
> > other categories, although now crime-related bills are visibly present in
> > second place, with regulation and tax bills close behind. According to
> > Burnside and Whitehurst, other than social welfare and a bit of
> government
> > regulation, "Obama devoted very little time to most policy areas."
> >
> > This brings us to what is perhaps the most striking result of our tour
> > through Obama's Springfield days. Conventional wisdom has it that John
> > McCain holds a political advantage over Obama on war and foreign policy
> > issues, while Obama is favored to handle the economy. Yet Obama's
> economic
> > experience is largely limited to social welfare spending. Indeed,
> > precisely
> > because of his penchant for spending, Obama's fingerprints are all over
> > Illinois's burgeoning fiscal crisis.
> >
> > The Illinois state budget has been in an ever-widening crisis since 2001.
> > In
> > an April 2007 report, a committee of top Chicago business leaders warned
> > that the state was "headed toward fiscal implosion." Illinois's unfunded
> > pension debt is the highest in the nation, while Illinois is sixth in the
> > nation in per capita tax-supported debt. Yet the Illinois General
> > Assembly-now controlled by Obama's Democratic allies-churns out at will
> > exactly the sort of spending programs Obama pushed for, with only partial
> > success, under the Republicans. The result is a fast-growing gap between
> > revenues and expenditures (unimpeded by the statutory requirement of a
> > balanced budget), rising fears of fiscal meltdown, finger-pointing, and
> > political gridlock.
> >
> > A watershed moment in Illinois's fiscal decline came in 2002, when
> > crashing
> > receipts and Democratic reluctance to enact spending cuts forced
> > Republican
> > governor George Ryan to call a special legislative session. While Ryan
> > railed at legislators for refusing to rein in an out-of-control budget,
> > the
> > *Chicago Tribune* spoke ominously of an "all-consuming state budget
> > crisis."
> > Unwilling to cut back on social welfare spending, Obama's chief partner
> > and
> > political mentor, senate Democratic leader Emil Jones, came up with the
> > idea
> > of borrowing against the proceeds of a windfall tobacco lawsuit
> settlement
> > due to the state.
> >
> > This idea sent the editorial pages of the *St. Louis Post-Dispatch* and
> > the
> > *Chicago Tribune* into a tizzy. Editorialists hammered cut-averse
> > legislators for "chickening out," for making use of "tricked-up numbers,"
> > for a "cowardly abdication of responsibility," and for sacrificing the
> > state's bond rating to "short-term political gains." As critics
> repeatedly
> > pointed out, borrowing against a onetime tobacco settlement-instead of
> > balancing the budget with regular revenues-would be a recipe for
> long-term
> > fiscal disaster.
> >
> > What was Obama doing while all this was going on? He was promoting the
> > tobacco securitization plan in his *Hyde Park Herald* column, railing
> > against the governor in the *Defender* for balancing the budget "on the
> > back
> > of the poor," and voting to override cuts in treasured programs like
> > bilingual education. Actually, far from "balancing the budget on the
> backs
> > of the poor," the governor had trimmed evenly across all the state's most
> > expensive programs. In the end, Ryan did force a number of cuts, yet the
> > resistance of Obama and his allies took a toll. When, just a year later,
> > Democrats added control of the governorship and state senate to their
> > existing control of the house, they revealed that the state deficit had
> > reached $5 billion-far larger than most had feared. Since then it's been
> a
> > swift downhill tumble toward fiscal implosion for Illinois. Now ruling,
> > the
> > Democrats have continued their profligate ways, pushing the state's
> budget
> > woes to new heights.
> >
> > Illinois's fate may foreshadow the nation's. Obama's small and carefully
> > targeted spending bills were expressly designed to win passage by a
> > Republican-controlled state senate. But if Obama takes the presidency
> with
> > a
> > Democratic Congress at his back, we'll likely see a grand-scale version
> of
> > the fiscal mayhem Obama and his colleagues brought to Illinois.
> >
> > Obama's overarching political program can be described as "incremental
> > radicalism." On health care, for example, his long-term strategy in
> > Illinois
> > was no secret. He repeatedly proposed a state constitutional amendment
> > mandating universal health care. Prior to the 2002 budget crisis, Obama's
> > plan was to use the windfall tobacco settlement to finance the transition
> > to
> > the new system. That would have effectively hidden the huge cost of
> > universal care from the taxpayer until it was too late. Yet Obama touted
> > his
> > many tiny expansions of government-funded health care as baby steps along
> > the path to his goal. The same strategy will likely be practiced-if more
> > subtly-on other issues. Obama takes baby-steps when he has to, but in a
> > favorable legislative environment, Obama's redistributionist impulses
> will
> > have free rein, and a budget-busting war on poverty (not to mention
> > entitlement spending) will surely rise again.
> >
> > Obama's vaunted reputation for bipartisanship is less than meets the eye.
> > The Illinois legislature has long been home to a number of moderate
> > Republicans, less fiscally conservative than their colleagues, many from
> > districts where the parties are closely balanced. It was easy enough to
> > get
> > a few of these Republicans to sign onto small, carefully tailored
> spending
> > bills directed toward particularly sympathetic recipients. The trouble
> > with
> > Obama's bipartisanship is that it was largely a one-way street.
> Overcoming
> > initial opposition from Catholic groups, for instance, Obama cosponsored
> > an
> > incremental bill on abortion, requiring hospitals to inform rape victims
> > of
> > morning-after pills. Yet rejecting compromise with the other side, Obama
> > voted against bills that would have curbed partial-birth abortions. In
> > other
> > words, Obama is bipartisan so long as that means asking Republicans to
> > take
> > incremental steps toward his own broader goals. When it comes to
> > compromising with the other side, however, Obama says "take a hike."
> Obama
> > voted against a bill that would have allowed people in possession of a
> > court
> > order protecting them from some specific individual to carry a concealed
> > weapon in self-defense. The bill failed on a 29-27 vote. Bipartisanship
> > for
> > thee, but not for me: That's how Obama ended up with the most liberal
> > voting
> > record in the U.S. Senate.
> >
> > The real Obama? You see him in those charts. Fundamentally, he is a
> > big-government redistributionist who wants above all to aid the poor,
> > particularly the African-American poor. Obama is eager to do so both
> > through
> > race-specific programs and through broad-based social-welfare
> legislation.
> > "Living wage" legislation may be economically counterproductive, and
> > Obama-backed housing experiments may have ended disastrously, yet Obama
> is
> > committed to large-scale government solutions to the problem of poverty.
> > Obama's early campaigns are filled with declarations of his sense of
> > mission-a mission rooted in his community organizing days and manifest in
> > his early legislative battles. Recent political back flips
> > notwithstanding,
> > Barack Obama does have an ideological core, and it's no mystery at all to
> > any faithful reader of the *Chicago Defender* or the *Hyde Park Herald*.
> > * *
> >
> > *Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy
> Center*.
> >      (c) Copyright 2008, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights
> > Reserved.
> > __________________________________________________
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> > http://www.rhodes22.org/list
> > __________________________________________________
> >
> >
>
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>
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