Press/Media circle the wagons - Obama off limits?

Nothing a Democrat politician says is a lie these days? PC'ism, the press and media simply suggest they mis-speak only Republican politicians lie.

Sent from a fellow memo reader.(See 1 below from Snopes.)


Hezballah knows how to work the propaganda machine. Not driven by humanity just political considerations.

Though not equating Obama with Hezballah, he too could not decide on his own but needed to be driven by politics when it came to leaving his church. Obama argues his superior judgment is why he should be president. Methinks he doth protest a bit much. (See 2 below.)

Larry Sabato is as good as they get when it comes to reading political tea leaves and he believes most sheep will return to the pen come November. I agree. Particularly with respect to the Jewish vote. They are wedded to the Democrat Party out of historical/hysterical self-guilt and blind obeisance.

The Torah is a conservative document in many ways and calls upon people to be responsible for their conduct. How one acts reflects on the entire society. It supports and encourages independence as well as rational fairness. How does this square with extreme liberalism and all the programs it has spawned and which have failed to even come close to their intended mark?

In terms of Israel, at this point in history, being concerned about Israel is premised on concern for all democracies as they struggle to survive against radical Islamist terror. In my view, the West and Western values are engaged in a war with elements who embrace, distort and bastardize much of that religion - Islam. If the latter wins, as is possible, then America's very survival is equally threatened as is Israel's.

If have overstated the case then explain 9/11 and all the acts of terrorism that preceded it in words I can understand.(See 3 below.)

Jeff Dobbs goes after Obama and no one can mistake where Dobbs is coming from unlike Obama's waffling and guile and then more. (See 4 and 4a below.)

Some interesting commentary on separation of church and state and it's Jeffersonian political roots. (See 5 below.)

Where is Rex Harrison when we need him? (See 6 below.)

Dick



1) BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S TOP FIFTY LIES (TO DATE):



1.) Selma Got Me Born - LIAR, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961 - Selma had no effect on your birth, as Selma took place in 1965.

2.) Father Was a Goat Herder - LIAR, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government.

3.) Father Was a Proud Freedom Fighter - LIAR, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had.

4.) My Family Has Strong Ties to African Freedom - LIAR, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya. It is the first widespread violence in decades.

5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been a Christian - LIAR, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own interviews. According to the New York Times: "I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith," Ms. Obama, 85, said in a recent interview in Kenya.' Not to mention, Christianity wouldn't allow her to have been one of 14 wives to 1 man.

6.) My Name is African Swahili - LIAR, your name is Arabic and 'Baraka' (from which Barack came) means 'blessed' in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama.

7.) I Never Practiced Islam - LIAR, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years, until your wife made you change, so you could run for office.

8.) My School In Indonesia Was Christian - LIAR, you were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic Studies for making faces (c heck your own book).

9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian - LIAR, not one teacher says you could speak the language.

10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia, I Have More Foreign Experience - LIAR, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn't even speak the language. What did you learn, how to study the Koran and watch cartoons.

11.) I Am Stronger on Foreign Affairs - LIAR, except for Africa (surprise) and the Middle East (bigger surprise), you have never been anywhere else on the planet and thus have NO experience with our closest allies. You seek to disarm America while our avowed enemy, Iran, will not subject itself to a nuclear ban. Top Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said the Hamas terrorist group 'supports Obama's foreign policy vision'.

12.) I Blame My Early Drug Use on Ethnic Confusion - LIAR, you were quite content in high school to be Barry Obama, no mention of Kenya and no mention of struggle to identify - your classmates said you were just fine.

13.) An Ebony Article Moved Me to Run for Office - LIAR, Ebony has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn't, and never did, exist.

14.) A Life Magazine Article Changed My Outlook on Life - LIAR, Life has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn't, and never did, exist.

15.) I Won't Run on A National Ticket In '08 - LIAR, here you are, despite saying, live on TV, that you would not have enough experience by then, and you are all about having experience first.

16.) 'Present Votes Are Common in Illinois - LIAR, they are co mmon for YOU, but not many others have 130 NO VOTES.

17.) Oops, I Mis-voted - LIAR, only when caught by church groups and Democrats, did you beg to change your misvote.

18.) I Was a Professor Of Law - LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

19.) I Was a Constitutional Lawyer - LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

20.) Without Me, There Would Be No Ethics Bill - LIAR, you didn't write it, introduce it, change it, or create it.

21.) The Ethics Bill Was Hard to Pass - LIAR, it took just 14 days from start to finish.

22.) I Wrote a Tough Nuclear Bill - LIAR, your bill was rejected by your own party for its pandering and lack of all regulatio n - mainly because of your Nuclear Donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod came.

23.) I Have Released My State Records - LIAR, as of March, 2008, state bills you sponsored or voted for have yet to be released, exposing all the special interests pork hidden within.

24.) I Took On the Asbestos Altgeld Gardens Mess - LIAR, you were part of a large group of people who remedied Altgeld Gardens. You failed to mention anyone else but yourself, in your books.

25.) My Economics Bill Will Help America - LIAR, your 111 economic policies were just combined into a proposal which lost 99-0, and even YOU voted against your own bill.

26.) I Have Been a Bold Leader In Illinois - LIAR, even your own supporters claim to have not seen BOLD action on your part.

27.) I Passed 26 of My Own Bills in One Year - LIAR, they were not YOUR bills, but rather handed to you, after their creation by a fellow Senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office.

28.) No One Contacted Canada About NAFTA - LIAR, the Canadian Government issued the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them.

29.) I Am Tough on Terrorism - LIAR, you missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the destruction of Israel. You state you will open friendly communication with the Leader of Iran who is attempting to develop nuclear weapons to destroy us, but refuse to speak to FOX news. You are against provisions of the Patriot act which would allow wiretapping of the phones of suspected terrorists in the USA. < BR>
30.) I Am Not Acting as President Yet - LIAR, after the NAFTA Memo, a dead terrorist in the FARC, in Colombia, was found with a letter stating how you and he were working together on getting FARC recognized officially.

31.) I Didn't Run Ads in Florida - LIAR, you allowed national ads to run 8-12 times per day for two weeks - and you still lost.

32.) I Won Michigan - LIAR, no you didn't.

33.) I won Nevada - LIAR, no you did not.

34.) I Want All Votes to Count - LIAR, you said let the delegates decide.

35.) I Want Americans to Decide - LIAR, you prefer caucuses that limit the vote, confuse the voters, force a public vote, and only operate during small windows of time.

36.) I passed 900 Bills in the State Senate - LIAR, you passed 26, most of which you didn't write yourself.

37.) My Campaign Was Extorted By a Friend - LIAR, that friend is threatening to sue if you do not stop saying this. Obama has stopped saying this.

38.) I Believe In Fairness, Not Tactics - LIAR, you used tactics to eliminate Alice Palmer from running against you.

39.) I Don't Take PAC Money - LIAR, you take loads of it.

40.) I don't Have Lobbyists - LIAR, you have over 47 lobbyists, and counting.

41.) My Campaign Had Nothing to Do With The 1984 Ad - LIAR, your own campaign worker made the ad on his Apple in one afternoon.

42.) My Campaign Never Took Over MySpace - LIAR, Tom, who started MySpace issued a warning about this advertising to MySpace clients.

43.) I Inspire People With My Words - LIAR, you inspire people with other people's words.

44.) I Have Passed Bills in The U.S. Senate - LIAR, you have passed A SINGLE BILL in the U.S. Senate - for Africa, which shows YOUR priorities.

45.) I Have Always Been Against Iraq - LIAR, you weren't in office to vote against it AND you have voted to fund it every single time, unlike Kucinich, who seems to be out gutting you Obama. You also seem to be stepping back from your departure date - AGAIN.

46.) I Have Always Supported Universal Health Care - LIAR, your plan leaves us all to pay the 15,000,000 who don't have to buy it.< SPAN class=EC_apple-converted-space>

47.) I Only Found Out About My Investment Conflicts Via Mail - LIAR, both companies you site as having sent you letters about this conflict have no record of any such letter ever being created or sent.

48.) I Am as Patriotic As Anyone - LIAR, you won't wear a flag pin and you don't put your hand over your heart during the Anthem. There is a Cuban Flag with Che Guevara Displayed at Barack Obama Campaign Office which you allow to be displayed. You voted against making English the official language of the United States. You voted to give illegal aliens social security benefits, which would bankrupt the social security system for Americans legally paying into it.

49.) My Wife Didn't Mean What She Said About Pride In Country - LIAR, your wife's words follow lock-step in the vain of Rev. Wright and Louis Farrahkan, in r elation to their contempt and hatred of America.

50.) Wal-Mart Is A Company I Wouldn't Support - LIAR, your wife has received nearly a quarter of a million dollars through 'Treehouse' - which is connected to Wal-Mart.

2) ANALYSIS: Nasrallah's spin once again apparent in return of bodies
By Yossi Melman


Sunday's events, in which Hezbollah transferred to Israel the remains of what it said were Israeli soldiers killed in the 2006 Second Lebanon War, can be seen as another successful spin from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah - despite Israel's wishes and intentions.

The transfer of the bodies followed Israel's release from prison and deportation of convicted Hezbollah spy Nissim Nasser. What was meant to be the regular release of a security prisoner who completed his sentence is now being painted as a deal, or as another step on the road to a larger agreement that will return captured soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser alive or dead.

Israel did not want the situation to appear this way. Sources from the prime minister's office, the Israel Defense Forces, the Mossad and intelligence agencies involved in the prisoner exchange talks with Hezbollah reiterated and stressed their surprise at the return of the remains at the Rosh Hanikra crossing on Sunday.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross also said it was not notified prior to the developments. The proof lies in the fact that no one, not the Red Cross, UNIFIL, of the IDF made advance arrangements to receive the soldiers' remains. The Red Cross staff was even forced to wait an hour and a half until the IDF called a chief rabbi and sappers to inspect the container holding the remains.

Conspiracy theorists will find it difficult to believe the simple explanation that no one in Israel knew. Maybe everyone involved is pretending not to have known. Or they are feigning surprise so as not to make it look like there was a deal in place for the return of the remains. And this comes a year after Nasrallah's proposal regarding this matter was rejected, and after he cruelly offered to negotiate with Israel over the return of body parts. Ofer Dekel, appointed to conduct negotiations to the release of captive IDF soldiers, scornfully rejected the offer saying that Israel is interested in the return of the remains but will not allow them to be used as bargaining chips, nor will it offer any compensation for them.

But this time, it seems, the explanation is simple. Israel understood that the High Court of Justice would not allow it to keep Nissim Nasser in administrative detention after he completed his sentence. Israel decided it had no choice but to release Nasser and stressed that his release is not part of any deal or a goodwill gesture. But Nasser's attorney Smadar Ben-Natan hinted that things aren't as simple as they seem and that perhaps her client was freed in order to advance a larger deal. Hezbollah listened to Ben-Natan and believed her. That could be one possible explanation for their returning the solders' remains.

Another more sophisticated and reasonable explanation is that Nasrallah wanted to create a false impression. Nasser was released not because he served his sentence, but rather because Hezbollah cares for its soldiers and agents and does not abandon them. And that is the evidence that this was a deal. Hezbollah has sent the message: We pressed for Nasser's release and paid the price of returning the missing remains in exchange. That way Nasrallah makes Nasser look like much more than the small fry he is perceived to be in Israel. That's how Nasrallah's mind works. He is a spin artist and an expert at psychological warfare who creates dramas because he thinks he knows Israeli society. And, if it comes at the cost of suffering for the bereaved families, at the cost of a cynical game played on their exposed nerves, even better.

3)Does Obama Really Have a Jewish Problem?
Media’s Focus on ‘Jewish Vote’ Brings Talk of Pandering, Bias
By Jennifer Siegel
Thu. May 29, 2008

THE JEWISH QUESTION: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama tried to allay concerns about his ability to win over Jewish voters with appearances like a May 22 town-hall meeting at B’nai Torah Congregation of Boca Raton in Florida.
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From the avalanche of articles and commentaries published by mainstream media outlets in recent weeks, one might easily get the impression that Barack Obama is in trouble with Jewish voters.

As the Illinois senator — now the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee — turns his attention to November, the national media has closely followed his overtures to the Jewish community, long a bedrock constituency for Democrats.

When Obama headed to South Florida recently, the media narrative that emerged focused on what was characterized as his uphill battle with the state’s Jewish voters, many of them elderly. The New York Times, in a front-page story appearing May 21, catalogued the anxieties — which ranged from Israel and Iran to race and antisemitism — circulating in the Jewish community, along with falsehoods like “Obama is an Arab” and “Al Qaeda is backing him.” (Reporting on the Times story, a Croatian Web site, Javno, summed up the situation under the more-than-dubious headline “Ku Klux Klan Supports Obama, Jews Do Not.”)

But as the discussion of Jewish ambivalence toward Obama reaches new levels of intensity, some observers are saying that the hand wringing is creating a skewed and potentially damaging picture of American Jewry whose support for Obama is, by several measures, quite strong.

“Enough,” wrote M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis for the dovish Israel Policy Forum, in a May 23 column on the Web site Talking Points Memo. “The ridiculous focus of the media on the candidates’ pandering to Jews is bad for Jews.”

“Jews have always been more progressive on matters of race than most other whites,” he added. “But that does not mean all of us are. We have our racists. So does every other group.”

The fate of the “Jewish vote” has, by now, become a perennial election-year topic, and its general outlines are drawn from undeniably relevant political facts: Except for Jimmy Carter in 1980, no Democratic presidential candidate has failed to win over a majority of American Jews since at least 1928. With a higher-than-average propensity for voting and concentration in such swing states as Florida and Pennsylvania, American Jews have often made a difference in national campaigns. The GOP, meanwhile, has courted the community aggressively in recent years, with debatable impact: According to a 2006 survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee, 15% of American Jews now identify as Republican and nearly 30% consider themselves independent. President George W. Bush captured 22% of the Jewish vote nationwide in 2004, and John McCain — buoyed by his long pro-Israel record and by campaign support from close friend Joe Lieberman — is hoping to capture the highest share of the Jewish vote by any Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan, who earned 39% of the Jewish vote in 1980.

That said, given that many demographic groups — from soccer moms to Nascar dads to working-class whites — have a way of making a difference in elections, some political observers have wondered whether the recent focus on Florida Jews is contributing to a public misconception about which religious groups are likely to be the most significant swing voters. William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has studied the impact of Catholics in recent elections, is among them.

“I think it is fascinating that there has been so much attention focused on the two religious groups that are part of the base of the two political parties — evangelicals for Republicans and Jews for Democrats, and relatively little attention lavished on the two big swing groups, namely, Catholics and mainstream Protestants,” said Galston, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, in an interview with the Forward. “I can pretty much prove that it was an outpouring of Catholics in Ohio and Florida that pushed [President George W. Bush] over the top in 2004.”

Statistics show that Jews are one of Obama’s strongest white constituencies — a key base the Illinois senator is working overtime to shore up, rather than a uniquely problematic weak spot.

While Catholics, for example, have supported Hillary Clinton over Obama to a greater degree than white primary voters overall, Jewish voters have actually been more supportive of Obama than whites in general in seven out of eight primary states with significant Jewish populations — Florida included. (In New York, Clinton’s home state, Obama’s share of the Jewish vote lagged four percentage points behind his performance with white voters.) Moreover, a Gallup Poll released in May showed that 61% of Jewish voters nationwide prefer Obama versus 32% for McCain, compared with a margin in the general population of 45% to 43%.

Given this broader picture, some members of Florida’s Jewish community worry that the focus on Jewish voters in recent weeks had created a false impression that Jewish voters are uniquely critical of the man overwhelmingly likely to be the country’s first African American presidential nominee, when in reality Obama is reaching out to Jews in order to shore up a cornerstone of his base.

“The [May 21] Times story showed a Jewish populace that is uninformed and fearful,” said Rabbi David Steinhardt, the host of Obama’s recent visit to B’nai Torah Congregation of Boca Raton, Fla. “The majority of my congregants are much more thoughtful and open to the truth than what we saw in that story.”

Others worry that the media coverage has given the impression that Jewish voters care only about Israel.

“There are so many of us who care profoundly about Israel and just as much about America,” wrote Boca Raton resident Myriam Weinstein in a May 22 letter published in the Times. “As a 60-plus Jewish resident of Boca Raton, Fla., who is deeply committed to Israel, I refuse to be identified and pigeonholed with all the people who fit my demographic profile and whom you quoted in your article about Jewish voters in Florida.”

Larry Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, said the copious coverage of Jewish voters in recent weeks reflects the fact that “elections are won at the margins” and that even a relatively small number of Jewish voters could make a difference in swing states like Florida. But he cautioned against putting too much stock in fears voiced during the waning days of the primary campaign.

“What happens in May and what happens in November are two different things,” Sabato wrote in an e-mail to the Forward. “Many defectors, Jewish and otherwise, will return to the Democratic fold by November.”

4) The Obama Way of Ending Divisiveness
By Jeff Dobbs

When Barack Obama says he wants to end the divisiveness in politics, I believe him. When Obama says he wants to bring about unity, I believe him. When Obama says he wants to work for a new politics free from bitter partisanship, I believe him. When Obama says he wants to have vigorous debate, a robust discussion or a national dialogue to bring this about, I believe him -- to be lying.

Obama's strategy has been to orient the campaign around his greatest strength and advantage -- who could deliver the best speech -- and away from his greatest weakness -- his poor ability to answer questions about how he would deliver on any of his promises.

Obama and his Democratic opponents

Democrats have infamously proclaimed during the Bush administration that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Yet Obama has continuously sought to stifle any dissent aimed at him by labeling any criticism as a distraction, as divisive or as cynical. Although we are seeing a greater frequency of these claims, and more people are now noticing the breadth of issues with which Obama uses this tactic, stifling dissent was a strategy from the beginning of his campaign.

In his speech to the DNC Winter Meeting in February of last year, Obama laid out some of the ground rules he wanted to impose on the campaign.

Over the next year of a primary and the next two years leading to the election of the next president, the campaigns...(APPLAUSE)... the campaigns shouldn't be about making each other look bad, they should be about figuring out how we can all do some good for this precious country of ours. (APPLAUSE)

That's our mission.

And in this mission, our rivals won't be one another, and I would assert it won't even be the other party. It's going to be cynicism that we're fighting against.


Making Obama look bad is cynical. And cynicism is worse than even Republicans. Anyone criticizing Obama, and thereby engaging in cynicism would be judged as worse than Republicans.

Later in the same speech, Obama expanded the ground rules:

... for every attack ad that questions the character or honesty or patriotism of somebody, there are real patriots fighting and dying in Iraq whose families deserve to know how we plan to bring them home.


Questioning Obama's character or honesty or patriotism is a distraction. Anyone questioning Obama on these grounds would be judged as lacking in their support for the troops.

Obama has not set about setting up these restraints on his opponents simply because he doesn't want to be inconvenienced with such questions and criticisms. Obama clearly understands that his history, his associations, his decisions and actions are such that such questions and criticisms would be devastating to his campaign were they undertaken in earnest and robustly discussed and vigorously debated.

Obama does not want anyone to be able to question his character as it relates to having a 20 plus year relationship with his race-baiting pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He wants to prevent anyone from questioning his honesty when he repeatedly engages in dishonest double-talk like a dissembling pol as he changes his story about his relationship with indicted friend and political backer Antonin Rezko. Obama knows he must head off any questions of his patriotism because of his long relationship with an America-hating unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

Obama and the media

Obama understands that the primary means of limiting the questions for which he would otherwise be forced to answer is to create a media environment in which those questions are not asked.

Liberals, including the media have repeatedly attacked President Bush for making himself unavailable to the media in press conferences and other Q&A formats. Yet as Howard Kurtz described back in January, the Obama campaign has been "unusually insulated":

One moment of absurdity came Tuesday, when reporters on the press bus were asked to dial into a conference call in which Obama announced a congressman's endorsement -- even though the candidate was nearby and just as easily could have delivered the news in person to the bus captives. Obama answered a few questions, but reporters are generally placed on mute after they speak so there can be no follow-up.


Obama learned the wisdom of this strategy, or rather the folly of its absence, when he made himself available to reporters to answer questions about his relationship with Antonin Rezko, who is currently on trial for corruption. Irritated with the questions and unable to satisfy persistent reporters, Obama cut the news conference short, walking out and proclaiming, "'Guys, I mean come on. I just answered like eight questions." Obama more recently went on a 10 day stretch in which he held no press conferences. Frustrated with the lack of availability, a reporter tried to break Obama's silence by asking a question while he was eating breakfast. Obama again deployed the "chagrin defense", this time somewhat fomously, "Why can't I just eat my waffle?"

The Obama campaign seeks to restrict media access forcing them to react to his speeches and limiting unscripted interaction with the candidate himself. Because when the media reacts to his speeches, as evidenced by his "major speech on race in America" in March, which Obama gave in response to the revelations surrounding Reverend Wright's sermons, the media cheers, and swoons and practically struggles to avoid fainting.

And after Obama's major speech on race in America, the media began putting up the wall that would protect Obama from further questions about Reverend Wright. When Lanny Davis, a Clinton supporter, sought to put Hillary's comment that Wright would not have been her pastor in context, he described several of Wright's comments, at which point he was accused of "spreading the poison". When CNN anchor John Roberts interviewed Obama, he reassured the candidate that the entire network was a "Wright-free zone". Mission accomplished.

Obama and McCain

To date, Obama's strategy has been aimed primarily at his Democratic opponents, especially Hillary Clinton. But having moved from challenger, to front-runner, to now the presumptive Democratic nominee, Obama is spending more time engaging with the Republican nominee, John McCain. And the McCain campaign recognizes Obama's strategy of stifling dissent and co-opting the media to achieve it.

In his victory speech after winning North Carolina, Obama preemptively characterized the race ahead that McCain would run as pinning names and labels on him, as trying to distract voters from real issues, as pouncing on gaffes and associations and false controversies. He predicted that McCain would play on voters' fears and exploit differences, slicing and dicing the electorate by race and income.

Also in North Carolina, the Obama campaign put McCain on notice -- even agreeing with Obama that an issue was legitimate would be subject to the Obama strategy of being called divisive and distracting. When the Obama-Wright relationship blew up, John McCain assiduously avoided the topic, even at one point taking the North Carolina state Republican Party to task for using Wright in an ad. However, after Obama claimed Wright was a "legitimate political issue", McCain agreed with Obama that many voters would share Obama's view of it as legitimate. In response, the Obama campaign quickly reacted:

"By sinking to a level that he specifically said he'd avoid, John McCain has broken his word to the American people and rendered hollow his promise of a respectful campaign," said spokesman Hari Sevugan. "With each passing day, John McCain acts more and more like someone who's spent twenty-six years learning the divisive, distracting tactics of Washington. That's not the change that the American people are looking for."


Obama recently claimed that he was smeared by John McCain when McCain reiterated that it is clear that Hamas favors Obama for President. Obama then went further, claiming that it was a sign that McCain was "losing his bearings". In response, McCain senior advisor Mark Salter sent out a memo that included this characterization of Obama's efforts:

It is important to focus on what Senator Obama is attempting to do here: He is trying desperately to delegitimize the discussion of issues that raise legitimate questions about his judgment and preparedness to be President of the United States. [...]


Senator Obama is hopeful that the media will continue to form a protective barrier around him, declaring serious limits to the questions, discussion and debate in this race.

Senator Obama has good reason to think this plan will succeed, as serious journalists have written of the need for 'de-tox' to cure 'swooning' over Senator Obama, and others have admitted to losing their objectivity while with him on the campaign trail.

And McCain has good reason to worry. Obama's strategy has proven successful against Clinton, and the media show every sign of continuing it into the general election against McCain. His wife Michelle, an active campaigner and advisor, is now off limits in the Barack Obama campaign coverage rule book. But the ultimate test of this strategy, the ultimate judge of its success will only come at the ballot box in November, which remains an open question.

Between now and then, however, if Obama's strategy continues to be successful, the media will shield him from the tough questions and criticism. Because there is no bitter partisanship where there is no discussion of the issues, and there is no divisiveness without debate. Obama is not seeking a dialogue in this campaign to bring about unity; rather, a monologue. Obama wants you silent - unless you agree with him, or until enough people do that your voice is no longer heard.

4a) Obama Acts Like Obama
By Jennifer Rubin

True to form, Barack Obama’s explanation yesterday of his reasons for leaving Trinity Church are a model of double-talk. (And the remarkably passive media pack doesn’t make it very hard for him to avoid further scrutiny.) He has, he explained “tremendous regard” for the church community, but said he could not live with a situation where everything said in the church, including comments by a guest pastor, “will be imputed to me, even if they conflict with my long-held, views, statements and principles.”

And he would have remained in a church for two decades where regularly people spoke out in ways which conflicted with his principles because . . . why, exactly? We don’t know. And no one in the press thought to ask.

But it gets worse. ABC reports:

He insisted that Trinity itself is not a church worth denouncing. “I’m not denouncing the church and I’m not interested in people who want me to denounce the church, because it’s not a church worthy of denouncing, and so if they’ve seen caricatures of the church and except those caricatures despite my insistence that that’s not what the church is about, then there’s not much I can do about it.”

Yes, remember Obama does not do denouncing. There is nothing a Wright or Pfleger or Ayers can do which deserve condemnation. Unless, of course they visit the National Press Club and critique his sincerity.

And Obama concedes that:

[A]t the start of the campaign he never would have expected this much scrutiny to be put on his faith, “which we knew there was going to be some things that we didn’t see coming, this was one. You know I did not anticipate my fairly conventional Christian faith being subject to such challenge and such scrutiny. Initially with emails suggesting that I was a Muslim, later with you know the controversy that Trinity generated.”

This one gets the trifecta for dishonesty, or perhaps cluelessness. First, it is, of course, not the case that his Christian faith is being questioned. I know of no commentator, critic, or political opponent who has done that. What is at issue is his propensity to hang out with hatemongers who suggest his current post-racial theme is a pose. Second, he apparently lacks any cultural or political compass if he really believed that Wright et al. would not become an issue. Was it self-delusion? Or is he so out of touch with average Americans that he was unable to predict what would be deeply offensive to millions of Americans? And finally, notice how he impugns the motives of those who raise concerns about his association with Trinity. They are on a footing, in his book, with those perpetrating the “He’s a Muslim” canard. But the former are not perpetrating a lie. They are discussing and probing the beliefs, sincerity, and character of the man who wants to be President.

The Trinity cast of characters and Obama’s reaction to them have been more revealing than more a dozen-plus debates, all the speeches, and just about anything that has happened in over a year of campaigning. It might be even more revealing if the media would take their role seriously and press Obama on some of these obvious points. But Obama, however inadvertently, has done a fairly good job of letting us know how he makes both political and moral judgments. And that is perhaps the most important thing to know about a potential President.



5) Who Separates Church from State?
By Larrey Anderson

The phrase "wall of separation between church and state" has become a lightning rod for heated debate. This phrase is from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut and is understood by some to reflect the reasoning behind the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

What is overlooked in almost all of the debates is that, logically speaking, the "wall of separation" is one thing if it is built from (and viewed from) the perspective of the people or the church. It is quite another if it is built from (and viewed from) the perspective of the legal system or the state. In a free republic, the wall of separation between church and state can only be built by the people or the "church."[i] It cannot be built by the state.

Here are Jefferson's words to the Baptists in Danbury:

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.


Notice who Jefferson credits with having built the wall: "the whole American people." Congress cannot build the wall separating church and state. It is not allowed to. Congress, in fact, "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." That is what the amendment specifically states. According to Jefferson, it is the people who have built the wall of separation between church and state through the process of amending the constitution.[ii]

There is a stunningly beautiful symmetry in Jefferson's reasoning that has gone largely unnoticed. The congress agreed, through the amending process, that it had no power either to respect a specific religion or to prohibit the practice of any specific religion. Because it agreed to this via constitutional amendment, the congress cannot readdress its right to retain its power over religion. The congress has no power over religion. None.[iii]

But the people do retain their power over religion. Each person may choose his or her religion and each person may publicly exercise that religion. Jefferson is surely correct on this subtle, but vital, point. If the people build the wall between the church and state, it is an act of free will. If we choose to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto the Lord what is the Lord's, then we have defined what things we consider to be specifically political and what issues we take to be specifically spiritual.
What can the federal government (the congress, the president,[iv] or the Supreme Court) [v] do to build or to change the wall? Nothing. Congress "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The central government cannot be the creator of the wall of separation between church and state in a free republic. Continuing the example from Christian theology, if Caesar issues the command to render unto Caesar, I am forced to obey Caesar's command at the point of the sword. But if Christ (and by "Christ" I mean here the body of the church or people)[vi] issues the same command, I follow it of my own free will. I voluntarily keep Christ's commandment to follow the law of the land out of love for my savior and out of a desire to help bring about the Kingdom of God.

There is another reason why the central government cannot build the wall. In the Danbury letter, right before he credits the people with building the wall of separation between church and state, Jefferson states:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions...


In other words, the central government cannot decide what is political and what is spiritual because these are matters of opinion that vary from person to person. These are issues between each individual "man and his god." In a free republic, the central government has no right to inform matters of personal opinion of its citizens.

After Jefferson's assertion that the people have erected a wall of separation between the church and state, he continues:

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.


Jefferson understood that as we struggle, as a people who have fallen from grace, to build and rebuild the wall separating church and state, we do so for the specific purpose of perfecting ourselves, our families, and our communities in our efforts "to restore to man all of his natural rights."

We, as a people, build the wall of separation between church and state ... to keep the government out of our right to worship whatever god we choose.


[1] "Church" here means the people and the sum total of their religious perspectives. This would include non-believers who choose to believe there is no god. (All emphases in this article are mine.)

[ii] The congress plays a role in the amendment process but the congress does not and cannot amend the constitution by itself. The congress did not enact the First Amendment. The people did.

[iii] This does not, of course, preclude the individual states from playing a role in religion. The people of each particular state are free to erect walls within walls to protect their religious rights. (My understanding is that all of our state constitutions also guarantee, in some form, freedom of religious expression.) The intent was to have religious diversity on a state-by-state basis ... creating a kind of national shopping mall for religious diversity and freedom.

[iv] (a) Jefferson specifically states in the Danbury letter that his role, as President of the United States, is to execute congressional acts. After the passage of the First Amendment, the congress had no authority in religious matters. The congress was not constitutionally allowed to create any laws dealing with religion. So, logically, Jefferson pledged to refrain "from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church..."

(b) Jefferson was subject to the state and local "walls" or acts established by the people to separate the church and state. This is what he means when he says in the next phrase that he is "subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect." See note 3.

[v] In the recent past, the U.S. Supreme Court has usurped this right reserved to the people by the First Amendment. Since the congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise of a religion, and since the job of the Supreme Court is to insure that the congress does not pass laws outside of the scope of the constitution, the only role the Supreme Court should play in this issue is to declare unconstitutional all laws that attempt, in any fashion, to either respect (grant privilege) to a specific religion or to prohibit the practice of any religion. For more on the Supreme Court and the rights of the individual, see my article "Privacy and Property Rights."

[vi] See note 1.

6) Get me from the church on time
By Scott Johnson

Barack Obama gave his "More Perfect Union" speech in Philadelphia on March 18 to tamp down the furor caused by the release of video excerpts of his pastor's sermons. Obama himself had proclaimed the importance of his pastor to his life over the past twenty years in books and interviews. Both circumstantial and direct evidence demonstrated Obama's knowledge of Reverend Wright's sick and indefensible views.

Rather than forthrightly condemn them in his Philadelphia speech, Obama chose to give the appearance of transcending them. Obama reviewed American history going back to the founding, provided autobiographical reflections, and presented himself as the man come to redeem racial relations in the United States. Obama denied familiarity with the statements whose revelation gave rise to his speech and suggested that they unfairly represented the man. Obama's speech provided the larger context for understanding Wright. Here is the key passage:

Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother...

Obama's speech was hailed as a master stroke by members of the mainstream media and other left-wing partisans. Here, for example, is the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan:

This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides. He addressed the intimate, painful love he has for an imperfect and sometimes embittered man. And how that love enables him to see that man's faults and pain as well as his promise. This is what my faith is about. It is what the Gospels are about. This is a candidate who does not merely speak as a Christian. He acts like a Christian.

Here, for another example, is Time's Joe Klein:

The rhetorical magic of the speech—what made it extraordinary—was that it was, at once, both unequivocal and healing. There were no weasel words, no Bushian platitudes or Clintonian verb-parsing. Obama was unequivocal in his candor about black anger and white resentment—sentiments that few mainstream politicians acknowledge (although demagogues of both races have consistently exploited them). And he was unequivocal in his refusal to disown Wright. Cynics and political opponents quickly noted that Obama used a forest of verbiage to camouflage a correction—the fact that he was aware of Wright's views, that he had heard such sermons from the pulpit, after first denying that he had. And that may have been politics as usual. But the speech wasn't.

It was a grand demonstration of the largely unfulfilled promise of Obama's candidacy: the possibility that, given his eloquence and intelligence, he will be able to create a new sense of national unity—not by smoothing over problems but by confronting them candidly and with civility.

Yet this and its like elsewhere in the mainstream media were not enough for Garry Wills (and the New York Review of Books). For Wills, Obama's speech stood with Abraham Lincoln's 1860 Cooper Union Speech. Lincoln's speech was a remarkable work of original scholarship reconstructing the views of the founding fathers on slavery. Obama's speech was a Clintonian triangulation seeking to negotiate his way through an inconvenient personal controversy, and not very honestly at that. Wills presented himself as the voice of moderation in the media hosannas over Obama's Philadelphia speech:

Obama's speech has been widely praised—compared with JFK's speech to Protestant ministers, or FDR's First Inaugural, even to the Gettysburg Address. Those are exaggerations. But the comparison with the Cooper Union address is both more realistic and more enlightening.

Lincoln's Cooper Union speech is still looking good 150 years later. Obama's Philadelphia speech didn't last 150 days. It failed upon the reeentry of Wright to reiterate the views that had prompted Obama to give the Philadelphia speech in the first place. Thus Obama's press conference on April 29.

At his press conference repudiating Wright, Obama ignored Wright's racist speech to the NAACP in Detroit. Rather, he framed his remarks as a response to Wright's appearance at the National Press Club the following day. In this appearance Wright reiterated what Obama had previously dismissed as "snippets of those sermons" on 9/11 as America's just deserts, AIDS as a product of the United States government, and Louis Farrakhan as a great man. The Wright on display at the National Press Club, however, was a person unrecognizable to Obama. Indeed, he was a person who could be disowned. Moving on from Clintonian triangulation in his Philadelphia speech, Obama had become Nixonian at his press conference. In the immortal formulation of Ron Ziegler, Obama's March 18 Philadelphia speech had by April 29 been rendered "inoperative."

This past Sunday Father Michael Pfleger engaged in merciless racial mockery of Sen. Clinton from the pulpit of Obama's church in Chicago. Although Obama has known Pfleger for some 20 years and Pfleger has been involved in Obama's campaign, Obama professed himself "deeply disapointed" in Pfleger's tirade. Obama conveyed the impression that that he was surprised by the remarks and that they were somehow out of character for Pfleger.

Pfleger's appearance at Trinity United Church was introduced on the pulpit by Pastor Otis Moss. Moss praised Pfleger effusively before his remarks. After Pfleger's remarks, Moss pronounced himself satisfied. Speaking from the pulpit, he said: "We thank God for the message, and we thank God for the messenger." He added: "We thank God for Father Michael Pfleger, we thank God for Father Mike." In his April 29 press conference on Jeremiah Wright, to explain his continuing allegiance to the church, Obama described Moss as TUC's "wonderful young pastor."

Yesterday Obama announced his withdrawal from Trinity United Church on Friday. He rendered both his testimony praising Moss and his inalterable allegiance to Trinity United Church "inoperative." Obama portrayed his resignation from the church both as an act taken to shield himself from having church-related remarks imputed to him, and to shield the church from the scrutiny it had been under. The tenor of his remarks suggest that both he and his church have been the victims of a frenzy.

Obama also vaguely referred to “a cultural and a stylistic gap” as a source of the problem. Perhaps the entire saga is little more than a tribute to the incomprehension of unsophisticated outsiders. Such outsiders lack the tools necessary to understand the reflections of Reverend Wright and his ilk in churches espousing black liberation theology. As in "Cool Hand Luke," according to Obama, what we have here is failure to communicate. Unfortunately, not a single member of the press sought further elaboration from Obama on that point.

Every installment of this saga reveals Obama to be a deeply opportunistic politician, ready to beat a hasty retreat from yesterday's statement of cherished principle in order to fight another day. Each installment of the saga also reveals the organs of the mainstream media to be Obama's handmaidens. From March 18 forward they have cheered on Obama's every step, even when Obama's succeeding steps proved them fools.

In the aftermath of this saga, it should begin to dawn on attentive observers that Barack Obama represents a type that flourishes on many college campuses. The technical term that applies to Obama is b.s. artist. Obama is an overaged example of the phenomenon, but his skills in the art have brought him great success and he's not giving it up now. (This post draws on my own "Wright's wrong" and "Does Barack Obama know his friends?")