Wednesday, May 21, 2008

All Things Barack Obama

Over the past few months, Barack Obama has compiled quite a list of things that he's not supposed to be questioned about.  Rush Limbaugh outlined this list a few days ago on his radio show:

- his ears
- his mother
- his father
- his grandmother (unless he brings her up to call her a 'typical white person')
- his wife
- his preacher
- his terrorist friends
- his voting record
- his religion
- his appeasement
- his race
- his schooling
- his name (Hussein)
- his lack of experience
- his income
- his flag lapel pin

As Rush points out, this all started by the stigma of not calling someone a liberal, even though they most certainly are one.  This little list is precisely what happens when liberals are allowed to redefine words and deflect attention from substantive issues.  That's their best tactic, because the substance of their positions are always bad for America and the American people.

And seriously, why is it that Obama feels all of these topics are off-limits to him?  Mitt Romney had to defend his religion, John Kerry had to deal with his wife, and all of the candidates have to deal with their voting records.  Why should Barack Obama be given a pass?  Oh, that's right...because he's the savior of the world!

This is a great example of Obama's pure elitism.  Just because he doesn't want to answer these questions or address these topics shouldn't matter one bit.  But it does, to him, because he sees himself as better than everyone else and smarter than everyone else, and we should just take him at his word rather than making him answer.

Moving on, Michelle Malkin has compiled a list of her own, this one of the series of serious gaffes Obama has made on the campaign trail.  Check out the Obama Gaffe Machine:

All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of "potatoe." The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush's questions about new scanner technology at a grocers' convention to brand him permanently as out of touch.

But what about Barack Obama? The guy's a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign:

* Last May, he claimed that Kansas tornadoes killed a whopping 10,000 people: "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed." The actual death toll: 12.

*Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: "Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go."

*Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, South Dakota audience, Obama exulted: "Thank you Sioux City…I said it wrong. I've been in Iowa for too long. I'm sorry."

*Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: "Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it's not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle." On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois?

*Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama, he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement:

"There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born."

Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was "speaking metaphorically about the civil rights movement as a whole."

*Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by honing in on a lack of translators: "We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then it's harder for us to use them in Afghanistan." The real reason it's "harder for us to use them" in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi, or other non-Arabic languages.

*Over the weekend in Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multi-billion-dollar massive Hanford nuclear waste clean-up:

"Here's something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I'm not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don't know exactly what's going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I'll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport."

I assume on that ride, a staffer reminded him that he's voted on at least one defense authorization bill that addressed the "costs, schedules, and technical issues" dealing with the nation's most contaminated nuclear waste site.

*Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama's "Dreams from My Father:"

"Then, there's the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don't exist, say the magazine's own historians."

* And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us"–cluelessly arguing that "tiny countries" with small defense budgets can't do us harm– and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."

Barack Obama–promoted by the Left and the media as an all-knowing, articulate, transcendent Messiah–is a walking, talking gaffe machine. How many more passes does he get? How many more can we afford?

And this is the Democrats' best option for President??  If McCain had any fight in him, he should have a field day with this lightweight in November.

There's my two cents.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, just to be clear, the "substantive issues" that "liberal" Obama is trying to "deflect attention" away from include: his EARS, his MOTHER, his FATHER, his GRANDMOTHER, his RACE, his MIDDLE NAME, and his FLAG LAPEL PIN.

Those are substantive issues?

Put another way, you're arguing that it is legitimate to question a presidential candidate (and hence, at least make some basis of your vote) about: his EARS, his FATHER, his MOTHER, his GRANDMOTHER, his RACE, his MIDDLE NAME, and whether or not he wears a FLAG LAPEL PIN?

I guess you can vote on whatever you want, but none of those things will affect my vote (although a big-eared president could be miiiiiighty dangerous).

B J C said...

I'm glad you gave me a chance to clarify my comments, because I clearly didn't communicate as well as I needed to.

Some of the things I listed are not substantive issues. The ears, for example, are obviously trivial. However, some of the other things, are anything but trivial.

His family, for instance: some of them are Islamic radicals stirring up violence in Kenya. How close is he to them, and does he share their views? His middle name: do you really think Islamic terrorists would be intimidated by a U.S. President who shares their name? His race: why is it that we cannot discuss race with this man, who has made race the center of his campaign? His grandmother: case in point of Obama's inherent racism (she's a 'typical white person', remember). His flag lapel pin: why is Obama willing to show his 'true patriotism' by wearing the flag in the Midwest, but not on the East Coast?

Let me be clear: my purpose in pointing out all of these things is that Barack Obama has many, many questions that speak to his character and motivation on any number of subjects that are truly substantive. These are questions that any serious candidate for President of the United States of America should answer so the people of the nation can judge for themselves whether or not the candidate should lead them.

The fact that he deems himself above answering these things is a warning sign. Why does he think he deserves a pass when the other candidates have revealed their own answers? What is he avoiding? What is he hiding?

Obama would be dangerous, not because of his ears, but the mind resting between them.