Who Is The Real Barack Obama?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, VideoI’d say this video gives you as good a glimpse into the man and his family. It’s about 15 minutes long and it’s just very straightforward, non-narrated footage of the time around the convention.
Contrast that, with this…
I know I’ve posted that video before, but I think it’s necessary to point out just how divorced from reality some in the Republican base are these days.
And let’s not kid ourselves…McCain’s strategy of saying Obama is buddies with terrorists promotes these ideas to voters who otherwise wouldn’t have considered them and reinforces with those who already held them.
The only problem now for McCain is it’s backfiring. Because at rally after rally, he is now having to defend Obama’s background at the same time he’s calling it into question. It has gotten THAT crazy.
Think about that for a moment. McCain actually had to tell somebody at one of his rallies that Obama wasn’t an Arab. And so now this is what the media is focusing on. Not Obama’s character, but the characters at McCain’s rallies.
This is where John is at right now. Painted into a corner with his legacy on the line.
Will he continue to attack Obama with the Ayers strategy, now knowing explicitly that it promotes a completely distorted and dangerous view his opponent? Or will he do the honorable thing and admit that winning isn’t worth it if this is how you have to do it.
We shall see…
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Justin how dare you attack the good small town real americans at mccain rallies. To attack them is to hate america. pretty soon we will be hearing this from the mccain campaign.
Justin Gardner’s attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Justin Gardner just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about. He dismisses hardworking middle class Americans as clinging to guns and religion, while at the same time attacking average Americans at McCain rallies who are angry at Washington, Wall Street and the status quo.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Given that you could find the same kind of beliefs at the Republican National Convention what does that say about the state of the party and far too many of our citizens?
October 11th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
People who propagate character attacks are not “good small town americans”. Those people who believe and repeat that garbage are racist and insecure. I’ve been involved in many discussions, and the base flavor of all the fear and hatred of Obama is absolutely racism. They’re not calling him “that black man”, but calling him an arab (so what if he was) or a islamic communist (which makes no sense) is completely based off of prejudice and racism. If he were white, they wouldn’t be using that method of attack, and it shows the lack of education, intelligence, and morale values that encompass the republican party.
I used to have a great deal of respect for John Mccain, I now have Zero.
-Chris
October 11th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
That video of the ignorant McCain/Palin supporters bothers me because whoever shot it clearly went out looking for stupidity and then edited together a video to show the stupidist of the stupid. I would imagine an enterprising conservative could find some real idiots at an Obama rally if he or she wanted to. I’d rather see video of Palin and McCain making idiotic statements. That would tell me more.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Oh, and of course the racist vote is coming out for McCain. We always knew that was going to happen. We can’t blame McCain for being the white candidate and thus attracting the bigots. We CAN blame him for fanning those racist flames.
October 12th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Commenting on Obama’s relationships with terrorists is painting a distorted view of his opponent? The racist vote is coming out for McCain? Lack of education, intelligence and moral values that encompass the Republican party? Those comments would be a laugh if it weren’t for the fact that people who would make those comments have the same vote as someone who has actually studied the issues and cares about the future of our country. Or maybe 14 times as many votes this year, if they live in a state where Acorn is being allowed to register them a bunch of times. Let’s look at some facts:
First: Commenting on Obama’s relationships with terrorists is not painting a distorted view of his character. So far, McCain has only commented on one of the terrorists, William Ayers. A man who was guilty of multiple terrorist bombings in the United States, who only escaped punishment because the FBI broke the law in collecting the evidence. A man who still says he is only sorry because he didn’t set enough bombs or kill enough people. My granddaddy used to say the one error in association could be a mistake any man could make. Of course, granddaddy used to say some things about the integrity and trustworthiness of anyone who would lie about their mistake in having such an association, as it is now clear Obama has done from the beginning. Granddaddy said tell the truth and shame the devil - he said he wouldn’t trust anyone who lied to him like that to vote for him to be dog catcher. My granddaddy was a pretty wise man.
The thing is, there is a second terrorist connection. Bernadette Dorn, one of the biggest American terrorist in history, hater of all things American. Bomber of family homes. With the families in them. Turns out she worked with Obama’s never before proud of America wife Michelle. Ayers and Dorn are married. Seems there may be something to the idea that if you are married to a terrorist, you may be more likely to be a terrorist. You think if you are married to someone who doesn’t really love America, you may not really love America yourself?
Granddaddy used to say that the second time wasn’t an accident, but at the least BAD JUDGMENT. As I said, he was a pretty wise man. Knew how to get to the truth of things.
And then there the third terrorist connection. Raila Odinga. Remember the picture of Obama in Muslim garb, while he was visiting Kenya? Turns out that while he was in Kenya, he spent a lot of time visiting with and talking to Raile Odinga (allegedly Obama’s cousin, although birth records and family trees aren’t real clear in that part of the world), trying to help him get elected President of one of the few stable countries in that part of the world. When Odinga lost the election, he set his supporters to an effort to take over by force. Among the terrorist acts he ordered? The members of a Christian church were locked inside their church and it was set on fire. 2000 Odinga followers were given machetes and sent to hack up Christians who hadn’t supported Odinga. More than 1500 Christians were killed.
As my granddaddy would say, if a guy has three terrorist connections, there’s a pretty fair chance he’s got some serious terrorist sympathies. Granddaddy would say “but three? That’s a pattern… that’s a bad character.”
Second: Education? II have a doctorate, as do many of my Republican friends. I will say that the Republicans I encounter are usually a little better-educated than most of the Democrats I meet. Intelligence - I earned my membership in MENSA - how about you?
Moral values? Thanks for bringing that up - glad to talk about it. Two years ago, the Republicans in Congress forced Republican Mark Foley to resign because he sent dirty emails to some of his pages. My point? When Democrat Congressman Gerry Studds hired a series of underage teenage boys to be his pages, used our tax dollars to pay them, took them to Washington (using our tax dollars to pay for their travel), housed them in Washington (again at our expense), and then raped them, the Democrats who controlled Congress thought it sufficient to tell him that he was a naughty boy and not to do it again, then allowed him to keep his Congressional privilege to avoid prosecution. And isn’t Democrat hero Senator Teddy Kennedy the guy who got drunk, drove his car into a canal and left his mistress a member of his staff) in the car to drown? He avoided prosecution by the grace of friendly (Democrat) judges and prosecutors, so he avoided the judicial process that would have made him a felon and stripped him of his seat in the U.S. Senate. Typically, Democrats stood together to protect their own. He committed manslaughter, and he is hailed by Democrats as a great man…
Compare that to (Republican) Senator Packwood. He allegedly made some unwelcome comments to females on his staff (although none actually told him the comments were unwelcome), and the Republicans who then controlled the Senate forced him out.
And there’s the comparison between Trent Lott and Robert Byrd. Byrd is the (respected by Democrats) Democrat senator from West Virginia, a former member of the KKK, who made numerous statements favoring segregation and abuse of blacks. Trent Lott, on the other hand, went to a dinner honoring fellow Senator Strom Thurmond (who was retiring) and made a joke about the effect on history had Thurmond been elected president when he ran on the racist Dixiecrat Party ticket. The Democrats typically raised cain over Lott’s remarks - but what shows the true Republican values was that the Republicans who then controlled the Senate stripped Lott of his role as Senate Majority Leader. A meaningful punishment for racial insensitivity.
Or compare the attempts to impeach Nixon and Clinton. When there became evidence to show that Nixon had in fact broken the law, Republicans in the Senate insisted that he resign or they would vote to impeach him. When Clinton was first facing charges, many Democrat senators said if he had had sex with Monica Lewinski and lied about it under oath, they’d have to vote to impeach. But when the vote came, they acted in true Democrat fashion - they unanimously voted against impeachment to protect their hold on power.
Republicans give up power to protest their principles, Democrats sacrifice their principles for power.
Third: The racist vote has been coming out all year, in the form of blacks who have been admittedly coming out in record numbers and voting for him because he is black. The racist vote this time is not for the white man - it is for the black man.
October 12th, 2008 at 10:17 am
@Gaucho
I’ll assume you’re kidding.
@Alan
There’s no doubt the filmmaker was looking for ignorance, but WHERE he was looking matters. Because there are numerous videos out there of people who are obviously extremely uneducated talking about Obama. I haven’t posted those, nor will I ever. But the people in this video seem like the exact opposite. These people seem like middle American surburbanites, Now, maybe they’re aren’t, but explain to me exactly who these people are if they aren’t that.
What’s more, it’s not like the filmmaker has EVERYBODY saying he’s a terrorist. Some people simply say “no” to the question, but they don’t like Obama’s policies. But then their friends say yes, and then try to explain why they think so.
@Jay
Wow, where to begin.
First, if blacks vote for black man because he’s black…that’s not racist. It’s racial, but it’s not an anti-white vote. There’s a huge difference there.
As for everything else you put out there…I don’t know if you realize who acutely condescending you sound, but let me be the first to point it out.
MENSA? Doctorate? As if most or even a significant majority of Republicans have such distinctions. Please.
As for the rest of your comparisons between Rs and Ds, nice cherry picking. Next.
Last, thanks for proving my point by being a self-proclaimed highly educated voter, but still arguing that Obama’s incredibly tenuous and superficial “terrorist” connections are significant and deep…thus agreeing with McCain’s statement that Obama “pals around with terrorists.”
October 12th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Sorry, Justin, but there are several things in your response that I have to take issue with.
First, I doubt if many would agree with the concept that if a white person votes for someone just because they are white, they are not casting a racist (as well as racial) vote. The opposite - a black person voting for someone who is black because he is black - is also racist. I’m not talking about the many who always vote Democrat, I am talking about the hundreds of thousands who voted for Alan Keyes, because they believe in his policies, and the hundreds of thousands who regularly vote Republican, but who are admitting that they are voting for Obama because he is black. When race is the deciding factor, that is racist. I would have hoped that we were past that, at least in those numbers.
How highly condescending I sound? I wish you could have found a better argument against me than that you don’t like the tone of my letter. I read Chris attacking the education and intelligence of people he disagreed with - I guess my response could afford to be a little condescending given the poor quality of his writing - bad grammar, poor capitalization. I read Alan blaming McCain for fanning the racist flames - he has not fanned the racist flames - but there are far too many who think McCain should not be allowed to attack Obama at all, and who will accuse him of fanning the racist flames if he says anything negative about Obama. I’m sorry, but if all McCain does is tell the truth, then more power to him. Obama has a pretty thin skin - his wife actively campaigns, says things that are relevant to the campaign, she gets criticized for what she says or does, and Obama says “my wife and family are off limits.” Then he launches an attack ad against Cindy McCain, and brings his kids to a TV show to use them as props. Anything he uses in his campaign is fair game.
And Obama’s terrorist connections are only tenuous in the minds of those who believe his denials. His association with William Ayers is now known to be much more than “someone who lives in my neighborhood.” Funny he didn’t tell us that Ayers helped him to launch his political career, that Ayers supplied him with a lot of cash to support his community organizing. The connection to Bernadette Dorn is not tenuous - she and Michelle Obama go back about 20 years. Michelle Obama is widely recognized as Obama’s closest advisor, and that she was close enough to Dorn to encourage the relationship with Ayers and Dorn certainly casts some light on her comment that she’d never been proud of her (our) country. Remember, Dorn doesn’t like our country either. That’s why her terrorist bombings included at least one private home with awoman and her small children sleeping inside. Come to think of it, that ‘never proud of my country’ bit might be why Obama says “We live in the the greatest country in the world. Help me change it.”
As for your claim that I cherry-pick my comparisons between Democrat corruption and Republican mistakes? I actually chose the examples that were closest to each other. I could have compared the impeached for crimes former federal judge Alcee Hastings who is now a respected (by Democrats) congressman. That makes two current Democrat members of Congress who have been convicted of felonies but are permitted leadership roles by the Democrats in Congress. Not to mention Congressman Jefferson, who was caught with the bribe money in his freezer. Of course, Nancy Pelosi placed this corrupt Congressman on the Homeland Security Committee. Name a Republican in the past 40 years who has been convicted of a felony and allowed to remain in Congress? I thought not…
My examples were not cherry-picking, but accurate portrayals of the behavior of the two parties’ leadership and voters.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Jay,
like all others you are mistaking why I am calling those people racist, it is not because they are voting for or against a certain person of a certain race. It is because of the lies that are propagated by the republican party and it’s goons are completely racist in nature.
We all know that the video was made by going out and looking for trouble, and that it shows only the negative portrayal of McCain’s supporters. But for all of us who try to debate with others in real life and on the internet, we all know that ALOT of people share those people’s views. Way too many to say that those on the video are the fringe believers.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
[...] that with videos like the one over at this post, and we’re not just seeing isolated events here and there. This is a [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Justin,
I was not mistaking why you are calling those people racist. I was disagreeing with your definition of racist. Racism is not limited to the propagation of lies about a given race, but includes such attitudes as that members of another race should be used as scapegoats for your problems, or should be considered inferior and not worthy of respect and fair treatment because of their race. It includes any action taken solely because of a person or groups race. In that light, I maintain that there is still plenty of racism to go around - but far more blacks’ voting is racially motivated this year than whites’ voting.
And if your criteria for whether the parties are racist is that if there are many racists in the party, it is to be condemned, then the Democrat Party should be condemned as well. For while I agree with your observation that all of us who try to debate with others in real life and on the internet see a lot of people who share those peoples’ view, I also know that we also see just as many blacks who hold very deeply ingrained racist views.
But McCain hasn’t spread the Obama is an Arab word. That is something that is spread by the under-educated. On the other hand, it is not as clear whether he is Muslim. We truly only have his word to deny that, and unfortunately he has lied so often in this campaign that his word is worthless. There is, however, some evidence that he is in fact Muslim.
Have you read the Koran? Have you ever lived in a Muslim country? Have you studied the history of Islam? Have you ever practiced law in courts based on Sharia (Islamic law)? My answer to each of the above questions is yes. By Islamic law, Obama is Muslim. That school registration showing him as Muslim is true, and not meaningless. He was raised Muslim at least to that point.
And here’s where it gets a bit tricky, because by Muslim law, if a Muslim leaves the faith, other Muslims are required to call for his execution. So if Obama is not Muslim, why are Muslim leaders supporting him instead of calling for his execution? And if he’s such a devout Christian, why was he paying so little attention to Jeremiah Wright’s sermons for 20 years?
I’ll admit, it’s not sufficient evidence to convict him in criminal court. But it raises serious doubts - doubts that we can’t afford when we are in a life and death struggle with Islamic terrorists and are choosing a new commander in chief.
And the videos you chose for comparison are not fair, but are a propaganda trick. You offered a slick, professional video made by Obama’s campaign, showing what he wanted people to see of his participation in and preparation for the convention, and said compare it to a jerky video of people opposed to Obama, also made by an Obama supporter - an with who knows how much editing or staging? A fair presentation would have asked us to compare two similarly-themed videos, made by neutral parties or made by the opposing parties. (And I note that you “owned up to that issue”, as my Granddaddy would have said.)
Let me close by saying it has indeed been a pleasure to engage in this discussion with you - your arguments have been sharp and well-considered, and you have drawn me to a deeper consideration of the issues. Thank you.
October 12th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
McCain has to nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand. Its time to get back on message.