The above picture is enough to turn me off to Obama, no matter how hopeful his message sometimes sounds. Nevertheless, if we are to believe the media and the polls, many in America find Obama an appealing candidate for the White House.
In a recent commentary in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson offered his analysis for Obama's appeal to certain voters.
Excerpt:
...[A]mong the snaking lines of supporters waiting in the cold for Obama events, there is, as he says, "something stirring in the air." One television reporter who covers the campaign told me of interviewing a New Hampshire woman with high regard for Clinton who was nonetheless supporting Obama. When asked why, she said, "Because on the day Obama becomes president, America would think differently about itself."Read all of Michael Gerson's essay
Obama and his staff clearly believe his candidacy has the potential to be a movement.
[...]
But what is the movement about? It is, above all, the return of idealism. Obama spent the last days before the New Hampshire primary defending "hope" against Clinton's contention that the Illinois senator was raising "false hopes." In the final debate, Obama also defended the use of inspiring words and rhetoric against Clinton's charge that words matter little in comparison to experience. It is a strange, shrunken presidential candidate who makes her final argument an assault on aspiration.
Obama is an impressive carrier of this message for a variety of reasons.
First, his personal style evokes the golden age of nonthreatening, high-minded liberalism from the early 1960s. His crowds may be young and denim-clad, but Obama has a JFK bearing -- conservative suits, fiddling with his starched cuffs, then a hand in his pocket. He dresses and speaks with a well-tailored formality -- his Iowa victory remarks were read from a teleprompter, the sign of well-crafted rhetorical ambition. His manner communicates that politics is a serious, adult business, which could eventually undermine Republican charges of ideological radicalism.
Second, however conventional his current ideological appeal, he has left room for future outreach to middle-ground voters. His stump speech, in the versions I heard, made no mention of abortion -- a typical (and divisive) Democratic applause line. His consistent emphasis on fighting HIV-AIDS globally and promoting development could appeal broadly to religious voters. And Obama does not make cynical use of his race.
Third, Obama's race matters greatly, because most of the American story -- from our flawed founding to the civil rights movement -- has been a struggle between the purity of our ideals and the corruption of our laws and souls. The day an African American stands on the steps of the U.S. Capitol -- built with the labor of slaves -- and takes the oath of office will be a moment of blinding, hopeful brightness....
Is Obama what America needs? Not in my view. But this summer, the Democratic Party's ballot will be finalized, and on November 4, We the People will elect a new President. Unless there is a drastic change in the power of the Obama movement, I predict that Barack HUSSEIN Obama will be on that ballot. And that will be a sorry day for America.
2 comments:
Barack Obama has proven himself willing to be associated with people I would never want to be associated with; his church Pastor and Raila Odinga being two obvious examples.
George Bush associates himself with Saudis, and yet I do not have the same suspicion of George Bush. I believe Bush uses the Saudis in a political way, and allows himself to be used in turn.
Why do I not believe this of Obama? The answer is, I have a very hard time understanding why a man would go to a CHURCH which expresses racist ideas. If one is going to be idealistic in any area of his life, one would think it would be in the area of his church/religious beliefs.
Obama seems to believe in holding up Farrakhan as a positive example. For Obama, that is, apparently, idealism.
If that is his idealism, I'd hate to see his pragmatism.
Obama's association with a black racist separatist church and a ruthless Kenyan demagogue are not anolmalies. They are far more indicative of his character than all the platitudes in all of his campaign speeches. He is getting away with it (so far) because so much of the American public has been manipulated by the educational system, entertaiment industry, MSM, and other Left-dominated elements of our society to believe that the fact that Obama is black makes his candidacy a sign of hope but the fact that he is a member of a church that espouses blatantly racist sentiments is meaningless. Imagine a white candidate trying that with, say, the Aryan Nation. 6 years after 9/11 much of the public is lulled into a false belief that Islam is not the enemy and is so "war-weary" over a military action that in 4 years has claimed fewer American lives than several single battles from the Civil War and WWs I and II that there is dangerously high tolerance for Islamist aggresion. There is also widespread ignorance and deception about the true nature of Islam, which translates into indifference as to the significance of Obama's Muslim upbringing, the nature of his "conversion" and whether he qualities technically as an apostate. There is little or no awareness of the tactic of takiyya, which I increasingly suspect Obama of employing. There is such pervasive Bush Derangement Syndrome that voters rise to the bait of any call for "Change".
In short, most voters are not capable of appreciating the danger Obama represents and will not wake up to it until someone drags it out into the open -- and onto the MSM -- and starts beating him about the head and shoulders with it. Getting past all the idealistic speechifying and proving that he is a semi-Muslim/black supremacist ringer (as I increasingly believe him to be) will not be easy. People do not want their Obama bubble burst and will be very resistant to disilusionment.
I just hope someone starts asking the hard questions. And soon.
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