The Barack Obama Series
POST-ELECTION 2008
:- "It begins."
- "It continues."
- Not Bush 3, but Clinton 3
- Election Myths Debunked By The Washington Post
- "It builds."
- "Between the criminal charges lodged against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich... the jaw-dropping nature of Blagojevich’s alleged deal making over the president-elect’s newly vacant Senate seat, and the prospect of an ethically tainted senior Democrat (Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) shepherding a key part of Obama’s agenda — they all suggest Obama can hardly avoid speaking directly on the question of a debauched culture."
- "It gets worse": Obama throws Axelrod, Rahm under bus; tries Clintonian "Vague-Speak", doesn't get away with it.
- "Team Obama dabbles in drama", article at Politico
- Politico's "7 Reasons for Healthy Skepticism
- Geithner will be in charge of the IRS, yet "mistakenly" omits paying taxes, for which he was audited and warned once already, until Team Obama makes him pay up, and other tax fraud attempts...
- Obama to create faithbased office [Ed.Note: no hue and cry against this? Same thing Bush did. Ho-hum if Obama does it.]
- Obama losing the stimulus message war
- Daschle. Richardson. Killefer. Geithner. Panetta. Lynn. Holder. Corr.
- "I'm going to screw up sometimes" [Ed.Note: How many times will the Americans who voted for him let him do that, I wonder?]
- "[Obama Poster artist] Fairey has acknowledged, the poster is based on the AP photograph"; it was used without "required permission."
- Obama "creates" Faith-Based Office, Gets Kudos, while GWB was reviled for doing the same.
- Business As Usual in Washington, 2009: Dems Vote to Preserve 8,500 "Pet Project" Earmarks (i.e., PORK) Worth $32 BILLION in Spending Bill
- "Barack, the Good Shepherd??"
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PRE-ELECTION:
We demonstrated, using objective, readily-available news and thinktank sources, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, AND here...how Obama and/or the Democrat party lied, misled and withheld truths from the American public throughout his Presidential campaign.Obama Says Some Have 'Hijacked' Faith...this from a follower of the mostly pro-choice [NOTE: webpage removed in 2005 after massive negative attention], pro-Planned Parenthood United Church of Christ:
The United Church of Christ has affirmed and re-affirmed since 1971 that access to safe and legal abortion is consistent with a woman's right to follow the dictates of her own faith and beliefs in determining when and if she should have children, and has supported comprehensive sexuality education as one measure to prevent unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. (General Synods VIII, IX, XI, XII, XIII, XVI, XVII, and XVIII)To borrow one of Obama's quotes, "I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version."
Obama's Pastor Crosses That "Church-State Separation" Line and For This Sermon, Ought To Lose His Non-Profit Tax Status, Just As Any Roman Catholic Church Would Lose It If They Spewed Like This From The Pulpit. [HT: Steve Gilbert]
As early as March 1975, Reagan described the leverage he would require before sitting down with the Soviets. His key insight was that "We need to remove [the Soviets'] incentive to race ahead by making it clear to them that we can and will compete . . . at the same time we tell them that we prefer to halt this competition and reduce the nuclear arsenals by patient negotiation."
There were three elements to Reagan's strategy. First, he argued America must become a reliable ally and respected by our adversaries. As we did, we would "be tested in ways calculated to try our patience, to confound our resolve and to erode our belief in ourselves." But being consistent and credible was important to friend and foe alike. Second, Reagan said America must rebuild its conventional as well as its nuclear defenses, because "we are number two in a world where it's dangerous, if not fatal, to be second best." The Soviets must "know we are going about the business of restoring our margin of safety." Third, Reagan knew "peace is made by the fact of strength – economic, military, and strategic. Peace is lost when such strength disappears or – just as bad – is seen by an adversary as disappearing." America's economy had to be restored, so the Soviets would know the U.S. could compete with them.
Reagan's careful preparation for negotiations with the Evil Empire was simple to explain and difficult to achieve: "a consistent foreign policy, a strong America, and a strong economy." If you want an arms race, we'll give you one, Reagan said, and we will win it, so once you're convinced of that, let's negotiate.
Reagan spoke about his strategy repeatedly in speeches, debates and articles in the half-decade before being elected president. His approach was not cloaked in secrecy. It was not abstract promises. And it was not something to be revealed only after the election. Reagan knew a successful strategy doesn't surprise adversaries, it engages them and draws them toward changes in behavior.
When it comes to America's adversaries, Mr. Obama doesn't have a comprehensive strategy to match Reagan's. Mr. Obama believes in talking and in meeting, in the hope that his charm will sweep despots off their feet like college students in Madison, Cambridge and Berkeley.
'We know that more than half of all Black children live in single-parent households. We know the statistics--that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison,' he said...We're certainly inclined to believe that the absence of a father makes a child likelier to run afoul of the law, but can it really be true that fatherless children are 20 times as likely to end up in prison but only five times as likely to commit crimes?"
A 2004 Chicago Sun-Times interview with Mr. Obama mentioned three men as his religious guides. One was Rev. Wright. Another was Father Michael Pfleger, the Louis Farrakhan associate whose recent remarks caused Mr. Obama to resign from Trinity, but for whose Chicago church Mr. Obama channeled at least $225,000 in grants as a state senator. Until recently, the priest was connected to the campaign, which flew him to Iowa to host an interfaith forum. Father Pfleger's testimony for the candidate has since been scrubbed from Mr. Obama's campaign Web site. A third mentor was Illinois state Senator James Meeks, another Chicago pastor who has generated controversy for mixing pulpit and politics.
Fascinating. With more money than any other Presidential candidate in history, and the sky's the limit for more campaign funds down the stretch, Obama can't or won't pay one. red. cent (he said the Veep vetters are "volunteer, unpaid position[s]") to make sure he's got the best, unfettered, unbesmirched vetters to help him find the best, unfettered, unbesmirched running mate??
"First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden's head," the Illinois senator said at a news conference. "And if I'm president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive." There's an old poster out West, as we recall, that said, "Wanted: dead or alive."Hmmm. Didn't George Bush say just about the exact same thing?
Obama said, "I have never said that I don't wear flag pins or refuse to wear flag pins." Actually, he did. He said last year, "I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest" because it had become "a substitute for ... true patriotism" during the run-up to the Iraq war.
Obama denied his handwriting appeared on an old questionnaire that said he supported a ban on possessing a handgun, and he said he has never taken that position. Actually, his writing does appear on one of two versions of the questionnaire.
Mr. Obama and the Congressional Democrats promise to sock it to "rich" taxpayers next year to pay for "middle class tax cuts" as well as some $300 billion in new spending. But there's a problem: They won't tell us exactly who the rich are.
...Mr. Obama has set the definition of rich at levels of $100,000, $200,000 and $250,000 in annual income...All of this has caused some heartburn among certain Democrats in high cost-of-living states. New York Rep. Joseph Crowley says a couple with earnings of $100,000 could be "a police officer and nurse." "In New York City," he adds, "they'd be struggling."
[R]epealing the Bush tax cuts for those with earnings of more than $250,000 would raise only about $40 billion a year, according to Cato Institute economist Alan Reynolds. That would leave President Obama with a $360 billion shortfall to meet his other proposals. Either those nurses and policemen are going to have to be defined as "rich" by Team Obama, or the Democrats' pledge of balancing the budget in five years is a fantasy.
"If there was any argument for vouchers it was, all right, let's see if this experiment works and then if it does, whatever my preconceptions, my attitude is you do what works for the kids," the then-hopeful nominee told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board last February when asked about his stance on that city's voucher program.Obama's handlers are spinning themselves into a frenzy trying to say he didn't say he would support vouchers EVER EVER EVER, so they can win the petulant teachers' union's support.
Such evidence is now available for the D.C. voucher program...Though not the slam-dunk that some voucher supporters might have hoped for, the results certainly don't warrant the program's termination. Students offered a voucher appear to have somewhat higher academic achievement in reading, though they have not made any real gains in math. Parents are more satisfied with their child's private school and report that it provides their children with a safer environment. Only future research following these students over a longer period of time will tell us the true impact of the policy. Opponents of the program are certain to make a fuss that the study's overall findings for reading are "statistically insignificant." In other words, the researchers are less than 95 percent certain that the impact of the program was in fact positive and not zero.
Though this terminology may be essential to empirical researchers who need a common parlance, it can mislead non-technical readers to believe that there is no reason to think the program has been successful. In this specific case, the empirical results suggest that we can be 91 percent confident that the program had a positive impact on student reading proficiency. This may not be quite enough to excite academics, but it is a higher level of confidence then we have about the effectiveness of many other programs operating in our schools.
This isn't "Change We Can Believe In." This, as Don Henley sang, is "Business As Usual."
[This list began and was first posted on March 15, 2007]
posted by Annie at 6:45 AM
