Tag: obama

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(Cross-posted from Poligazette)

Earlier, our own Michael van der Galien wrote about the switch in the McCain campaign to attacks on Barack Obama’s character, judgement, and associations.  In particular, he discussed Sarah Palin’s questioning of Obama’s past associations with domestic terrorist William Ayers.

I seriously hope that ‘questions’ are not all the McCain campaign has.  How many staff members do they have on their campaign?  Surely there are people looking for any and all facts with which to destroy Obama?  And if there is something, I would think that releasing it sooner rather than later would be the proper thing to do.

Continue reading →

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I haven’t given myself enough opportunities to visit the tireless researchers at factcheck.org, but I think that may change as the election draws near.  Most especially, the debates will provide plenty of material on both sides for them.  Here’s a few “facts” used by McCain or Obama that have been checked.

Education: First, an ad McCain released yesterday, entitled “Education.” The ad claims that Obama is undistinguished on education, and would like sex ed taught to kindergarteners.  Sounds bad, right?  However, it doesn’t tell the whole story.  As FactCheck says:

The ad refers to a bill Obama supported in the Illinois state Senate to update the sex education curriculum and make it “medically accurate.” It would have lowered the age at which students would begin what the bill termed “comprehensive sex education” to include kindergarten. But it mandated the instruction be “age-appropriate” for kindergarteners when addressing topics such as sexually transmitted diseases. The bill also would have granted parents the opportunity to remove their children from the class without question.

And the crux of the ad?  Well, the bill wanted to teach them how to respond to pedophiles:

The bill also called for all sex education course materials to include information that would help students recognize, among other activities, inappropriate touching, sexual assault and rape.

These accusation began back when Obama was running for the Senate against Alan Keyes.  They were repeated earlier this year by Mitt Romney, and then Obama said Romney supported the same policy, which is also untrue.

Fact Check: The newest ad from the McCain campaign quotes FactCheck themselves as saying that Obama’s attaks on Palin were “misleading” and “absolutely false.”  FactCheck did say these things, but not about Obama.  The FactCheck report (which I’ll get to later) is about an email being sent around by someone completely unconnected to the Obama campaign.  FactCheck:

Our article, posted two days earlier, debunked a number of false or misleading claims that have circulated in chain e-mails and Internet postings regarding Palin. There is no evidence that the Obama campaign is behind any of the wild accusations that we critiqued. There is no more basis for attributing these viral attacks to the Obama campaign than there is for blaming the McCain campaign for chain e-mail attacks falsely claiming that Obama is a Muslim, or a “racist,” or that he is proposing to tax water. The anti-Palin messages, like the anti-Obama messages, have every appearance of being home-grown.

Obama

Never: Proving that two can play the “link them to bad guys” game, this Obama ad tries to link McCain to Jack Abramoff-connected Christian Coalition exec Ralph Reed.  The ad says McCain never called Reed to testify, and that Reed is now fundraising for McCain.  FactCheck says the fundraising thing is true, but misleading:

The ad says that Reed is “now raising money for McCain’s campaign.” That is true. The Hill newspaper reported that Reed sent out an e-mail to friends and associates urging them to contribute to McCain’s campaign and attend a fundraiser for him. But there isn’t any formal connection between McCain’s campaign and Reed’s activities. McCain flatly told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that, “I neither seek nor want his support.” Reed appears to have gotten the message. He didn’t even appear at the fundraiser he told friends to attend.

On not testifying and being part of the Abramoff scandal:

That’s all true, but what’s not said is that McCain’s report caused Reed political embarrassment, making public evidence that contradicted Reed’s claim that he hadn’t known that his lobbying activities among anti-gambling Christian activists had been paid for by casino-owning Indian tribes who wanted to suppress competition.

Basically, Reed drummed up anti-gambling sentiment amongst anti-gambling Christians to oppose operations that would have competed with Abramoff’s Native American clients (who got scammed, too).

Fix the Economy: In an ad from a few weeks ago, Obama uses old and out of context quotes to portray McCain as out of the loop on the economy:

The ad opens with video of McCain saying, “I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession.”

Trouble is, McCain said this in January, and as part of a bigger explanation.  Says FactCheck:

McCain’s quote is followed by a clip of a man from Ohio saying, “I think we’re absolutely in a recession.” While that man and others shown in the ad are talking about economic conditions now, this quote from McCain and another in the ad are from seven months ago, a fact that may not be apparent to viewers if they miss the fine print.

Here’s more of what McCain said in January:

McCain, Jan. 10: … And by the way, I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession. I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong, and I believe they will remain strong. This is a rough patch, but I think America’s greatness lies ahead of us.

Another quote used portrays McCain as saying the economy is just peachy.  Not so fast!  McCain really said

I think if you look at the overall record and millions of jobs have been created, et cetera, et cetera, you could make an argument that there’s been great progress economically over that period of time. But that’s no comfort. That’s no comfort to families now that are facing these tremendous economic challenges.

Though he does think conditions are better overall, he says that times are tough right now.

So, excuse me while I sneeze.  I’m allergic to lying politicians, see?

Unrelated to McCain or Obama

  • As noted above, FactCheck looked into some of the smears being spread about Sarah Palin.  They’re all either exaggerations or outright lies.
  • And indisputable proof at last that Obama is a natural-born citizen.  They’ve seen, touched, and smelled the real thing.

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Amongst all the hoopla about whether or not Sarah Palin was the right choice for John McCain’s running mate, I have yet to see one sentiment expressed.

When Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination in June, it was said to be historic.  Yet, at that time, and up until this morning, changing the face of the two top positions in this country was not guaranteed.  Then John McCain chose Sarah Palin for his running mate, and that sealed the deal.

No matter what happens on November 4th now, how we see the the country’s two top leadership positions has changed forever.  And whether or not you agree with Barack Obama’s or Sarah Palin’s political views, that change can only be a good thing for the country.

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So Barack Obama is a celebrity who likes to chomp on arugula, get buff at the gym, and like to gather crowds and make speeches around the world as if he’s already President.

So John McCain is a Hollywood and late night show favorite whose rich wife owns upwards of seven houses and likes to send his surrogates to Georgia as if he’s already President.

Are both by definition elitists, then?  Probably.

Should we move on from these stupid character attacks by both candidates that do nothing but deflect from the real issues? Definitely.

Is that really likely?  Probably not.

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Barack Obama recently responded to John McCain’s “Celeb” ad suggesting that Obama was too a huge celebrity but not ready to lead.

While I think the ad is effective in pointing out the hypocrisy of McCain calling him a celebrity, it’s still a character attack, and I think the old adage “two wrongs don’t make a right” applies here.

Meanwhile, John McCain isn’t backing down from the “he’s a celebrity” brand of ads.

For me, McCain’s insistence on keeping to the celebrity argument is the same as Barack Obama keeping on repeating the “100 years” statement.

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Well, one goal from yesterday’s entry is coming true.  Although it’s official purpose is as a test vehicle for Blog Talk Radio, to make sure my deck is shuffled in terms of the service, I will be using up to 15 minutes tonight to discuss Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe this week.  I want to test it as if a show were actually going on, so that’s what I’ll be doing.  If you want to listen to the show, go to this page at 11:30PM EDT (-5 GMT) and click the “Click to Listen” button at 11:30 to tune in!

My goal tonight is to merely test out the service, but if you feel you have something to voice, feel free to call in!  The listener call in number is (347) 945-5945.  However, it may cost money to use via a landline (the help is a little ambiguous on this).  However, they have a “Click to Talk” feature in the host’s profile (above link).  If you have a microphone, plug it in, click the button, and wait patiently!  Unfortunately, it’s only for IE6, which kind of blows, but what’re you going to do?

So, if you want to hear some political talk radio, perhaps albeit with a few “testing 1…2…3″‘s, tune in!

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Now, I’m all for everybody having their own opinions on something.  I’m more for those opinions when they at least have some good research behind them.  Do you own research, I say, and then your opinion is educated.

So, it’s a laugh when I see an inane comment at some forum, blog, or other medium of communication.  To that extent, I’m an avid reader of Michelle Malkin’s blog, because I like to see a range of opinions from the far left to the far right.

I’ve agreed with Malkin once before, and now I find myself agreeing with her co-blogger, “see-dubya.”  See-dubya writes about some research (I guess it’s research) done by one Dr. Danielle Allen on the origin of web-based rumors.  They focus on one of her findings, the supposed originator of the “Obama is a Muslim” rumor: a man named Ted Sampley.  Here’s the money quote:

For some people, people in the core Sampley target zone, politics can never be bad enough. McCain need not merely be an abrasive centrist who panders to Hispanic race-baiters and despises movement conservatives, he has to be a traitor commie spy. Obama isn’t just a callow far-left machine politician caught up in the cult of his own personality, he has to be Al-Qaeda’s secret sleeper trained from birth.

Note: I’m not necessarily agreeing with see-dubya’s descriptions of the candidates, but he (she?) is spot on with the snark toward Sampley.

While the main post is all right, the couple comments that are there are insane.  Now, Malkin tends to attract a pretty far-right crowd, with a few liberals tossed in to the mix.  I was going to just post there, but registration seems to be disabled, so I decided to do it here.  Below are the dissenting comments as of this entry.  Says “malkin_fan”:

Forget the rumor tha Obama is a Muslim.

He IS a muslim:

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12918.htm

And then there’s the doozy from “Gabe”:

I definitely agree with Malkin_Fan. Perhaps so many people believe that Obama is a Muslim because he is a Muslim. . .at least culturally.

In the Israeli Insider article, there are many facts that have never been refuted by the Obama camp. For example, why was he registered as a Muslim in his Indonesian Catholic school?

I teach in a Catholic school in Northern Virginia. Believe me, nearly every teacher has qualms about Barack Hussein Obama and has suspicions that Obama is a closet Muslim. Why? Because we know our Catholic faith and know something is just not right about Obama and his “Christian” faith.

From the Israeli Insider article:

Obama describes his new found “Christian” faith as: (1) Suspicious of dogma (2) Without any monopoly on the truth (3) Nontransferable to others (4) Infused with a big healthy dose of doubt, and (5) Indulgent of and compatible with all other religions.

On February 27th, speaking to Kristof of The New York Times, Barack Hussein Obama said the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, “with a first-class [Arabic] accent.”

Sure seems like a Muslim to me.

Gee Gabe, according to the first paragraph of your quote, Martin Luther must have been a Muslim too.  Sticking those 95 theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg; arguing that Catholicism wasn’t the only way; that others should be able to make their own interpretations of the bible and not follow the Pope’s dogma.  Definitely a Muslim, that Martin Luther.  According to your own argument, Gabe, 800 million Protestants are actually sooper sekrit Muslims.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being a Muslim.  If a Muslim was running for President – and it’s not going to happen for a long time given the tolerance level of this country – I wouldn’t think less of it, unless they were proven to support some bad apples.  Same would apply to a Christian or any other person of faith running for President.  Heck, same test goes for atheists and agnostics, too.

See-dubya has the best reaction toward these comments:

[bangs head on desk]

Amen.