Harry’s Place

Well, if Palin is ripe for satire, Hannity is beyond it.

Doesn’t seem to be a problem as most Jew haters and truthers are on the Dem side.

Obamese to English Dictionary:

Sliming- Telling the truth about Obama’s past. Particular those parts which he doesn’t want discussed.

Selective slimming? Sounds like a New Labour initiative to improve national fitness.

Reading some of the comments on the threads below, many posters here see Obama as the satanic love child of Hitler, Charles Manson and Sayyid Qutb and the democrats as a sort of later day KKK.

If they could just admit they’re a teeny bit scared of a black man becoming president, they’d feel a whole lot better.

Sliming/Vetting, what’s the difference? Oh yeah “Sliming” is telling the truth about corrupt empty suits with personality cults, wheras “Vetting” is what hysterical maniacs like Gene and Andrew Sullivan do about successful governors.

Yes, I heard Obama once met a man who knew someone who had heard a rumour that someone they had once given a lift to walked along the same street as a Marxist, maybe. A nd did you hjear that Obama is secretly a Menonite? It’s true, just look at his school records - when was the last time you saw him wearing buttons, huh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFjDzppnZ-8

It really has come to something when Bill Clinton is the honest conscience of the Democratic Party.

In the land of braindead personality cultists the serial sexual harasser is king. Or something.

Yes, G., you’re right - Obama is a terrorist, he’s just running for president to blow up the Whitehouse and then sell the ruins to Osama bin Laden. then he’s going to round up all the whitefolk and exterminate them, that’s what I heard the feller down the street say he’d heard a drunk in a bar listening to a radio hear…

Given the McCain camp has done a first class job of trashing its own brand and campaign

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

then none of this should come as any surprise.

Reading some of the comments on the threads below, many posters here see Obama as the satanic love child of Hitler, Charles Manson and Sayyid Qutb and the democrats as a sort of later day KKK.

If they could just admit they’re a teeny bit scared of a black man becoming president, they’d feel a whole lot better.

Bollocks!

Obama is a Marxist, a racist (or incredibly stupid seeing as he attended Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years!) the fact that he’s also mixed-race is utterly irrelevant. There is no way he should be POTUS. He is totally wrong on so many levels. What the fuck is a “Community Organiser” anyway? Why did he attend a black-supremacist church, does “The Audacity of Hope” mean anything in English? What was he doing hanging with the Weather Underground? Does saying “change” or “hope” every effing sentence qualify you for the most powerful elected position in history?

There are many, many reasons to dislike Obama which have nix to do with the colour of his skin.

How David do you think many of the same Republicans who now support McCain a few years back practically begged Colin Powell to throw his hat in the ring? Are they only racist against black democrats? Is General Powell a tame house negro? Please explain otherwise I will have to conclude it’s Obama’s policies and character and background that some folk have a problem with and not the fact he’s a “person of colour”.

Gene, you are becoming more shrill and unhinged every week. Obama has a clear and well documented association with a terrorist. That this says something about Obama’s suitability to be president is not a slime but rather a statement of fact.

I’ve noticed that so far, none of the Obama-bashers seems troubled by the Jew-hating Obama slimer who appeared on Hannity’s program.

I don’t think that Republicans are worried that Obama knew a terrorist. I think they’re more upset that he knew a university professor!

Nick M - more looney tune smears - Obama is not a Marxist, he doesn’t hang with the Weathermen and like many politicians around the world he uses simple soundbites and easily remembered catch phrases while running for office.

Further, I didn’t say that the Republicans were racist. I said, that reading the comments of people posting on this site led me to think ‘they were a teeny bit scared of a black man’.

Your post confirms this view.

“I’ve noticed that so far, none of the Obama-bashers seems troubled by the Jew-hating Obama slimer who appeared on Hannity’s program.”

Bad Sean Hannity. Having someone like Corsi on his show makes him almost as bad as Obama working with an unrepentant terrorist for a decade.

So now can you say whether you are troubled by Obama’s friendship with Ayers?

The greens outdo even the GOP by having an out and out Looney as their presidential candidate
http://redstarcommando.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-didnt-know-there-was-competition.html

Here are some interesting views of Obama from some Israelis who know a thing or two about the Middle East.

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2008/10/israelis-for-obama.html

But, of course, if your authority is Anthony R. (”exterminate Jew power”) Martin-Trigona, you may think the Zionists are biased.

Ross, G. et al - is there any proof that there was a friendship? I’m asking this in all sincerity, from the little I have read the only evidence of them spending time together is that they are both members of a charity board. Is there any more substantive evidence than this?

Added, direct link.

http://www.vimeo.com/1882159

Incidentally the problem with Obama is not that he is a Marxist or a black nationalist, but that he admires those sort of people and considers them to be more ‘authentic‘ than sane people, so he adopts a “No enemies on the left” approach. As he makes clear in his first book:

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our setereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.”

He certainly doesn’t consider it to be a basic act of moral hygeine to avoid getting close to people like Ayers.

I hate to have to repeat myself, but Jerome Corsi (author of The Obama Nation) is nuts but is rejected (on the grounds of insanity and lack of research) by sensible conservatives like Charles Johnson.
It’s hard to link Jerome Corsi with the McCain campaign.

“is there any proof that there was a friendship? “

Well the Chicago mayor, Richard Daley, describes them as friends and this is whilst he is defending Obama:

“People keep trying to align himself with Barack Obama,It’s really unfortunate. They’re friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he’s been making a strong contribution to our community.”

Going negative: I don’t suppose we can expect much better from a wife-leaving gook hater and a book-banning, pro-rape idiot who secretly adopted her retarded grand-daughter. I’m saddened.

Chris that’s a great link thanks.

Ross he’s clearly talking about his days as a student. At university I was friends with Marxists, radical feminists, members of the Pakistan Workers Association, anti-fascists including anarchists, Red Action and Bengali Youth Groups. We too discussed imperialism, the wretched of the earth and patriarchy. Admittedly I drew the line at punk rock performance artists!

None of this is proof that Obama is either a Marxist or a black Nationalist. For god sake he’s a member of the Democratic Party not the Nation of Islam nor Workers Power.

I initially read this as: ‘A call for more selective slimming’. Had absolutely no idea what you were talking about.

OK. I get the idea of the post now. But perhaps it could be better expressed? I think more of us are familiar with ’slimming’ rather than ’sliming’; or is that ’smiling’?

Ross, I misread the first part of your post, I see now that you weren’t claiming that Obama is either a marxist or black nationalist. Your concerned that he admires such people.

Homercles; very funny!

If they could just admit they’re a teeny bit scared of a black man becoming president, they’d feel a whole lot better.

The fact that you are so quick to play the race card suggests that it is you who is the racist here.

But we knew that already - it is liberals who are the race-obsessed race-baiters here. Try looking at a person as an individual sometime, y’know?

I am extremely troubled about Jerome Corsi’s nomination as Presidential Candidate for the Republican Party. I fear he will make a very bad POTUS.

Happy?

If they could just admit they’re a teeny bit scared of a black man becoming president, they’d feel a whole lot better.

Racist drivel. When people object to Obama for being a liar, a follower of an antisemitic preacher, a nobody who has achieved nothing of substance, people like you focus on his skin colour and accuse others of the obsession with race which you suffer from.

Morgoth, this is rich indeed, I have been dumbstruck by the vitriol, lies and open hatred that has been displayed towards Obama on various threads on HP. I have been careful not to talk about ‘Republicans’ or ‘conservatives’ but rather individual posters.

For the record I don’t consider myself a liberal. Its much worse than that, I’m a socialist-Zionist.

Your post confirms this view

Only in your fervid and racist imagination. The post you refer to focused on Obama’s shortcomings as a human being and politician.

OK: it’s Gene, Sullivan and Herman who have lost the plot.

I have been dumbstruck by the vitriol, lies and open hatred that has been displayed towards Obama on various threads on HP

There has been no sick and sickening vitriol displayed towards Palin, of course.

The real story here is that Gene has stopped making his weird and unpleasant remarks about Palin’s bedroom activities and smearing Native American secessionists as “traitors” who need to be subjected to the same treatment as the Confederary to ask an important question.

Why all the hating here people?

Why all the hating here people?

Hatred is the basis of modern liberalism/progressivism.

Scratch a liberal, find a fascist underneath.

Gene has finally lost it.

Complaining about the odd truther or jew hater supporting McCain just doesn’t cut it.

Obama has spent the better part of the last 20 year cozying up to:

one of the most corrupt political machine in the US
one of the most offensive religious segregationists the US
unrepentant domestic terrorists.

Now that’s change!

“Ross, G. et al - is there any proof that there was a friendship?”

Har!

You mean with that old terrorist dude who lives in Obama’s neighborhood?

Har!

Obama only launched his political career in Ayers’ living room.

David,
What nonsense. Point out anything I said in my 3-50pm post which in any way shape or form that can be construed as rascist and I’ll cheerfully buy you a beverage of your choice.

Obama is not my pick for many reasons but his skin colour is not a factor. I dislike him because he is shallow. I dislike him because of his links to Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright and I dislike him because I dislike his politics. The later point is an utterly valid reason to dislike him, though, obviously, personal. The earlier ones are enough for me to think he has no right to aspire to the office he is going for. Well obviously he has the right but he certainly shouldn’t be taken seriously in his bid and there is certainly something screwed in America if he’s got this far already.

David, if you wanna screw America and destroy the West’s and therefore humanity’s last best hope then knock yourself out. Just don’t expect me to join in.

Oh that and basically what Nearly Oxfordian and the Lord of Angband said.

David, how very dare you accuse me of racism. How very dare you!

“If they could just admit they’re a teeny bit scared of a black man becoming president, they’d feel a whole lot better.”

Ooh that’s rich. And sadly, utterly predictable. Oh and did you hear that Palin’s criticism of Obama’s long relationship with a white, upper-class, privileged terrorist has racial undertones?

I think the speculation, by the Associated Press, on race was based around the supposed dog whistle sentence.

“This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,”

I have no idea whether this was written for Palin with race as an agenda.
All I would say is that McCains campaign is reaching desperation point as it plummets in the polls,but even they can’t be so stupid as to use such an vacuuous loose cannon as a conduit for the race card.

Indeed tim. Pure racism, plain and simple.

supposed dog whistle sentence

Some reference to lipsticked Pit Bull’s methinks. How low will you stoop, Tim?

To be fair, stu, it was Associated Press that was playing the Race Card there. T

If Republicans are going to devote the final month of the presidential campaign to sliming Barack Obama– as they apparently (and desperately) have decided to do– I hope they at least will find a way to do it without employing Jew haters and 9/11 “truthers” who appear on hate radio programs

Would it be acceptably sanitary to reproduce a few of Rev. Wright’s speeches or some excerpts from the magazine published by Obama’s church?

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our setereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.

Oh my gawd! Obama actually wrote that?

There isn’t a single cliché he didn’t employ.

It’s identical to the sort of worthless, misinformed shit they used to publish in the late 60s.

Except Obama’s ‘experiences’ date from the 80s.

But it’s still ‘Electric Ladyland’!

Ross he’s clearly talking about his days as a student. At university I was friends with Marxists, radical feminists, members of the Pakistan Workers Association, anti-fascists including anarchists, Red Action and Bengali Youth Groups. We too discussed imperialism, the wretched of the earth and patriarchy. Admittedly I drew the line at punk rock performance artists!

That’s a very narrow and limited range of associations.

Did you know any Christians? Any Roman Ratholics? Did you associate with any conservatives or better yet black conservatives? Ever talked to a Jew for Jesus? Every shook hands with Anita Bryant?

Ever had an independant thought?

What’s yer vector, Victor?

In sum, did you never seek out any of those groups, causes or individuals who now constitute the true subversives?

Many corporate heads these days were/are marxist.

The roster of peoples, cultures and causes you list as associates is really boring and far from cutting edge.

You’re an ‘old’ youth, even at 18, just like Obama.

What a flacid rebellion gene you have!

Sliming Obama is like sliming slime.

Obama is a proven liar (”Jerusalem undivided - well I mean as long as the Palestinians don’t mind”)

He was promoted by the Marxist Terrorist Ayers and served on various fondations with him.

Bought a house at a dicsount courtesy of the crook Rezko.

Sat in a Black Radical Church that spouted race hate.

As someone said “With this background Obama wouldn’t even get past USA immigration”

As far as I’m, concerned McCain can stop the debate on Tuesday and let Obama have both barrels. Get him mad. Get him stuttering. Rile him. Roughouse politics is what McCain MUST do to save America from Obama.

Oh Gene (sigh), Where did it all go so very wrong

Please Gene,

Tell us your views about Obama’s hob-nobbing with domestic terrorists. I think it might be cool to see how far you bend the notion of logic to prove that Obama’s relationship with Ayers is nothing to worry about.

The desperation of the McCain campaign is explained here

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html

As soon as the economic crisis hit,McCain was flapping around like a headless chicken,and as soon as his poll ratings fell as a result,his campaign then followed in the panic.

A sign of how this campaign is in panic is that
1.They tell everyone that they need to change the focus from the economy.
2.They do it on a day when the Dow falls 400-500 points.

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our setereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.”

Surely this is (mostly) ironic though?

The lower McCain’s polling, the more the right resorts to vitriol. I think they should keep it up. They are alienating indies where it counts, the USA. They are going down, but not in the wave of glory they imagine.

Obama - 15 point lead in Pennsylvania, almost tied 2 weeks ago. 10 point lead in Virginia, hasn’t gone blue for President since 1964.

John P - that was my point hardly subversive or cutting edge so why are you beating Obama up for this. I just don’t get it.

Nick M -

Disliking a politicians politics is undoubtedly the best reason not to vote for someone. But by accusing him of being a marxist and racist and declaring him unfit to be president you’re indulging in rabid scare-mongering nonsense. In the racists imagination the black man was/is amongst other stereotypes the harbinger of death and destruction the person thats gonna destroy everything thats good and pure and white. This is why I think this scurrilous anti-Obama campaign posited on this thread is racist.

McCain has been doing well with age 65 retirees. That may soon change. McCain will pay for his health care tax credit with reductions to Medicare.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122315505846605217.html

Dow down 5.85% with 1.75 hrs trading to go.

Maven - ‘let him have it with both barrels’ - a subliminal lynching perhaps?

But he won’t stutter or be mad, he will be smooth, cool and eloquent because by the time of the debate he’ll be so far ahead in the polls that McCain should concede and the Networks call the result.

I’m enjoying seeing all you right-wingers begin to froth! True character is revealed in adversity.

M.B.
Which of McCains strategy guys decided to put Palin in charge of the attacks when they’re trying to win over independents?
Unless of course they think its all over and know they have to rally the base to prevent a wipeout.

Tim - Unless of course they think its all over and know they have to rally the base to prevent a wipeout.

That may be. In doing so, they may be killing their party for a generation. I hate one-party systems.

M.B - perhaps the Republicans will be replaced by the Greens and/or a Nadir led socialist party. Then Americans can experience a real two party system where there’s meaningful ideological difference.

Surely this is (mostly) ironic though?

Nope, he means it.

John P - that was my point hardly subversive or cutting edge so why are you beating Obama up for this. I just don’t get it.

But Obama thinks it was subversive, the cry of a generation.

He’s a rehash! Same old, same old, packaged by his verteran 60s handlers and rolled out as some revolutionary hope ‘n change number. Saddle-shoes and penny-loafers.

He’ll be putty in corporate hands and he’ll be preyed upon by sharks of all stripes who know there’s no substance whatsoever to the guy.

If you can sit in a pew for 20 years listening to Rev. Wright’s bile and never realise the guy’s a nut, then anyone can take advantage of you.

We’re electing a blind bank-teller!

The death of the Federalist party ultimately led to the Whig party. The death of the Whig party led to the Republicans.

The Dems and Repubs have shown themselves infinitely capable of re-invention. The agrarian, pro-slavery Dems, over a century, became the urban party of civil rights and voting rights. The Repubs, party of Lincoln, became the party of Strom Thurmond and David Duke.

We can only participate and observe.

Perhaps Karl Rove is plotting at this very minute, deciding to ditch the moral majority (they’re clearly not) and the Christian right in favor of environmentalists, pro-choice feminists and anarcho-syndicalists.

“The agrarian, pro-slavery Dems, over a century, became the urban party of civil rights and voting rights.”

I higher proportion of Congressional Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Acts. Republicans resist racial quotas, however, which are written into the delegate selection rules of the Democrat National Convention.

Maven - ‘let him have it with both barrels’ - a subliminal lynching perhaps?

Here’s the real reason.

O ba ma! O ba ma! Kool Aid drinkers ONLY want Obama as a protest vote against Bush.

What they have failed to realise, as subtle as this might be, Bush AIN’T RUNNING!!!

Do YOU really want Daily Kos, Moveon.org and NYT to run America? What if Obama’s strings get tangled? What if his teleprompter gets broken?

Mesquito - that’s true but many of the Southern Dems who voted against civil and voting rights went for Wallace in 1968 and transferred to Repub by 1972. The “solid south” was dead.

Maven - while Rome is burning and all that, its not just Bush, he’s gone anyway, its the whole Republican deal. the free market capitalists that have fucked the worlds economy, the giant corporations that have fucked the worlds environment and the stupid, narrow minded culture warriors who quite frankly haven’t fucked anything much other than seriously fucking me off.

So be gone you miserable fuckers and let someone else have a chance of fucking everything up.

Worth 1000 words.

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/10/worth_1000_words.php

A great take on Obama as President. The fall on Wall Street might be all the traders realising that an Obama win will mean much higher taxes. So why not sell sell sell to get your money before its hit for tax. If Obama doesn’t win then buy it all back low.

That’s it. Its a FACT! (I’ve decided)

Obama Responsible for World Stock Market Collapse

Maven - while Rome is burning and all that, its not just Bush, he’s gone anyway, its the whole Republican deal. the free market capitalists that have fucked the worlds economy, the giant corporations that have fucked the worlds environment and the stupid, narrow minded culture warriors who quite frankly haven’t fucked anything much other than seriously fucking me off.

So be gone you miserable fuckers and let someone else have a chance of fucking everything up.

But the Credit Crunch is due to Democratic policy in setting-up Freddie and Fannie and then people liek Barney Fran lying that it was solid.

Obama, as a lawyer helped persue companies who weren’t lending the stated percentage of home loans to shoe-shine boys. Companies were penalised for not selling enough social housing.

The, to make sure of political patronge they made Obama second highest recipient of slush money. He then appointed the discredited executives as his financial advisors.

Yup, that should finish off America.

In a perverse way I think America deserves to be screwed by Obama for teh sheer stupidity and wilful self-destruction of their mindless hypnotic trance.

its the whole Republican deal. the free market capitalists that have fucked the worlds economy, the giant corporations that have fucked the worlds environment and the stupid, narrow minded culture warriors who quite frankly haven’t fucked anything much other than seriously fucking me off.

Bring the referees back to the marketplace.

Mavern - the Republicans have been overseeing the economy for eight years. They have allowed the economy to be controlled by two separate Republican enclaves - the so called Masters of the Universe Wall street hucksters and the giant corporations. These people have perpetrated been a giant swindle against the American people, their ideology was a facade that enabled them to line their own pockets at the expense of the working men and women of America. They have ruined the economy, sent millions into poverty and have themselves walked away with a fortune. The American voter can see this now and will kick the Republicans out of office.

M.B. precisely

David,
And you’d be right except I never, ever said that I think Obama is unfit to be president becuase he’s black.

He’s unfit for that role because he’s a Marxist with links to the that nutter Jeremiah Wright.

Oh, and he is a racist Black Supremecist which is not the same thing as being black per se any more than being white automatically makes one a Neo-Nazi. Skin colour (either way) is a necessary but not a sufficient condition.

Has it not occurred to you that inter alia Obama will put back black folks in US politics a generation. I mean is America ready for a black President? Of course it is! Is it ready for a black president who is also a nasty nutjob. It isn’t and never will be.

Nick - what proof is there that he’s a marxist? what proof is there that he’s a black supremacist? It seems to me that it would be difficult for a democratic senator to be either of these things.

So far, all you have shown is guilt by association. You make unbelievable accusations and then are either unwilling or unable to justify them.

Obama Marxist.

He echo’s the same hatred of his own country that a Marxist activist would. They would be blaming the USA for all the World’s ills - even though its their country.

In Germany Obama apologised to the German people for the mistakes America has made and the negative feelings that go against The USA.

He wouldn’t admit that the surge had worked and it is said he tried to interefer in Iraqi politics on his visist - trying to screw the existing Bush Patreus plan.

He talked about American “bombing villages and killing civilians” rather than the reasons why the USA were in Afghanistan.

Michelle Obama called the USA ” Ad downright mean country”.

He spent 20 years with a pastor of Black Liberation Policy which is rooted in Marxism.

Nope - Marxism and Obam just a rumour!!!

LOL!!!

Anyone to the left of Attila the Hun is a Marxist, dontcha know ?

>Nick - what proof is there that he’s a marxist? what proof is there that he’s a black supremacist? It seems to me that it would be difficult for a democratic senator to be either of these things.

David there is so much evidence it is hard to know where to start.

He was member of a racist, black supremacist, anti-semitic church for 20 years.
He was associated with radical Marxist groups like Acorn
He served on a board with a Marxist terrorist, who was proud of what he did.

Do you need any more?

Maven - this is not evidence, have you any idea what Marxism is! it’s not just a slur to be hurled at people you don’t like.

There is no evidence of Marxism in your post at all - until we get to Black Liberation Policy - it’s my understanding (and I’m not an expert) that Black Liberation Policy split from Marxism over the question of black nationalism. Whereas Marxists believe that class is the primary basis for both analysis and organisation, Black Power believed that for Black people to escape from oppression they would have to organize around ethnicity/race.

You haven’t presented any evidence whatsoever that Obama is a Marxist. In fact, the only conclusion to be drawn from your post is that you have no idea what Marxism is.

“There is no evidence of Marxism in your post at all - until we get to Black Liberation Policy - it’s my understanding (and I’m not an expert) that Black Liberation Policy split from Marxism over the question of black nationalism.”

Har. What a relief. Black Liberation Theolgy couldn’t quite come to grips with the universalist Marxist doctrine (not to meantion the whole deity business) , so they wandered off into fascism instead.

Obama’s coy about his undergraduate interests, but I’ll lay dollars to donuts he was more into Franz Fanon than James Madison.

Obama’s coy about his undergraduate interests, but I’ll lay dollars to donuts he was more into Franz Fanon than James Madison.

So was I in my undergraduate days. Now I’m not. Your point?

Mesquito - to be absolutely clear, I’m not a supporter of either Marxism or Black Liberation Theology, both are inherently totalitarian and anti-human. I just don’t believe there is any compelling evidence presented here that Obama is either a Marxist or a Black Separatist.

M.B. - “many of the Southern Dems who voted against civil and voting rights went for Wallace in 1968 and transferred to Repub by 1972. The “solid south” was dead.”

So if the South was dead to the Democrats could you please explain to me how Jimmy Carter managed to win every single southern state but one in 1976?

The Democrats like to explain their failures in terms of the racism of others. But in fact with credible candidates (and it is hard to believe Carter was once one) they can and do win the South. It is not the racism, it is the elitism.

“So was I in my undergraduate days. Now I’m not. Your point?”

Presumably, Gene, you did not spend the following twenty-three years under the mentorship of a race-bating preacher. Good on you.

“I just don’t believe there is any compelling evidence presented here that Obama is either a Marxist or a Black Separatist.”

I’m not sure what being a Marxist means in the context of U.S. politics, Hermasn. I mean, no Party that I know of is calling for the nationalization of means of production.

However, Obama’s long-term membership in a black nationalist church, his tens of thousands of dollars of donations to that church, his protege relationship with that church’s pastor, his titling his book after one of that pastors sermons, his praising that pastor in his other book, that churches website, his estimate of attending to over 500 sermons in that church, his attendance at Louis Farrakhan’s Numerology For The Masses rally…

Well, Herman, these are what we Sherlocks of the world call “clues.”

“So if the South was dead to the Democrats could you please explain to me how Jimmy Carter managed to win every single southern state but one in 1976?”

Identity politics doesn’t necessarily break the rule. Add Bill Clinton to your list. Lyndon Johnson, also a southerner, presided during the breakup of the New Deal coalition so I don’t add him.

Anyway, solid south always referred to voting blocs in Congress, not the Executive branch.

Black self-determination was always a plank of the Stalinist and Trotskyist left in the USA. The center-left has been integrationist.

The South isn’t all solid Republican this year.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14304.html

McCain has not visited the state since June, when he met privately with evangelists Billy and Franklin Graham. There are no immediate plans for McCain to return to North Carolina, according to Brent Woodcox, a spokesman for the state Republican Party.

Bet the plans change by next week.

They are circling their wagons in ever smaller circles. To fend off the indies.

The lower McCain’s polling, the more the right resorts to vitriol

These idiots just don’t get it, do they? This is nothing compared to the pathological hatred displayed towards Palin. Furthermore, the latter is based predominantly on brazen lies, whereas the criticism of Obama is based largely on exposing his lies and his association with racist scum.

I’m enjoying seeing all you right-wingers begin to froth!

The frightening thing is, he actually believes his own drivel.

No sweat, oxfordian.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Republican John McCain is calling Democratic rival Barack Obama a liar.

McCain drew the loudest cheers when he said the Democrat has written two memoirs but “he’s not exactly an open book.”

N.O. - It’s about Americans watching their net assets go bye-bye and who is better equipped to fix it.

Nobody takes McCain seriously on the economy.

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12342127

Even Republicans

Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject.

tim, I don’t mean to pry, but are you even an American?

Did you know any Christians? Any Roman Ratholics? - John P.

Is that the church to which Scooby-Doo belongs?

“Is that the church to which Scooby-Doo belongs?”

That’s not at all funny.

Okay. Actually it is.

The first national numbers since the VP debate came out on Monday. It seems the snap polls were right, and Biden did better than Obama, whose lead has widened over McCain/Palin.

I remember that some of the punters here thought that Obama had made a real mistake in the first debate, when he repeatedly said things like, “I agree with Mr McCain”. They thought that was laughable, and yet it actually went down rather well with the public. Similarly, there seems to be some level of ecstacy here about the Palin/McCain attack on Obama. But the initial polls are indicating that this is back-firing on the McCain/Palin campaign, and increasing the problem the public has with Palin.

Wait and see what the polls say in three days, but a tactic that worked in 2004 doesn’t always work the same way, when you do the same thing in 2008.

If I were on the Obama campaign, I’d be hoping for more of this and nothing on the economy from McCain/Palin. People who hate Obama love this tactic and they’re screaming out for more because they smell blood, which some find exciting, and they think the blood they smell is Obama’s. But the polls will tell whose blood it is. Too early to say, at this stage, though I have a theory.

But I don’t think that people who simply want the Republican team to win are very pleased with McCain/Palin at this moment.

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our setereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.”

Sounds like your average student to me. George Bush Jr. was a male cheerleader and fratboy.

I read Fanon. I read Hitler. It’s good to get a grounding, even if you disagree. Ultimately, you know what you’re talking about.

Obama is clearly a grounded, erudite and and rounded human being.

Obamakids Remix, It Takes A Village Of The Damned.

Even Gene will like this:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/10/it-takes-a-vill.html

“I read Fanon. I read Hitler. It’s good to get a grounding, even if you disagree. Ultimately, you know what you’re talking about. ”

So did I. I especillay recall the bloodcurding intro in my copy by some French dude named Sartre.

I did not spend the following 23 years as a tithing member of a white-hating church, however.

Mesquito: “tim, I don’t mean to pry, but are you even an American?”

Well, Tim? Are you even an American?

Gah, you’ll notice that Tim very much picks and chooses when he decides to pop up and comment.

Come on Tim, answer the man!

Paul, I suspected tim was in a radically different longitude when he announced bedtime at about 3:30 one afternoon. But I want to hear it from him.

I note that Gene has still not condemned Obama for associating with Ayers.

Tim lives in England. Does that disqualify him from taking an interest in and having opinions on an election that will affect the whole world?

“Tim lives in England. Does that disqualify him from taking an interest in and having opinions on an election that will affect the whole world?”

Not at all, Gene. The angloshere is one big happy family, right? But though I generally pull for the Tories, I would never presume to suggest to a Briton how he should vote. But America is a big, powerful country and our elections have consequnces around the world, so I suppose it is somewhat inevitable, and maybe even a little flattering, that they should attract cosmopolitan attention.

What is puzzling, however, is tim’s bizarre and even obsessive interest in the police and accounting procedures of Wasilla, Alaska.

Mesquito.
I’m British.

Whatever point you’re trying to make.

And Gene, I understand tim’s not alone. Some of the the juicier Palin emails have arrived in my inbox via my Lefty Norwegian relatives.

Why Bill Ayers Won’t Save John McCain

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_flack/archive/2008/10/05/it-s-over.aspx

Wll, tim, that explains why you were completely thrown by the news that Nevada and Arizona each contain urban counties.

I was certainly thrown by your assertion that mortgage failures were related to population density rather than the type of mortgages taken.

(see todays news on Countrywide for clarification)

But I tell you what, You feel free to point out any errors that you think I’m making.

Admit it , tim. I am referring map you posted as “proof” about default rates, and your assertion that the dark areas in southern Arizona and southern Nevada indicated rural Americans default at a higher rate. Now that you say you don’t live in this country, it makes perfect sense. It’s no big deal, really . I pray I’m never asked to point to Nottingham or Sheffield on an unmarked map, because I can’t. But you tear headlong into rather arcane and detailed arguments about this country, while simultaneasly betraying huge gaps in knowledge.

I seem to remember arguing that foreclosure rates were not related to population density.
But if it makes you happy to rewrite now then thats fine.

Feel free to correct me in the future.

This is the point where you generally get all passive-aggresive, so I won’t pursue it any longer. I know what I read, you know what you wrote.

I wonder what happened to my post?

I suppose it’s remotely possible that an ‘undecided’ American voter could wander by and be swayed by tim’s posts and comments.

Who knows, Boogski? And perhaps in Cornwall, wherever the hell that is, some silent lurker has been pushed by my brilliant polemics into the Conservative column.

Mesquito:

“I did not spend the following 23 years as a tithing member of a white-hating church, however.”

Sure, point taken. On the other hand, he’s publicly distanced himself from this cleric and it’s frankly hard to believe that Obama really shares such views or that he would have these views reflected in national policy. He appears to come from a racially integrated background.

Palin’s references to God and her stated beliefs are IMO equally, if not more, worrying and I think on that count there is some concern. Let me put it this way - I think Palin’s political beliefs for example) are far more dogmatic than Obama’s or even McCains.

Meir:

1) It took 23 years and a candidacy for President for Obama to decide that Wright’s views were not acceptable to him.

2) Which of Palin’s stated beliefs are you referring to? As an American resident of the Bible Belt, I am undisturbed by references to God, even tho I have not personally darkened the door of a church in many, many years. They are part of the cultural air I breathe. I know a lot of beliefs have been attributed to Palin by people hostile to her. I would prefer you referred to something she actually said.

What is puzzling, however, is McCain’s bizarre and even obsessive choice of the recent mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

Both Nikkei and Heng Seng down 5.00% at 8:45 pm EDT.

Does Gene believe, as the Obama campaign says, that Obama did not know about the Weather Underground past of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn when he launched visited Ayers home in 1995 to launch his polical career?

mesquito
and? would it have been innapropriate for Israeli politicians to visit or associate with Shamir despite the fact that he was involved in the assassination of Bernadotte?
why is there such a focus on the past associations of people rather than what they are currently advocating?
Ok, your against Obama for X reasons - but surely the fact that he hung out with Ayers, Wright, Reszko etc have to be lower down the food chain of objections. Concentrate on the big stuff rather than this trivia.
end the slime now!

1) Who the hell is Bernadotte?
2) Why should I care?
3) but surely the fact that he hung out with Ayers, Wright, Reszko etc have to be lower down the food chain of objections. Certainly, and I have discussed higher-order concern and I’m willing to do so again. I imagine what sits atop your issue food chain is not what sits atop mine, which is closely related to the character, associations and philosophy of the President of the United States.

You really have to stop going round accusing someone of being a Commie, a dupe, the Manchurian candidate, just because he knew William Ayers for years, and served with him for years on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) charity.

I’m referring, of course, to Governor James Edgar, the Republican Governor of Illinois at the time Obama was on the CAC board. Edgar helped set up CAC, and served on the board with Ayers for longer than Obama. Unlike Obama, the Republican has never denounced Ayers’s activities over 40 years ago.

Stop the conspiracy theories about the Republican Party’s James Edgar NOW!

Seriously, there’s a big reason why the Ayers thing isn’t working: people care about the economy. They don’t care about the Weathermen (The Weathermen? They were from the sixties, right? Remind me: what were some of their songs?)

They don’t even believe McCain/Palin when they pretend that they care about the Weathermen.

The secondary reason is that as an issue it’s as phony as lipstick on a pig. Not to mention as phoney as pretending to be outraged when someone says lipstick on a pig. If the Republican Governor of Illinois didn’t have a problem with working with Ayers in the 1990s, then the issue is bullshit. It’s that simple. I don’t think anyone who isn’t already a partisan gives a toss about Ayers, one way or another, and no amount of huffing and puffing is going to make it so. It will, however, feed into a negative impression of Palin; and McCain’s welcome to get closer to the issue.

(Now Watergate, at least that’s a scandal that people remember. The Obama campaign’s said nothing, not a word, about McCain’s Watergate associations. But I’d guarantee they have the TV spots already made.)

In the meantime the Ayers thing has given McCain a new problem, which is that he’s now stuck with it for the second debate. In Town Hall format, too, which isn’t ideal for doing personal attacks.

McCain’s either got to walk away from the fluff and talk about the economy, in which case he’s going to look like an embarrassed failed opportunist, but that’s the least bad of his options.

Alternatively he can run with it, in which case he’s going to look disconnected from 2008, America, its economy, and planet Earth in general. Also, McCain talking about the sixties and seventies, in a 2008 debate, would be like him wearing a sign that says, “Look at me: I’m living in the past! And did I mention that I’m old?”

McCain’s snookered himself, with help from his twitching friend. I don’t think his campaign managers, if anyone is helming their campaign at this stage, can be very happy.

The real lesson for Republicans is that McCain’s pandering to the Christian right didn’t invigorate his Presidential bid, as so many lazy pundits expected. It destroyed it. Now Republicans need to find a serious candidate for 2012, applying that lesson.

“The real lesson for Republicans is that McCain’s pandering to the Christian right didn’t invigorate his Presidential bid, as so many lazy pundits expected.”

McCain’s campaign was invigorated by Palin of the Christian right, but not broadened. They are preaching to the choir.

How the recession will remake American politics.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=ee519051-33b9-4f93-98f9-05c0e33ab41e

That’s a fair distinction, M B, about invigorating but not broadening. And the religious right probably still is invigorated.

But her impact on the wider base of usual-Republican voters, and Republican-leaning swinging voters: that aint no invigoration, boy howdy wink. They probably won’t vote for Obama; they just won’t vote. For moderate and liberal Republicans, Palin is the poster girl for not bothering, on election day.

I’m not sure about the Jonathan Chait piece in TNR, though I’d like some of it to be true. But President Obama seems unlikely to be much different from McCain on issues of economic or foreign policy substance. He won’t bring the New Dawn, and neither will the sky fall in.

Still, managing a political campaign is a test of political and excutive skill. Based on McCain’s rudderless performance in the last month, and Obama’s chess-playing, controlled campaign, my opinion of Obama has lifted a few notches (without getting all that high). On that showing I’d expect him mostly to pursue the same policies, for good or ill, but significantly more competently.

M.a.N.
Contrary to popular belief, I see Obama simply as a big city politician. Obama has the analytical skills and temperment to choose a great cabinet and be a better than average president. He would be helped by a good sized majority in the House and a filibuster proof majority (60) in the Senate. He will drive government like a vehicle rather than dismantle it for parts like the bozos in power the past 8 years.

Any comments about Obama stealing the election by getting his cronies ACORN to bus homeless people around Ohio to different areas so they can vote Democrat several times?

Any comment about Obama’s campaign being caught ouit receiving illegal donations and has just returned them?

How does Obama spend 10+ years with Ayers and not realise he is a terrorist who also wrote about his terrorism and unrepententness while working with Obama?

How does Obama spend 20 years in a church and not once hear a racist sermon by Rev Wright?

Why does ho go on the Million Man march knwing that Farrakhan was an Antisemite (note a charge made about Corsi who’s book exposes Obama)?

Tell me why you want Obama to win.

I will bet your answer is to do with Bush. But no-one will EVER tell you what Obama has done in his life that qualifies him to be President. He has LESS executive experience than Palin.

M B: then our reasons for supporting Obamas over McCain are essentially the same. Though in my case it took the appointment of Palin for me to think the differences mattered.

Maven, I think you’re on to something, and I suggest that you write all that down and go to a McCain rally, or an Obama one (doesn’t really matter which), with your placard. Try to get it on TV: that’ll make them WAKE UP to the TRUTH!!! (By the way, did you know Obama’s a Malingerer?)

(The Weathermen? They were from the sixties, right? Remind me: what were some of their songs?) - Mine’s a Newt
Did they do It’s Raining Girls?

TBH what seemed rum to me was Obama defending (the right rev) Rev Wright* (by saying “hey, my gran was a racist but I still talk to her”) and THEN just ditching him. I’d have less problems if he’d stuck with him.

I’d have even less problem if you didn’t have to profess some religious faith before you’re allowed to be president.

*Pointless ancient KYTV reference, let’s pretend it’s a tribute to Geoffrey Perkins

Maven,

“He spent 20 years with a pastor of Black Liberation Policy which is rooted in Marxism.”

Wasnt the Civil Rights movements accused of being rooted in Marxism?

Maven,

And can you please explain to me what Black Liberation Policy is?

I’m willing to give Rev. Wright a pass. Any black man that served in the US millitary before Civil Rights legislation was passed gets to talk as much shit as they want.

Can someone please explain to me what is so objectionable about either Black nationalism or Black Liberation theology? Have we forgotten the history of black people in America? You werent going to convince every black person to be a turn the other cheeck imitation of Martin Luther King, who was on occasion accused of being a radical himself. Black naitonal or BLT as a vehicle for poitical and social enfranchisement?

I guess its a black thing and many here just wouldnt understand. Are there any Jewish people here?

1) It took 23 years and a candidacy for President for Obama to decide that Wright’s views were not acceptable to him.

-actually Mesquito I thought it was only after he went to the National Press Club and called him a phoney was when Obama formally ditched him? He sort of started to distance himself before that, but the dealbreaker was the embarassing shenanigans and call out.

Secondly, come the first 12 months after victory there are most likely going to be a lot of Americans who are upset about what actually happens. I suggest that Obama will probably deliver on virtually nothing (except the withdrawal) and will blame all the failures/inability to deliver on the stuffed economy - fair enough call too, but for all those folks thinking that massive changes etc are going to occur it will be dissapointing.
(I hope I’m wrong though)

@ King Creole: Hallelujah! It’s raining girls! In pearls!
Yeah, thanks for clearing that up. I remember now: the Weatherman were those two huge cheery guys in dresses. So how did Obama get to be in the Weathermen? Did he wear a fat suit?

Agreed about the de facto religious test for President. It’s what the voters want, so they’ll always have to guess whether their candidate believes stupid things for insane reasons, or is only pretending to.

And I see your point that it would be more personally honourable for Obama to stand by the preacher-man, but the reality is that he had to do the Sistah-Souljah thing to Wright, so he did it. He’s a politicians, after all; ruthless comes with the territory.

Wasn’t it the Clintons who first used Wright against Obama? And didn’t Obama turn it into a political plus, with his repudiation of Wright and rather good speech on race? The Clintons are way smarter and more formidable than McCain. And yet Obama beat them.

I used to be puzzled by that. Not any more. Obama’s actually better than Clinton at his peak. This is the smartest and most formidable politician around at the moment. That’s not entirely a compliment, but it is the case.

Obama has also surrounded himself with a calm and efficient team who are sticking to their strategy.
McCain had Gramm,Fiorina and Rick Davis to put on the media to cover the economy.None of whom are allowed out anymore

@ Black Voter,
You asked Maven what “Black Liberation Policy” is. Fair question, but Maven’s the guy who said:

“So many negative references to McCain’s age are truly offensive. I don’t see debaters focusing on Obama being a Mulatto, (or Black as he prefers to call it).”

Then he said he wasn’t being offensive, so that’s ok then.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/09/27/debate-comments/

Black Voter asks:

Can someone please explain to me what is so objectionable about either Black nationalism or Black Liberation theology?

Well since we have a black presidential candidate who happens to be leading in the polls, one wonders what it is blacks need “liberation” from.

“Black Nationalism”? Oh dear.

“Can someone please explain to me what is so objectionable about either Black nationalism or Black Liberation theology?”

Black nationalism is merely silly, since nationalsim implies at the very least a defined geography.

Black Liberation Theology, as defined by Cone, is simply racial hatred dressed up as Christianity. When Cone writes that a white person cannot be a “true” Christian, what else is there to know?

Rome burns…and the presidential campaign is sidetracked with guilt by association scaremongering and ahistorical observations.

As examples, first, Obama, in pellucid prose, admits his student associations and subsequent church membership. (Nothing wrong in any of this - I was an adolescent trot - it’s a phase, get over it.) To those of Republican - or conservative - bent, apparently this is sufficient evidence that Obama is a Marxist and or black liberationist. Never mind that none of Obama’s proposals or advisors are anything other than mainstream American political and economic types (and many would be considered right wing in most European countries).

Ah, yes, Obama’s connections (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). David Herman, more succintly than me, opened up the charge that much of the concern about Obama relates to his skintone. Maybe not on this board - maybe everybody here is grown up and decent. But let’s be clear, at the very least, some of the anti-Obama muckraking is deliberately intended to appeal to a large constituent of visceral racists - a black man as President…can you really trust him?

And then, there is the ahistorical. I mean…have you seen who Obama associates with? One would think that all previous Presidents have been free from the taint of scandal. And yes, looking at recent history, if you were to exclude JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush pere, Clinton and Bush fils - all of whom presided over a variety of scandals and in many cases rubbed shoulders with some errr….people of interesting backgrounds - yes, exclude them and you’re left with poor ol’ Jimmy Carter, whose transgressions were small beer in comparison.

But this is all irrelevant compared to the near-collapse of the banking system and the impending global recession. How do the candidates propose to stabilise the economy? And how do they propose to fund the stabilisation (raise taxation and/or cut works programmes and/or pull back on military campaigns)?

How long into your fifth decade were you an adolescent, J?

The long arm of Gene reaches as far as Kenya.

BBC News reports:

Kenyan authorities have detained the American author of a highly critical book about US presidential candidate Barack Obama, officials have said. The author of The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality has been accused of a smear campaign against Mr Obama.

Mr Obama’s father was from Kenya, where the US candidate is highly popular.

Mr Corsi had reportedly travelled to Kenya to unveil his best-selling book there.

In a recent press release, the author said he would “expose deep secret ties between between US Democratic presidential candidate Sen Barack Obama and a section of the Kenyan government leaders.”

of course McCain was in his fifth decade when he got involved in terrorism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_iran_contra;_ylt=Ai3M8HMMRfXJ6.qa7esyxWOyFz4D

His sixth decade when he got involved with Charles Keating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five

And his seventh decade when he got involved with G.Gordon Liddy.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0504chapmanmay04,0,6238795.column

Tim,

You don’t really want to go here:

His sixth decade when he got involved with Charles Keating.

McCain has himself described the affair as “the worst mistake of my life”, and one which led him to sponsor legislation on campaign finance reform. In other words he made a mistake and then worked to pass legislation to make it harder for people in the future to do the same.

After Obama’s errors (Rezko, Ayres, Wright, and Fannie Mae) he decided to run for President.

I think the difference in the two candidates approaches are illuminating.

“How long into your fifth decade were you an adolescent, J?”

Haha Mesquito. Depends who you ask, I guess. Although, if you were referring to my confession above, the past tense was the key. I don’t suppose I’ve considered myself a trot for at least twenty years. Some would say I wasn’t much of a trot to start with, but that’s another story.

But I’m sure I’ll confirm your suspicions by noting that imho Liddy is a much more significant historical figure than Ayers - and what the former achieved was considerably more damaging to America.

mcCain didn’t learn too much from his “poor judgement” regarding banks.
I agree with you with respect to campaign finance.
However,you’ll find that on the subject of personal gifts that McCain received from Keating (flights and holidays etc) honest John only paid the due tax to the IRS when he was tracked down by the receivers.

Tim, what did Obama learn from his errors? What legislation did he pass?

Which errors?

In these these “judgement” issues I don’t really see how a change in legislation would affect say, Obama and Ayers, or McCain and Liddy.
(obviously McCains peronal gifts from Keating and legislation already existed,hence McCain had to pay the tax on the gifts and flights,holidays etc.Surprisingly only when tracked down.)

Actually, McCain will have to start doing some spinning about Keating because the media is going to “go there”. It’s substantive, unlike the Ayers fluff, it has to do with the economy, which gives it some shadow of relevance, and Palin opened the door.

When it hurts, McCain/Palin will have at least one consoling thought: “Well, we started it, so kismet.” Maybe that’s not consoling, but it’s what happens when you forget that the name of the game is be hit and hit back.

In reserve: McCain and Watergate, which the Obama campaign hasn’t even mentioned. It’s possible that they’ll figure that they don’t need it, and Palin’s doing their work for them. I think they’ll win without it, and they’ll start the Presidency better if they minimise the hitting back. But who knows what’ll happen?

Swift boat 2004, flat tyre 2008.

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-david-blaine-award.html

An archive worth searching* and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

With Ayers, the focus is kept on his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8 and kept off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist, who drafted the original application to the Annenberg challenge.

*Especially with regard to:

Mike Klonsky, Maoist, also of the SDS, who was a blogger on Obama’s offical site until June 2008, and one of his education advisers
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-is-it-under-that-bus-comrade.html

” It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.”
Steve Diamond

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ayersklonskyobama-links-is-it-only.html

The above concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

2nd Attempt…why?

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-david-blaine-award.html

An archive worth searching* and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

With Ayers, the focus is kept on his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8 and kept off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist, who drafted the original application to the Annenberg challenge.

*Especially with regard to:

Mike Klonsky, Maoist, also of the SDS, who was a blogger on Obama’s offical site until June 2008, and one of his education advisers
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-is-it-under-that-bus-comrade.html

” It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.”
Steve Diamond

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ayersklonskyobama-links-is-it-only.html

The above concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

Lets start with his close relationship with Nation of Islam associate Tony Rezko, who has given him $250k in donations - though that figure keeps rising.

3rd attempt

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-david-blaine-award.html

An archive worth searching* and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

With Ayers, the focus is kept on his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8 and kept off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist, who drafted the original application to the Annenberg challenge.

*Especially with regard to:

Mike Klonsky, Maoist, also of the SDS, who was a blogger on Obama’s offical site until June 2008, and one of his education advisers
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-is-it-under-that-bus-comrade.html

” It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.”
Steve Diamond

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ayersklonskyobama-links-is-it-only.html

The above concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

Its amazing how easily McCain was bought.

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

And also amazing that he took all the personal gifts,without thinking that he had to declare them.

In the meantime in a boost to McCain a US warplane has been forced to land in Iran. An F-16 flying from Turkey no less.

Actually not an F-16 but a lost military exec jet.

And also amazing that he took all the personal gifts,without thinking that he had to declare them.

Kind of like how Rezko gave Obama a huge discount on his house?

How does that boost McCain?
(besides distracting from talk about the economy)

Lets him legitimately witter on about POW/MIA stuff and not talking to bad men in turbans.

Doubtful

The agency added that the incursion was unintentional, and those on board were questioned and released.

All US aircraft in the region have been accounted for.

Kind of like how Rezko gave Obama a huge discount on his house?

Did he?
Could you provide a link.

The only falcon that can carry that many people is a French Dassault exec jet - so probably not US military.

From the Chicago Sun-Times

A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko’s wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood — a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million — $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko’s wife paid full price — $625,000 — for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko’s wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it “boneheaded” because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/757340,CST-NWS-watchdog24.article

Tim,

At that time the housing market was booming and discounts were unusual. And $300k was a huge discount. I bought a house north of Santa Fe, NM for nearly $300k and it is quite a nice place.

4th attempt

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-david-blaine-award.html

An archive worth searching* and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

With Ayers, the focus is kept on his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8 and kept off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist, who drafted the original application to the Annenberg challenge.

*Especially with regard to:

Mike Klonsky, Maoist, also of the SDS, who was a blogger on Obama’s offical site until June 2008, and one of his education advisers
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-is-it-under-that-bus-comrade.html

” It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.”
Steve Diamond

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ayersklonskyobama-links-is-it-only.html

The above concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

(4th attempt to post, it’s your own fault if I’ve snowed you)

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-david-blaine-award.html

An archive worth searching* and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

With Ayers, the focus is kept on his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8 and kept off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist, who drafted the original application to the Annenberg challenge.

*Especially with regard to:

Mike Klonsky, Maoist, also of the SDS, who was a blogger on Obama’s offical site until June 2008, and one of his education advisers
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-is-it-under-that-bus-comrade.html

” It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of

maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the
student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.”
Steve Diamond

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ayersklonskyobama-links-is-it-only.html

The above concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

After Rezko was found guilty in his first trial there was a statement released by Obama:

“I’m saddened by today’s verdict. This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew, but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform. I encourage the General Assembly to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these kinds of abuses in the future.” – Senator Barack Obama

But now the plot thickens:

Political fund-raiser Tony Rezko is in the midst of intense discussions with federal investigators, sources close to the investigation confirmed to the Chicago Sun-Times. Already Rezko has provided information to the feds, who are in the process of vetting it, sources said.

The implications of Rezko’s cooperation are innumerable. His reach as a businessman, political adviser, real estate mogul and political fundraiser has the potential to take federal authorities from Springfield to Iraq.A few months before his conviction, Rezko wrote a letter saying prosecutors were pressuring him to give them information on Blagojevich and White House hopeful Barack Obama.

Stu.
The seller of the house a Mr Wondiford,has said that the house was on the market for months and that the Obamas offer was the highest received on the closing day for bids.

You’ll have to do better than that.

Sorry, Wondisford was the sellers name.

Tim, you think it was just fine, while Obama thinks it boneheaded. Do you not feel that your objectivity is becoming a little questionable?

We can settle on boneheaded if you like.
No one of course alleges corruption.

However,all told I think you can see clearly that its not quite the same as being bought as a Sentor by a corrupt bank,lobbying for it and taking personal gifts, only paying tax on them when the IRS tracks you down through the banks expense accounts..

Its possible Palin has a tax evasion problem.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/07/1504426.aspx

Tim, I think this is getting really silly. I refuse to believe that you think the entirety of Obama’s relationships with Ayres, Rezko, Wright, and Fannie Mae are indicative of something troubling.

Obama on Rezko:

I’m saddened by today’s verdict. This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew

Obama on Wright:

“He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children, I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community”

But then after a video of one of Wright’s speeches became public:

“The person I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago,” Obama said.

I mean c’mon, Tim. Is your guy a really bad judge of character, a liar, or a fool?

Answer: None of the above - he is just another sleazy Chicago politician.

I would question his judgement on the Wright case in particular.
I think that the house sale is a non story,and rests on 2how it looks” rather than any substance.
On the Ayers case I think Obama has denounced his views and actions of 40 years previously.

However, you wish to compare any of this to the seriousness of McCains lack of judgement over the Keating affair,I think you’ll struggle.
And thats without going into the Liddy and Contra stuff.

And additionally,the American people seem,according to the polls,to have a great deal of respect for both candidates.Far more than they did for Bush or Kerry.
You know as well as well as I do that McCain running with this stuff is a sign of desperation,and that he risks trashing his own brand.

Before the campaign began I thought either would make a good President, watching McCains recklessness in selecting Palin and his panic over the economy has changed my mind on that.

Personally I thought both were incapable of being President. But Obama more so. I’ve yet to change my mind.

McCain running with this stuff is a sign of desperation,and that he risks trashing his own brand.

I agree with that. But I think the desperation is in the face of a supine media. They do appear to be “in the bag” for Obama.

McCain & Co. are resorting to smears against Obama because that is the only thing they can do. Not only the Economy (800 pound gorilla that it is) but every other major issue such as the Iraq War works against McCain.

McCain made a fool of himself for a fortnight,over the economy,all over the media.
Thats not the medias fault.

And the Media did not force McCain to have the banker’s friend, former Senator Phil Gramm as his principal economic advisor.

The Media didn’t make Carly “Golden Parachute” Fiorina implode either. Nor did it make McCains Campaign Manager lie about his pay from Fannie Mae.

tim: Who is Robert Bennet?

And tim: No fair peeking.

David and Tim, I trump you with Jim Johnson!!! Fannie Mae Chief Exec and Obama VP Finder.

Pay up dudes.

Nor did it make McCains Campaign Manager lie about his pay from Fannie Mae.

Was it more than the $21 million Johnson got, or as much as Obama pocketed (hint he was third on their donations list when they went bust)

@Boogski,

“Well since we have a black presidential candidate who happens to be leading in the polls, one wonders what it is blacks need “liberation” from.”

During the late 80s and the early 90s I remember the black nationalist movement was tied to pan Africanism, the gang and crack cocaine epedimic in the cities, and a fight against aparthied in South Africa. You guys dont remember all the rappers of that period? Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, X Clan? Have you watched School Daze? Does any remember what was going on on Historically Black Campuses and among black students at university? Cross Colors?

What does Black Nationalism have to do with Obama’s presidency? What is the basis of the ciriticism of black nationalism and black liberation theology?

” It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.”
Steve Diamond

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ayersklonskyobama-links-is-it-only.html

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-david-blaine-award.html

An archive worth searching* and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

With Ayers, the focus is kept on his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8 and kept off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist.

*Especially with regard to:

Mike Klonsky, Maoist, also of the SDS, who was a blogger on Obama’s offical site until June 2008, and one of his education advisers.

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-is-it-under-that-bus-comrade.html

Diamond’s concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

Robert Bennett is one of McCains lawyers.

tim: Robert Bennet, a Democrat, was lead council to the Senate Ethics Committe and chief investigator of the Keating matter. He told the Committe that 4 senators deserved their scrutiny. Since they were all Democrats, and the Senate was controlled by that party, that would simply not do. The committee added McCain to the list over Bennet’s objections.

mesquito,

“Black nationalism is merely silly, since nationalsim implies at the very least a defined geography.”

Not for black Americans. Blacks did have their geographical space- the ghetto. It did include pan Africanism especially for many black students in university during the late 80s early 80s who were actively against apartheid. Have you seen Spike Lee’s School Daze? Closer to home, there was a gang and crack cocaine epedimic going on in the black community. When the rapper Queen Latifah was talking about U.N.I.T.Y among blacks in the early 90s, it was against the gang and the dope wars that was killing hundreds upon hundreds.

“Black Liberation Theology, as defined by Cone, is simply racial hatred dressed up as Christianity. When Cone writes that a white person cannot be a “true” Christian, what else is there to know?”

When Cone probably made that statement, it was probably at a time when it may have been difficult for you to prove him otherwise. I think you should quote him in full. It sounds like that sentiment might be tempered by context.

And?

It is not just what he did 40 years ago, although it serves Obama’s cause to confine the subject to his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8. It keeps scrutiny off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Steve Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist.

‘It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.’
Steve Diamond

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ayersklonskyobama-links-is-it-only.html

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-david-blaine-award.html

An archive worth searching* and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

*Especially with regard to:

Mike Klonsky, Maoist, also of the SDS, who was a blogger on Obama’s offical site until June 2008, and one of his education advisers, see ‘how is it under that bus comrade’

Diamond’s concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

As far as I’m aware, BV, that sentiment was expressed in edition after edition of Cone’s book.

Any “nationalism” I ever heard of could not sustain itself in or identify itself by urban ghettos. By that standard the Sharks and Jets were “nationalists” as well.

Would a kind commenter tell me why my post will not be accepted. Originally written at 14.15, with three links in the body of the text, then I removed one in case there is a bar on over two. Several attempts, with different email addresses.

I had that last week.
Try a change of name eg D.Mc

Any idea what causes that?

Brett had a look at it last week but it seemed to fix itself after a while.

Thanks, will try once more.

I post rarely and the Daley McSheen was the first change when it failed first. It (wordpress) did say I had already posted the comment.

It is not just what he did 40 years ago, although it serves Obama’s cause to confine the subject to his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8. It keeps scrutiny off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Steve Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist.

‘It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.’
Steve Diamond

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/06/ayersklonskyobama-links-is-it-only.html

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question.

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-david-blaine-award.html

An archive worth searching and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

Diamond’s concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

Why Did McCain Lose His Maverick Brand?
By Greg Sargent - October 7, 2008, 1:03PM
Lots of people are linking to this piece by New York magazine’s John Heilemann, which takes a crack at explaining how exactly McCain squandered his “maverick” brand.

“By the time the financial crisis hit, we were past the tipping point,” one national reporter explains to Heilemann. “Lipstick on a pig and sex ed were the last straw for some of McCain’s old hands and media allies. And because of this cynicism, he didn’t get the benefit of the doubt for his ’suspension,’ and it was treated as the stunt it was.”

I’m omitting the links.

It is not only what he did 40 years ago, although it serves Obama’s cause to confine the subject to his role as bombmaker way back when Obama was 8. It keeps scrutiny off the subject of the man as he is today, unrepentant and, as Steve Diamond describes him, a neo-Stalinist.

‘It’s not just folks on the right who are, or should be, concerned about the influence of Ayers/Klonsky* on Obama’s education policy.

Ayers developed a race-based approach to politics in the late 60s and early 70s that relied on a variant of the “unequal exchange” argument of maoists and other third worldists. He applied it to the domestic US and argued that white workers lived off the backs of black workers.

Today he has endorsed a related proposal by Gloria Ladson-Billings and Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond for “repayment of centuries of education debt” that has allegedly accumulated over centuries to people of color.

That is, in my view, fundamentally at odds - well, with rational argument - but also with the comprehensive multi-factor policy menu advocated by the EPI-convened Bold Approach. Ayers, Obama and Klonsky have been working together on education policy in various ways for many years, going back to the late 1980s. Ayers and Obama co-led the six year long $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge Program. Klonsky was a recipient of a 1995 grant of $175,000 from the Challenge for the Small Schools Workshop that he was hired by Ayers to head up (apparently Klonsky was a cab driver in Chicago at the time) in 1992.

While I have some concern that Obama would even shake hands with someone who was almost single handedly responsible for wrecking the student antiwar movement with his violent, illegal and despicable acts, I am far more concerned that Obama thinks this guy has anything useful to say about American schoolchildren.

(For the record, I think that Sol Stern made a similar argument - I hold no brief for neo-cons but his City Journal article was aimed at attempting to steer the conversation away from Ayers’ violent past to his current approach to education policy and theory.)

Btw, Ayers brothers Rick and John and (late) father Tom and Klonsky’s wife, brother and daughter all work in or on education issues. So does Mark Rudd and Carl Davidson. Strikes me as a bit odd, frankly.’

Steve Diamond

site: globallabour dot blogspot dot com
article: Ayers/Klonsky/Obama Links: Is it only a right wing thing?
date: June 30 2008

*Mike Klonsky, Maoist, also of the SDS, who was a blogger on Obama’s offical site until June 2008, and one of Obama’s education advisors

site: globallabour dot blogspot dot com
article:How is it under that bus, Comrade Klonsky?
date: 25 June 2008

Steve Diamond has been doing a sterling job investigating Obama, Ayers, Annenberg, the patronage of the Daley machine ( i.e. those who ’sent’ Obama) for months. He was interviewed by the NYT for the article this week regarding the Annenberg challenge. He takes a dim view of the journalistic standards used by the staffer in question.

site: globallabour dot blogspot dot com
article: Ayers/Obama Update: The David Blaine Award Goes to … The New York Times Magic Act!
date: October 06 2008

An archive worth searching and ya can’t call him a neo-con.

Diamond’s concerns are normally something Harry’s place might share and indeed report with some zeal, were the players and activities transplated to the UK. I am bemused.

Re: The Keatings 5. Former Senator John Glenn, one of ‘the 5′ is often a surrogate for Obama and introduced The Boss on stage last night. But that’s okay, he was exonerated. As was McCain.

Mine’s a Newt@5:50 am

I went to H.S. with Jim Edgar (he was two years behind me) and one of my best child-hood friends was his Health-Care Secretary and then later his Budget Director. I know a little about the sort of person Jim was/is and the kind of Republican he represents. Jim, in both personality and in his philosophical bent, represents the bland, go-along “good-government” sort of Republican so typical of much of mid-western and eastern establishment types.
Speak no evil and all that…..He rose to power and popularity
as a goody two shoes (which he was personally–although his brother Fred, two years my elder, was a Mr. Hyde hell-raiser) Secretary of State who won office by campaigning against drunken driving and ridding the office of political slush funds.

Given the nature of Jim and the wing of the GOP he represents it should come as no surprise that his M.O. was non-confrontational and lacking in partisan critiques of his opponents and types like Ayers. Silence does not always mean consent–a certain English King and his quarrelsome Priest to the contrary.

he was exonerated. As was McCain.

McCain was found to have had “poor judgement”.

He was also the only member of the Keating 5 to have taken personal gifts, flights and holidays from Keating, which weren’t included in the enquiry.
Indeed they were only reimbursed Years later, and were not declared for tax purposes intil the IRS went after McCain.

The Senate Ethics Committee did not pursue, for lack of jurisdiction, any possible ethics breaches in McCain’s delayed reimbursements to Keating for trips at the latter’s expense, because they occurred while McCain was in the House.[49] The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct said that it too lacked jurisdiction, because McCain was no longer in the House.

And here we have the McCain of the last couple of weeks.
Petulant,panicky, not good in a crisis.

On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain’s wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.

“I was in a hell of a mess,” McCain later would write.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/mccain/articles/2007/03/01/20070301mccainbio-chapter7.html

Nice try, Virgil Xenophon, at explaining Jim Edgar’s relationship with Ayers, but if that is true for Edgar, why is it not true for Obama?

That is not a ‘finding’. He was criticized for ‘poor judgement’, as was Glenn. Unlike others of the Five, they received the least reprimand possible, i.e. they were cleared.

‘..Based on the evidence available to it, the committee has given consideration to Senator McCain’s actions on behalf of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The committee concludes that Senator McCain’s actions were not improper nor attended with gross negligence and did not reach the level of requiring institutional action against him. The committee finds that Senator McCain took no further action after the April 9, 1987, meeting when he learned of the criminal referral.

Senator McCain has violated no law of the United States or specific Rule of the United States Senate; therefore, the committee concludes that no further action is warranted with respect to Senator McCain on the matters investigated during the preliminary inquiry.’

Excerpts of Statement By Senate Ethics Panel
New York Times
28 February 1981

Har! tim.

In that same article, Heilbrun writes :

“Jonathan Alter, Joe Klein, Richard Cohen, David Ignatius, Jacob Weisberg: all former McCain admirers now turned brutal critics.”

Now I’m sure, not being an American, you are not aware how jaw-droppingly dumb that is. Let me see. Let’s say “David Cameron has lost the support of George Monbiot.”

David All:

Your suggestion is plausible, but I doubt it. Why? Edgar is a goody-two shoes sap–just the type to be taken in by the lofty
high-minded sounding goals of the CAC. Also too, one may speculate that Edgar was helping the Chicago crowd in order to get something more dear to his heart passed that the Chicago crowd might otherwise be able to stop unless mollified by the Governor’s support for their own pet projects–much like Nixon established the EEOC and EPA as a sop to the Demos in order to get his military budgets and arms control agreements passed.
Besides, the brand of Republican Edgar represents is always a sap for anything involving the improvement of education in general and of black children in particular–it fills their overweening need for approval and proof that they are “progressive” and not racists.

As for Obama? Unlike Edgar, he is a “true believer” in every sense that Eric Hoffer meant, and all one has to do is peruse
the written record to find numerous statements of Obama’s supporting the kind of radicalization of schools into advocacy forums of the kind Ayers and all the other descendants of Gramsci have urged over the years. I don’t think you can put Edgar in that column.

Perhaps as an American, you could tell me who Heilbrun is?

And just a thought,it may not come down to nationality,but knowledge when debating things like this.
For example.
Who do you think is more likely to know who those journalists are,and why they admired McCain?
Someone who reads a bit, or Sarah Palin?

A better English parallel would be Ken Clarke losing the admiration of liberal journalists who saw him as an approachable maverick,then watched him panic in a crisis, bar all press conferences and try to persuade the British people that he was a cultural warrior.

For all of you Obama haters suck on this

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27057346#27057346

Todd Palin’s secessionist AIP asked Iran for sponsor at the UN in 1993.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/07/palins_unamerican

Thats hilarious.
But for it to stick,you’d have to presume that the Palins knew something about politics.
You’ll never make that work.

For most Americans, secessionism, by itself, places you out of the political mainstream. At best you’re a crank, at worst a traitor. Todd Palin is likely of the crank variety. USA’s bloodiest war was fought over secessionism.

“Who do you think is more likely to know who those journalists are,and why they admired McCain?”

Me, for instance. Each of those people is a liberal columnist. The chances of them supporting a Republican for President is exactly zero. If they have wrote admiring things of McCain in the past it is not because McCain is admirable (though he is), it is because McCain has a long record of thumbing the Republican party in the eye.

Who is Heilbrun?

Unlike a publicly unrepentant terrorist Ayers, Todd Palin personally never tried to kill anyone, nor celebrated the death of others in the way that Ayers’ wife Bernadine Dohrn did of those Manson et al slaughtered. Unlike Ayers, Todd Palin also has not done his damnedest to transform the educational system into a brainwashed left-wing advocacy machine as has done Ayers. Other than that, sounds like Ayers and Todd Palin are just two peas in a pod, eh?

Heilbrun is a writer for New York magazine. I don’t know why he would write someting so job numbingly stupid, but he did.

Alter’s old colleague, Mickey Kaus, had some fun at his (Heilbrun’s) expense.

I know Jon Alter. Jon Alter is a friend of mine. He’s very good at what he does–I couldn’t do it. He wrote an excellent book, has a lot to say. But he’s not exactly someone you look to as a political weather vane. Alter is totally for Obama and has been since the beginning of the campaign. If Jon has “turned” brutally against McCain in the final weeks of the campaign that is as predictable as the Giants going into a prevent defense with a two touchdown lead and a minute to go.** … But of course he hasn’t “turned”–missing from Heilemann’s piece is any evidence of Alter favoring McCain at any earlier point in the campaign, let alone evidence of Alter favoring McCain once he was the nominee running against Obama. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for his fellow Chicago Dem (and head of the Slate Group) Jacob Weisberg. Nor is it exactly surprising that Klein, Cohen and Ignatius would be on Obama’s side in the end. …

It’s one thing to have pro-Democratic, pro-Obama media favoritism: That’s just the way it is. Political reporters have opinions. Better blatant than latent.

http://www.slate.com/id/2201614/

FYI, tim, is a liberal web magazine edited by Jacob Weisberg.

I meant: Slate is a liberal web magazine…

Time Magazine’s Mark Helperin tries manfully to induce Robert Gibb’s to reveal when Obama believes it’s cool to pal around with terrorists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxlZ8xhkEZ8&eurl=http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=28505

For an almost perfect definitive take on the Obama-Ayers connection and what it all means, see:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Nj4YzdhMDBkZGQ3ZmUzYjdkMzc5ZjUzYmViZWM=

Where’s tim? You’ll enjoy this one:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bardot-slams-palin-as-a-disgrace-to-women/2008/10/08/1223145388360.html

Virgil Xenophon, sorry, your rationalization of why it was okay for Republican Gov. Edgar to be buddies with Ayers but not for Democratic Senator Obama does not make sense. BTW, Obama’s former pastor, the wrong Rev. Wright said many nasty things, but he never incited vigilantic action as the Palins current Minister did in Kenya against a woman accused of being a witch. Yes, that is right, the Palin’s Minister is a geniune Witch Hunter!

In latest vile right wing smear, Obama’s hard left views are called a threat to Democracy by, umm, George McGovern.

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/07/george-mcgovern-to-fight-card-check-in-debate-ad/

More bad news for McCain:
“Dow Drops 500 points in Turbulent Trading” at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/07/business/main4505658.shtml?tag=topStories;secondStory

Weathermen Underground; why would anyone predict the weather from below the surface?

Note: Do you think it is a wise idea for a Republican to remind people of the early 1970s when Richard Nixon was President?

David, David, David,

Either you have your tongue embedded in your cheek so firmly that it would take a Plastic Surgeon to pry it loose, or your brain cells have suffered a catastrophic overnight deterioration. You aren’t seriously trying to keep a straight face when you claim that the African priest/Witch Hunter you note is really the Palin’s regular Minister, are you? Surely you jest–or has partisan derangement got the better of you? Palin’s toleration of this man is akin to politicians wearing Indian War-bonnets–strictly a political stunt. I’m disappointed in you, kind sir, for you are an otherwise decent, intelligent and well-read guy insofar as your previous postings go–despite our differences. Please tell me that you jest, please oh please or I shall lose all (sob) hope for rational discourse–unless, of course, you are willing to admit that Obama is a secret agent of Ming the Merciless.

Ah shoot, Virgil, you force me to admit that I am secretly working for the Elders* at Simply Jews!

*As in Protocols of

Mesquito.
You’ve got a little confused.

Heilbrun is a writer for New York magazine. I don’t know why he would write someting so job numbingly stupid, but he did.

Alter’s old colleague, Mickey Kaus, had some fun at his (Heilbrun’s) expense.

The article was written by New York’s John Heilemann.

John McCain.
“We need a steady hand on the tiller”

Watching him zig zag all over the economic crisis in the last two weeks, that doesn’t seem like a good line.

A dull nil nil again, which will suit Obama.

Watching McCain last night reminds me of what a close friend said in 1996 the last time an elderly Republican War Veteran (Bob Dole) ran for President. After one of the debates she remarked that Dole should really be driving his Van down the road and enjoying his retirement!