flip a coin--either way is a loser
In his big speech yesterday, Sen. Obama said the following, as reported by Powerline:
I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
Which drew the following response from Scott Johnson, also from Powerline:
Even amid the false equivalencies and obvious evasions of his speech today, Obama's misuse of his grandmother seems to me a striking sign of poor character.
I think that Johnson's words may qualify as the understatement of the week.
Obama's use of his grandmother in this context is--AT BEST--a classless move without equal; it is, at worst, an unbelievable lie that once again shows how much he plays politics by the "old" rules rather than by some new, transcendant purpose.
Let's first give him the benefit of the doubt, and let's say that this grandmother DID occasionaly say some really tasteless things that left him agape. First of all, why do we need to know this? Why does he say this at all? Is he so desperate to make his "spiritual advisor" look like a product of the times in which he was raised that he's willing to expose this clearly ugly part of a woman that is supposed to mean so much to him? It begs the question: what WON'T he say to cover his butt? Is there anything he holds sacred other than his own aspirations?
BUT it gets much worse than that! If she did say these things, and he--as a youngster, or at least as a younger man--responded by "cringing". . .then WHY OH WHY would he CHOOSE, in his adulthood, to sit in the presence of a man who says equally racist things? (I assume they are at least equally racist, given the depths that Wright plumbed) If he cringed way back then, why wouldn't he have even stronger reactions as an adult who, as he would have us believe, has learned the destruction of such words?
I am left with but one answer: because racist comments coming from a black person didn't offend him in the same manner as racist comments from his white grandmother.
And THAT makes him a racist, too. Period.
The ONLY other things I can think of is that his grandmother DIDN'T utter such horrible things.
Which makes him a liar.
OR maybe the grandmother DID say some horrible things. But rather then cringing--and learning--then, maybe young Barack didn't react to those words from his grandmother, foreshadowing his non-reaction to the words of wrong-way Wright.
Which makes him a liar.
So either this man is a liar or a racist who doesn't show any loyalty to people who he should probably show some loyalty towards--all while showing loyalty to a person that makes pronouncements that are remarkably outside the bounds of civil discourse.
Either way, Obama doesn't look like such an upstanding man after his performance yesterday.
In fact, he looks so much worse. Not only is his stature damaged, but he (and his team) look like amateurs--with a capitol "A".
What kind of idiocy does this man surround himself with that he was allowed to go onstage and say these things?
Is this the kind of judgement we'd accept from our President?
I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
Which drew the following response from Scott Johnson, also from Powerline:
Even amid the false equivalencies and obvious evasions of his speech today, Obama's misuse of his grandmother seems to me a striking sign of poor character.
I think that Johnson's words may qualify as the understatement of the week.
Obama's use of his grandmother in this context is--AT BEST--a classless move without equal; it is, at worst, an unbelievable lie that once again shows how much he plays politics by the "old" rules rather than by some new, transcendant purpose.
Let's first give him the benefit of the doubt, and let's say that this grandmother DID occasionaly say some really tasteless things that left him agape. First of all, why do we need to know this? Why does he say this at all? Is he so desperate to make his "spiritual advisor" look like a product of the times in which he was raised that he's willing to expose this clearly ugly part of a woman that is supposed to mean so much to him? It begs the question: what WON'T he say to cover his butt? Is there anything he holds sacred other than his own aspirations?
BUT it gets much worse than that! If she did say these things, and he--as a youngster, or at least as a younger man--responded by "cringing". . .then WHY OH WHY would he CHOOSE, in his adulthood, to sit in the presence of a man who says equally racist things? (I assume they are at least equally racist, given the depths that Wright plumbed) If he cringed way back then, why wouldn't he have even stronger reactions as an adult who, as he would have us believe, has learned the destruction of such words?
I am left with but one answer: because racist comments coming from a black person didn't offend him in the same manner as racist comments from his white grandmother.
And THAT makes him a racist, too. Period.
The ONLY other things I can think of is that his grandmother DIDN'T utter such horrible things.
Which makes him a liar.
OR maybe the grandmother DID say some horrible things. But rather then cringing--and learning--then, maybe young Barack didn't react to those words from his grandmother, foreshadowing his non-reaction to the words of wrong-way Wright.
Which makes him a liar.
So either this man is a liar or a racist who doesn't show any loyalty to people who he should probably show some loyalty towards--all while showing loyalty to a person that makes pronouncements that are remarkably outside the bounds of civil discourse.
Either way, Obama doesn't look like such an upstanding man after his performance yesterday.
In fact, he looks so much worse. Not only is his stature damaged, but he (and his team) look like amateurs--with a capitol "A".
What kind of idiocy does this man surround himself with that he was allowed to go onstage and say these things?
Is this the kind of judgement we'd accept from our President?
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