[Rhodes22-list] Politics - More from 'The Lamb of Chicago'

[Brad Haslett]

It's late here and I'm going to bed.  Here's the latest economic update from
Beijing.  We're going to get our asses kicked!  Unless of course, Barry has
a better plan.  Good night.  Brad   The Obama Gaffe Machine By *JOHN FUND*
*May 30, 2008*

For months, Barack Obama has had the image of an incandescent,
golden-tongued Wundercandidate. That image may be fraying now.

As smart and credentialed as he is, Sen. Obama is often an indifferent
speaker without a teleprompter. He has large gaps in his knowledge base, and
is just as likely to dig in and embrace a policy misstatement as abandon it.
ABC reporter Jake Tapper calls him "a one-man gaffe machine."

Take the Auschwitz flub, where Mr. Obama erroneously claimed last weekend in
New Mexico that his uncle helped liberate the Nazi concentration camp.
Reporters noted Mr. Obama's revised claim, that it was his great uncle who
helped liberate Buchenwald. They largely downplayed the error. Yet in
another, earlier gaffe back in 2002, Mr. Obama claimed his grandfather knew
U.S. troops who liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka – even though only Russian
troops entered those concentration camps.

That hardly disqualifies Mr. Obama from being president. But you can bet
that if Hillary Clinton had done the same thing it would have been the focus
of much more attention, especially after her Bosnia sniper-fire fib. That's
because gaffes are often blown up or downplayed based on whether or not they
further a story line the media has attached to a politician.

When John McCain claimed, while on a trip to Iraq in March, that Sunni (as
opposed to Shiite) militants in Iraq are being supported by Iran, coverage
of the alleged blunder tracked Democratic attacks on his age and stamina.
(In fact, Iran may well be supplying both Sunni and Shiite militants.) Dan
Quayle, tagged with a reputation as a dumb blond male, never lived down his
misspelling of "potatoe."

Mr. Obama, a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, has largely been given
a pass for his gaffes. Many are trivial, such as his suggestion this month
that America has 57 states, and his bizarre statement in a Memorial Day
speech in New Mexico that America's "fallen heroes" were present and
listening to him in the audience.

Some gaffes involve mangling his family history. Last year in Selma, Ala.,
for example, he said that his birth was inspired by events there which took
place four years after he was born. While this gaffe can be chalked up to
fatigue or cloudy memory, others are more substantive – such as his denial
last April that it was his handwriting on a questionnaire in which, as a
state senate candidate, he favored a ban on handguns. His campaign now
contends that, even if it was his handwriting, this doesn't prove he read
the full questionnaire.

Mr. Obama told a Portland, Ore., crowd this month that Iran doesn't "pose a
serious threat to us," saying that "tiny countries" with small defense
budgets aren't much to worry about. But Iran has almost one-fourth the
population of the U.S. and is well on its way to developing nuclear weapons.
The next day Mr. Obama had to reverse himself and declare he had "made it
clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."

Last week in Orlando, Fla., he said he would meet with Venezuelan dictator
Hugo Chávez to discuss, among other issues, Chávez's support of the Marxist
FARC guerrillas in Colombia. The next day, in Miami, he insisted any country
supporting the FARC should suffer "regional isolation." Obama advisers were
left explaining how this circle could be squared.

In a debate last July, Mr. Obama pledged to meet, without precondition, the
leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria and Cuba. He called President Bush's
refusal to meet with them "ridiculous" and a "disgrace."

Heavily criticized, Mr. Obama dug in rather than backtrack. He's claimed, in
defense of his position, that John F. Kennedy's 1961 summit with Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna was a crucial meeting that led to the end
of the Cold War.

Not quite. Kennedy himself admitted he was unprepared for Khrushchev's
bullying. "He beat the hell out of me," Kennedy confided to advisers. The
Soviet leader reported to his Politburo that the American president was
weak. Two months later, the Berlin Wall was erected and stood for 28 years.

Reporters may now give Mr. Obama's many gaffes more notice. But don't count
on them correcting an implicit bias in writing about such faux pas.

Over the years, reporters have tagged a long list of conservative public
figures, from Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, as dim and
uninformed. The reputation of some of these men has improved over time. But
can anyone name a leading liberal figure who has developed a similar media
reputation, even though the likes of Al Gore, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi
have committed substantial gaffes at times? No reporter I've talked to has
come up with a solid example.

It's clear some gaffes are considered more newsworthy than others. But it
would behoove the media to check their premises when deciding just how much
attention to pay to them. The best guideline might be: Show some restraint
and judgment, but report them all.

*Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com <http://online.wsj.com/>.*


On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 10:12 PM, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:

> Excuse me, Brad, for pointing this out,
>
> But none of Barack Obama's ancestors were enslaved.  His mother's side
> is white, and his father's side was from the tribes that were selling
> slaves all over the world.
>
> Barack Obama doesn't share slave ancestry with the other dark skinned
> people in the church he joined--notwithstanding stump speeches that
> gloss over this tidbit of information.
>
> The man was raised as a white guy.  His skin color is darker than ours.
> That's all.
>
> Bill Effros
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
> > The gift that keeps on giving.  Be sure and watch the youtube video.
> > I don't know about you but I don't feel guilty enough about anything
> > to give-up my 401K
> > (and I've got lot's of baggage to feel guilty about).
> >
> > Brad
> >
> >
> > Meanwhile, Back at Trinity United By *JAMES TARANTO*
> > May 29, 2008
> >
> > Blogger Armando Llorens of the pro-Clinton site
> > TalkLeft.com<http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/5/29/9431/74527>has an
> > eye-opening video from the Trinity United Church of Christ, which
> > remains Barack Obama's church. The video was uploaded to
> > YouTube<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H11x6bMu4Y>this past Sunday,
> > though it is unclear if it was shot then or earlier. But
> > to judge by the subject matter, it is quite recent.
> >
> > The video features Father Michael Pfleger, with an introduction by the
> Rev.
> > Otis Moss, Jeremiah Wright's successor at Trinity United. As we noted
> last
> > month <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120956688571556385.html#MOSS>,
> the
> > Democratic presidential front-runner described Moss as a "wonderful young
> > pastor" *after* Obama renounced Wright.
> >
> > Blogress Michelle
> > Malkin<
> http://michellemalkin.com/2008/05/29/hes-baaaack-obama-supporter-rev-michael-pfleger-flogs-hillarys-white-entitlement-on-the-pulpit/
> >has
> > transcribed the video, in which Pfleger, described by Moss as "a
> > friend
> > of Trinity . . . a brother beloved . . . a preacher par excellence . . .
> a
> > prophetic, powerful pulpiteer . . . our friend . . . our brother,"
> delivers
> > a hateful rant against Hillary Clinton:
> >
> > When Hillary was crying [gesturing tears, uproarious laughter from
> > audience]--and people said that was put-on--I really don't believe it was
> > put-on.
> >
> > I really believe that she just always thought "This is mine" [laughter,
> > hoots]. "I'm Bill's wife. I'm *white.* And this is mine. And I jus' gotta
> > get up. And step into the plate." And then out of nowhere came, "Hey, I'm
> > Barack Obama." And she said: "Oh, damn! *Where did you come
> > from!?!?!"*[Crowd going nuts, Pfleger screaming].
> > *"I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show."*
> [Sobs.] *She
> > wasn't the only one crying! There was a whole lotta white people cryin'!*
> >
> > Who is Michael Pfleger? As we noted last
> > month<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120767493480598383.html#PFLEGER>,
> > he is a strong supporter of Louis Farrakhan and has been described as a
> > "spiritual adviser" to Obama. He also publicly threatened the life of a
> > Chicago businessman and, according to one report, "is known for climbing
> > ladders to deface liquor billboards."
> >
> > In his Trinity United oration, Pfleger asserted that white people have a
> > moral obligation to surrender their assets, which, he suggested, properly
> > belong to blacks (the video clip begins in midsentence):
> >
> > --honest enough to address the one who says, "Well, don't hold me
> > responsible [gesticulating] for what my ancestors did." But you have
> enjoyed
> > the benefits of what your ancestors did and unless you are ready to give
> up
> > the benefits [voice rising], throw away your 401 fund, throw away your
> trust
> > fund, throw away all the money you put into the company you *walked into
> > because yo' daddy and yo' granddaddy and yo' greatgranddaddy--*[screaming
> at
> > the top of his lungs]--*unless you're willing to give up the benefits,
> then
> > you must be responsible for what was done in your generation 'cuz you are
> > the beneficiary of this insurance policy!*
> >
> > Pfleger is white. Many Illinois taxpayers are black. The New York
> > Times<
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us/politics/11chicago.html?pagewanted=all
> >reported
>  > earlier this month that the latter have been forced to subsidize
> > the former, through the good offices of one state Sen. Barack Obama:
> >
> > Mr. Obama more eagerly met the demands for spending earmarks for churches
> > and community groups in his district, said State Senator Donne E.
> Trotter,
> > then the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. "I know
> > this firsthand, because the community groups in his district stopped
> coming
> > to me," Mr. Trotter said.
> >
> > Typical of Mr. Obama's earmarks was a $100,000 grant for a youth center
> at a
> > Catholic church run by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a controversial priest
> who
> > was one of the few South Side clergymen to back Mr. Obama against [Rep.
> > Bobby] Rush.
> >
> > Father Pfleger has long worked with South Side political leaders to
> reduce
> > crime and improve the community. But he has drawn fire from some quarters
> > for defending the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and inviting him
> to
> > speak at his church. Father Pfleger, who did not return calls for
> comment,
> > is one of the religious leaders whose "faith testimonials" Mr. Obama has
> > posted on his presidential campaign Web site.
> >
> > We searched the Obama Web site in vain for Pfleger's endorsement. It
> appears
> > the campaign has suppressed it, although a copy appears on the Michelle
> > Malkin page linked above.
> >
> > Llorens, the TalkLeft blogger who posted the video, says twice in his
> short
> > post that "this has nothing to do with Barack Obama." It seems to us
> Llorens
> > is quite wrong about this, although possibly he is being ironic. For one
> > thing, it raises serious questions about Obama's moral judgment that he
> not
> > only attends but sends his two young daughters to a church whose pulpit
> > regularly features such hatred.
> >
> > It also renders doubtful one of the most frequent arguments for an Obama
> > presidency: that he would diminish anti-American sentiment around the
> world
> > through his conciliatory mien and tough diplomacy. His response to the
> > political crisis over his spiritual advisers has been vacillatory, not
> > conciliatory: first he stood by them, then he distanced himself from
> them.
> > Now he pretends they don't exist--which differs from the putative Bush
> > administration approach to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad & Co. how exactly?
> >
> > Obama does not appear to have succeeded in diminishing anti-American
> > sentiment in his own church, from religious leaders who fervently support
> > him. The danger is that he would show similar weakness on the world
> stage,
> > and that America's enemies would find such weakness provocative rather
> than
> > meliorative.
>  > *
> > <http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/8571>*
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