Obama - A Black Bill Clinton?

red states rule

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May 30, 2006
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Just what we need a smooth talking black version of Bill Clinton



The Linguistic Case Against Barack Obama
By Patrick O'Hannigan

Barack Obama may have frightened Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton into rewriting the civil rights section of her autobiography (was that erstwhile "Goldwater Girl" really a staunch supporter of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. even though Goldwater himself was not?), but the man whose claims to fame consist solely of having made a more-polished-than-average speech at his party's national convention, and having defeated Alan Keyes for a Senate seat from Illinois, is not yet ready for prime time. Obama has never had to punch above his weight, as they say in boxing.

Obama sauntered into prominence by beating a hamstrung candidate in a state where Lincoln's oratorical gifts can no longer claim even the recognition afforded to My Favorite Martian (in a recent budget speech, the governor of Illinois said he didn't believe God intended anyone to be without health insurance).

Keyes can keep up with Obama verbally, as Obama well knew, but he has eccentricities enough for two candidates. It's almost never politically astute to declare your opponent someone whom Jesus would not vote for, as Keyes did. Moreover, Keyes had no real money, and relied almost exclusively on free media to get his message out.

Since finding the limelight, Obama has given the rest of us only rhetoric that won't stand up to scrutiny, much less "lexpionage" (defined by the WordSpy web site as "the sleuthing of new words and phrases").

Take his catchphrase, "the audacity of hope." As some pundits have observed, hope is not especially audacious when you have a Pepsodent smile, a diploma from Hawaii's most prestigious high school, and a stint as editor of the Harvard Law Review, together with multicultural credentials even Tiger Woods might envy (Kansas and Kenya? Get out!).

But forget Obama's biography for a minute. Look again at that catchphrase itself. It ought to be on a church billboard before some priest or minister preaches about what it must have been like for disciples to walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus three days after Jesus had been crucified. It might also advertise a sermon about the centurion who told Jesus that there was no need for him to come to his house, because healing could be done through a simple word of command. In either case, that was audacious hope, which -- we have on good authority -- typically travels in the company of faith and love.

My biggest beef with Obama is that his glibness cheapens language in precisely the way that John Edwards cheapened logic while channeling the thoughts of an unborn baby for a jury, and John Kerry cheapened honor by slandering people he would later call his "band of brothers" as baby killers who gunned and raped their way through Southeast Asia.

Margaret Mitchell, Harper Lee, and John Kennedy Toole wrote only one book apiece. Barack Obama already has two autobiographies and a cookbook in the hopper.

In the first chapter of "The Audacity of Hope," Obama congratulates himself for recognizing the alleged risk of talking as a though a citizenry grappling with "globalization, dizzying technological change, cutthroat politics and unremitting culture wars" had a shared language with which to discuss our ideals. As an example of good judgment, this would be more effective uncoupled from a paragraph that celebrates "values and ideals" that "remain alive in the hearts and minds of most Americans." But having found common ground that "binds us together despite our differences," Obama promptly ignores his own campaign-trail experience to lament the lack of it.

Too much of his other rhetoric is equally scattershot. Remember the speech that brought Obama to national attention? People praised him to the rafters for it at the time, although Zell Miller's spitballing stem-winder to the Republicans a few days later was more memorable. Unfortunately, the transcript of Obama's remarks shows only pudding where there should have been meat. After pointing to the preamble of the Declaration of Independence as a source of American pride, Obama turned the cold clarity of self-evident truths into schmaltz less than a paragraph later, in a wretchedly wrongheaded paraphrase of the Founding Fathers. "That is the true genius of America," he said, "a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles." No one challenged Obama for confusing Thomas Jefferson with Winnie the Pooh, and the man's gotten a free ride since then.

Like most politicians, Obama exaggerates, as was made clear by his recent pronouncement to a reporter from the Des Moines Register that nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people. The freshman senator is adept at credential-polishing as well. One retired mayor put his finger on the problem after hearing Obama speak March 16th. "I kept watching him thinking he is so great, but then there is the experience thing," Ray Gagnon told a reporter for the Boston Globe. "I mean he says he's had 10 years in elected office. Well, so did I on the City Council. Does that count?"

Obama's cynicism-is-our-biggest-enemy shtick may be sincere, but unlike Ronald Reagan's "morning in America," or Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "only thing we have to fear is fear itself," it's cheap. Irishman that he was, Reagan wielded hope like a shillelagh, using it on striking air traffic controllers at home and Communists abroad. Obama hasn't gotten past sunny-side up notions straight out of O Brother, Where Art Thou? In fact, if you like musicals, his kind of hope is all over the place.

Remember Finian's Rainbow ("On the day I was born, said me father said he, I've an elegant legacy waitin' for ye-‘tis a rhyme for your lips, and a song for your heart, to sing it whene'er the world falls apart")? Then there's "The Music Man," where Harold Hill was nearly run out of River City for selling the "audacity of hope" in a boys' band with a smile and a make-believe music degree.

Mark Steyn invoked The Sound of Music for the Illinois senator back in January ("how do you solve a problem like Obama?"). Certainly Obama's father had once been a lonely goatherd, albeit in Africa rather than in Europe. But Steyn would be the first to admit that even when Julie Andrews was singing to the von Trapp children about her favorite things, everyone from little Gretl up through lovely Liesl also understood that there were Nazis to fight.

What Obama seems to grasp intuitively goes no deeper than how to scare his distaff colleague from New York, and which way to turn for a profile shot. He's selling a remix of the best song from "Little Orphan Annie," but it's slightly off: "When I'm stuck with a day that's gray and lonely, I stick out my chin, and grin, and say, Raise taxes! And spending! This war should be ending! And donkeys will lead the way!"

Columnists trying to grease Obama's entrance to the Oval Office may don poodle skirts or pompadours for a fawning chorus of "You're the one that I want! You're the only one I want! Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!," but (as we should have learned from the 42nd president) glib and good are not the same.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/post_2.html
 
Conspiracy Theory: ABC Suggests GOP Behind '1984' Anti-Hillary Ad
Posted by Mark Finkelstein on March 20, 2007 - 07:49.
MSM-think: when you have no facts on a controversy, offer up the Democrats' anti-GOP conjecture. That was ABC's modus operandi this morning.

Being the astute observers of the political scene they are, most NewsBusters readers have surely watched the YouTube-based anti-Hillary campaign ad that has been making the rounds. It is a take-off on the famous Apple computer ad, which in turn was inspired by George Orwell's anti-authoritarian epic "1984." In the current version, an ominous Hillary, appearing on a wide screen to an audience of automatons, represents Big Brother in the same way IBM did in the Apple original. Barack Obama, represented by a woman athlete of a certain age, plays the hero, hurling a hammer into the screen to smash the state and free the prisoners.


Today's "Good Morning America" ran a segment on the ad. And guess who turned out to be the villian? At the segment's end, ABC's Claire Shipman acknowledged that "there still are no real clues about the author." But that didn't stop Shipman from spinning the story to attack Republicans:

"Robin, the ultimate conspiracy theory, some Democrats think a Republican operative could be responsible because it not only makes Hillary Clinton look bad but Barack Obama look bad, since it's an attack ad."

ROBIN ROBERTS: "Something to think about."
It sure is -- if you want people to think the worst about Republicans.

http://newsbusters.org/node/11528
 
bush and clinton did the same things, the war in iraq is a continuetion of what was going on in the 90's, and that continues back even to before the first world war. the only difference is that bush makes america look stupid and bill made you look cool, whoever comes in will do the same so you might as well be cool again, at least you wont have to pretend your canadian when you go on holiday.
 
bush and clinton did the same things, the war in iraq is a continuetion of what was going on in the 90's, and that continues back even to before the first world war. the only difference is that bush makes america look stupid and bill made you look cool, whoever comes in will do the same so you might as well be cool again, at least you wont have to pretend your canadian when you go on holiday.

So being cool is letting terrorists kill without retaliation? Being cool is letting al Qaeda grow? Being cool is doing nothing to stop terrorists and blocking the FBI and CIA from sharing information?

Thanks - but no thanks
 
bush and clinton did the same things, the war in iraq is a continuetion of what was going on in the 90's, and that continues back even to before the first world war. the only difference is that bush makes america look stupid and bill made you look cool, whoever comes in will do the same so you might as well be cool again, at least you wont have to pretend your canadian when you go on holiday.
Being stupid and liberal is not cool. Being conservative, smart, and raking in the large dollars is cool.
 
Being stupid and liberal is not cool. Being conservative, smart, and raking in the large dollars is cool.


Libs idea of fight terrorism is issuing threats and warnings. If that fails, libs will take their complaint to the UN!
 
The Lion Roars at Last
The lion in the jungle makes every other animal sit up and take notice as soon as he lets out a roar. He didn't get that way through artificial paraphernalia or through springs and wires and trick dumbells. He became the king of the jungle through constant natural use of every muscle in his body.
- Charles Atlas

Liberal Democrats are a peaceful people, highly intelligent yet slow to anger even when provoked by the infuriating stupidity of your average American. But confront us with annoying questions that your feeble minds can’t even begin to comprehend the answers to, and you will hear us roar like lions, drowning out all else.

After six years of politely staying out of the spotlight, the camera-shy Bill Clinton has finally had his fill of brainless conservative morons who take nothing he says at face value. No longer will he sit idly by while minions of the Right-Wing Propaganda Machine ask him to explain what the hell he did for the whole 8 years he was in office. His royal dressing-down of that Faux News Nazi is just a taste of what’s in store for those who would use his record as president to cloud his legacy

Don’t let his name fool you. ChriSHitler Wallace is not a fair and balanced journalist like his father. As evident by his failure to sit on Bill Clinton’s lap and make little cooing sounds whenever he spoke, Wallace is little more than a right-wing hack. But to even suggest that the former president somehow allowed the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks to slip from his grasp is the height of insanity.

Had he any inking that Bush was going to fly planes into those buildings just to launch an illegal and immoral war for oil so he could line the pockets of his Halliburton buddies, Clinton would have done everything in his power to stop him. Perhaps his only mistake was that he was too busy trying to get Osama Bin Laden to worry about what the alcoholic Governor of Texas was doing. In fact, he was in the process of scrounging up enough loose change from under his sofa cushions to launch a CIA and FBI investigation into whether OBL was a bad guy, with hsi full support and cooperation as long as the agencies didn’t communicate with one another, eavesdrop on any terrorists, or interrupt any of his blow jobs. In fact, it was a top priority on his to-do-list, right after signing a few hundred last-minute, legacy-sealing executive orders, and then a pile of pardons for coke dealers and campaign contributors.

So the old Right-Wing canard that Democrats are soft on national defense won’t float this election year. Bill Clinton and his entire cabinet took the terrorist threat very seriously, and Sandy Berger’s trousers are stuffed full of documents to prove it. The poor man has paper cuts on his testicles that will never heal.

As do we all.


http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/socalled_terrorism/index.html
 

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