President Barack H. Obama

Note:  You might want to start at the Barack Obama Index Page, especially if you arrived here by using a search engine. Barack Obama talks a lot and usually doesn't say anything.  Most of his supporters have given little or no thought to the real meaning of his words, if any.  Very few have asked themselves how Obama will pay for all the wonderful things he promises. On this page: Prevarication, double-talk, deceptiveness, chicanery, and empty rhetoric. Obama the smoker. Accusations of plagiarism. Secrecy and obfuscation. Vague references to religion without a religious track record. Obama's voting record is sketchy at best. Obama makes impossible promises and his supporters expect too much. On another page: Smoke and mirrors in the Obama White House. Prevarication, double-talk, deceptiveness, secrecy, chicanery, and empty rhetoric Despite Campaign Claim, Obama Told Paper He Attended Trinity Church 'Every Week'.  President-elect Barack Obama said in 2004 — while he was a state legislator running for a U.S. Senate seat — that he attended services at Trinity United Church of Christ every week.  This is in contrast to what Obama, as a presidential candidate, said this year after controversial anti-American remarks by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright surfaced.  Obama then told news outlets that he did not attend the church frequently and was not aware of Wright's comments. Barack Obama's plan to placate the Muslim world:  He's promising an unrelenting desire to create a relationship with peoples of goodwill?  What about peoples of badwill?  What about peoples of goodwill who are ruled by corrupt and oppressive governments? ... We suppose a certain amount of sheer fluff — or let's call it strategic indirection — can be useful in international diplomacy.  Let us hope that Obama is not actually naive enough to mistake the platitudinous for the profound, and that he is merely using the former to keep America's adversaries guessing. Sorry, But Obama Scares Me.  Almost everything about Obama's campaign is fraudulent.  He masquerades as a uniter while dividing, polarizing and alienating us.  He denies he's liberal, when objective sources score him as the most liberal senator.  He says he barely knows militants and radicals with whom he has spent his lifetime cavorting and whose worldviews — horrifyingly — he shares.  He brazenly disguises welfare redistributions as tax cuts.  He and his surrogates keep changing his tax plan. Emperor Obama's Clothes are Visible and Scary.  During this election, Barack Obama said lots to make the public feel good.  He made promises couched in vague language that could mean anything that the listener wanted them to mean.  He used words like "change" and "hope;" he promised tax cuts to 95 percent of Americans — a promise that was ludicrous and impossible to fulfill, but people fell for it.  He spoke one way in front of liberal audiences and another way in front of conservative ones.  He learned the language of evangelicalism and he spoke it fluently when it served his purposes. 'They Must Think You're Stupid'.  Let's start with social issues like Second Amendment freedoms.  Mr. Obama denies that he's ever supported banning handguns, right after the landmark Heller case where the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban.  When a 1996 questionnaire surfaced that had asked if Mr. Obama supported banning all handguns, his one-word written answer was "yes."  He said an unnamed staffer must have filled it out without his knowledge.  Then another copy surfaced — this one with his handwriting on it.  He says he must not have read that particular question.  Sure. Obama, the hoax.  The packaging of the Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States, aided and abetted by the drive-by media and major TV networks, have perpetrated a great hoax on the American public.  Never before in our history have we had a candidate with such a lack of accomplishments and a lack of transparency into his background and associates.  We can't see his records from prep school, Occidental College, Columbia University or Harvard.  What was his thesis?  Who paid for his education at Harvard, since there is no record of student loans?  There are even questions concerning where he was born. If you investigate Obama's background, you will be prosecuted. Iowa arraignment for 9 in Obama loan case.  Nine people accused of accessing President Barack Obama's student loan records while employed for a Department of Education contractor in Iowa are to be arraigned on federal charges. Woman accessed Obama loans record.  An Iowa woman pleaded guilty today [6/17/2010] to accessing President Barack Obama's student loan records without permission. ... The nine defendants were charged with one count of exceeding authorised computer access.  Apart from [Mercedes] Costoyas, the remaining eight have entered pleas of not guilty and are expected to stand trial in August. But if Obama's critics are investigated, that's another matter altogether. Judge tosses out 'Joe the Plumber' privacy lawsuit.  A federal judge yesterday threw out a lawsuit by Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — the northwestern Ohio man immortalized as "Joe the Plumber" in the 2008 presidential campaign — alleging that three high-ranking state bureaucrats violated his privacy by running his name through confidential databases.  U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley said Wurzelbacher could not show that he had been harmed by the snooping. A President Who Won't Uphold the Constitution? Never.  Well, now we know why Barack Obama's been so reluctant to have symbols of this country associated with his campaign.  No flags on his airplane.  Nix to pins on his lapel.  Not inclined to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem.  After all, it turns out he has a problem with that other slightly more significant representation of our nation, the United States Constitution. Obama's campaign built on lies.  There have been many lies by Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign that he has tried to mask by shifting his recollections over time. ... But two lies in particular have been especially consequential:  Obama's pledge not to run for President in 2008, and his commitment to participate in federal financing for his general election campaign, with its consequent spending limits.  The news this past Sunday that Obama raised $150 million for his campaign in September shows the significance of the second lie. The Real Obama:  The story of Obama's political career is not a pretty story.  He won his first political victory by being the only candidate on the ballot — after hiring someone skilled at disqualifying the signers of opposing candidates' petitions, on whatever technicality he could come up with.  Despite his words today about "change" and "cleaning up the mess in Washington," Obama was not on the side of reformers who were trying to change the status quo of corrupt, machine politics in Chicago and clean up the mess there. Obama Grant Park election night rally "tickets" really data bonanza for Obama machine.  The Obama campaign, by requiring tickets for the election night rally in Grant Park, is using the event to collect names and contact data to be used for future voter contact, fund-raising and political or issue organizing.  That will let Obama, win or lose the White House next week, build on what are already the most valuable political lists in the nation to use to help his causes and candidates. Obama Falsely Claims 'Every Penny' of Bailout Proceeds Will Go to Americans.  In a speech in support of the financial bailout before the U.S. Senate Wednesday night [10/1/2008], the Democratic presidential candidate claimed that American taxpayers would get their money back, raising the possibility they might even profit from the bailout.  "If this is managed correctly, and that is an important 'if,' we will hopefully get most of our money back, and possibly even turn a profit on the government's investment — every penny of which will go directly back to the American people," Obama said.  The claim is false.  According to the bill that passed, the government will get all of its money back — but none will be returned directly to taxpayers. Hypocrisy Doesn't Begin To Describe It.  [Scroll down] More than hypocrisy is at work here.  It is not just far Left, American-hating radicals he now disowns.  You get the sense that he believes everyone can be played. … It is not hypocrisy.  It's fraud.  He's sold the same piece of political real estate to multiple buyers for multiple, conflicting uses. The Audacity of Lies:  I don't know what is going to happen on November 4th.  But I think it's going to boil down to whether or not enough Americans have been fooled by this serial liar.  For the sake of our country, I sure hope not. Homeless 'Driven' to Vote for Obama.  Volunteers supporting Barack Obama picked up hundreds of people at homeless shelters, soup kitchens and drug-rehab centers and drove them to a polling place yesterday [10/6/2008] on the last day that Ohioans could register and vote on the same day, almost no questions asked.  The huge effort by a pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, takes advantage of a quirk in the state's elections laws that allows people to register and cast ballots at the same time without having to prove residency. Pro-Obama, Muslim-led voter registration in mosques.  A leading critic of Islam isn't surprised there has been virtually no coverage or action taken against a Muslim group that has been running an illegal "get out the vote" campaign in swing-state mosques. Memo to McCain:  Take the Gloves Off.  Obama says, without rebuttal, that his plan lowers taxes on "95 percent of working families."  This is flatly impossible because 32 percent of income tax returns filed (some 43 million Americans) pay absolutely nothing in federal income taxes.  Obama makes his claim by offering a $500 "Making Work Pay" tax credit to everybody ($1,000 per family), by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, and creating other credits.  If your tax credit is more than your tax liability, you receive a check from the Treasury and you pay no taxes.  That is not a "tax cut." Obama covers his tracks.  Barack Obama apparently wishes his two autobiographies to be the definitive record of his past.  He has blocked efforts by others who wish to independently examine his past.  He won't allow his transcript from his undergraduate days at Columbia University to be released.  He "lost" his thesis on Soviet nuclear policy … He won't answer questions about his days at Harvard Law School.  He "lost" his Illinois Senate records.  He will only release a simple one-page letter from his doctor on his medical condition.  He won't release his application to the state bar…. Why Won't Obama Talk About Columbia?  Barack Obama does not want to talk about Columbia.  Not even to his good friends at the New York Times, who've so reliably helped him bleach away his past — a past neck-deep in the hard Left radicalism he has gussied up but never abandoned.  Why?  I suspect it is because Columbia would shred his thin post-partisan camouflage. The Obama Enigma.  The country is in two unpopular wars — amid the worst financial panic of the last 80 years.  Not since prophet of change and newcomer Jimmy Carter ran against Gerald Ford (post Watergate and the lost Vietnam war) have voters been so eager for a shake-up.  Why then is the charismatic Barack Obama not quite yet a shoo-in?  Easy.  Voters apparently still don't know who Obama is, or what he wants to do — and so are still not altogether sure that Obama is the proper antidote to George Bush.  After more than a year of campaigning, he still remains an enigma. Cirque De Obama:  Barack Obama says we can't afford four more years like the last eight.  What, exactly, is bad about winning a war on terror, keeping Americans alive and free, and letting us keep more of what we earn? Obama's Moral Equivalence Problem:  I guess we really shouldn't be surprised that Barack Obama sees no difference between our toppling of Saddam Hussein and Russia's invasion of Georgia.  On an emotional level — which is where most liberals live and breathe — the comparison is attractive.  But on an intellectual level, it is stupid and deceitful. Obama's casual ways with the truth:  Barack Obama gave us more than some magnificent photo-ops when he spoke in Berlin yesterday.  By trying to look presidential, he revealed more then he intended to about his operating style -- long on glossy production values, and painfully inadequate when it comes to getting the facts straight.  Twice in the course of generating the almost poetic images which mark his rhetoric, Senator Obama spoke to the assembled throng and the world's media about matters at variance with reality. The Audacity of Slander:  Just as his comments about Sarah Palin's lack of experience highlighted the scantiness of his own resume, Obama's aggressive questioning of McCain's honor invites examination of his own probity.  And the Democrat presidential nominee is no stranger to prevarication.  He routinely lies about McCain's positions on a wide variety of issues, including health care, Social Security, and the mortgage crisis. Lobbyists Give to Obama Campaign.  Obama has pledged to forgo contributions from federally registered lobbyists.  Yet, more than 40 have donated nearly $15,000 to his presidential campaign this year, according to records recently filed with the Senate and House.  The latest tally, as of Tuesday [7/29/2008], comes as lobbyists have begun filing their LD-203 forms…. Obama, Postmodernist.  [Postmodernism] claims to liberate society from fixed meanings and rigid categories, but it is invariably used to impose new ones, usually in the form of political correctness.  We've all seen how adept the PC brigades are celebrating free speech, when it's for speech they like.  Obama gives every indication of having evolved from this intellectual soup. Cracks beginning to show in Obama's exterior.  Obama getting testy with a reporter whose only crime was mentioning that the candidate appeared to flip flop on drilling could mean that the pressure of the campaign is getting to him.  There was no call to accuse the reporter of bias.  The question is legitimate and the fact that the candidate's answer was vague and contradictory shows that Obama has a real problem with keeping his lies straight. Life Lies:  Sen. Obama is currently misleading people about what he voted against, specifically claiming that the bill he voted against in his committee lacked "neutrality" language on Roe v. Wade.  The bill did contain this language.  He even participated in the unanimous vote to put it in. Obama in the mud:  So much for honesty.  In the past few weeks, Obama has thrown so many false accusations against John McCain that just keeping track of them has become difficult.  And these aren't innocent errors.  They are deliberate distortions of the sort Obama has always said he reviles.  On Thursday, Obama said of McCain, "He has consistently opposed the sorts of common-sense regulations that might have lessened the current crisis."  That's entirely untrue. Fraud:  Obama as Guardian of the American Taxpayer.  Thanks to reporting from Amir Taheri, the gist of which the Obama campaign has confirmed, we now know that while Obama is telling the American people he wants an end to the war, he has secretly negotiated with the government in Iraq to extend the U.S. military mission there.  That is a black-and-white violation of federal criminal law.  Very simply, in our system the president is responsible for conducting foreign policy. Dirty Politics From Camp Obama.  Earlier this week, I wrote about the dirty tricks campaign against journalist Amir Taheri following his revelation that, in a private meeting in Iraq last July with Iraqi leaders, Barack Obama tried to persuade them to delay the agreement being hammered out with the US government on a draw-down of the American military presence.  According to this account, which quoted Iraq's foreign minister Hoshya Zebari, Obama had thus privately sought to undermine an American government foreign policy initiative — an explosive revelation. McCain the Ascender, Obama the Condescender.  Polite people say Obama, the man who reads a great speech, simply doesn't come across as well as John McCain as a conversationalist because he doesn't have the Arizona senator's experience.  On Saturday [8/16/2008] night, even the polite had to admit that, while experience is a key issue when selecting a president, it is our collective experience of Obama's character deficit that keeps us from boarding Barack Obama's Double Talk Express. Good and evil and Obama.  "Does evil exist?" [Pastor Rick] Warren asked Obama.  "And if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it or do we defeat it?"  Obama the moral philosopher replied, accurately, that evil is everywhere, in Darfur, in our city streets, in our own hearts.  We cannot "erase evil from the world.  That is God's task.  But we can be soldiers in that process, and we can confront [evil] when we see it."  (Imagine the reaction if President Bush called himself a soldier of God in the battle against evil.) Obama's Extremism:  Obama's problem isn't his temperament, but the unsustainable exertions necessary to attempt to square his reasonable-sounding rhetoric on abortion with the extremism of his record.  Asked by Pastor Rick Warren when a baby gets rights, Obama said, "I'm absolutely convinced that there is a moral and ethical element to this issue."  This is a crashing banality couched as thoughtfulness.  If Obama is so sensitive to the moral element of the issue, why does he want to eliminate any existing restrictions on the procedure? A little too glib. Obama's Abortion Position?  It's a One-liner.  Barack Obama had made real strides in defusing the abortion issue with pro-life voters as late as last week. ... But Mr. Obama eroded many of those gains last Saturday when he told Pastor Rick Warren during a nationally televised forum that deciding when the rights of personhood should be extended to the unborn was "above my pay grade." 'Pay grade' unartful dodge.  Obama supports partial-birth abortion and voted against the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act."  When he got the invitation to an evangelical forum hosted by a pro-life pastor, he had to know that issues regarding life and the law were going to come up.  And his prepared answer to the most fundamental question about public policy and abortion ("is the fetus a human being?") is that it's "above my pay grade?" What Will He Say Next?  With Obama's lead in the polls disappearing, a steady stream of doubt is now being poured over Obama's nervous and inverted campaign.  The great orator appears ready to crack. … It is nauseating to watch Obama flipping and flopping on the campaign trail as he frantically tries to tell mentally stable Americans what he hopes they want to hear. The illusion that is Barack Obama:  [Obama] engages in doubletalk when, on free trade and Iraq, he tells the yokels one thing and the policy people another.  He overstates when he presents his minimal accomplishments in the Illinois Senate as proof of his stature.  He engages in systematic deception when he says he doesn't take money from lobbyists.  He presents a lie as metaphorical truth when he says it was the 1965 bloody Sunday attacks on peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, that inspired his parents to marry.  (They had been married for years already.) Dobson blasts Obama's 'fruitcake' view of Constitution.  As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement's biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution. Paper, rapped for outing Obama note, claims campaign pre-approved leak.  What initially seemed to be a journalistic scoop of dubious moral propriety now seems to be a case of an Israeli paper being played by the Barack Obama campaign.  Maariv, the second most popular newspaper in Israel, was roundly criticized for publishing the note Obama left in the Kotel.  But now a Maariv spokesperson says that publication of the note was pre-approved for international publication by the Obama campaign, leading to the conclusion that the "private" prayer was intentionally leaked for public consumption. Obama's Prayer:  The Intended Audience.  [Scroll down slowly]  This is a political story that is essentially about character because the man putting the note is running for the highest office in the United States of America — the office of the president. … Who is Barack Obama?  Is he the kind of man who would write a note intended for the Kotel, send the media a copy, stick the note in the Kotel, have the note extracted and conveyed to the media all for political gain?  That is the question that is germane to his character. Is the Democratic candidate starting to symbolize change for change's sake?  The Obama camp uses the word "change" more frequently than commas and perhaps in that constant repeating of the mantra they occasionally miss that a country yearning for change wants improvement, not change for the sake of change. Out of bounds!  Obama falsely claims to be Banking Committee member.  Obama on Wednesday [7/23/2008] was speaking to reporters in Israel when he tried to boast about what he'd done to protect Israel.  "Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee — which is my committee — a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon," Obama said.  Why that's wrong:  Obama is not a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Messiah Lies About His Senate Committee Assignment.  This guy is going to be harder than Bill Clinton to keep up with.  The next whopper whips along before you have time to wrap your brain around the last one. Verbal junk food.  It was a flawless ploy for Obama to inject his offspring into his message.  This imparted the highest degree of folksy empathy:  "Like you, I'm a dad.  I too would feel impelled to take action."  And these syrupy supportive sentiments crossed the ocean with satellite immediacy and appealed directly to the hearts of registered Jewish voters, which they were foremost intended to sway. How Hollywood Hurts Obama:  [Scroll down]  The Hollywood glitterati and European elites look at Obama and see one of their own: a socialist whose politics are rooted in cultural relativism and smug anti-Americanism.  In fact, Barack Obama is exactly like a high budget Hollywood flick.  Like much of what Hollywood produces, Obama looks good to the eye and sounds good to the ear (as long as you don't listen too closely).  He dazzles with style and panache.  But just like your typical Tinsletown blowout, Obama is nothing more than eye candy — the ultimate triumph of style over substance.  In the wake of a number of extemporaneous gaffes, Obama recently decided to take his teleprompter on the road, just another sign of how scripted his campaign has become. Obama the Postmodern Candidate.  Mr. Obama is on a nodding acquaintance with the concept of "truth."  It appears that everything he says and does must be viewed "in context" and that the framing of that context is the sole province of Barack Obama.  Take the whole Reverend Wright issue for example.  Over the course of six weeks we were told that he had no idea these things were said; he had a vague idea they were said; he knew they were said but could no more disown them than his occasionally racist grandmother; he had been personally disrespected and was through with Jeremiah Wright.  Quite a bit of "context" to get from his initial statements to the end point a mere month and a half later… Barack Obama Uses Google to Combat Vicious Rumors.  Barack Obama is waging a quiet battle in the Googlesphere to combat damaging rumors, as well as his opponent, John McCain.  Specifically, Obama's campaign has waded into online auctions for Google search terms to snap up not only obvious phrases like "Barack Obama" but also potentially negative ones like "Barack Obama birth certificate" or "Barack Obama as a Muslim," according to Hitwise, an Internet audience monitoring firm. The Editor says... I'm thinking that if he has to resort to such extreme measures, maybe he has something to hide.  Perhaps the "vicious" rumors have a basis in fact.  I think these are valid questions. The Obama College Try.  Are you a college student seeking to register to vote?  Barack Obama's website makes it easy.  But does the site follow the law? ... This campaign tactic raises legal and ethical questions.  Is Sen. Obama's campaign encouraging voter fraud?  Is it encouraging college students to take actions that may be harmful without informing them of relevant risks?  If so, what does this say about the integrity of the campaign? The new 'digital brownshirts':  Where is Al Gore when you need him?  Three years ago, the former vice president blasted "digital brownshirts" who "harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the president."  He meant the mortal threat to the Republic of bloggers and angry Republican e-mailers.  But times change, and the digital legions are greater nowadays on Mr. Gore's side.  Thus we don't hear much fretting at all about the Obama Action Wire, which, unlike the brownshirts of yore, is actually managed by Barack Obama's campaign to muzzle critical media. Obama's Revisionist History:  The saga over Rev. Jeremiah Wright is Exhibit A.  In just 62 days, Americans were treated to eight different explanations. … Mr. Obama's problem is a campaign that's personality-driven rather than idea-driven.  Thus incidents calling into question his persona and character can have especially devastating consequences.  Stripped of his mystique as a different kind of office seeker, he could become just another liberal politician — only one who parses, evades, dissembles and condescends. Problem with Barack Obama's First General Election Ad.  Barack Obama's first general election ad says about 46 seconds in that the Illinois senator passed laws that "extended health care for wounded troops who'd been neglected."  The ad "Country I Love", which was released Friday [6/20/2008], provides a citation at the bottom of the screen which reads "Public Law 110-181."  The problem is Senator Obama never voted for that legislation. How Smart is Obama?  Obama has made a habit of coming across like a man who doesn't know what he's talking about.  That's bothersome enough, but what's more worrisome still is how comfortable he is with not knowing what he's talking about, and how convinced he seems that his rhetorical flourishes will obscure his ignorance. He talks a lot, but he says nothing. Obama Cannot Keep Running On Narcissism.  Does Obama have the sort of adviser a candidate most needs — someone sufficiently unenthralled to tell him when he has worked one pedal on the organ too much?  If so, Obama should be told:  Enough, already, with the we-are-who-we-have-been-waiting-for rhetorical cotton candy that elevates narcissism to a political philosophy. Obama Still Hasn't Gotten the Memo.  Obama, please, for your own sake, delete the phrase "energy independence" from your database.  Purge it from your campaign.  You sound like a moron. Idols of Crowds:  Barack Obama is truly a phenomenon of our time — a presidential candidate who cannot cite a single serious accomplishment in his entire career, besides advancing his own career with rhetoric.  He has a rhetorical answer for everything. Barack Obama:  Oratory Versus Action.  "Yes, we can" means anything the listener wants it to be.  "Hope" is also subject to all manner of interpretation. ... If his supporters conclude that [Obama], like the Wizard of Oz, is really "the man behind the curtain" creating an illusion, his rhetorical skills will not be able to hide the fact that the federal government that created the present ills is unable to end them. A Blank Screen And An Empty Suit.  In his most recent study in vapidity, The Audacity of Hope, Barack Hussein Obama does a remarkably terse and honest job of describing himself.  If only Americans were to take him at his word:  "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."  Indeed. … All that blather about "change we can believe in," "hope we can change with ... change we can hope for ... beliefs we can change with" or whatever, seems to have mystified folks all over the fruited plain, making his "blank screen" metaphor spot on. Prince Obama.  Barack Obama is an accomplished political actor who delivers his lines well, whether or not they contain substance.  He manipulates platitudes like Laurence Olivier, calling for "unity" and the end of alleged divisions to create a better world defined by peace among nations and the end of class distinctions at home. The Greatest Scandal:  A visitor to Mr. Obama's Web site finds plenty of information about his plans to fix public education in this country.  Everyone knows this is a long, hard slog, but Mr. Obama and his wife aren't waiting.  Their daughters attend the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where annual tuition ranges from $15,528 for kindergarten to $20,445 for high school. What We've Learned About Barack:  The senator has had nearly a year-and-a-half to explain how his new brand of politics and bipartisanship would work; the optimists among us are still waiting.  Quizzed on how he'd reach across the aisle, Mr. Obama likes to mention that he might, maybe, perhaps, possibly, if caught on a good day, negotiate on "merit pay" for teachers. … If Republicans can't figure out a way to capitalize on this gap between the spin and substance, they'll deserve backrow seats at his inauguration. Obama's Fatherhood Talk Is Cheap.  Sen. Obama claims he is all about change.  He says he wants to get Washington working differently.  He might start by declaring independence from the teachers' unions. When in the Course of Political Doublespeak.  [Many of Obama's] speeches use the same formula:  hearken to America's founding, hail the shining ideals of America's revolutionary liberty, invoke the greatness and even the rhetoric of American luminaries gone by, and then subtly change the focus to suggest that the next step for American liberty is to become a socialized nanny state for the greater good. Obama should actually read the Constitution.  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was on "60 Minutes" recently, and here's hoping Barack Obama was listening, or that if he wasn't, someone will send him a tape.  You can pray it will straighten out this Harvard Law School graduate on some of the balderdash he passes off as respect for the Constitution.  Respect, at the least, entails upholding what the document says and means, but as his reported words convey, Obama believes instead that justices should make primary reference to their own innermost moral convictions and sympathies.  He thinks the Constitution should be regarded as "living," which is to say that you should be able to jigger its principles in accord with the temper of the times. What Obama Left Out:  [Scroll down]  In the rest of the speech, he goes on to detail — at some length — the "so many ways to serve" that are available "at this defining moment in our history."  There's the Peace Corps, there's renewable energy, there's education, there's poverty — there are all kinds of causes you can take up "should you take the path of service."  But there's one obvious path of service Obama doesn't recommend — or even mention:  military service. Obama's Language Games:  Barack Obama, the candidate, has used nuanced language to evade and deflect in order to avoid being candid.  Here are three examples of Obama language games concerning (1) Louis Farrakhan, (2) driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, and (3) reparations. Obama Speaks!  Thank you very much.  It's great to be here.  You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.  We are going to do things differently and expect a different result.  And if we don't do things differently, well, the results we get, well, they'll be the results we deserve.  Thank you. Obama won't wear flag pin but displays Cuban Flag in his Houston Office.  Barack Obama's Houston campaign office prominently displays a Cuban flag with a superimposed picture of Che Guevara, the Argentine-born terrorist and revolutionary.  Of course, Obama made an issue of not wearing an American flag pin or placing his hand over his heart during the national anthem…. I smell Barack Obama baloney.  Anyone who delves past his soaring speeches and mesmerizing gaze and follows the money trail will find plenty to question.  The Democratic candidate of "change," for example, has raised nearly $100 million in campaign contributions, nearly as much as the Hillary Clinton money machine.  Three of his four largest group of bankrollers are executives of Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and JPMorgan Chase.  What kind of change is that? Obama's Deceptive Anti-Oil Ad:  'I Don't Take $ From Oil Companies'.  It has been illegal for the last 100 years for an oil company to directly donate to a political campaign.  So, while it is technically correct that Obama isn't taking money from oil companies, it is ALSO true that neither is anyone else! Not from the companies themselves, but from the employees. Barack Obama still takes in oil money.  Sen. Barack Obama continued accepting donations from oil company executives and employees last month even as he aired ads in which he stated he took no oil company money, his campaign finance reports show. Obama's Dry Hole:  "I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week.  "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill.  They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it — 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production."  Wow, how come the oil companies didn't think of that?  Perhaps because the notion is obviously false…. The Editor says... The oil companies haven't been "given" anything. On offshore oil, Obama offers the audacity of ignorance.  To plan a long and challenging journey, would you reject Mapquest and GPS and only consult an atlas from the 1970s?  Unlikely.  But to pinpoint America's offshore oil deposits, congressional Democrats, starting with Sen. Barack Obama, love disco-era maps.  Despite his conditional, latter-day support for limited offshore drilling, Obama is the sole sponsor of legislation that would block geological research to locate offshore oil. Barack Obama is a Fake.  Sen. Barack Obama's star appeal is causing physiological reactions in his supporters.  Which is to say, they're fainting.  And these fainting routines are causing me physiological reactions.  Which is to say, I'm throwing up. … I don't mean to suggest that all this is staged.  I'm saying it straight out:  It's staged. William Jefferson Obama.  I now have reason to suspect that Barack Obama has a skill of proven value to a U.S. President:  the ability to look straight into the camera and not tell the truth, without lying. Obama Lies.  On issue after issue, whether confessing to a mistake or tailoring his latest position for political effect ("moving to the center" is what they call this in political lingo), Obama's words are now increasingly being received as bald untruths.  His image is turning into that of presidential candidate as Pinocchio, the would-be president as habitual liar.  Simply googling "Obama Lies" produces thirteen million references on the subject — thirteen million! — as opposed to just over a million references to "Bush Lies" and three million for "Bill Clinton Lies." Obama Campaign Removes New Black Panther Party Endorsement From Web Site.  Barack Obama's campaign has removed an endorsement by the New Black Panther Party from its Web site, one day after the Illinois senator delivered a speech calling for improved race relations in America. Typical White Fact-Based Reasoning.  Senator Barack Obama said in his memoir, The Audacity of Hope, "The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact."  Yet he also claimed that to fear a black person on the street more than a white person is a racial "stereotype", "bred" into us.  To the contrary, such a fear is actually "grounded in reason and fact."  When the numbers are crunched, a black person is almost six times more likely than a white person to be a murderer. Barack Obama — I'm sure we've seen him somewhere before.  Every time I listen to [Obama], I … find my mind wandering, asking itself things like:  'What does "the challenge of hope" mean?' … His is a rhetoric that soars and takes flight, but alights nowhere.  It declares that together we can do anything, but doesn't mention any of the things we can do. … Maybe Obama is so successful because he's the supreme master of what American politics excels in:  high-flown language that denotes as little as possible. Where's the Beef in Obama's Big New Ideas?  Over the past couple of weeks, Obama has begun to reveal approaches that only a vegetarian could love.  Take his energy proposal.  Obama worries that an oil embargo could do serious harm to our economy and offers up plans to help us avert disaster.  The centerpiece of the proposal is certainly different but not in a favorable direction. Say Watt, Senator?  Speaking Tuesday in Lansing, Mich., Sen. Obama set a goal of putting 1 million plug-in gas-electric hybrid cars, capable of getting 150 miles per gallon of gasoline consumed, on the road by 2015.  To help power them, Obama also said he wanted 10% of our electricity to come from renewable sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025.  Actually, about 20% of our electricity already comes from a renewable resource — nuclear power — and John McCain wants to up that percentage significantly. Obama Scores as Exotic Who Says Nothing.  Obama's appeal comes not from the things he says, but from who is saying them.  He scores as an exotic who talks of barbershops and church socials in the flat tones you'd expect from any son of the prairie.  Had [Evan] Bayh been half-Kenyan and raised in Hawaii by white grandparents from Kansas, he too would have become a political star, at least for the month of December.  But he is a conventional white man. Who Is Senator Barack Obama And What Does He Believe?  Sen. Obama's church background is clearly liberal and pro-homosexual.  His voting record shows him to be a typical secularist liberal.  Human Events notes that Obama has a 100% rating from Americans for Democratic Action, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Organization for Women, the NAACP and the National Education Association.  He says he believes that marriage should be a union of one man and one woman, but voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006. What does Barack Obama believe in?  The intro he taped for "Monday Night Football" — in an Aaron Sorkin-like setting of gleaming desk and important lighting — showed he is an actor who can absorb the script and knows by nature what a camera is.  This is a compliment.  All the great presidents of the media age, FDR, JFK and Reagan, were great actors of the presidency.  (The one non-great president who was their equal in this, Bill Clinton, proved that acting is not enough.) The real story behind the cover:  This latest campaign kerfuffle was the perfect distraction to mask what's behind the controversial caricature.  Inside the New Yorker is a 14,619-word story by Ryan Lizza that has largely escaped attention.  It's not a flattering portrayal of the senator, who comes off as opportunistic.  But few know this, so caught up in the cover controversy that they haven't taken the time to read the article itself. Bamboozled Obama's big black lie:  It was the Republican Party that fought for the freedoms of blacks in Congress following the conclusion of the Civil War.  State chapters of the Republican Party were started by blacks in most southern states.  The first black congressional members, some of whom had been former slaves only months previous, were all Republican. Jonathan Livingston Obama:  Only white guilt could explain the insanely hyperbolic descriptions of Obama's "eloquence."  His speeches are a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark bromides.  In announcing his candidacy last week, Obama confirmed that he believes in "the basic decency of the American people."  And let the chips fall where they may! Barack Rodney King Obama:  Barack Obama's glib announcement in declaring his candidacy for the presidency provides clues about the man and reminds us, contrary to his stated message, of the great chasm that separates people of different political orientations.  Mr. Obama appears to have fallen prey to the wave of public adulation accompanying the media's hype about him — to the point that he broke his recent promise not to seek the presidency at this early stage in his inexperienced political career. Obama's Born-Alive Cover-Up.  Several of the purported refutations are themselves, at best, misdirections.  One of the most easily verifiable is Obama's continued insistence that he voted against the Illinois Born Alive Act because it lacked an abortion neutrality clause.  Remarkable.  Obama now has unequivocally repeated this falsehood several times.  Is he that confident nobody in the mainstream media will call him on it? Obama's Abortion Challenge.  Senator Obama has justified his strenuous objection to the Illinois bill by claiming that differences from the federal bill are the reason.  This claim is false.  The Federal legislation and the Illinois legislation were in fact virtually identical. ... The candidate has been burnishing and airbrushing his history as November nears.  One aspect of this effort is his attempt to recreate his own political history involving abortion. Ethanol Insanity.  Barack Obama doesn't want to talk about corn ethanol.  And it's no wonder.  In early August, his campaign Web site purged several sections of his energy plan that talked about corn ethanol.  Before the purge, Obama was touting corn ethanol as a pivotal element in his push for "energy independence." ... In early August, Obama released a new set of talking points on energy called "New Energy for America" that supplanted his old energy stance.  All mentions of corn ethanol were removed. A new Obama:  No we can't.  During CNN's broadcast of Barack Obama's first press conference yesterday [11/7/2008], a corner of the screen flickered with a live feed of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  As Obama spoke, the Dow average lost more than 100 points.  In his brief statement and question session, the president elect of the United States said next to nothing about anything.  There were no signs of the Yes We Can positivism of the campaign in his low-key, even halting manner.  What little he did say may well signal the beginning of a new phase in Obamamania:  No we can't. Pablum from the President-Elect.  President-elect Barack Obama hasn't held his Friday afternoon press conference yet — but we have a pretty good idea of what he might say.  Every day this week, Obama has held a press conference to introduce new members of his team.  In each instance, Obama has said ... not a whole lot. Obama:  Where have all his records gone?  According to March 2008 reports, State Department employees conducted an unauthorized search of Obama's passport files during the recent presidential campaign. ... Two workers were fired and another faced discipline.  Obama's files reportedly contained copies of passport applications, birth date, basic biographical information, records of passport renewal and possibly citizenship information. ... Meanwhile, a key witness who had been cooperating with federal investigators was later found fatally shot in front of a Washington, D.C., church.  A police officer found the body of Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, slumped dead inside his car.  At the time, investigators said they didn't have any information connecting the murder to the passport case.  After one year of investigation of the homicide, there have been no arrests. No Proof.  [Scroll down]  That individual, identified as Lieutenant Harris Junior, 24, was stopped for a minor traffic infraction on 25 March 2008, and was found to be in possession of stolen credit cards and documents that were traced back to the breach of the passport records.  HARRIS, known to DC police, began working with federal authorities to strike a deal as they expanded their investigation into the passport incident.  According to a review of the arrest record, HARRIS admitted to investigating officers that he obtained the documents from (an unnamed) co-conspirator "who works for the U.S. Department of State".  Less than a month later, HARRIS was found with a single bullet wound to his head on Thursday, 17 April 2008, inside of his car that was parked in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Obama on Fort Hood Massacre:  Don't Jump to Conclusions.  [Scroll down]  By sealing off records of his past, including his original birth certificate and his academic records, Obama was in a way persuading Americans to forget about "all the facts" and to jump to conclusions about his qualifications to be president.  In addition, would the White House be attacking Fox News if it had a healthy respect for the "marketplace of ideas?" Obama Treason Charges Advance In Tennessee Grand Jury.  [Scroll down]  Yet ten months after inauguration, Obama's entire past remains a mystery under lock and key.  Obama has spent almost $2 million in legal fees to keep his life Top Secret, not counting millions in tax-payer funded road blocks thrown up by Obama's Justice Department, which has sent numerous federal attorneys into court after court to file dismissal requests on the basis of "standing" — with great success.  They don't want the courts to ever decide Obama's Constitutional eligibility on "merit," because if discovery ever goes forward and Obama's files are opened up, Obama is finished and so is his Marxist Global Agenda! Who's Visiting The President?  President Barack Obama has worked closely with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass health care reform and other measures, but there are a number of private-sector figures whose names appear more frequently in White House visitor records.  They include labor leaders, an executive for a Swiss bank and a Chicago billionaire. Solving the Obama Problem.  I have argued before that Barack Obama is as close to being a rogue president as can be imagined.  There is something troublingly undocumented about him, a cloud of ambiguity hovering over his selective reticence. ... The problem is that much of genuine importance remains an ongoing mystery.  For example, his college and university transcripts, including his academic papers and financial statements, his senate files and schedules, his professional client lists and other documentation remain sequestered under seal, a fact which should properly distress even his most ardent supporters. Accusations of plagiarism: Who Wrote Dreams From My Father?  Prior to 1990, when Barack Obama contracted to write Dreams From My Father, he had written very close to nothing.  Then, five years later, this untested 33 year-old produced what Time Magazine has called — with a straight face — "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician."  The public is asked to believe Obama wrote Dreams From My Father on his own, almost as though he were some sort of literary idiot savant.  I do not buy this canard for a minute, not at all. Did Obama Write "Dreams from My Father" … Or Did Ayers?  There has been speculation about this which I've ignored, no doubt because there are enough policy reasons to oppose Barack Obama and I don't want to feed into what sounds, at first blush, like Vince Fosteresque paranoia.  But I've finally read Jack Cashill's lengthy analysis in The American Thinker.  It is thorough, thoughtful, and alarming  — particularly his deconstruction of the text in Obama's memoir and comparison to the themes, sophistication and signature phraseology of Bill Ayers' memoir. Evidence Mounts:  Ayers Co-Wrote Obama's Dreams.  The evidence falls into five general categories, here summarized.  [#1] The discovery of new matching nautical metaphors from both Ayers and Obama that almost assuredly came from the same source:  Ayers, a former merchant seaman.  [#2] The discovery of a Bill Ayers' essay on memoir writing, whose postmodern themes and phrases are echoed throughout Dreams. ... Obama needed all the help he could get.  Prior to 1990, he had written very close to nothing. Ohio State Prof: Obama Denies Writing Dreams From My Father.  Bruce Heiden, professor of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University, makes the fascinating claim in his website "The Postliberal" that Barack Obama agrees with my assertion that he did not actually write his own memoir, Dreams From My Father.  Heiden finds his evidence in the 1995 Introduction to the book. Experts affirm: Ayers wrote Obama's memoir.  Independent scientific analysis by a number of leading experts supports the literary detective work of WND columnist Jack Cashill that has led him to conclude unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers was the primary author of important sections of Barack Obama's highly acclaimed memoir and editor of the book as a whole. Ayers dances around 'Dreams' controversy.  A nationally recognized political scribe and former Jimmy Carter staffer, [Walter] Shapiro might have done just a little homework before asking such a patronizing question.  Shapiro would have known the limits of my accusation:  namely that Ayers was involved in only one Obama book, the 1995 memoir "Dreams From My Father."  As I have argued, Obama provided the skeletal narrative for the book and likely maintained executive control.  Ayers only wrote the good parts.  He appears to have edited the rest, sometimes heavily, sometimes hardly at all.  In the weeks since the election, correspondents from Hawaii to Ohio to Israel to Australia have sent me new information.  The cumulative evidence is self-evident, accessible and overwhelming.  I have no doubt at all that my thesis is correct. The Odd Story of Romance in Dreams from my Father:  The hypothesis is simple enough, namely that Barack Obama needed substantial help to write his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, and that this help came from the man who has made "unrepentant" a household word, Bill Ayers.  For simplicity's sake, I refer to the author of Dreams as "Obama."  He provided the skeletal narrative and likely maintained executive control.  Ayers fleshed that narrative out, imposing, where useful, his vocabulary, his rhythms, his style, his observations, his postmodern perspective, his weary 1960s weltanschauung, and, in some cases, stories from his and other people's lives.  For no obvious reason, Ayers' voice is particularly pronounced in the recounting of Obama's brief New York sojourn.  In fact, Obama often seems to be channeling the very thoughts and experiences of Ayers, who lived in the city at the same time.  More curiously still, Obama appears to borrow the only romance in his otherwise sexless memoir directly from Ayers' memory. The Improvised Odyssey of Barack Obama.  The thesis is simple enough:  Bill Ayers served as Barack Obama's muse in the creation of Obama's 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father.  Ayers breathed creative life into this ungifted amateur, who had written nothing of note before, and reconceived him as a literary prodigy.  "I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase," said Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison of the Dreams' author.  "I was very impressed.  This was not a normal political biography."  Agreed, it was not normal at all. Who Wrote Dreams and Why It Matters.  My involvement in this occasionally harrowing literary adventure began in July 2008, entirely innocently.  A friend sent me some short excerpts from Dreams and asked if they were as radical as they sounded.  I bought the book, located the excerpts, and reported back that, in context, the excerpts were not particularly troubling.  But I did notice something else.  The book was much too well written.  I had seen enough of Obama's interviews to know that he did not speak with anywhere near the verbal sophistication on display in Dreams.  About six weeks later, for entirely unrelated reasons, I picked up a copy of Bill Ayers 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days.  Ayers, I discovered, writes very well and very much like "Obama." Breakthrough on the Authorship of Obama's 'Dreams'.  There is no reliable computer science for determining authorship. In assessing the value of the existing science, think polygraph, not DNA. Polygraph-level scholarship may suffice for harmless speculation about the authorship of Midsummer's Night Dream, but not for Dreams From My Father. Too much is at stake for the latter. The experts in the field have told me to stick with old-fashioned literary detective work, and I have done just that. Who Wrote Audacity of Hope?  If portions of Audacity [of Hope] sound like outtakes from stump speeches, it is because they are outtakes from stump speeches.  This can be proved.  What cannot be proved, but what seems likely, is that Obama included just "enough of the narrative voice" from Dreams [From My Father] to maintain continuity between the two books.  The question remains — who provided that narrative voice? Andersen Book Blows Ayers' Cover on 'Dreams'.  In his new book, "Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage," Best-selling celebrity journalist, Christopher Andersen, has blown a huge hole in the Obama genius myth without intending to do so. Is Obama a literary fraud?  [Bill] Ayers was the former anti-Vietnam war activist whose relationship with Obama came up during the presidential election campaign in 2008.  John McCain tried to make capital out of Obama befriending a known radical who had co-founded of the Weather Underground group.  The controversy eventually dropped out of the headlines after Obama dismissed Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood".  But if [Jack] Cashill's theory is right, Ayers was far more than that:  indeed, he should perhaps be taking the credit for the fabulous reviews and prizes Dreams has received since publication.  Forget Dreams From My Father — a more accurate title might be Thoughts From My Neighbour. Literary Lion Obama Will Roar No More.  The major media will not likely tackle the emerging evidence of Obama's stunning literary fraud, but the days of Obama's boasting about his writing skills are just as likely over. Unmasking Obama.  Obama is a literary pretender.  Case closed.  The evidence is overwhelming that Bill Ayers ghost-wrote Dreams from my Father, the book which established Obama's pose as a brilliant writer (and therefore a fine mind, in the estimation of many).  The stylistic resemblance between the Dreams and Ayers' work is stunning.  Now we know, thanks to Chris Andersen's new book,that Obama hit a brick wall trying to fulfill his contract to produce a book, and shipped off his notes and tapes to Ayers.  That is the classic description of a ghost writer's assignment. How The VRWC Really Works:  If true, [Christopher Andersen's] claim deserves attention for any number of reasons.  First, it reveals Obama to have been a shameless liar in his disavowal of Ayers during the campaign.  Second, it suggests a dangerously intimate relationship with a man whose hatred of the United States borders on the pathological.  And third, it makes a total sham out of the literary world's anointment of Obama as "the best writer to occupy the White House since Lincoln," the understanding on which the Obama genius myth is based. Bill Ayers claims he wrote Obama's "Dreams From My Father".  In a chance meeting with conservative blogger Anne Leary, Bill Ayers makes a stunning claim that he wrote — not just edited — President Barack Obama's autobiography, Dreams from my Father."  Wow.  He makes this claim to a stranger who approaches him in Reagan National Airport.  Can you believe anything this man says?  Or, should I say, either man? Ayers admits writing Dreams.  Last Friday [10/2/2009] we posted an article on these pages asserting Bill Ayers' authorship of President Barack Obama's 'Dreams From My Father,' based on claims made by Obama biographer Christopher Andersen.  It is possible that we have now gotten direct confirmation of this from Bill Ayers himself. Beware of Misdirection on Dreams Authorship.  I've concluded, after initially thinking it was an issue, the Obama/Ayers' authorship matter is a distraction. ... Ayers, a communist and terrorist, appears to be toying with conservatives.  He knows even if he wrote the book, it won't matter to his cause, but it will serve as a distraction of time and resources from the conservative cause.  I'd venture to say he's HOPING conservatives will pursue the issue. The Editor says... As it stands now, it appears that at least one of them (Obama or Ayers) is a liar.  How can that hurt conservatives? Ayers' Claim He Wrote Obama's 'Dreams from My Father' Is A Blockbuster Story.  Anne Leary is a conservative blogger ... She claims to have recently met Bill Ayers at the Reagan National Airport.  She approached him and out of the blue, he claimed to have written Barack Obama's bestseller Dreams from My Father.  Was he joking?  Serious? A Closer Look At Obama's Odyssey.  [Scroll down]  Yet only in America could an America-hating terrorist conspire with an unskilled writer of uncertain origins on an untruthful memoir and succeed in getting the man elected president.  This plot is so absolutely rich, so thoroughly cinematic, that the literary gatekeepers refuse to believe it is true. Dreams authorship questions mounting.  Ridicule is the current strategy to obscure the strong evidence that the president lied about writing his own autobiographical book.  But the questions will not go away as long as serious people like Jack Cashill, Spengler and Tom Lipscomb have the courage to speak truth to power.  Barack Obama supplies daily confirmation that he cannot live up to the image manufactured for him. What If Ayers' 'Joke' About Writing Dreams Is On the Press?  [Scroll down]  For now the clever "I was joking" story is working fine ... except for the timing.  Unless someone can show me another "I was joking" incident prior to the Hannity incident, I think the evidence leads to Andersen outing Ayers by mistake, and the chain-yanking being a ploy. ... "Authoritative" denials are always worth a little shoe leather, particularly when the denied story, if true, could cause major problems to the denier. Obama 'Most Powerful Writer Since Julius Caesar,' Says NEA Chief.  Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, declared in a speech to art philanthropists in Brooklyn last week that President Obama is the world's most powerful writer since the days of Caesar. Obama's bootlicking NEA chairman.  I suspect that Obama would prefer [Rocco] Landesmann keep his mouth shut when it comes to claims that Obama actually wrote his own books.  Given the accumulating weight of evidence that Obama's first book was actually ghost-written by his neighbor Bill Ayers, the less attention devoted to the subject, the better. What Bill Ayers Saw in Barack Obama.  In 1994, while Barack Obama's memoir Dreams From My Father was being polished off, Bill Ayers co-authored an essay whose title befits a former merchant seaman:  "Navigating a restless sea:  The continuing struggle to achieve a decent education for African American youngsters in Chicago."  In "Navigating," Ayers and his nominal co-author, former New Communist Movement leader Michael Klonsky, offer a detailed analysis of the Chicago school system and a discussion of potential reforms.  Curiously, so too does Obama in Dreams. New Obama Bio Strengthens Case for Dreams Fraud.  The defense of Obama by [Gary] Wills and [David] Remnick should not surprise.  As I discovered five years ago in the research for my book, Hoodwinked, America's intellectual elite has been crafting and enabling intellectual fraud for nearly a century. Barack Obama's Missing Girlfriends.  [Scroll down]  This would not be particularly noteworthy save that Obama's 1995 memoir Dreams From My Father is in large part a racial coming-of-age story.  In Obama's all-consuming search for identity, and in [David] Remnick's effort to document that search, Obama's romantic life should surely have featured.  Whether he dated white women or black women — and what he might have learned from either — matters. Supplemental information: How Obama Himself Made More Than 'Enough Money':  Although Dreams did not do particularly well in 1995, the sales shot through the roof after Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention.  As Osnos relates, Obama unceremoniously dumped his devoted longtime agent after Dreams took off and then signed a seven-figure deal with Crown, using only a by-the-hour attorney.  Obama pulled off the deal after his election but before being sworn in as Senator in order to avoid the disclosure and reporting requirements applicable to members of Congress. Secrecy and obfuscation: Obama Birth Certificate Issue More Urgent Than Ever.  At this point, every member of the Congress and media, as well as ordinary citizens, knows that there was something putridly rotten about Obama's election.  Not just the billion dollars in campaign donations, most of which are still unaccounted for but known to have flowed from foreign donors, many of them enemies of America.  And not just the missing mountains of qualifying data that all presidential candidates are expected to produce, including:   ·   His Illinois law license.  Is he even a lawyer?  Where is his supposed Harvard Law degree?  Where are the papers he wrote in law school?  Why does he not correct people when they say he was a law professor when he was never a professor but only a lecturer?   ·   His Selective Service registration, which investigative-journalist and lawyer Debbie Schlussel has reported to be falsified, an accusation that Linda Bentley quite persuasively documented just the other day.   ·   His visa or more probably visas.  After all, he did travel to Pakistan in 1981 when Americans were forbidden into that country.  Did he use the Indonesian visa he got when he was a citizen of that country?   ·   His school records from Indonesia and Hawaii.   ·   His college transcripts from Occidental College in CA, Columbia College in NY, and Harvard Law School in MA.   ·   His Baptism certificate.   ·   His Illinois State Senate records. Obama conspiracy — It's no longer just a theory.  On Sept. 7, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama appeared on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," and stated, "I had to sign up for Selective Service (SS) when I graduated from high school ... And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honorable option.  But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979.  The Vietnam War had come to an end.  We weren't engaged in active military conflict at that point.  And so, it's not an option that I ever decided to pursue."  Some people did keep in mind that he graduated in 1979 and noted the registration requirement was suspended in April 1975 by President Gerald Ford and wasn't reinstituted until 1980 by President Jimmy Carter in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  The Military Selective Service Act required men born in the calendar year 1961 to register on any of the six days beginning Monday, July 28, 1980. Obama's Draft Registration Raises Serious Questions.  Did President-elect Barack Hussein Obama commit a federal crime in September of [2008]?  Or did he never actually register and, instead, did friends of his in the Chicago federal records center, which maintains the official copy of his alleged Selective Service registration commit the crime for him?  It's either one or the other, as indicated by the release of Barack Obama's official Selective Service registration for the draft.  A friend of mine, who is a retired federal agent, spent almost a year trying to obtain this document through a Freedom of Information Act request, and, after much stonewalling, finally received it and released it to me.  But the release of Obama's draft registration and an accompanying document, posted [in this article], raises more questions than it answers. Lawfare, Voluntary Surrender, and Right-wing "Extremists".  [Scroll down slowly]  Barack Obama, who passed his bar in 1991, "voluntarily surrendered" his license in 2008, for unknown reasons.  Why did Obama surrender his license?  Citizen WELLs reports that it may have been because of charges that Obama lied on his bar application. Lawfare, Voluntary Surrender, and Right-wing "Extremists".  Fox News, who has, one assumes, a few resources, was unable to come up with a single student from Obama's purported time at Columbia, who remembered him. ... Was the guy a ghost?  Here is a very partial list of documents relating to Obama's past,that no one seems to have seen.  Good luck finding them.   Original birth certificate (you know, as in one you can actually touch)   Obama/Dunham marriage license   Obama/Dunham divorce documents   Soetoro/Dunham marriage license   Soetoro adoption records   Occidental College records   Passport — the one used for the trip to Pakistan (not mentioned in either biography)   Columbia College records   Columbia thesis   Harvard College records   Illinois State Bar Association records Is Barack Obama the Ultimate Sleeper Agent?  Many questions regarding Obama's past remain hidden.  Beyond the issue of whether he is a natural born citizen eligible to hold the office, most of the paper trail concerning his education at Occidental College in Los Angeles, followed by Columbia University and Harvard, and the funding for his tuition, his travel to Pakistan as a youth, and other factors normally made public during a campaign are still kept secret. The Endless Secrecy Around Barack Obama.  Just to review, the public cannot get access to paperwork related grants distributed by then-state-legislator Obama (records from 1997 to 2000 aren't available); his state legislative office records (which he says may have been thrown out); he refuses to release a specific list of law clients, … he won't release his application to the state bar (where critics wonder if he lied in responding to questions about parking tickets and past drug use); he's never released any legal or billing records to verify that he only did a few hours of work for a nonprofit tied to convicted donor Rezko; and he's never released any medical records, just a one-page letter from his doctor. No Paperwork For Obama Grants From 1997 To 2000.  [Obama] won't release his application to the state bar.  He's never released any legal or billing records to verify that he only did a few hours of work for a nonprofit tied to Tony Rezko.  He's never released any medical records, just a one-page letter from his doctor.  Does it bother anyone that a guy with political ambitions for his entire adult life has not left a paper trail? Berg v. Obama:  Elector Suit Call to Action.  Unfortunately, the overwhelmingly vast majority of American citizens are not aware that President-elect Barack Obama has been the only candidate for the Executive who has not released certain records to help establish his credentials; to wit:  •  Occidental College records -- not released.  •  Columbia Thesis paper -- not available, locked down by faculty.  •  Harvard College records -- not released, locked down by faculty.  •  Selective Service Registration -- not released.  •  Medical records -- not released (only a one-page report).  •  Illinois State Senate schedule -- 'not available.'  •  Law practice client list -- not released.  •  Certified Copy of original Birth certificate -- not released.  •  Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth -- not released.  •  Harvard Law Review articles published -- None.  •  University of Chicago scholarly articles -- None.  •  Record of Baptism -- Not released or 'not available.'  •  Illinois State Senate records -- 'not available.' Obama's Lost Years:  Voters and the media are now exercising due diligence before Election Day, and they are meeting resistance from Mr. Obama in checking his past.  Earlier this year, the AP tracked down Mr. Obama's New York-era roommate, "Sadik," in Seattle after the campaign refused to reveal his name.  Sohale Siddiqi, his real name, confirmed Mr. Obama's account that he turned serious in New York and "stopped getting high."  "We were both very lost," Mr. Siddiqi said.  "We were both alienated, although he might not put it that way.  He arrived disheveled and without a place to stay."  For some reason the Obama camp wanted this to stay out of public view. Obama's Years at Columbia Are a Mystery.  Senator Obama's life story, from his humble roots, to his rise to Harvard Law School, to his passion as a community organizer in Chicago, has been at the center of his presidential campaign.  But one chapter of the tale remains a blank — his education at Columbia College, a place he rarely speaks about and where few people seem to remember him. The Stealth Candidate:  [Obama] burst onto the political scene and has risen with such alacrity that even many of his supporters don't have a clue what he's about or where he would take America.  It's no wonder the conspiracy types are whispering that he's the Manchurian candidate.  It's not as if he's embracing his past; it's more as if he's concealing it, and for good reason. Barack "blank" Obama and disingenuous politics of "understanding".  Who is Barack Obama?  He is a cipher running as a shaman.  He has been in the Senate for two years.  He has virtually no voting record; he has virtually no articulated positions.  Ask his advocates, and they will describe him as "a breath of fresh air" — but ask them about a single position he holds, and they will stare at you as though you are speaking in tongues.  They will tell you, however, that Obama "understands" every position you hold. Few Details Known About Obama's Three Weeks in Pakistan.  Last April during a San Francisco fundraiser, Obama referred briefly to a visit he had made to Pakistan during his college years.  Campaign press secretary Bill Burton subsequently gave inquiring journalists a few facts.  Obama had visited Pakistan for Òabout three weeksÓ in 1981, after visiting his mother in Indonesia. He had traveled with a college friend whose family lived in Karachi.  He had also visited Hyderabad in India, Burton said.  Word of the visit surprised observers.  The Democratic presidential hopeful has not mentioned it before while campaigning, nor has he written about it in either of his memoirs. Obama's College Trip to Pakistan.  [Scroll down]  "I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college — I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."  This last part — a college trip to Pakistan — was news to many of us who have been following the [2008] race closely.  And it was odd that we hadn't hear about it before, given all the talk of Pakistan during this campaign. On Obama's 1981 Trip To Pakistan.  If one was to believe the left wing media, Barack Obama's 1981 trip to Pakistan was nothing more than an innocent visit a college friend and his family. ... Pakistan was on the banned travel list for US Citizens at the time and all non-Muslim visitors were not welcome unless sponsored by their embassy for official business.  [There] would be only a few reasons a young Westerner of the Muslim faith would travel to Pakistan in 1981: [1]  To Participate in Jihad, which is the duty of every "True Believer". [2]  For religious education in a Wahabbi sect, Saudi funded, Madrassa. [3]  In order to purchase drugs from the drug marketplace. Pakistan was not a tourist stop nor the place to hang out with someone's family in 1981. Is this related?  I hope not. Why Pakistan Produces Jihadists.  Monday night's arrest of Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American accused of planting a car bomb in Times Square on Saturday, will undoubtedly stoke the usual debate about how best to keep America safe in the age of Islamic terrorism.  But this should not deflect us from another, equally pressing, question.  Why do Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora churn out such a high proportion of the world's terrorists? Unprecedented and Secretive.  Lost amid all of the jubilation of the Obama victory was the announcement by the Obama transition team that it had set up a separate transition program beyond the one that is paid for by the American taxpayer.  Called the "Obama/Biden Transition Project," it is a 501(c)4 tax-exempt organization, with no limits on the contributions it can receive and no requirements to divulge the names of individuals or organizations that give it money. ... No one is certain that any political organization has ever set up a tax-exempt entity that would be shrouded in such secrecy, particularly when Obama claimed he would be more transparent about the way things were done. Health-Care Secrets.  President Obama has promised a "new era of transparency" in Washington, so perhaps he should talk to the Senate about getting with his program.  On July 15, six weeks ago, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed an amended $1 trillion health-care bill, with acting Chairman Chris Dodd calling it a "historic achievement."  Too bad the committee won't reveal this history even to other Senators, much less to the public. Who Is Behind Quashing the Birth Certificate Issue?  [Scroll down]  Even more significant is that no one in the media thought Obama's missing birth certificate worth even casual mention.  Their thinking seemed to be:  If we're not going to check on his eligibility to be president, then why question why the other crucial documents were — and continue to be — sealed?  For instance:  his baptism certificate; elementary, high school, college and graduate school transcripts; visa(s); selective service record; alleged multiple Social Security numbers; Illinois attorney's license; Illinois State Senate records; law practice client list; Univ. of Chicago scholarly articles; financial records while a community organizer in Chicago; and medical records.  I'm also curious about why Michelle Obama's law license was suspended in 1993 by the Illinois Supreme Court, but then again she wasn't running for president. Transparent Obfuscation.  One problem with the Obama financial rescue plan is that it is almost as complicated and obscure as the problem it is designed to solve.  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, testifying yesterday [3/26/2009] on Capitol Hill, called for greater simplicity in financial regulation.  Good luck with that. FCC Won't Allow 'Diversity' Chief Mark Lloyd to be Interviewed about Public Policy Views.  The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) won't allow its Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd to be interviewed by the news media about his views and past statements on federal communications policy.  Lloyd, who cites the radical author Saul Alinsky as an inspiration, has argued that public broadcasting outlets in the United States should be funded on a level equal to the funding of private broadcasting companies — with the money coming from licensing fees levied on private broadcasters by the government. By hook or crook... House Approves Hate-Crimes Measure as Part of Defense Funding.  Legislation to punish hate crimes became a flashpoint on Capitol Hill on Thursday [10/8/2009], as a measure expanding the definition of such crimes was attached to the bill outlining the Defense Department budget and approved by the House over the strong objections of Republicans. Mr. Obama:  Tear Down Your Wall of Secrecy.  The real issue, however, is not about birthers or theories or racism or whatever else you want to add.  The real issue is about the secrecy of Barack Obama, and it involves more than the release of his complete birth records.  Hospital records; high school, college and law school records; transcripts; writings; and passport info have been requested, and all are being withheld by Obama.  Mr. Obama is presented as the smartest man in the country, yet we have not seen his college course list or grades. Joe Biden update:  Working from home again today.  According to his official White House schedule, at precisely 1 p.m. today Eastern time Biden will lead a transcontinental conference call "with mayors from across the country to discuss implementation" of the ... American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. ... Because Obama promised his would be the most transparent White House administration in history, Biden's mayoral conference call is closed to everyone except the unidentified mayors, including especially those in the annoying, unelected media. Lawyer files lawsuit against Obama administration for health deal records.  Conservative attorney Larry Klayman filed a lawsuit against the White House Monday [12/21/2009] demanding that it release information on healthcare meetings with lobbyists.  The lawsuit, filed in federal district court, charges the Obama administration violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Freedom of Information Act by not providing relevant information about closed-door meetings on healthcare policy. Percy Sutton dies; His Obama revelation omitted from obituaries.  However, one of [Percy] Sutton's most notable moments is absent from the media hagiographies I have seen:  he stated on television that he knew that an Islamic supremacist, Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, and advisor to a wealthy Saudi, had paid for Barack Obama's education at Harvard Law School.  Exactly how young Barack Obama, a man of slender means, managed to pay for a Harvard Law degree has long been a mystery, and the President has not been forthcoming about any details of his elite education. Man Who Told of Obama's Islamic Benefactor Passes Away.  Percy Sutton, long-time Borough President of Manhattan passed away this week at 89.  Sutton is famous for being Malcolm X's lawyer and a powerful New York politician but he was also a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a radio pioneer, and a civil rights activist.  There is one more little thing that Sutton is known for and that is for revealing that Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, a member of the Black Panthers and a well-known Islamist, was the benefactor that paid for Barack Obama's Harvard education. Five Easy Questions for Obama:  What were your SAT and LSAT scores and your GPA at graduation from Columbia?  You are one of the youngest presidents ever, with one of the leanest track records in elected or executive office.  Virtually all your predecessors served in the U.S. Congress for many years, or served as vice president, or in a cabinet, or a high military command position, or as governor of a state, prior to being president. ... So what exactly were your test scores and grades?  Did you take any economics courses? What Transparency Looks Like to the Obama White House:  As the Chamber notes, "CEQ had identified 87 documents totaling 759 pages that were responsive to our request.  HOWEVER, they could not release most of the documents because they 'originated' with another agency."  So what did CEQ produce?  An entirely blacked-out, redacted, Sharpie-markered e-mail, pictured [in this article]. No information FOIA you.  Associated Press reports the Obama administration is keeping more information hidden from the public than did the Bush administration by employing "exceptions" to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  FOIA statutes, which are designed to keep government accountable, are increasingly being abused or violated even at the state level.  In fact, unlawful FOIA methods are often employed to evade constitutional or other legal safeguards against abuse of power, thereby compounding illegalities by the government. An Obama secret:  Here's a not-so-tiny tidbit of data that's getting lost in the White House-driven public frenzy over healthcare legislation this week:  The White House Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his presidential predecessor George W. Bush as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did. Government Secrecy Increases Under Obama.  Government agencies keep finding excuses to keep an alarming number of public records secret as President Obama sits idly watching his promise of unprecedented transparency repeatedly mocked.  The commander-in-chief's open-government guarantee has turned out to be a big joke that has actually led to more secrecy than under the Bush Administration. Stanley Dunham's FBI file reportedly destroyed.  Stanley Dunham, the man President Obama called "Gramps", was monitored by the FBI, but like President Obama, his paper trail has been obscured. News comes from Cliff Kincaid, via the Christian News Service and Canadian Fee Press. ... The reasons the FBI thought he was worth watching will probably never be known, along with so much about Obama's background that might conflict with the carefully manufactured image that the MSM cooperated in selling to the American public, while ridiculing those who sought more information on the odd lacunae in Obama's paper trail. FBI Destroyed File on Obama's Grandfather, Journalist Discloses.  The FBI destroyed a file on Barack Obama's grandfather, the man who selected Communist Frank Marshall Davis to be the future president's mentor during his growing-up years in Hawaii. ... While the exact nature of the Dunham file will be a topic for speculation, Kincaid said that is likely that some of the information was related to Dunham's relationship with [Frank Marshall] Davis. No Proof.  From an investigative perspective, the reluctance of Barack Hussein OBAMA to release an authenticated copy of his actual long form birth certificate is as revealing as it is troubling.  The exact number of lawsuits filed within the last two years to legally compel Barack Hussein OBAMA to release a copy of his authenticated, long form birth certificate is unknown. ... By comparison to the 150 or so investigations of this type I have performed over the last 25 years, I have yet to find anyone under consideration for such a position to refuse this most routine and basic request.  Moreover, I have never experienced anyone who has not only refused to do so, but spent extraordinary sums of money in legal fees to fight against such disclosure. Uncovered:  Obama's mystery college years.  In one of the many strange features of Obama's presidential candidacy, his 2008 campaign went to great lengths to conceal normally routine information about the candidate's college years.  The information included his first two undergraduate years at Occidental College in Los Angeles, followed by his final two years and graduation from Columbia University in New York City.  No official or unofficial records were ever made available.  No college transcripts, published records, or even contemporary newspaper announcements about his education have been released. Obama the Titan, or the Cipher?  [Scroll down]  And what has Obama published on constitutional law or any other legal topic?  Although he was president of the Harvard Law Review as a student, in which capacity he no doubt wrote some unsigned notes, a search of the HeinOnline database of law journals turns up exactly nothing credited to Obama in any law review anywhere at any time.  This is yet more indication that his status as "lecturer" at Chicago was not a regular faculty appointment, since regular full-time faculty are expected to produce scholarship.  Let me say that again.  There appears to be not one single article, published talk, book review, or comment of any kind, anywhere in the professional legal literature, under Barack Obama's name, notwithstanding an apparent eleven-year teaching career in constitutional law at a top-flight law school. On the absurdity of background.  Peter Baker, on pool duty today at a DNC funder POTUS is headlining in Atlanta, captures the absurdity of insisting on background attribution to disclose the most harmless of information. Vague references to religion without a religious track record Religiosity Without Religion.  [Democrats] maintain the same old secularism, but shoehorn it into religious packaging.  Now they have an ideal candidate in Barack Obama.  Unlike John Kerry … Obama has perfected this con job.  It is often on display in his oh-so-thoughtful, post-partisan musings about the "connection between religion and politics." What Does Obama Believe?  We now know that there are at least two forms of religion that Barack Obama does not believe in:  the religion preached by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who baptized his children, and the religion clung to by the bitter people of Pennsylvania, whose votes he hopes will help make him president of the United States.  This raises a fundamental question:  What does Barack Obama believe? Barack Obama:  Sheep or Goat?  The Senator from Illinois says he is a Christian, but we're not told exactly what kind.  For this reason, I set out to research who and what Barack Obama is, but only as far as his faith is concerned.  It was not my intention to explore his economic, social or foreign policies, except where they explicitly intersect with his personal religious philosophy. Obama:  Religious Hypocrite.  Senator Barack Obama is one of the leading candidates who parades as a compassionate Christian.  He is just the opposite. … The truth is that United Church of Christ member Obama is true to his theologically liberal Protestant denomination but he is abhorrent in the sight of God. Silence in the face of evil.  We know that for over twenty years, Obama listened attentively to his pastor's diatribes against the United States and Israel and said nothing.  Confronted with outright lies that the United States created the AIDS virus to destroy Africa and imports harmful drugs to destroy African Americans, Obama was silent.  When the church website and newsletter carried the message of Hamas, labeled as a terrorist group by both the U.S. and the E.U., Obama maintained his silence. The Gospel According to Obama:  As the saying goes, faith without works is dead.  Obama's sanctimonious chatter about religion only underscores how little he understands about how those concepts are viewed by the most faith-conscious Americans, for whom actions will speak louder than words alone. Obama's Religious Ruse: His 'Conversion'.  In December 2007 he claimed his mother was a Christian; three months later she was not, and now he's certain of an afterlife, having "subscribed to" that notion of which he remained skeptical for two decades since the altar call.  In this same response, to divert attention from his pastor's racist ideology Obama cited that Trinity belongs to a "99% white denomination" and "they're praising Jesus."  As of this date he was still defending Jeremiah Wright, still masking Wright's core beliefs, still concealing that Trinity's Black Power teaches another Jesus and another gospel alien to what Christians have believed for 2000 years. A President Obama's Neoliberal Theocracy.  Black liberation theology forms the core identity of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ (UCC) — Obama's home church for two decades.  Today, that congregation espouses a Black Value System.  It reflects the movement's class dialectic that remains unabashedly race-based. Holy O Turns 'Faith' Healer.  Repeatedly invoking the Bible, President Obama yesterday told religious leaders that health-care critics are "bearing false witness" against his plan.  The fire-and-brimstone president declared holy war in a telephone call with thousands of religious leaders around the country as he sought to breathe life into his plan for a system overhaul. Does Obama use God's name in vain?  [President Obama] often invokes God at what seem the unlikeliest moments — in support of policies condemned by the Bible and most major religions.  Obama gets away with it only because he benefits from a curious double standard.  Whereas Bush was excoriated by the left whenever he cited God, Obama's religious imagery receives silence from both sides of the aisle. Obama abuses faith office to promote his radical agenda.  We have now begun to see Obama's strategy become clearer:  bring a group of radicals into power by placing them in key positions throughout government.  This often takes place under the radar screen.  For every Van Jones, how many Otis Moss's and Jim Wallis's are there?  We probably will never know.  But every once in awhile we see Obama's goals reach fruition.  We are seeing one now with the Office of Faith Based Initiatives taking a sudden turn to the left and injecting itself into politics. More about the Trinity United Church of Christ. Obama's voting record is sketchy at best Obama's Great Lie:  A quick look at Obama's record demonstrates his lack of willingness to engage in change and reform, dating from the beginning of his political career and continuing in his current service as U.S. senator.  Obama has a history of sidestepping controversial issues and votes — indeed, he voted "present" nearly 130 times while in the Illinois state senate, rather than take a stand and vote "yay" or "nay." The Issue is Obama.  The fundamental issue in this campaign is Obama — his values, his beliefs, his character.  Having done practically zero as an Illinois state senator, and absolutely zero during three years in the U.S. Senate, Obama has no substantive legislative record.  So we're left with judging him (a) by what he says ... and (b) by the company he keeps (and has kept). The odd choices in Barack Obama's career:  We follow Obama down to Springfield, where as a state legislator, he voted "present" over 120 times.  What this means, as far as I've been able to discover, is that he voted "present" nearly as much as he voted "yes" or "no".  Now, statehouses work very simply:  a member approaches his colleagues and asks them them to vote for his bill.  Some comply, some do not.  Some ask, "Is it a good bill?" and some don't.  Either way, they customarily, except in unusual circumstances, vote "yes' or "no".  All except for Barack Obama.  And how did get away with it? The Thin Man.  Here is Obama's résumé:  an Ivy League law degree, a few years of community organizing, seven years in the Illinois senate, three and a half years as a U.S. senator.  Kind of modest.  What has he accomplished in any of those jobs?  Not much, not much at all. Obama Moves On.  "We can no longer afford these sorts of divisions," Obama piously intoned.  Really?  Then where was he in September, when the Senate voted 72-25 to "strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of Gen. Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces"?  Absent, that's where.  He was far too fearful of stepping on the toes of MoveOn to take a stand. The incredible Barack Obama.  Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself.  There's nothing new about narcissism in politics.  Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president.  Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?  Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. Obama is Toast.  He has the con man's charm, a master manipulator of all with whom he came in contact.  His message is vague.  His actual positions are few except to say he has voted consistently as a Liberal, offering little evidence of bipartisanship.  He talks of change and hope, but what politician does not? A Living Lie:  [Scroll down] There is, of course, not a speck of evidence that Obama has ever transcended party differences in the United States Senate.  Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show him to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate.  Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation — nor any other significant legislation, for that matter.  Senator Obama is all talk — glib talk, exciting talk, confident talk, but still just talk. Judicial Watch:  Obama 'intended to leave no paper trail'.  The president of a prominent watchdog group said Wednesday [3/26/2008] that he believes Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) "intended to leave no paper trail" during his time in the Illinois Senate. Barack Obama Is Just Another Liberal.  As Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) gathers increasing attention as a potential rival to Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, remarkably little attention has been paid to his record, which reveals him to be at least as liberal as Hillary. The other Barack Obama:  If you haven't yet fallen prey to Obama-mania, you might just be asking, What has this guy done to deserve all this?  The answer is very little — but that's also the point.  Mr. Obama's two years in the Senate have been relatively quiet, given all the national attention he garners. Barack Obama:  American Idol.  That Sen. Barack Hussein Obama Jr. chose the day of "American Idol's" season premiere to launch his presidential exploratory committee is nicely symbolic.  Part of the attraction and seductiveness of Sen. Obama — perhaps the main attraction — is that he is mostly a blank slate on which others can write what they choose. Getting to Know Him:  We know John McCain:  as formed and familiar as a well-worn boot.  But we don't know Barack Obama very well, and getting to know him has been and remains the basic national task of 2008. Let scrutiny begin.  The emergence of Barack Hussein Obama in American politics is a historic event, and it demands an intense scrutiny of his private and public record before Americans elect their republic's 44th president.  Behind Obama's appealing personality looms his associations with individuals and organizations that speak more about him as a person, since his record as the junior senator from Illinois is thin. Barack Obama can be whatever he wants to be.  Those who deride Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) lack of experience and criticize the broad generalities and banalities that festoon his best-selling book miss the key point:  His inexperience is an asset because he enters national politics as a blank canvas on which he can paint whatever he chooses. Obama was AWOL in IL Senate while Chicago murder rate skyrocketed.  Not only does Chicago lead the nation in the number of absolute murders it zooms upward out of all proportion in murders per capita. ... Most of the murders and murderers in Chicago and most of the gang members in the city live in the neighborhoods where Obama was community organizer and/or represented in Illinois' legislature — where he consistently voted present before moving on to the US Senate.  Most of the gangs and gang members are either black or Hispanic, and they're killing each other, plus any innocent victims in their paths. Obama making less than a quarter of Senate votes.  Sen. Barack Obama has missed the most votes of any Democratic presidential hopeful in the Senate over the last two months, including a vote on an Iran resolution he has blasted Sen. Hillary Clinton for supporting. Would You Hire Barack Obama?  [Scroll down]  So if you'd hired Barack Obama at the end of 2004, let's say to be a United States senator, you would have been on notice:  You were getting a wonderfully gifted individual, but one with a history of failing to focus for long on the task at hand.  And that's exactly how it worked out for Obama's constituents in Illinois.  Shortly after becoming a senator, Obama began writing his second book, and shortly after that he began running for president.  His accomplishments in the Senate have been virtually nonexistent. Obama makes impossible promises and his supporters expect too much Obama is setting up a lot of people for deep disillusionment. Faster than a speeding ballot — it's Super Obama.  When you claim that your mere nomination is enough to commence healing the planet and rolling back the seas, what is left to claim once you've actually won the election?  Forget him being the first serious black candidate; Obama is clearly the first Magic-American to run for the White House. Barack Obama lays plans to deaden expectation after election victory.  Barack Obama's senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week's election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve. Peggy the Moocher.  Who is Peggy the Moocher?  She's Peggy Joseph, a voter in Sarasota, Fla., who exulted earlier this week at a Barack Obama rally that this was "the most memorable time of my life."  Why?  As she told a Florida reporter on a YouTube video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands:  "Because I never thought this day would ever happen.  I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car.  I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage.  You know.  If I help [Obama], he's gonna help me." Video: Obama Is Going To Pay For My Gas And Mortgage!  (Already viewed over a million times.) Yes, Barack Obama really is a Manchurian candidate.  As Election Day rapidly approaches, many Americans are wondering why so many of their countrymen reject a genuine war hero with decades of experience, one whose pro-life, limited-government values pretty much reflect those of Middle America.  Instead, these same countrymen are enthralled with a man who not only has no experience or qualifications for the job, but who is, in fact, the most radically left-wing major-party presidential candidate of our lifetime, having been mentored and supported for decades by terrorists (Ayers), communists (Davis), America-hating racists (Wright) and criminals (Rezko).  Doesn't make much sense, does it? BO Stinks.  Obama's candidacy is a joke.  He is an unknown entity who has been propelled by the left-loving media (and Oprah) into the presidential race.  He has no relevant experience.  He has no real plans.  He is running on a platform of change based on some misguided belief that the general public is clamoring for it. The Obama Temptation:  There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me.  The messiah complex.  Fainting audience members at rallies.  Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal.  A graphic with the portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it, which adorns everything from Obama's plane to his street literature.  Young school children singing songs praising Obama.  Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama's name and the professions he is going to open to them. ... I dare say, this is ominous stuff. Obama proves all too human.  Mr. Obama once ran successfully as a novel outside critic of Washington.  He posed as a politically correct critic of discrimination of all sorts.  As an idealist tired of the old Washington doublespeak, Mr. Obama mesmerized thousands with sermons against incumbent dinosaurs. ... But the loftier the moral expectations Mr. Obama created, the more the disappointment grew when they couldn't possibly be met. Still Time for Voters to Wake Up.  It would be bad enough if the Stalinesque stench engulfing the messiah's campaign were limited merely to its efforts to elect him.  But what we fear is that these campaign tactics are of a piece with his policy agenda and his vision for America. ... Sadly, most Obama supporters have no clue what Obama is ultimately about or how his innocuous-sounding ideas could permanently destroy our freedoms. Obama is dangerously unfit to be president.  "We are the ones we have been waiting for!"  Waving one's hands aloft and screaming "Yes we can!" is Obama's calculatedly emotional response to complex issues that require careful, thoughtful analysis.  The record of history is a mournful litany of the horrors wrought by cynical demagogues whose sole message was themselves. 'Change' Can Lead to Catastrophe.  Telling a friend that the love of his life is a phony and dangerous is not likely to get him to change his mind.  But it may cost you a friend.  It is much the same story with true believers in Barack Obama.  They have made up their minds and not only don't want to be confused by the facts, they resent being told the facts. Is Barack Obama the 'Manchurian Candidate'?  Out of nowhere Barack Obama appears on the scene full-blown and manages to snatch the democratic nomination from Hilary Clinton, despite his complete lack of experience in both domestic as well as foreign policy.  In fact, Barack Obama's experience is so thin that it isn't even possible to ascertain exactly what he stands for, given that he voted "present" on over 130 Senate bills.  Yet the mainstream media have embraced Obama as the Messiah, the Chosen One, the One Who Will Bring About Hope and Change. Obama's messianic pretensions:  Obama has presented himself from the start as a messianic, "transformational" leader — and thus played deceitfully with ideas that belong to religion and not politics. ... A Caesar who appropriates otherworldly virtues, is riding upon very dangerous illusions.  Follow him into dreamland, and you'll be lucky to wake up. Obama the 'Light-Worker'.  The left's unique ability to ignore reality and be guided by utopian impossibilities has reached new levels of absurdity.  Adding to aromatherapy, Feng Shui and the healing power of crystals, we now have Obamaism, the belief that an inexperienced and dishonest socialist politician can somehow "change" America and the world for the good. What If Obama Doesn't Have America's Best Interests at Heart?  Our country seems to be ready to put into the seat of power a man — good-looking, charismatic, silver-tongued, to be sure — who has almost no experience, has never served in an executive capacity, has barely held a real job, and has no record of success other than his remarkable campaign.  This is a man who in less than two years has arisen as a political messiah.  He has mesmerized an emergent block of college-age voters (whose chief sources of information, by the way, are comedians). Obama Is the Weatherman.  The danger is in mistaking Barack Obama's hypnotic talents for vision.  People say this is Obama's time because Obama says this is his time.  But when you're the one setting the clock, it's always your time.  In terms of what's actually happening in the world, this is decidedly not Obama's time. The Stealth Candidate:  [Scroll down]  There's also an alarming atmosphere among many Obama supporters.  They follow him in a cultlike trance, having no clue what he stands for or what policy meat he would put on his campaign bones of change and hope once in office.  Disturbingly, Obama's candidacy is inspiring certain youths to perform paramilitary drills in his honor, public officials to threaten criminal prosecution of those who criticize him, and attorneys purporting to be working for his campaign systematically to intimidate local election officials. Incredibly shrinking Obama.  The sparkle has, in fact, dimmed.  He travels now in a lower orbit, closer to Earth — which is to say, he grows more mundane.  The great word "hope" sounds less frequently now.  He picks a running mate thick with the dust and rancour of many long years in Washington. ... The narrative stage is over.  It's all tactics from here on in. Enduring Authenticity vs. Fleeting Charisma.  As the Democratic primary season was winding down, discerning Democrats began to have serious buyer's remorse about Obama, as shown by Hillary Clinton's dominance in the late primary contests.  But Democrats faced a titanic dilemma because cashiering Obama might have salvaged this election but caused a permanent exodus of black voters from the party.  These unpleasant realities, I believe, forced Democrats into denial about Obama. Why I'm Voting for John McCain:  The fact remains that Barack Obama is 47 years old and he doesn't have a single friend, associate or religious mentor, who isn't the sort of creep that most of us would cross the street to avoid.  Obama, we're told, will bring us all together, but during four years in the U.S. Senate, he has never voted for a bi-partisan piece of legislation.  His memoirs are jam-packed with illegal drug use, racist rants and sophomoric Marxism.  He claims to be post-racial, whatever that means, but the church he attended for 20 years gave its highest honor to Louis Farrakhan just last December. Why I'm Thanking God for Obama:  Many of Barack's followers manifest troubling signs of regarding him as at least a demigod.  Even while refraining from saying outright that they think he's a god, their belief comes through in the strange messianic iconography of their Obama-glorifying posters, videos and music. Change That's Unbelievable.  From the cheering hordes at his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston to the enthralled 200,000 who turned out for his speech at Berlin's Victory Column, Barack Obama's followers have been numerous, loud, and loyal.  Most of all, though, they have been unquestioning. Obama's Message Slip:  Barack Obama is the guy who says Americans have to choose between medicine for their kids and gas for their cars.  He peddles a message of abject national despair from which only he can deliver us.  What use does he have for consumer confidence?  A boost to American morale throws the Obama campaign into an identity crisis.  What good is a messiah without a plague? Voters Souring on Obama As Never Before.  [Obama's] momentum has vanished, the race has drawn to a dead heat, and Republicans are, maybe for the first time, showing some real optimism. … Michael Goodwin speculates that the media's "fawning coverage" of Obama, which the McCain campaign has highlighted with "The One," its nickname for the Democrat, may have caused voter resentment. The Big O:  No taxpayer could buy into the notion that this is "...the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal," or that college is a "privilege for the wealthy few," not when government in the United States spend north of $900 billion a year each on health care and education.  Maybe there's a clue here.  Maybe Obama is the candidate for people born yesterday and the people that don't pay taxes. He's Barack Obama, not the messiah.  The convention is practically over, but Barack Obama has yet to utterly transform U.S. politics or perform any miracles.  Wheelchair-bound conventioneers are still in their wheelchairs, and the only loaves and fishes are those provided by caterers.  The economy's still in the toilet.  The war in Iraq is still going on.  Beltway insider Joe Biden is the VP pick, and Obama hasn't even apologized for his vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  So where's the change? He may talk the talk, but Obama is not the messiah.  The world is so impressed by Obama's attributes that the expectations for his possible presidency have become dangerously inflated. Abraham Lincoln reincarnated could not live up to what many global citizens anticipate from Obama:  to rebuild America's international reputation, to usher in racial equality in the US, to halt climate change, to end terrorism, to fix Iraq, to rescue the world economy. With that To Do list, how could Obama fail to disappoint? The Barack Bubble.  The value of Barack Obama's stock is sky high these days.  His most devoted followers assume this upward trend will continue.  Happy days are just around the corner. … In fact, the issue is not if Obama's bubble will burst, but rather — when.  And when it does, there will be a lot of unhappy American campers. Obama sowing socialist seeds in young people.  The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way.  It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America. The Editor says... When Jon Voight wrote the article above, he stirred up quite a controversy in Hollywood, where dissenting opinions are evidently not permitted. The article below includes a discussion of the effort to blacklist Mr. Voight for expressing those opinions. Enemy of the State.  Last Monday on these pages, my article "Blacklist Then and Now" coincidentally appeared the same day as an op-ed penned by screen legend Jon Voight.  Since his Oscar-winning turn in the 1978 antiwar film "Coming Home," the venerable actor has come to the conclusion that he and many in the "so-called peace movement" were manipulated by Marxist propaganda. Idols beware.  There had better be something to this "divinely anointed" business, because if there isn't, Barack Obama is setting himself up for the biggest political spill in recorded history — all the way down the slopes of Olympus to whatever gunk lies below.  Which is to say, nobody, probably, can be as good as Mr. Obama's adoring followers, whether in Portland or Berlin, seem to believe he is.  Disillusionment is ugly to see in action:  The higher the expectations, the angrier the eventual response to reality. It's Only About Winning.  The Washington Post reports that Sen. Barack Obama is aggressively trying to reintroduce himself to voters, echoing the spin of Obama's advisers that not everyone knows him yet.  In reality, Obama's major campaign challenge will not be to reveal, but to conceal his true identity.  Obama is not trying to introduce himself to unreached voters, but is engaged in damage control with many he's already reached — and insulted and disillusioned. Questions for Barack Obama:  Senator, you've described global warming as "one of the greatest moral challenges of our generation," calling for reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050.  Yet you also describe yourself as an "agnostic" on nuclear power, which should be used only "if (your emphasis) we can make it safe" — as if it were not already producing 20 percent of U.S. electricity.  Given that U.S. energy demands are certain to rise, how do you propose cutting greenhouse gases by 80 percent without either crippling the economy or building scores of nuclear plants with zero carbon emissions? Leaving the Left.  Not so long ago, Barack Obama was the darling of the anti-war Left.  On a host of national security issues — Iraq, Iran, government surveillance of terrorists — Obama preached a friendly gospel and was worshipped in turn as a political "messiah."  The liberal grassroots, sensing a kindred spirit in the Illinois Senator, rewarded him with the Democratic nomination.  Nothing could come between Obama and his base.  Now something has.  In a word:  reality. Obama, Shaman.  The striking thing about the charismatic leader is the extent to which his followers regard him as a healer of wounds, an alleviator of pain.  In this sense, surely, Senator Barack Obama is charismatic.  The carefully knotted ties and the dark, conservatively tailored suits only accentuate the exoticness of his shamanism; he has entered the American psyche not as a hero but as a healer. Why McCain Would Make a Better President:  Should Barack Obama be elected President of the United States this November his chances for a successful term in office are slim to none.  As the candidate who extols the virtue of hope and change and whose audience chants in unison, ?Yes we can!' Obama has set expectations so high that he is bound to fall short of lofty expectations. Reaction to Obama's AIPAC speech: Who Do They Love?  The first standing O, lasting more than a minute, greeted the senator as he took the stage — before he had even begun to count all the ways he plans to become a "true friend of Israel."  They gushed.  They cooed.  They were carried away.  Someone needs a cold shower.  It is difficult to think of any recent major figure on the American scene who should invite disquiet among supporters of Israel more than Barack Obama. Is Obama a Political Fraud?  I believe that even if Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Hamas leader, himself ran for US elections; he would do the same as Obama did.  No one who aspires to the US presidential post could ignore the important Jewish voters in the elections, particularly in the decisive states, nor reject the funds necessary for the election campaign and success. Barack Obama 'saves the world' (between speeches).  First, it was "Change you can believe in," a nice friendly bit of folderol that was no more scary than "I Like Ike." … But lately the slogan coming out of the Obama campaign is "We can save the world," which shows that some people can believe anything — and will — without the slightest provocation or evidence. Obama's America:  Obama's view of America and Americans is almost unremittingly bleak.  In his increasingly prickly and aggressive defense, Obama insists that his comments about ordinary Americans are accurate.  He is, he insists, completely "in touch" with the struggles that define modern American life.  At least that's how he defines things:  if you review Obama's speeches, his portrait of Americans is of a people broken and dispirited, anxious and angry and without hope (and for whom Obama, as you might have guessed, is the balm). False Messiah.  Conservative pundits have noted the Biblical, even apocalyptic imagery employed by Barack's supporters (which include the mainstream media).  But their hyperbole is no mere literary device.  They are true believers. Dems' Falling Idol.  Obama's candidacy depends on a kind of make-believe that can't be sustained.  How is he going to bring the country together around an orthodox left-wing agenda?  How is he going to embody bipartisanship when the significant instances of him practicing it in his legislative career are vanishingly few?  How can he heal the nation's divisions when he can't even bridge the Democratic Party's demographic divide? Phony-Ops build the Obama Myth.  Barack Obama's appeal to his legions of enthusiasts rests in no small part in their hearts.  And where the heart is concerned, myths, images, and archetypes work their wonders on the nonrational faculties of the mind.  The biggest Phony-Op of the election season so far was that giant riverfront photo in Portland, Oregon with "the masses" yelling their lungs out, as if for a messianic King. A Messiah in Our Midst?  For many, he's no retro-redeemer, but a 21st century savior, a Matrix-messiah and Neo for our modern-day Nineveh.  Self-help guru Deepak Chopra dubs Obama "a quantum leap in American consciousness," while prominent "leadership coach" Eve Konstantine assures us that, "He's our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence."  Obama willing, I will never be stuck next to these people on a plane. Obama Promises Germany-Plus.  When I begin to feel homesick for Germany, I have discovered a cheap and easy way out.  I simply turn on the TV and listen to a Barack Obama stump speech. … [Mr. Obama] has promised not only a $160 billion program for new green-collar jobs, a higher minimum wage, affordable health care for everybody, a massive investment in infrastructure and tax-free status for pensioners who make less than $50,000.  All these nice things come with no tax increase for 95% of Americans.  Wow!  That's Germany-plus! Obama and the Childish Left:  The Washington press corps has the teenie bopper hots over Barack Obama — such a romantic name.  A real African!  Almost.  What does he believe?  What has he actually done?  Uhmmmm…  Well…  It's Son of Camelot!  And he's got the youth vote!  Children just know these things!  This is straight out of Dumb and Dumber.  If you despaired about the media's endless love affair with Bill Clinton, the Master of Slick, because he Cares About You, you'll get to revisit those feelings now.  For we have a new national idol! Obama Fatigue:  He remains the man to beat, and he remains something of a phenomenon in American politics — a rock-star politician celebrated by swooning masses.  On college campuses Obama is a demi-god, and on the trail you get the sense that some of his supporters are not so sure about the "demi." Change You Can't Believe In.  The rise of democratic frontrunner Barack Obama signifies an alarming victory of style over substance.  Not unlike the dot-com hype, his campaign promises more than he can deliver.  The one thing his voters can count on is that they will ultimately be disappointed. Keep Despair Alive.  [Obama's] legions of moonie-eyed idolaters do have a knack for embarrassing themselves, and the rest of us.  They wait in line for hours to pack agriplexes in the Midwest, acting like squealing tweens whose parents have dropped them off at a Hannah Montana concert.  They clap when he blows his nose.  They shoot celebrity-studded music videos, whose lyrics are direct lifts from Obama speeches. We Scream, We Swoon.  How Dumb Can We Get?  What was this, the Beatles tour of 1964?  And when they weren't screaming, the fair-sex Obama fans who dominated the rally of 16,000 were saying things like:  "Every time I hear him speak, I become more hopeful."  Huh? Emperor Obama's New Clothes.  What I want to know is, how did Hans Christian Andersen know about Barack Obama more than a century ago?  Because Obama is straight out of Andersen's classic fairly tale, The Emperor's New Clothes.  Old Hans Christian, who lived in Denmark from 1805 to 1875, had Obama's number down pat.  All he needed was a good grasp of human nature. Obama bin lottery.  Obama's South Carolina victory speech was the economic equivalent of a carnival snake-oil pitch.  He promised to "stop giving tax breaks to rich companies and instead put the money in the pockets of struggling homeowners who can't pay their mortgages", and at the same time stop the export of American jobs overseas, while raising everyone's wages.  The crowd chanted, "Yes we can! Yes we can!"  Excuse me:  No, you can't.  You can't keep inefficient American factories open without massive tax breaks to corporations, in the form of tariffs or otherwise. Barack Obama and the Sorcery of "Change".  The undefined nature of this panaceic change ["Change We Can Believe In"] and the nebulous character of the putative new order it heralds, require a profound suspension of disbelief.  Barack Obama and campaign strategist David Axelrod gamely assert that because the former is free from ideologic and dogmatic affiliation, he is a different sort of politician, a post-racial visionary who personifies the change for which we have all been waiting.  That very assertion is steeped in postmodernist ideation and borne of a philosophical narcissism in which "[t]he world becomes equatable with the contents of the self, and vice versa". 'Economic disaster'?  It's Obama.  Obama, adding to the negativity about the economy in order to sell "change," regularly portrays the U.S. economy as in a state of near-collapse.  "Economic disaster is already here," he declared at a recent campaign stop in Virginia.  In fact, the economy is not in a state of "disaster," and "change" in the wrong direction would only make things worse.  With high gas prices, for instance, the most likely consequence of Obama's calls for restrictions on drilling and higher taxes on oil companies would be less supply and even higher prices at the pump. Obama Has Issues And He's Dead Wrong on All of them!  This is the problem with blindly entrusting your future to an individual who has accomplished nothing of any consequence in his past.  It's not hope you're feeling, its euphoric blind faith.  As is always the case with career rabble rousers (aka community organizers), the fact that they have never been in the game does not hamper their ability to talk a good game. Too dumb to be true.  So many people are so mesmerized by Barack Obama speeches that are filled with nothing but meaningless platitudes and slogans.  I haven't been able to find anyone yet, not even the most fanatical Obamaniac, who can tell me what "We are the ones we have been waiting for" actually means. What is it that Barack Obama knows that the rest of us don't?  Obama came onto the scene comparing himself to the late great Abraham Lincoln, penned a book that some claim isn't even his and arranged — or had arranged — Grade 8 textbooks with an entire chapter dedicated to him.  As Gateway Pundit so aptly pointed out, "Lincoln was a humble man.  He did not compare himself after six months in office to great men from history."  Swooning supporters, some at the ready to fall into a faint, accord the senator a peculiar rock star status. Obama's Job Fetish: Beware any politician who promises to create new jobs.  If, as widely expected, Barack Obama faces a recession [if and] when he takes office in January, many Americans will expect him to deliver on his promise to "create jobs."  They probably will be disappointed, because Obama seems to view job creation not only as something the government does with taxpayers' money but as an end in itself. The Messianic Style:  The messianic style — the cosmic tug to "change history", or stop the seas from rising or the planet from heating, juxtaposed with the creepy faux-Greek columns, Michelle's "deign to enter" politics snippet, the fainting at rallies, the Victory Column mass address, the vero possumus presidential seal, and the 'we are the change we've been waiting for' mantra — reflects the omnipresent narcissism:  the exalted ends of electing a prophet always justify the often crude and all too mortal means. Obama stock is overpriced, and a crash could really hurt.  Sell Obamas now.  They are overpriced and the forward market has gone crazy.  If he becomes president, the bubble will burst, I guess in the spring of next year ... [Obama's failure] would more than undo the gains secured by his election and devastate the cause he is seen as representing.  The least his supporters can do is not raise the bar of expectation too high. The Obama Bubble Could Cost the Democrats.  Today, the Obama election campaign has again exposed the whole Democratic Party as a sucker front for the radical Left.  Bill Ayers is just the tip of a gigantic anti-American iceberg that now dominates US education, the media and Hollywood, the unions, and militant minorities.  Don't think people don't know it.  In the 1940s the [Henry] Wallace campaign looked like a power grab of the totalitarian Left.  Today Obama looks the same. What else has Obama got?  Obama, an inexperienced first-term senator, has not presented the world with a blueprint for the future, he has run his extraordinarily successful campaign on nothing more than the promise of change.  As we have seen in Australia over the past 12 months, change is not always for the better. ... Based on Obama's record, voting for change, solely for change's sake, is an affront to commonsense and a victory for stupidity. Hope and Change in the Real World:  I'm not expecting Sen. Obama to deliver on hope and change, let alone on "transforming the world."  You can't deliver on hope and change when you have a vast government apparatus eating up 35 percent of gross domestic product and your program is to increase it. Obama is a man, not a cultural judgment.  For almost two years, Mr. Obama has been, in [Shelby] Steele's words, evaluated culturally.  This has resulted in reverential media non-coverage and now post-election judgments and metaphors that are already beginning to defy satire.  Of course, Mr. Obama didn't end the Civil War, isn't the reincarnation of RFK, and benefits from, but didn't bring about, the long-entrenched social changes that facilitated his political rise.  As he now heads to the White House, it's crucial that he finally be regarded as a politician, not a messiah, and as a man, not a moral judgment. Flashback to 1978: Jim Jones' followers enthralled by his skills as a speaker.  The key to understanding the tragedy that was Jonestown lies in the oratory skills of the Peoples Temple founder, Jim Jones.  With the cadence and fervor of a Baptist preacher, the charm and folksiness of a country storyteller and the zeal and fury of a maniacal dictator, Jones exhorted his followers to a fever pitch, audiotapes recovered from Jonestown reveal.  As he spoke, they applauded, shouted, cheered. ... He also indoctrinated many young, idealistic liberal white people in progressive 1970s California with the themes of socialism, equality and political activism. Waltzing on the Titanic.  America's young people helped elect Barack Obama.  Way to go kids!  This article is for you.  Let's take a look at your future.  We won't need a time machine.  We will just need to visit Europe and talk to the youth of France, Italy, and Greece.  Don't worry.  They won't mind.  They have plenty of time to talk.  They don't have jobs.  Young people in Western Europe tend to sit around, smoke Marlboro cigarettes, drink espresso (and Coca Cola), and (at least until this election) [complain] about America.  They have been taught, since their first day in school, that capitalism is evil — that the government can, and should, provide health care, employment, and eventually, guaranteed retirement benefits for everyone. Emperor Obama's Clothes are Visible and Scary.  Not surprisingly, many voters who cast their ballots for Barack Obama for president had no idea what he believed, what his voting record was or what his priorities would be as president.  The YouTube videos showing voters' ignorance during the just-completed election would be hilarious if they were not so sad.  The "Emperor" leading the presidential polls had no clothes, but who would speak out? Obama is the star pupil in the School of Climate Change.  Bernard Baruch said, "Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing."  Barack Obama promised a great deal.  He was rarely specific, but his generalities were interpreted to mean he would deal with each voter's specific concerns.  His promise of change was nothing new, but people believed it was different than any thing seen before in Washington.  He is not President yet, but already he has demonstrated an inability to satisfy the expectations raised by his eloquence and vagueness. Back to the Barack Obama index page More about Liberals in general Back to the Home page

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