Shocking Revelations
The Ayers stuff is childs play in comparison to the kinds of personal ties that have now come out about Obama.
There is simply no way for Obama to disown this particular tie, since it is his own wife. Michelle Obama was, until a few years ago, a member of a fringe political group of people who thought Illinois should be an independent country, raising very serious questions about both her loyalty to the US and her sanity. To make matters worse, Obama has spoken repeatedly throughout the years at the convention of these wackjobs. The groups leader and founder has been recorded saying
“The fires of Hell are glaciers compared to my hate for the American government, and I won’t be buried in their damn flag.”
Think it can’t get worse? Remember Reverend Wright? One of the biggest “plausible deniability” moments for Obama was the fact that it could never be shown that he had actually been in church when a bigoted rant was going on. Well now video has surfaced where Obama shows up at a sermon where Wright mentions the need for “Christian bankers” who are “men and women of integrity” since the “Israelites won” in just such a fashion and “how they are today”.
Finally it has been revealed that Obama sat on the board of the US chapter of an international organization linked to the Iran-Contra affair and to death squads in Central America.
Oh wait.
It’s Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s husband, who is tied to the secessionist movement of Alaska. Sarah herself has showed up at their conventions as recently as this year.
And it wasn’t Pastor Wright, but pastor Muthee, the visiting pastor who prayed over her to liberate her from witches (and who is a real live witch hunter, much to the misfortune of at least one Kenyan woman) who did the “Jews control the banks” screed.
And it wasn’t Obama but McCain who sat on the board of the “U.S Council for World Freedom”, a group linked to former Nazis and ultra-right wing death squads in Central America
So I guess it doesn’t count then.
As an explanation: I don’t believe in guilt by association unless there is some sort of evidence that the person so associated actually actively shared the views of whom they are associated with. I’m not saying I like seeing Palin sitting there while this guy spouts anti-antisemitism, but in the absence of evidence that she herself holds the view, I don’t believe calling her an anti-Semite is fair. I also don’t think she’s necessarily an anti-American secessionist, just because she’s married to one (or to someone who used to be one). Though I find her pandering to their conventions somewhat troubling, I think it’s likely it was merely pandering. though I don’t like who she was pandering to, I’m willing to believe it was cynical, not sincere.
I honestly don’t know what to think about McCain being involved with a group linked to Nazis. I find it almost impossible to believe he could share their views, given that there is no other evidence to the effect, but on the other hand I’d love to hear why he worked with them in the first place? Perhaps he didn’t pay much attention and didn’t know their connections?
But what makes me crazy is the fact that on both sides there’s a “mine don’t count but yours do”, lately very much on display especially on the right. Any Obama association, no matter how distant, is used to brand Obama as anti-American, a terrorist sympathizer (provoking screams of “terrorist!” and “kill him!” at McCain and Palin rallies, where neither seemed to care to repudiate the statements) a sinister danger to the country. But any and all associations of Palin to crazy pastors or anti-American groups, or McCain to Nazis, or to wall street corruption that’s all nonsense, and irrelevant.
The favorite right-wing target of accusations of bias is the media (excepting Fox News, The New York Post etc.). It is claimed that McCain is subjected to harsher rules than Obama. Yet in the next breath they turn around and do the exact thing they accuse the media of doing, but in favor of their candidate.
I see the issue with double standards, but I think someone once said something about taking care of the plank in your own eye before you minded the speck in another’s.
TWo things: Well, three,
1. Good of you to post on this - we were in need of a differing opinion
Now on to business:
2. strangely, that with Palin has actually been covered, including by the MSM on a tremendously big scale. What happened is that they actually lied about it, saying she was a member of the party
3. unlike Obama, McCain actually has a long record. It’s pretty clear what kind of man he is, and what he stands for. With Obama this is not the case. Therefore you have to look at other things to determine what kind of a man he is. One way to do that? Right - associations
Lastly, I do believe in guilt by association. You choose your friends, not your relatives. Your friends say a lot about you - especially when you’re a politician.
OK, that were four points.
Good points, Michael, and on that last part about what your associations say about you, I feel there’s a world of difference between a casual association or even a pandering one (as in the case of conservative politicians who ‘pal around’ with questionable pastors in order to court their followers) and the kind of longstanding working relationship that Obama had with Ayers and other radicals. The fact that Chicago politicians had decided that the statute of limitations on bombing the pentagon had passed and thus Ayers was considered ‘mainstream’ certainly doesn’t necessarily reassure voters in the rest of the country and we have at least the right to ask what the heck he was thinking in allying himself politically with such a person.
Michael– you’re correct that Palin was misidentified as belonging to the Alaskan secessionist group initially. It was (near as I could tell) also corrected almost immediately. I disagree with you, though, when you say this has "been covered".
Beyond that initial OMG!!!! that exploded about her (when this, and other things, were tossed about like grenades), the story about her husband pretty much disappeared. For me, I’m both unsurprised that an Alaskan might feel that way, and also surprised that more people aren’t talking about it, given his reported influence on her administration in Alaska.
OTOH, the Ayers story has been like an overused racehorse laboring through the last stretch, all in a lather, for months.
Sarah Palin’s religious roots, in light of her extreme social conservatism, has much more meaning to me than does Obama’s, who has never sounded anything but mainstream Christian as far as I’ve ever heard. (Yes, one can discuss abortion, but it’s hardly unheard of for a Christian to be pro-choice.)
From the article:
Man, not only does he begin his political career with these guys, he serves on a board with them at the same. That must make McCain double the radical.
Right on MVDG, though I agree behind the scene of MSM, there is an even handed back and forth. Yet, what is prestented by MSM is just the anti-McCain/Palin or Pro-Obama spin. That is what drives me nuts.
I agree–the point here is to try to get to understand who Obama is; but if that’s the point, but I think that can be summed up by saying he’s a Chicago Democrat and forgiving to very left wing attitudes.
If you fail to point out dishonesty in his campaign or how his policies are liberal, though, pointing to Ayers and Wright looks like you’re trying to distract people.
We also need to know who Palin is. But again, get the facts and separate the wheat from the chaffe. It doesn’t even matter that it was Todd, and not Sarah Palin who was in the AIP. I’ve mentioned on her before that the AIP in the 90s–when Todd was a member–was largely Republicans dissatisfied with their ticket. Alaska elected an AIP governor in the 90s, who was against secession.
It turns out Palin takes her religion seriously, but not more than a lot of people I’ve met who are normal every day folks. Palin is, like she claims, a pretty normal person. Some people don’t want that in a President, and want someone who’s a little more cultured, and that’s fine too.