Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

March 16, 2008 By Fausta

McCain’s EIGHTH visit to Iraq

McCain makes unannounced trip to Iraq

Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president who has linked his political future to U.S. success in Iraq, was in Baghdad on Sunday for meetings with Iraqi and U.S. diplomatic and military officials, a U.S. government official said.

This is McCain’s eighth visit, his first one as the Republican nominee. He’s cementing relationships, and starting new ones,

“We were informed that John McCain landed in Iraq Sunday morning. A meeting will take place with the Iraqi government,” said Ali al-Moussawi, an official in the prime minister’s office.

McCain was to meet Sunday with Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh. Later in the day, he and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, were to talk. It also was thought McCain would meet with al-Maliki.

McCain’s weeklong trip also includes stops in Israel, Jordan, Britain and France.

He is expected to meet with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the first time, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy for the third time. He met and corresponded with Sarkozy both before and after the French president was elected. They last saw each other last summer.

McCain has relationships with every leader in Israel he plans to see, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and hawkish opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

The AP article, accompanied by a most unflattering photo of McCain, at least managed to mention,

A defiant supporter of the 2003 invasion and President Bush’s troop increase last year, McCain is likely to focus in Iraq on the drop in sectarian violence and U.S. and civilian casualties since last summer.

Took them long enough.

Remind me now, how many times has Obama been to Iraq?

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Barak Obama, Election2008, John McCain, Republicans

March 15, 2008 By Fausta

Pulling the okey-dokey

Pulling the Okey-Dokey, and Why Wright-Obama doesn’t equal Hagee/Parsley-McCain

In this Seinfeld campaign season, Sister Toldjah explains why Wright-Obama doesn’t equal Hagee/Parsley-McCain, in an excellent post: The left’s silly attempts at morally equating Wright/Farrakhan/Hagee/Parsley

Any assertions that the associations between each of them respectively are the same are absurd, though, for reasons noted above. Both candidates are getting endorsements from other people in addition to Hagee and Farrakhan that they’d probably just rather see wither away quietly into the night, but Obama’s relationship with Wright is more than just an “endorsement” – Obama has long been associated with Wright, admired him, and as I’ve talked about before, has sought counsel from him and has cited him as a source of inspiration for his second book and his 2004 keynote. He even consulted Wright on whether or not he should run for president. Farrakhan’s endorsement of BO probably would have elicted barely more than a chuckle and an eyeroll from people if Wright himself had not previously praised him.

She also has the video of the Fox News interview:


Let’s review here:
Obama has been

  • a member in good standing of that church since 1991
  • acquainted with the church since his community organizing days
  • contributing to Wright’s Church
  • donating frequently

and

  • was married there by Wright
  • had his two daughters baptized there by Wright

Additionally, the title of his book, The Audacity of Hope, comes from one of Wright’s own sermons
BUT in the interview he says that none of Wright’s statements were statements “he had heard himself personally in the pews”.

Which means what?

It means he’s pulling a con, an okey-dokey

You all know the okey-dokey, when someone’s trying to bamboozle you, when they’re trying to hoodwink you?

Obama knew what his pastor was saying.

In an answer worthy of Clintonian dissembling, Obama claims that

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation

Major Garret asked him, “If you had known what he was saying, you would have quit the church”, to which Obama replied, “If I had heard them repeated I would have quit”.

It is impossible to believe that someone didn’t know what the pastor of his church, a man with whom Obama has been in such close association that he refers to him in the above video as “almost an uncle”, has been saying, preaching and writing for the past two decades. But Obama wants you to believe he never heard Wright say any such things.

As Ace said, he should have read the church bulletin.

The con is that, as Mona Charen points out,

I am coming to believe that Barack Obama is one of the greatest con artists we’ve seen. His entire campaign has been about “coming together,” a post-racial consensus, etc. Any mention of his middle name was immediately condemned as ignorant fear-mongering. He has played the role of racial unifier with great skill and finesse.

If you are to trust at face value what Obama says, then Barack Obama is well on his way to becoming the political Candide

a youth whom Nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. His face was the true index of his mind. He had a solid judgment joined to the most unaffected simplicity; and hence, I presume, he had his name of Candide.

Not only has Obama been ignorant of Wright’s odious position, he’s also saying he had no idea of how much money Rezko had raised for his campaign because “he had never asked for a political favor”:

Trying to put his past with Antoin “Tony” Rezko behind him, presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday said he never thought the nowindicted Chicago businessman would try to take advantage of him because his old friend had never asked for a political favor.

But in a 90-minute interview with Tribune reporters and editors, Obama disclosed that Rezko had raised more for Obama’s earlier political campaigns than previously known, gathering as much as $250,000 for the first three offices he sought.

Obama also elaborated on previous statements about his private real estate transactions with Rezko, saying they were not simply mistakes of judgment because Rezko was under grand jury investigation at the time of their 2005 and 2006 dealings. “The mistake, by the way, was not just engaging in a transaction with Tony because he was having legal problems. The mistake was because he was a contributor and somebody who was involved in politics.”

Barack’s doing well in his dissembling, but I digress:

Obama rejected the suggestion that, by paying the full price for the lot, Rezko was enabling Obama to buy the house for $300,000 less than the initial asking price.

“Frankly I don’t think he was doing me a favor,” Obama said. “There was simply no connection between our purchase of the house, the price of the house and the purchase of the lot.”

I am blinded by the brilliance. You can even say I’m baffled by the bullsh*t, too.

Faced with intensifying scrutiny as the Democratic primary season grinds on, Obama said voters should view his Rezko dealings as “a mistake in not seeing the potential conflicts of interest.” But he added that voters should also “see somebody who is not engaged in any wrongdoing . . . and who they can trust.”

It all comes down to the audacity of hoping they’ll believe you (h/t Instapundit).

Must-reads regarding Obama and Jeremiah Wright

UPDATE
Doug Ross illustrates The audacity of opacity.
Deconstructing Obama’s lawyerly evasions on Wright

(Special thanks to Larwyn)
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Filed Under: Barak Obama, Democrats, Election2008

March 14, 2008 By Fausta

The distraction, and the real news

The distraction, that is, the not-news news: Clinton strategist says Obama ‘can’t win the general election’.

Well, did anyone expect a Clinton strategist to say otherwise? Something in the likes of, “Oh sure, Obama’s going to clean our clock in the primary and coast into a 50-state landslide”?

Here’s some news:
One of Obama’s Earmarks Went to Hospital That Employs Michelle Obama

There’s the hate preaching pastor; Victor Davis Hanson:

Each time the Rev. Wright’s latest clip is played, Obama is going to lose voters — unless he explains how and why such sentiments are not his own, and how and why he could attend such sermons without being ill at ease.

Confederate Yankee is posting on why Reverend Wright is wrong.

Rick Moran has another extensive post on why has been doing a lot of explaining about the company he has kept for the last 17 years or so: Rick goes into Obama’s relationships with not only Reverend Wright, but with former Weather Underground member and unrepentant terrorist bomber William Ayers, with whom Obama has repeatedly appeared in forums, and Tony Rezko and his associates (Auchi, Alsammarae, others) and Obama’s “drop-bys”

At every step Obama has sought to hide, to minimize, to dismiss his relationship with Rezko as a one sided affair – that of an eager Chicago fixer wanting to get close to an up and coming state senator. Instead, the picture that will almost certainly be revealed during Rezko’s trial is that Obama and Rezko were close associates with Rezko being a crucial part of Obama’s rise in politics while Obama for his part, aided Rezko in his business dealings.

How? By the time honored political tool known as “the drop by.”

Suppose you are a property developer meeting with foreign businessmen trying to convince them to invest in your plan. Suddenly, a United States senator shows up at your meeting to greet the foreigners, do a little backslapping, and thus give legitimacy and “juice” to the developer making it easier for the foreigners to trust him. The senator is in and out in just a few minutes. But the impact of his visit is not lost on the foreign businessmen.

Rick was our guest on Tuesday and we discussed Obama and Rezko. You can listen to the podcast here. You probably want to read Obama Watch, Rezkorama, and The truth about Obama; the news services aren’t highlighting the real story.

UPDATE
Commenter Pat Patterson recommends Open Secrets
Obama Can’t Sever Ties With His Pastor of Hate

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Filed Under: Barak Obama, Democrats, Election2008, Hillary Clinton, politics

March 6, 2008 By Fausta

Echoes of the Halimi murder, Obama-Rezko, and other items

I had planned on going to New York this morning but something unexpected came up.

After that was over, I’ve been reading the blogs:

Almost exactly two years after the Halimi murder, Tortured Jewish Teen Leaves Paris Suburb.

OBAMA-REZKO AND MEDIA IGNORANCE OF “THE CHICAGO WAY”

The lack of curiosity by the press about Obama’s connections to one of the most corrupt city governments in the United States should be one of the big media stories of this campaign. While it is true that Obama’s connections to the Machine are not as extensive as many other politicians, I’ve got news for you Obama apologists; try running for any office in Chicago – local, state, or federal – and see how far you get without support from the regular Democrats.

More Barack Obama Rezko Revelations and Obama’s Iraqi Oil for Food connection

So, Um … Obama Wrote This, Huh?

No Clinton-Obama ticket this year. Someone get the stunt double on the set

Brattleboro, Vermont: where it can ALL happen!

Belmont Club looks at politicians who say “I lied”.

The Greeks object to Macedonia because of its name. Really.

U.S. Tongue-Ties Self In Talking To World

Tracking Iraq– What the Media Did Not Tell You This Month

NJ Corrupt Politicos Update

Claim: Muqtada al Sadr Suffers Ten Game Batting Slump and Coma, But Mostly Coma. Iraqi and Russian doctors are taking care of him.

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Filed Under: Barak Obama, Election2008, France, Iraq

March 2, 2008 By Fausta

The cult’s anthem

Via Carolyn,
We Are The Ones Song, in English… and Spanish:

I don’t know about you, but the name chanting, the repeating “Cambio, esperanza, hope, change”, and the woman stating “he’s almost like a reviver for a lot of people’s souls”, while Obama’s voiceover saying, “We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for” in the imperial “We”, totally creeps me out.

But that’s just me.

Related posts here and here.

UPDATE
Blogs for John McCain comments on the video.
We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?
He’s the ONE

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Barak Obama

March 1, 2008 By Fausta

Ebay auction: Choose new middle name for Barack HUSSEIN Obama

Via Judith, someone’s auctioning on ebay a new name for Obama,
Choose new middle name for Barack HUSSEIN Obama

CHOOSE NEW MIDDLE NAME FOR BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

You are bidding on a framed genuine FAKE birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama. Did I say that his middle name is Hussein? I did? Okay.

Here is the fun part. Because it is apparently against the rules to use the middle name of HUSSEIN, the winning bidder will have the opportunity to choose a new middle name to replace HUSSEIN. It will be inserted in the FAKE certificate. We can begin using the name, and then we won’t have to worry about being arrested by the DemocRAT PC police for using the actual real name HUSSEIN.

Let’s see how these might sound. Barack Milhous Obama. Barack Fitzgerald Obama. Barack Fidel Obama. Barack Wolfgang Obama. Barack Rodham Obama. It will be your choice. Be creative!

Won’t it be nice to use his entire name again? You knew JFK and FDR. We don’t want to have to call him B.O. do we? That stinks.

NOTE: does anyone doubt that Hillary had her surrogates leak the photo of Barack Hussein Obama in the Somali ceremonial outfit? It is not over. Hillary Rodham Clinton will not go away quietly. If she has to, she will burn the oil wells. Hillary is going to sabotage Barack Hussein Obama behind the scenes. Hillary will do anything to anyone at any time for power. Don’t ever doubt that. The woman really is demonically possessed. She put up with public humiliation dished out by her husband that no self-respecting strong woman would ever find acceptable. She accepted it because she wanted power, had to ride the serial sexual predator’s coattails, and believed she was destined to become the most powerful woman in history. If she can’t sabotage B.O. and steal the nomination from him, she may well have a nervous breakdown. BULLETIN: it appears that Hillary is filing suit over the way delegates are chosen in Texas.

Let’s see if it stays up.

Screenshot:

UPDATE
Barack Arugula Obama?

More, Sunday March 2
Pick Obama’s new middle name
Now the cult has an anthem.

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Filed Under: Barak Obama, Election2008, humor

February 28, 2008 By Fausta

Racism, explored and exploited from the UK

Siggy just brought this article to my attention:
Obama victory will prolong US racial divide, says British equality chief

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, claimed that the Democratic front-runner would ultimately disappoint the African-American community and dismissed the notion that he would be “the harbinger of a post-racial America” if he becomes the country’s first black President.

Let’s take a brief look at this gentleman’s occupation: he’s “equality chief”.

Would it be too harsh to say that he has a vested interest in perpetuating inequality, since otherwise there would be no point for his high-placed position in the bureaucracy?

Phillips believes that

guilt over transatlantic slavery was behind Mr Obama’s support from middle class whites

Let’s ignore, for the purposes of this post, that Barak Obama’s own mother is a middle class white. I don’t expect Phillips considered this fact when making his assertions.

The United States waged the most deadly war in its history to abolish slavery. The struggle for human rights in the United States continues to this day to ensure that every person has equal rights under the law.

Additionally, most of the middle class whites in the USA are descendants of people who immigrated from other countries AFTER the emancipation proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, or whose ancestors had arrived shortly before the Civil War, for instance, the Irish fleeing the potato famine of 1847.

None of those whites were in any kind of situation to own much property, never mind property in slave states, much less slaves.

So I’d like to ask Phillips, why should middle class whites feel any guilt over transatlantic slavery? How many middle class whites have even one ancestor who owned a plantation or worked in a trade associated with the transatlantic slavery trade?

Are there more important issues than “middle class white guilt over transatlantic slavery” to those very same middle class white prospective voters in this year’s Presidential campaign?

Phillips continues,

“If Obama can succeed, then maybe they can imagine that [Martin Luther] King’s post-racial nirvana has arrived. A vote for Obama is a pain-free negation of their own racism. So long as they don’t have to live next door to him; Obama has yet to win convincingly in white districts adjacent to black communities,” he wrote.

Record numbers of voters of every ethnic background are participating in the Democrat primaries and caucases, most of them white. Does Phillips sincerely believe they would not want to live next door to Obama but would gladly have him as Commander in Chief?

In Phillips’s mind, Bill Cosby is a “sad and lonely figure”. Cosby has laughed his way to the bank by being Bill Cosby, but let’s not tell the “equality chief”.

The “equality chief” believes that ultra-successful people like Bill Cosby and Oprah get there by “not making an issue of historical racism if their own race is not used against them”. Phillips probably didn’t have cable TV the day Oprah grilled Mark Furman over the coals during the OJ Simpson trial.

Of course, being in charge of an Equality and Human Rights Commission blinds you to the achievements any member of any minority may attain out of their own merit. The blacks who achieve, according to Phillips, do so only through cashing in on white guilt,

Mr Phillips said that there was no “British Obama” in part because the black British community was much smaller and therefore less likely to produce such high-achievers, and because “Black Britons can’t bring centuries of white guilt to bear with the devastating impact that African-Americans have done for two generations?.

What does that mean, that to the “equality chief”, a black Presidential candidate is one sign of “devastating impact”?

Perhaps Phillips is embarrassed. Alvaro Vargas Llosa, writing at The New Republic (that arm of the vast right wing conspiracy),

In Europe, one senses a quiet shame. The left, which loves to criticize the Unites States for its imperial foreign policy and its discrimination against blacks and Hispanics, is not really saluting Obama. There have been few gushing articles in Italy’s La Repubblica or France’s Le Monde. And by sending the message that it might be ready to elect an African-American, a part of mainstream America is showing the industrialized world a more open-minded attitude than the United States usually gets credit for. This is particularly embarrassing in socialist Europe. Contrast the attitude of those white Americans who are ready for a President Obama with the conditions that have led France’s North African immigrants to riot on the outskirts of Paris. And have the Scandinavian countries ever generated anything comparable to Obama among the minorities who are tended to so generously as long as they don’t make too much noise?

As long as he’s secure his job, it probably doesn’t matter.

UPDATE
Here’s Erik Svane‘s letter to the IHT from June 20, 1997

As I wrote in letters to the editor to the Washington Post and the IHT 10 years ago (where it says “the/American president” below, I wrote “Clinton” at the time):

I should like to know on behalf of whom, exactly, America’s president should apologize over slavery. I myself, like the majority of today’s U.S. population, am descended from immigrants who arrived after the turn of the 20th century and therefore have nothing to do with the treatment of blacks on the plantations (or that of Indians on the plains, for that matter).

As for Americans living at the time slavery existed, over twice as many whites lived in states where slavery was illegal and where it had been so, for the most part, since before the French Revolution. The president can hardly apologize for the South either, since most whites even there — two thirds of them, to be precise — did not own a single slave.

Maybe the president should apologize for the planters and slaveholders? But they inherited the system they dwelled in, and although they certainly did little if anything to change it, in what way are they more guilty than the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and other European nationals who introduced it in all their colonies (including, of course, the future United States) and whose only reason for not introducing it onto the European continent proper (as well as the North of the future U.S., needless to say) was the absence of a propitious climate?

And how, finally, are the above-mentioned whites more guilty than the African tribes whose warriors raided neighboring villages to sell their enemies to the Europeans?

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Filed Under: Barak Obama, Election2008, politics, UK

February 27, 2008 By Fausta

What’s in a name?

People are debating whether or not it is correct to refer to Obama as Barack Hussein Obama.

Hot Air has the video.

Cunningham (who by the way I’d never heard of until this morning) correctly mentions the business dealings with Rezko (see yesterday’s post), and some other allegations that should be discussed and investigated.

Obama has also made his position clear on disarming America; Doug Ross has the video (h/t Larwyn):

…I will cut investments in unproven [sic] missile defense systems…
…I will not weaponize space…
…I will slow development of Future Combat Systems…
…and I will institute a “Defense Priorities Board” to [prevent] unnecessary spending…
…I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons…
…and to seek that goal, I will not develop nuclear weapons…
…I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material…
…and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert…
…and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals…

These are matters of national security. The future of our country depends on them. By the way, Gerard is rather suspicious of that video.

Video notwithstanding, Doug also links to Kudlow’s list of Obama’s voting record:

* Voted against extending the Bush tax cuts on capital gains and dividends.

* Voted against permanently repealing the Death Tax. (Called the cuts a “Paris Hilton” tax break for “billionaire heirs and heiresses”)

* Voted against CAFTA.

* Voted YES on raising the minimum wage to $7.25 rather than $6.25.

* Opposed the lifting of $0.54 per gallon tariff on cheaper Brazillian ethanol. Said, “ethanol imports are neither necessary nor a practical response to current gasoline prices.”

* Voted against the bankruptcy abuse bill.

* Opposes privatizing Social Security

* Voted against drilling in ANWR.

* Voted against confirmation of Sam Alito AND John Roberts as chief justice.

* Voted against extending the PATRIOT Act’s wiretap provision.

* Opposed any bans on partial birth abortions.

There’s enough in there to give plenty of pause to any non-liberal.

Instead, what is the outrage about?

Cunningham called Obama, Barak Hussein Obama. Does it constitute pandering to fear and emotion?

Maybe.

But we would be better served if we started (finally) discussing what it is Obama stands for, instead of what his name implies or doesn’t, or whether his wife made him quit smoking.

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Filed Under: Barak Obama, Election2008, John McCain, politics

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