Remember that “3:00AM” ad? Who would we want answering the phone? This woman, that’s who.

Instead we have President Obama, who has gotten his early morning call, particularly regarding Afghanistan. He’s letting it go to voice-mail. Hey, he has more important things to do, like go to Copenhagen to push for Chicago to get the Olympic Games in 2016. Yep – it’s true. He’s making a “personal” appeal – presumably on OUR dime. Oh, he can’t be bothered with what’s going on with ACORN, mind you, but he can press for Chicago to get the Olympics. So, General McChrystal, and our troops, can just wait, dammit, until Obama can get to them. (By the way, General McChrystal is holding firm on wanting those troops, despite the pressure he is under to shut up.)

Oh, and a little side note on that, the whole Chicago Olympics bid. Turns out that Fox TV in Chicago has been warned – as only they can do in Chicago – to NOT air a program they did on people in Chicago OPPOSED to having the Olympics there again. Oh, I just love this Free Speech, don’t you?

Every time I hear Secretary Clinton speak, and then President Obama, every time, I am reminded of who would have been the better choice to have at the other end of the phone line in difficult times. And it sure isn’t Obama, no matter how much he loves to hear himself talk (though largely about himself, as THIS article highlights. Almost 1,200 times in just 41 speeches, NOT including all of the speechifying he did last week. Holy SMOKES – narcissistic much?). He’s not the one I would trust to deal with the big issues. Seems like some other folks are figuring that out now, too. Too late, though, for dealing with some major issues, like Afghanistan.

If only it wasn’t our soldiers who were going to bear the brunt of that call going to voice-mail…

Um, aren’t these EXACTLY the same things OBAMA is planning on doing? Let’s see – he attacked Hillary Clinton during the Primaries by claiming she would fine people who didn’t have insurance. She never said that, but now Obama is. Obama claimed in the campaign that McCain was going to cut money from Medicare and tax people on their insurance, and now Obama is planning on doing both! WTF???

Oh, wait – Obama was emphatic with George Stephanopoulos that it is NOT a tax on insurance. Heck, no, no way, could this exchange make anyone think this is a tax:

OBAMA: What — what — if I — if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that’s not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don’t want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I — I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”

You can watch the exchange here to get the fuller picture, and new definition:

No disrespect or anything, President Obama, but you make shit up all the time! Jeezum crow! And you’re going to get all testy with George? I reckon you forgot that you are trying to WOO people over to your plan, not antagonize them. Oh, wait, I forgot – this is upside down world. A world in which people who have the audacity to actually question you are rude, but one in which you can flat out lie about people who disagree with you. I got it. New definition of rude – check!

Well, that was the whole tax issue. How about cutting Medicare? Uh huh:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s go to Medicare then…

OBAMA: Good.

STEPHANOPOULOS: …because you also said that no one will lose what they have. And Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, says that the cuts you’re looking at in Medi — the Medicare Advantage program…

OBAMA: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: …are going to force people to lose coverage they now have.

OBAMA: No. Here — here’s what’s going to happen. These are essentially private HMOs who are getting, on average — and this is not my estimate, this is Democrats and Republicans, experts have said — they’re getting, on average, about 14 percent more over payments, basically subsidies from taxpayers for a program that ordinary Medicare does just as good, if not better, at keeping people healthy.

Now, they package these things in ways that, in some cases, may make it more convenient for some consumers, but they’re overcharging massively for it. There’s no competitive bidding under the process.

And so what we’ve said is instead of spending $17 billion, $18 billion a year, $177 billion over 10 years on that, why wouldn’t we use that to close the donut hole so the people are actually getting better prescription drugs…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But Senator Nelson says it’s going to…

OBAMA: …Why don’t we make sure that we’re using some of that money to actually make people healthier?

STEPHANOPOULOS: But he said it’s going to cause beneficiaries right now to lose what they have.

OBAMA: Look, I understand that change is hard. If what you’re saying is that people who are currently signed up for Medicare advantage are going to have Medicare and the same level of benefits, but they may not be having their insurer get a 14 percent premium, that’s absolutely true and will the insurers squawk? You bet.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They may drop the coverage.

OBAMA: No, these folks are going to be able to get Medicare that is just as good, provides the same benefits, but we’re not subsidizing them for $18 billion a year.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So Senator Nelson, he wants to pass an amendment that shields anyone currently on Medicare advantage from any cuts. Do you support that?

OBAMA: George, I’m not going to be negotiating a particular provision of the bill, sitting (ph) down with you here right now. What I am going to say is this: the basic principle that is indisputable is that we are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare that is not making people healthier. I want to make sure that we’re using that money to actually make people healthier.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if people lose their Medicare advantage?

OBAMA: What I have said is we’re not going to take a dollar out of the Medicare trust fund. We’re going to make sure that benefits are just as strong if not stronger. We’re not going to subsidize insurance companies in ways that end up creating a situation that Medicare is actually weaker and has a less financial foundation, because right now, we’ve got eight years from now potentially Medicare going into the red.

If you get a chance, go watch the video. It seems to me that Obama gets JUST a tad testy…

One itsy, bitsy problem. The Health Care bill does say tax. Page 29 of the bill:

Excise Tax. The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax. If a taxpayer‘s MAGI is between 100-300 percent of FPL, the excise tax for failing to obtain coverage for an individual in a taxpayer unit (either as a taxpayer or an individual claimed as a dependent) is $750 per year. However, the maximum penalty for the taxpayer unit is $1,500. If a taxpayer‘s MAGI is above 300 percent of FPL the penalty for failing to obtain coverage for an individual in a taxpayer unit (either as a taxpayer or as an individual claimed as a dependent) is $950 year. However, the maximum penalty amount a family above 300 percent of FPL would pay is $3,800.

And here’s a little bit of advice for President Obama, if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it’s a safe bet that it’s a duck. But when the duck is clearly labeled as a duck (or in your case, a tax, or a cut in services, or a lie) it is a duck. So stop pretending a tax is not a tax, especially when it is labeled a tax. Just as folks understood that fellatio was a sex act they also are able to figure out that having to give the Government more money out of their pockets is a tax no matter what it is called. You may not understand what an “excise tax” is but some of us are actually able to tell the difference. But thanks for playing.

Now, you know I can’t abide Andrew Sullivan for a bunch of reasons. Hence my unwillingness to give him any traffic at all by even going to his site and re-posting his article here. But when I saw this blurb, and Sullivan’s arrogant, and sexist, title, I just couldn’t resist. I almost cracked up laughing that he, of all people, is getting his nose out of joint about the questions Cheney was asked in this interview. Apparently, he has forgotten just about every interview Obama has had since he began his campaign, and he was running for the highest office in the land! Cheney is not running for anything (and I hasten to add, I have absolutely NO love lost for Dick Cheney. I appreciate that he supports his daughter, her partner, and their child, but that’s about it).

Perhaps Sullivan forgot this interview by Charlie Gibson of ABC News, an outlet that uses OUR airwaves for FREE, of Obama during the campaign:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

Oooooohhhhh – how di Obama withstand those WITHERING questions?

Or more recently, how about Brian Williams and his day at the White House, one that culminated in THIS moment:

Seriously?? He really wants to go down this road of how political interviewees are handled? How about this clip with George Stephanapoulous:

Heck, George even supplies the correct verbiage to Obama! And may I just say one more time – HOW was this man portrayed as being ELOQUENT??? Holy smokes.

Okay, one more to prove the point, if you can stomach watching Keith Olberman:

Oh, yes – that is some HARD-HITTING “journalism” there for Mr. Sullivan. Get one of the two most biased for Obama show hosts (I refuse to call Olberman a “journalist”) to lob softballs for Obama to trash the Republicans.

By the way, remember Obama’s appearance with McCain at Ground Zero? Yeah, so dignified:

I digress. Back to the whole hard-hitting journalism thing: At least Steve Kroft pointed out Obama’s inappropriate laughter here:

But he did so with a smile, and accepted that lame-ass excuse from Obama as to why he was laughing while indicating how he was going to use our money to bail out the UAW even though Americans were STRONGLY opposed to that idea.

Sullivan complains about the questions asked Cheney? Maybe he should have been so worried about the questions asked of Obama…

… I’ve talked to a lot of former Edwards staffers about this. Up until December of 2007, most on Edwards’ staff didn’t believe rumors about the affair.

But by late December, early January of last year, several people in his inner circle began to think the rumors were true.

Several of them had gotten together and devised a "doomsday" strategy of sorts.

Basically, if it looked like Edwards was going to win the Democratic Party nomination, they were going to sabotage his campaign, several former Edwards’ staffers have told me.

They said they were Democrats first, and if it looked like Edwards was going to become the nominee, they were going to bring down the campaign.

Uh, George. If his staffers were “Democrats first,” they would not have spent the money and effort in Iowa and New Hampshire. They would have confronted him and threatened to resign en masse unless he quietly resigned the race. They could have done a number of things. But they did nothing but help perpetuate a lie and help sabotage Hillary’s candidacy. Think about it, George. Think.

John Harwood, the New York Times reporter and MSNBC analyst, said on MSNBC that Obama was introduced today as “Barack Hussein Obama” and that he emphasized “growing up in a majority Muslim country, that there are a lot of Americans like that and that I [Obama] am one of them.” [Transcribed via DVR playback.]

Jeff Zeleny, another New York Times reporter, responded, “Throughout the course of the primary campaign, one time when I used his middle name, we got a lot of angry e-mail from supporters of then Senator Obama who said, ‘Why do you have to remind people that his middle name is Hussein?‘ But he was doing that directly today to send a purposeful message that he is a part of the world, that he is just piece of American heritage, if you will.” [At NoQuarter, throughout the contests, if anyone used his middle name, we were accused by Obamabots of being racists.]

But today, not only did Barack Obama accentuate his middle name, he said this in a speech to the Turkish parliament:

“The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families, or have lived in a Muslim majority country. I know, because I am one of them,” he said.

What a stark contrast to his campaigns, when he minimized and disguised his affiliations with his Muslim relatives and his upbringing in a Muslim-dominant country (Indonesia). It is also notable today that every media outlet (CNN, A.P., Reuters, etc.) cut out that section of his speech. But I managed to find the video here, at about 3/4 of the way through this NECN video:

As an example of the heated accusations during the primaries, this was the headline at the Times UK: “Barack Obama: I’m no Muslim.”

From Barack Obama’s own “Fight The Smears” campaign Web site was this strong denial:

Here are the lengths that Barack Obama went to in South Carolina to win over the Christian right. (Click on this image to see the entire brochure, full-sized.)

The left column:

Lastly, who can forget this peculiar slip of the tongue when Obama was interviewed by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in September 2008:

:::::::::::

Special thanks to all of the writers at NoQuarter for pitching in and helping me locate these images, links, and videos.

Barack Obama suggested he’s not likely to actively pursue criminal charges against national security officials who were directly involved in unlawful interrogations or wire-tapping, and said it would be difficult to quickly close down Guantanamo Bay.

Hold on to your hats, folks. This doesn’t sound like what he campaigned on – does it?

“That’s a challenge,” the president-elect said about the prospect of closing down to the detainee facility within the first 100 days of taking office. “I think it’s going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do.”

On the question of prosecuting crimes that may have been committed during the Bush presidency in the course of the war on terror, Obama continued the theme of “looking forward as opposed to backwards” he took on the campaign trail and reaffirmed since winning the presidency last November.

Let me repeat that for you — looking forward as opposed to backwards. Apparently, he repeated that theme a number of times in his interview.

In Glen Greenwald’s biting Salon piece “Obama’s allegedly “new” centrism and his ABC interview today”, he quotes Obama’s statement on the subject:

“It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize and we are going to get it done but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom who may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted even though it’s true. And so how to balance creating a process that adheres to rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo American legal system, by doing it in a way that doesn’t result in releasing people who are intent on blowing us up.”

Greenwald then clarifies the butter:

What [Obama's] saying is quite clear. There are detainees who the U.S. may not be able to convict in a court of law. Why not? Because the evidence that we believe establishes their guilt was obtained by torture, and it is therefore likely inadmissible in our courts (torture-obtained evidence is inadmissible in all courts in the civilized world; one might say it’s a defining attribute of being civilized). But Obama wants to detain them anyway — even though we can’t convict them of anything in our courts of law. So before he can close Guantanamo, he wants a new, special court to be created — presumably by an act of Congress — where evidence obtained by torture (confessions and the like) can be used to justify someone’s detention and where, presumably, other safeguards are abolished. That’s what he means when he refers to “creating a process.”

Amazingly, when discussing the same topic, Obama vowed that “we will send a message to the world that we are serious about our values.” How? By creating a new court just for accused Islamic radicals that allows us to use confessions and other evidence that we obtained through torture? That sounds like exactly the same “message about our values” that we’ve been sending.

Great analysis, Glen. Perhaps Obama’s statements then prompted Politico’s Martin to note:

While aimed at attracting consensus from a broader electorate, the position is not exactly what many in the liberal base of his party would prefer.

Uh, no kidding. Along with Obama inviting Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the Inauguration and appointing Governor Tim “anti–choice, anti-Gay union, pro Iraq war” Kaine as the new Democratic Party Chair, this is just another instance of P.E. Obama getting elected on a totally fictional platform and thumbing his nose at the very people who brought him to the table in the first place.

As Stephanopoulos noted, the most asked question on Obama’s own transition website relates to investigating the “crimes” of the Bush administration. Asked if he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate such matters as warrantless wire-tapping and torture, Obama demurred.

You betcha he demurred. Stephanopoulus asked Obama if he was going to take a piece of advice that Dick Cheney offered in reference to the very subject of Bush’s counterterrorism policies. From ABC News:

DICK CHENEY (via audio clip): Before you start to implement your campaign rhetoric you need to sit down and find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it. Because it is going to be vital to keeping the nation safe and secure in the years ahead and it would be a tragedy if they threw over those policies simply because they’ve campaigned against them.
…
OBAMA: I think that was pretty good advice, which is I should know what’s going on before we make judgments and that we shouldn’t be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric. So, I’ve got no quibble with that particular quote.

Obama went on to say:

“We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth,” he said. “And obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices, and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law.

“On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering.”

Pressed, Obama said twice more that he wanted to get “things right in the future, as opposed looking at what we got wrong in the past.”

Again, ‘look forward,’ ‘look to the future.’ In other words, folks, if you are waiting for accountability in Obama’s administration, you can wait long. As far as an independent body similar to the 9/11 commission being formed to investigate these crimes:

“We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing. That doesn’t mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation’s going to be to move forward.”

I think that statement makes pretty clear that whatever bodies are buried are probably going to stay buried. And as to Mr. sit down and meet with anybody, new world of peacenik diplomacy – try this on for size:

Obama also reiterated his desire for a “new approach” to Iran — something he frequently mentioned during the Democratic primary — but was quick to add a stick to go with the carrot.

Asked if U.S. relations with Tehran would include a “new emphasis on respect,” Obama replied: “Well, I think a new emphasis on respect and a new emphasis on being willing to talk, but also a clarity about what our bottom lines are.”

Could it be that in his recent security briefings, he has had a come to Jesus moment and realized that all the nonsense he was spewing on the campaign trail was just that? Or do you think he knew that information all along and was just strategizing to pull the most votes away from Hillary in the primary and McCain in the general by supplying a war weary, Bush-weary electorate with the pablum they wanted to hear? I go with the latter.

Greenwald also notes that while Obama’s fans in the pundit class are celebrating his shifts to the right as “remarkable” – this strategy is old as the hills:

The central tenets of the Beltway religion — particularly when a Democrat is in the White House — have long been “centrism” and “bipartisanship.” The only good Democrats are the ones who scorn their “left-wing” base while embracing Republicans. In Beltway lingo, that’s what “pragmatism” and good “post-partisanship” mean: a Democrat whose primary goal is to prove he’s not one of those leftists.

I guess this is Mr. Greenwald’s way of informing Obama supporters they’ve been had.

Obama has a history of doing and saying anything in the moment that will take him the farthest. If that amounts to a lie that doesn’t conflate with the next lie, so be it. And if the past year is any indication, Obama has little to worry about. No one in the press seems to bother to compare any of his conflicting statements in order to corner him into an admission of his disingenuous behavior.

I am not even going to comment as to the advisability of shutting down Gitmo in the first 100 days– neither this nor his behavior toward Iran is the point. As we have all been proclaiming from the highest hill for the past year, the point is he is simply politics as usual – exactly the opposite of everything he pretended to be. With each news conference, each interview and each new action, he proclaims that loud and clear.

So if he had but a paper thin resume and is not the “new kind of politics” but just inside the beltway business as usual – what exactly does he have to bring to the table? Why did anyone need to vote for him in the first place?

Apart from the wisdom to hire if not all, at least some, incredibly savvy people to cover his butt for him, why couldn’t we have elected genuine leadership instead of a “brand” or puppet king? Surely Hillary would know how to make great cabinet appointments – and be a caring, ultra capable and prepared leader to boot. It would also be great to have a President possessed of toughness, real decision making capabilities and deep, nuanced knowledge of the issues. Hillary has this. He does not. What happens if Obama’s 300 advisors are not available at the moment? What about if part of the team is skiing in Gstaad? How about if he does not have frat-boy Favreau available to write a pretty speech for him? As the saying goes, “Life comes at you fast.”

Senator Clinton always ran as the general election candidate and told the truth about her policies and stance on the issues, both foreign and domestic, from the beginning. She would require none of the betrayals and shocking about faces that Obama seems to be so comfortable with – whether on Gitmo, Iran, the economy or any other issue. Can you imagine Greenwald’s or Martin’s reaction if Hillary had done what Obama is now doing – their rhetoric would have been far more heated, I can assure you. J’accuse!!!! Bet on it.

Thank heavens she will be Secretary of State. Mr. Hopey Changey is going to need all the help he can get. And I think he’s beginning to figure that out.

I can see where Bill Ayers would find this subject dear to his heart since he did say, “Kill your parents” during his “Days of Rage,” or whatever the heck these nutcases called it when they were blowing up America.

The subject is sickening enough, but as No Quarter points out, it does shoot yet another hole in Obama’s blase’ remark during a certain debate:

STEPHANOPOLOUS: Can you explain that relationship [with William Ayers] for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won’t be a problem?

OBAMA: George, but this is an example of what I’m talking about. This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense, George.

Below is a copy of the University of Chicago Press Release from Google 2001 Wayback on the Obamas and Ayers’ disgusting symposium where they gathered to show their collective concern for murderous 13 year-old psychopaths who kill their entire families and God Knows Who Else. Poor sweeties!

No Quarter also kept a nice screen shot of this page for posterity, so that we might all be able to remember the seminar these three societal nutballs held together. When it comes to Obama, screen shots are your friend. You never know when Orwell’s Winston may strike again on behalf of Barack Obama. Scrub, Scrub, Scrub!

Overall, it’s pretty safe to say that Barack Obama not only “exchanged ideas” with Ayers, but God only knows what those “ideas” were. This web page would make Barack Obama a liar. Again.

Of course, keeping kids who kill their parents out of the system would suit a guy who declared everyone should “Kill your parents!”. This would be Billy Ayers’ kinda kid!

And then again, ACORN can register them to vote too–and probably register their dead parents as well.

Kind of makes you feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that kids can kill their entire families and have these characters looking out for them instead of you, doesn’t it?

I wonder which day we can expect to see Obama’s lies about “exchanging ideas” addressed on CNN and MSNBC?
.

Then George Stephanopoulos made this comment:

You’re smiling about it. But some of your supporters were listening, and they heard subtle racial code.

What??? Is THIS what MSM reporters are going to ask Gov. Sarah Palin once she takes press questions? Will the questions go like this? “Governor Palin, were you aware that many Obama supporters interpreted your comments about Obama’s community service as ‘racial code’?” What do you want to bet that that’s what she’s going to be asked? I tell you, if Barack isn’t seeking refuge by playing the race card, the media is only too willing to do it for him.

Obama responded that he didn’t hear that. He complained that “folks suddenly tried to grab the change banner, and that they have a very traditional view of what service means.

The strength of the ad is its accuracy. Unlike the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s ads, there is no available counter-argument. Bill Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist. Obama’s political career was launched at Bill Ayers’ house. Obama did serve on the Woods Fund board with Ayers. The ad hits Obama hardest on his self-proclaimed good judgment. As law professor Steve Diamond states, Obama wasn’t just friends with Ayers, he wasn’t just a guy in the neighborhood, he was Obama’s benefactor for 20 years.

Obama’s slide from national goodwill coincided, not coincidently, when Americans began to learn more about him. It occurred on April 16, 2008, when George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson did something unique that night, they questioned Obama about his troubling associates. The liberal blogs and the MSM were in hysterics; bias, they screamed. Rick Hertzberg, writing in The New Yorker, complained that:

Yet for most of the next hour Gibson and Stephanopoulos limited their questioning to the following topics: Obama’s April 6th remark about “bitter” small-towners; whether each candidate thinks the other can win; the Obama family’s ex-pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. … Obama’s failure to wear a flag lapel pin; and Obama’s acquaintance with a college professor in his Chicago neighborhood who, while Obama was in grade school, was a member of the Weather Underground. And the problem wasn’t just the questions’ subject matter, or the fact that all but the last had been thoroughly raked over already; it was their moral and intellectual vacuity.

Regardless of what Hertzberg considers moral and intellectual vacuity, it’s incontrovertible that Obama is good friends with a terrorist and, because of Ayers’ past, many of us consider that immoral. What really happened during the debate in April was that Obama experienced a real vetting (which was mild next to what Hillary had been subjected to in previous debates), and then Clinton cleaned his clock in every important contest after Americans learned of his despicable friends and watched his evasive answers. But of course no one was allowed to criticize Obama then; it was in such bad taste to question The One.

Although Hertzberg downplays Obama’s association with the odious Ayers by making his views seem like something from the past, the picture below from 2001 shows his hatred for the United States continues to today:

In May, Larry Johnson wrote that:

if you are involved with politics you ought to understand that if you hang with, work with, and politic with a guy who is an unrepentant terrorist that it might reflect badly on you. In fact, you should put some distance between yourself and said terrorist.

Sensible advice for a politician. Because, Johnson continues:

The only doubt is whether the Democrats will insist on finding out the truth first or will let the Republicans serve them a steaming pile of crap come the fall. And while the image of Bill Ayers gleefully stomping the American flag makes the rounds, Obama’s vain attempt to portray himself as a new kind of non-politician will be stomped into oblivion.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain moved from being behind by 6 points among “likely” voters a month ago to a 4-point lead over Democrat Barack Obama among that group in the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

The Friday-Sunday poll, mostly conducted as Obama was returning from his much-publicized overseas trip and released just this hour, shows McCain now ahead 49%-45% among voters that Gallup believes are most likely to go to the polls in November. In late June, he was behind among likely voters, 50%-44%.

Go, McCranky! Not bad for a guy without much of a platform, without much enthusiasm from the conservatives of his own party, and one who really hasn’t even bothered to start campaigning against Obama yet. This is truly shocking since Senator McCain can barely get press coverage, never mind the absolute love-fest the networks festoon upon the newbie Senator from Illinois.

Ooh, Barack must be supercalifragilisticexpialidociously pissed off! I mean, he wowed ‘em in Berlin, even having Gerhard Sporl of Der Spiegel’s foreign desk declaring an Obama presidency all but a foregone conclusion.

And those crowds! Thousands and thousands came out to see him! Well they got a free rock concert and food, but hey, I’m sure they enjoyed the speech, too. Why not? He made ‘em all out to be heroes! And they also got to buy buttons with Barack in lederhosen holding a bunch of beer steins. How could you beat it?

President Sarkozy in France was oozing smiles and charm – do you think he got a little tingle up his leg, too, a la Chris Matthews?

I must say, if I were Barack Obama, traveling around Europe with the three biggest news anchors in tow, not having to answer a single hardball question (no offense to your tingle, Chris), having people fawning over me constantly, only to come home and find out my Republican opponent – you know, the one representing the ‘brand’ damaged beyond recognition – had climbed ahead of me in the polls, I would find this very disheartening indeed.

Perhaps he should think about taking David Axelrod out behind the barn. You know, like some newscaster thought they should do to Hillary.

Perhaps the folks at home were a little irritated with Senator Obama for acting like a rock star, spending lots of time doing photo ops, with his new airplane logo twenty times the size of the American flag. He also overstepped the bounds of his ‘fact-finding mission.’ We may dislike – even abhor – President Bush, but he is still the President. Obama is not yet the official Democratic nominee and it is not his place to negotiate anything, much less waltz around pretending he has already been elected.

He must be trying to infect the world with his wishful thinking.

Perhaps the folks at home were a little irritated that he has not taken time to address some of the serious problems we are facing back here on the economy, health care, gas prices, not to mention his ever changing positions on the Iraq war.

Perhaps some of them noticed that, ever the work horse, Senator Clinton, was right back out there working to protect women’s rights, Medicare and address the energy crisis – and that’s just in the past two weeks. That lady actually looks out for the American people.

Lastly, perhaps the American people took notice of the fact that Senator Obama could not be bothered to visit wounded troops on his overseas visit, as John McCain noted in his interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Obama clearly could have done so, if he was willing to attend without his press corps. Senator Obama: not everything needs to be a photo op. Those troops sure would have liked to meet you.

Now that Senator Obama has returned stateside, without much of a ‘bounce’ – his campaign is already trying to spin this fact positively – how long do you think he can avoid a town hall meeting with McCain? I would venture to say this behavior is going to drop him in the polls even further. People can kind of feel when you’re avoiding them.

I know the Republicans haven’t come out with much ammunition against him yet. But let’s be realistic, you know they’re laying low ’cause they’re still afraid of Hillary at the Convention. Right? They know if she’s the nominee, they are toast. So they’re gonna play possum through August 29th.

But after Labor Day – let the games begin!!

If Senator Obama is performing this poorly in the polls with his huge financial and press advantage and rock star treatment, I wonder what will happen when he actually has to face Senator McCain.

Wishful thinking aside, this is one race he is not going to win unopposed.

George Stephanopoulos interviewed John McCain at length on his Sunday morning program, ABC’s This Week, and asked Sen. McCain about Obama’s decision not to visit the wounded soldiers at Landstuhl:

As Memeorandum.com makes clear, this issue has “legs.” In case you missed it, Larry Johnson wrote an excellent analysis early this morning, “Obama Using the Troops.”

Via the McCain press release:

“I think people make a judgment by what we do and what we don’t do. He certainly found time to do other things.” — John McCain

John McCain
ABC’s “This Week”
July 27, 2008

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “There’s also been a flap about Senator Obama’s decision in Germany not to visit the troops at Landstuhl. He now says that, based on what he was hearing from the Pentagon, there was no way that wouldn’t be seen as a political trip, which is why he decided not to go. Do you accept that explanation?”

John McCain: “Well, I know this, those troops would have loved to have seen him. And I know of no Pentagon regulation that would have prevented him from going there without the media and the press and all of the associated people. Nothing that I know of would have kept him from visiting those wounded troops. And they are gravely wounded, many of them.”

…

“In Landstuhl, Germany, when I went through, I visited the hospital. But the important thing is that, if I had been told by the Pentagon that I couldn’t visit those troops, and I was there and wanted to be there, I guarantee you, there would have been a seismic event. And so, I believe he had the opportunity to go without the media. And I’ll let the facts speak for themselves.”

…

“There was nothing to prevent him from going, if he went without the press and the media and his campaign people. But we’ll see what happens.”

…

“I think people make a judgment by what we do and what we don’t do. He certainly found time to do other things.”

In order to “save” the Democratic Party, Brazile resolved back in 2003 that she might have to destroy it first. And who better to help her in this lofty pursuit than her new best friend, the man neoconservatives call “The Architect”.

…………………………..

BY ROSEMARY REGELLO

It’s not every activist politico who gets to write a post in the Washington Times that begins like this: "As I sat by my window and staring out at the wonderful Washington, D.C., landscape, my office announced a phone call from Air Force One."

Evidently, Donna Brazile was reminding all the little people on Capitol Hill that she had friends in high places. In summer of 2007, Bush senior advisor Karl Rove wasn’t answering any subpoenas from Congress, but he didn’t mind talking to Brazile. From his perch at 20,000 feet, he informed her that this was probably a good time for him to get out of Dodge.

“Mr. Rove’s resignation is not a retirement,” Brazile reassured readers of the right of center newspaper. “It’s just another opportunity for him to create that lasting Republican majority he envisioned years ago and to spend his waking days doing what he so enjoys — beating Democrats in the alleys and gutters. Just ask Sen. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Rove’s target when he called in to speak to Rush Limbaugh. He couldn’t help it. Mr. Rove just had to take one last shot before riding out of town. More to come, Team Clinton.”

Brazile’s breezy account confirms what many have long since suspected. Rove’s claim to be sitting out the 2008 race is hogwash. The mastermind of today’s unraveling U.S. constitution is in no position to kick back, down gin fizzes and watch the country collapse under an Administration he put into office twice. The list of crimes that Bush’s top henchman could potentially be charged with – everything from fraud to war crimes – should be enough to keep him and his fellow Sopranos in hair-trigger mode until the next president gets sworn in. And the notion that he’d leave the choice of commander-in-chief in less capable dirty hands than his own requires more than the willing suspension of disbelief. It requires medication.

That’s why the Rove-Brazile tryst merits further exploration. They first hooked up some time in 2002, according to a New York Times article. The connection might have been a means for Brazile to expand her clientele, but she dismissed that angle in an interview, implying she had bigger fish to fry. It was the Democrats’ lackluster relations with African Americans and poor track record in elections, she said, that led her to start trailblazing new frontiers. To put it in a Brazile nutshell, the Republicans had a better machine.

”The idea is to re-energize the African-American electorate and revive the Democratic Party at the same time,” she told Times reporter Katharine Seelye, ”I want to revitalize the party from the grass roots up. We’re losing voters.”

With that noble cause in mind, she and Rove began to "chirpily exchange e-mail, chat on the phone and write letters, indulging in their shared zeal for the inner workings of politics," Seelye wrote.

Rove said he’d sometimes call Brazile before a press appearance to get feedback on various Bush policy angles he planned to discuss. In exchange, he furnished Brazile’s clients with access to White House social events.

"People think I’m crazy talking to Karl Rove," the strategist confessed to the Washington Post a month after the Times story appeared, "but there’s something about this guy."

Yes, there certainly is something about Karl Rove. In consultation with Vice-President Cheney’s office, it was Rove who outed Valerie Plame’s C.I.A. identity over a flap about uranium in Niger. Three years later, those subpoenas were overflowing his in-box because he’d told Alberto Gonzalez to fire nine U.S. Attorneys who refused to do his bidding. Rove is also under investigation for an entrapment scheme that put Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman in prison for two years.

Those Republicans sure do know how to close the deal in politics. In addition to basking in The Architect’s dapper charm and irresistible company, Brazile opened diplomatic ties across town with archconservative Grover Norquist. Norquist heads one of Jack Abramoff’s favorite charities, Americans for Tax Reform, and is famous for his remark that he’d like to see federal government crippled to the point where he can take it home and drown it in his bathtub. For a brief window of opportunity, he set aside that morbid fantasy to help one of Brazile’s closest friends, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes, push some legislation to increase revenues in her district.

According to the same Times article, “Mr. Norquist said he and Ms. Brazile, both Washington residents, were devising a plan to urge Congress to allow the city to raise the height limit on buildings as a way to broaden the tax base and improve schools.”

Brazile served as Holmes’ chief of staff and press secretary during the nineties. In that same action-packed year, her old boss teamed up with other D.C. officials to schedule an unauthorized, nonbinding earlybird presidential primary for 2004. DNC chair Terry McAuliffe sent sent out calls to the candidates to boycott the affair, but Howard Dean didn’t heed the directive. The former Vermont governor swept into D.C. and gobbled up almost as many endorsements as another candidate, Rev. Al Sharpton. Who needed those arcane DNC rules, anyway?

The Brazile Factor

At the time of these contentious political developments, Brazile chaired the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute, a program set up after the Florida recount debacle in 2000. During that earlier episode, she’d experienced firsthand Karl Rove’s unscrupulous knack for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Now she was tasked with brainstorming new strategies to prevent any future gaming of the electoral system.

In 2004, Dean ended his presidential bid after the Wisconsin primary and Kerry lost the general election. This time, Rove generated thousands of extra Bush votes in key Ohio precincts where only a few hundred Republicans lived. Not surprisingly, Brazile remained unimpressed with her party. That winter, she submitted an essay for the left-leaning website Slate.com, which was running a series called “Why Americans Hate Democrats – A Dialog”.

Hard as it must have been to top that inspirational title, the political strategist managed with her piece “Tapping the Obama Factor”. The Chicago politician had just been elevated to the U.S. Senate, but instead of offering an introduction to him, she mostly dwelled on her own life story – rising up from poverty in Louisiana, listening to her grandmother read scripture, etc. etc. Eventually, the essay worked its way back to the stated topic.

"This is a new moment to identify and recruit better messengers," she wrote. "Perhaps it’s time to tap into the ‘Obama’ factor: Scour statehouses for young, energetic, inspiring, and emerging leaders with the ability to connect the head and heart. Too many of the old Democratic guard have stayed in Washington, D.C., too long to fully recognize how most Americans live their lives."

It was a novel way to spin the Illinois election. Obama did score a landslide victory that year, but it had little to do with his age, energy level or the obsolete nature of the Democratic Party establishment. His campaign manager David Axelrod ran the classic Rovian smear campaign, first accusing Obama’s top primary contender of sexual impropriety. After disgracing Blair Hull out of contention, Axelrod used the same device against the G.O.P. primary winner, Jack Ryan.

Of course, this is where things get interesting. House Speaker Dennis Hastert decided he must stick his oar into the battle, calling on Ryan to end his senate bid. The candidate dutifully bowed out, and in his stead, the Illinois Republican Party fielded an unknown, African American bible-thumper from Maryland named Alan Keyes. Clearly, the G.O.P. wanted Obama to win that election. No other explanation can account for the party sacrificing a senate seat to a (supposedly) liberal Democrat who’d (supposedly) spoken out against the Iraq War in 2002.

A Hollywood script writer couldn’t have come up with this storyline. Within a year of arriving in Washington, Brazile’s rising star – the product of a globe-trotting Kansas woman and a philandering tribal leader in Kenya – had launched his presidential exploratory committee. The Internet fundraising team of Howard Dean signed on for the ride. So, too, did some of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks, corporate law firms, and energy giants. By the end of 2007, Obama would post a record-breaking haul of $100 million in campaign contributions. And all while he was still "introducing himself", as Brazile and other analysts put it, to the American public.

Who exactly brought the banks and oil companies to the table still remains to be ferreted out, but it wasn’t Dean or Brazile, or even the man who placed Obama on the speaker’s list at the 2004 Democratic Convention, John Kerry. It’s more likely that Karl Rove huddled with top Bush fundraisers to set that gravy train in motion. Among the candidate’s money bundlers were George Kaiser and Robert Cavnar, both oil industry executives. Other Bush campaign pioneers joined the bandwagon soon afterward.

Now Brazile was impressed. Judging from another My Day installment penned in 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, she sounded like a woman who had been born again:

“While my family was hurting, when they were on the edge feeling left to fend for themselves, the last thing I wanted to do was whine. I got into the groove quickly and contacted Ken Melhman, Chairman of the Republican National Committee and an old friend, Karl Rove, Deputy Chief of Staff for the White House.”

Then she started tossing out the cupcakes: “President Bush, who promised to rebuild the Gulf coast in a speech at Jackson Square, invited some African American leaders over to the White House on December 7th to discuss a broad range of issues…To my great surprise, the meeting with President Bush was cordial and candid. The President listened intently and reassured us that his Administration would not drop the ball.”

Funny how such innocuous fluff takes on a new and sinister meaning when read in hindsight. Yet even from the perspective of a contemporary audience, those claims were a stetch. For people living in New Orleans, the Katrina ball had already been dropped. When the levees broke, Sec. of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff was attending a conference on bird flu, the President relaxing on his Crawford ranch. Back in Brazile’s home state, over a thousand people drowned during three days of waiting for rescuers to reach their homes. Several million homeless residents survived, homeless, only to a second disaster called FEMA.

But Brazile didn’t let facts on the ground spoil her picnic. Continuing her upbeat dispatch, “Since then, I have met once more with President Bush and other leaders who are committed to working together to restore the lives and the communities devastated by these two hurricanes…I can tell from the meetings that the rebuilding of Louisiana remains high on his list of priorities.”

Preparing for Battle

One can only speculate on Brazile’s motives in streaming out that hallucination. As she would mention in the Washington Times article two years later, her “old friend” Rove had hit the ground running with the start of the 2008 election cycle, appearing on talk shows to bash frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Behind the scenes, G.O.P. rank and file activists were organizing crossover voting drives to knock Clinton out of the race before November. In the red states, they could easily outnumber Democrats at the caucuses, enriching Obama’s delegate count and allowing him to boast later “I’ve won more states.”

To recruit additional foot troops for this effort, New Hampshire G.O.P. leader Stephen DaMaura started the Facebook website “Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary).”

On the Democratic side, it became Brazile’s job to smooth over Obama’s path to the nomination. That required manipulating the primary calendar. Picking up on the diversity argument of Eleanor Holmes and the D.C. coalition, she pressed for an earlybird South Carolina primary and a Nevada caucus to augment the Iowa and New Hampshire dates.

While the advantages of South Carolina were obvious, by necessity the second contest required a less obvious, more covert action plan to avoid any accusations of stacking the deck. Although the Clinton camp didn’t realize it at the time, a caucus in Nevada (like a caucus anywhere) would naturally benefit Obama, since her base of blue-collar, older and non-English-speaking supporters would not be driving across town to attend some meeting run by disorganized volunteers. On the other hand, motivated Republicans could be counted on to show up, especially if the G.O.P. candidates could be persuaded not to campaign in the state. (They didn’t.)

Nevertheless, the reason for adding more earlybird contests in the first place centered on ethic diversity, so selling the DNC (and the public) on Nevada required some tweaking of those caucus parameters. That’s why arrangements were made to allow the state’s casino workforce of some 60,000 predominantly Latino workers to attend specially set up caucus sites just for them.

But wouldn’t this huge Hispanic voting block put Clinton over the top in Nevada? Not necessarily. It turns out that the union representing casino employees, S.E.I.U., would be backing Obama, just as they had supported Dean in his presidential bid. So those voters could now be added to the Obama column.

Thus, with caucuses scheduled in Iowa and Nevada, a primary in South Carolina with its near majority African American demographic, and the New Hampshire Republican brass on the job in that state, the chance of Clinton heading into Super Tuesday at cruising altitude had spectacularly diminished.

“Including two more states will not only be good for our country, it will be good for our party and good for our nominee," Brazile told the Los Angeles Times in August 2006.

Sounding an early portent of doom, the South Carolina delegate on the rules committee said in the same article, “If you campaign in a state that is outside the rules, then you’re not entitled to delegates from that state."

A year later, that scenario unfolded like a bad dream for the DNC. Over the objections of Florida’s state Democratic Party, a Republican-controlled legislature moved its primary to January 29, 2008, one week before the official February 5^th cusp adopted by both the Republican National Committee and the DNC.

On August 25, 2007. the DNC rules and bylaws committee met to adjudicate this unspeakable crime. State party chair Karen Thurman testified at the meeting, walking the committee through the chronology of her long and fruitless battle to overturn the date switch. The Republicans had attached it as a rider to another bill, one authorizing the replacement of electronic paperless voting equipment with more traditional optical scanners. Unable to defeat the rider on a partyline vote, the Democrats begrudgingly approved the larger measure.

Anyone who has watched the re-broadcast of those DNC proceedings on CSPAN can’t help but be dumbfounded by the discussion that followed Thurman’s presentation. A slam-dunk case for a rule waiver turned into a shameless bout of piling on, as committee member Brazile and several others accused the state party of not trying hard enough to change the date. (One also noticed from the broadcast the unusually high number of African Americans on the 30-member committee, as opposed to near zero representation for other minorities.)

When asked by Brazile why she hadn’t made any plans to hold a caucus in place of the primary, Thurman balked. The logistics and $8 million price tag, she said, were beyond comprehension, given that Florida boasts 4 million eligible Democrats.

"I understand how states crave to be first,” Brazile blustered in a Washington Post interview the next day, as if none of what Thurman told her had registered. “I understand that they’re envious of the role that Iowa and New Hampshire have traditionally played, The truth is, we had a process . . . We’re going to back these rules."

Later, the head of the DNC Voting Rights Institute published an op-ed in the same newspaper, this time under the combative heading, “Why We Stood Up to Florida”. With the cockiness that was fast becoming her trademark, Brazile griped, “It was hardly an extraordinary act, although you wouldn’t know it from the furious reaction that ensued in some quarters…Why the uproar? It’s simple: state envy.”

She went on to list all the economic benefits coveted by states vying to hold early primaries, again diverting from the core issue of Republican meddling in Democratic affairs. Inexplicably, the press coverage of the showdown also overlooked the G.O.P.’s role in moving up the primary date.

The same week the rules committee stripped Florida of all its convention delegates, Michigan’s state legislature voted to move up its primary to January 15th. Both states could have easily been pegged as Clinton strongholds, making their exclusion from the election cycle suspect. Michigan is an industrial blue-collar enclave with few of the upper-middle-class voters and college students that represent Obama’s base. Florida’s Hispanic population is huge, and combined with an abundant supply of New York retirees, would likely also resist the Obama "surge".

Moreover, using Republican crossover voting to shave points off Clinton’s victories posed problems in both states. In Michigan, native son Mitt Romney had a significant campaign apparatus in place, while Rudi Giuliani was expecting to draw his line in the sand in Florida. Where these battleground territories were in play, neither gentleman would appreciate Rove siphoning away their voters. Better just to invalidate the primaries on the Democratic side. That way, Clinton’s delegate lead could be held in check on Super Tuesday.

"Seeds of Doubt"

With the votes of the country’s fourth and eighth largest states thus consigned to the junk heap, Brazile turned to other pursuits. Hired as a paid election analyst for CNN, she carried on a double life – one as an official DNC spokesperson, the other as a partisan campaigner for Barack Obama. In February, when best-guess estimates gave Clinton the support of two-thirds of the superdelegates, she declared, "If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party."

If party leaders were as worried about negative fallout and damage control then as they claimed to be a month later, they might have reeled in their contract employee at this point for a heart-to-heart chat. That didn’t happen. Brazile just reloaded her pistol and repeated her empty threat to all who would listen. On another occasion, she accused former President Bill Clinton of being a racist. It was inexcusable, she said, that during a speech Clinton referred to Obama as a "kid" and suggested his presidential bid amounted to little more than a "fairy tale".

"And I will tell you," Brazile bristled with emotion, "as an African American I find his words and his tone to be very depressing."

To be sure, Clinton said Obama’s evolving position on the Iraq War was a fairy tale, not his candidacy. As for alluding to his youth, Brazile and other cheerleaders for the Illinois senator had been doing it themselves for the past four years. It was a classic example of the Mark Twain quip that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has put its shoes on. Only CNN’s presence in the equation gave the adage literal meaning. Surely, the DNC would intervene now that Brazile had insulted a former Democratic president on national television. But nothing.

Notwithstanding the character smears and 24/7 swiftboating by the American media, Sen. Clinton persevered, scoring big wins in the Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio on March 4^th. On March 5th, she was accused of engaging in a “negative” campaign designed to "destroy" her adversary.

“Despite Obama’s impressive victories in February, Clinton’s comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt,” Brazile informed the Associated Press that day, “If these attacks are contrasts based on policy differences, there is no need to stop the race or halt the debate. But, if this is more division, more diversion from the issues and more of the same politics of personal destruction, chairman Dean and other should be on standby."

(ABC’s Jake Tapper went Brazile one better, claiming Clinton was exercising the "Tanya Harding option".)

In response to the call to arms, Dean promptly petitioned Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to intervene in the protracted race, while Senators Dodd, Richardson and Leahy demanded that Clinton end her candidacy for the good of the party.

Now this sounded familiar. Jack Ryan must have been chuckling to himself from his perch inside a bar, drinking rot-gut whiskey. In Washington, meanwhile, Reid promised that “things will be done” to determine a nominee before the convention. Pelosi told George Stephanopolis on his Sunday talk show that the superdelegates should not overturn “the will of the people”, but denied rumors that she was telling members of Congress that Clinton, if nominated, would be a "drag" on their own campaigns. As the Democratic Party version of the Adams Family was thus occupied in their hand-wringing, chest-beating and sharing of apocalyptic visions, Clinton pressed ahead, picking up 9 out of the final 13 primaries. Three of them she won by more than 30 points.

But no sooner had the daylight begun to shine at the end of the tunnel when another Rove-Brazile shoe dropped. For some reason, her triumph in the popular vote was not matched proportionally by delegates earned, and it had something to do with Obama’s phenomenal gains in the caucus states of Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas, etc. One would not have expected an African American liberal to clobber his opponent by a two-to-one margin as he did in many cases. More importantly, her delegate gains in the primaries involving millions of voters seemed to pale in comparison. This made no sense.

In late May, a disability activist named P. Cronin appeared on scene to sort out the Twilight Zone phenomenon. Cronin, who like most disabled people is not a big fan of caucuses, spent some time in late May analyzing the tallies from the 2008 Democratic contest, comparing the impact of the two different voting methods on the race.

According to Cronin’s study, nearly all of Obama’s 138-delegate lead over Clinton could be traced to 12 red state caucuses. In most of these contests he routinely won by 2-1 margins, even though polls in those states showed the candidates much closer. In Idaho, for instance, with its scant African American population, few colleges and relatively few Starbucks outlets, he captured 15 of the state’s 18 delegates.

Something fishy was going on here. Did Dean’s so-called 50-state strategy include the recruitment of pro-Obama activists to organize on the candidate’s behalf in caucus states? Did the number of DaMaura’s G.O.P. crossover voters wildly exceed expectations? Or was there just downright lying in the computation of the vote tallies?

The case of Washington state underscores the mystery of this Bermuda Triangle for Clinton delegates. On February 9^th, Obama earned a whopping 52 of the Washington’s 78 delegates after a 36-point victory in the party-run caucus. Over 240,000 allegedly eligible voters cast ballots in that contest. But a week later, just ahead of a state-run certified primary, the polling data showed that Clinton might actually win the election. On February 19th, after 650,000 ballots were counted Obama eked out a 5-point victory, hardly the 2-1 margin responsible for his 26-delegate net gain in the state. Unfortunately, the primary was non-binding.

Cronin notes in the study that those states that furnished the newcomer’s vast delegate booty contribute a grand total of 69 electoral votes in the general election. Few of these territories have voted Democratic since 1964.

It also appears that the votes of those lucky caucus-goers counted for 5-10 times more than the traditional Democrats who attended primaries. Obama netted more delegates in his Idaho win, for instance, than Clinton in her entire Ohio-Texas-Rhode Island romp on March 4th. The following table illustrates the questionable validity of these dispersements. Notice that the last column shows the delegate gain for the winner:

2008 Democratic Presidential Preference Election © 2008 P. Cronin
—————————-

Even in the Navada caucus that Clinton won, Obama was awarded more delegates. The New York senator couldn’t seem to win for winning. There, the S.E.I.U. endorsement dissolved into wishful thinking when the casino workers broke for Clinton two to one, giving her a 6-point victory. A few months later, Obama left the state convention with 3 more delegates.

While there’s no evidence implicating Dean in Obama’s caucus routs, the DNC had maintained staff on the ground in all 50 states since 2005, when he first became the chair. In August 2007, a few weeks before his rules and bylaws committee stripped Florida of its delegates, he announced in a press release that his 50-State Strategy project, the Voting Rights Institute and another DNC division known as the National Lawyers Council were collaborating on a nationwide survey of voter databases, registration procedures and other "election mechanics". According to the release, DNC staff would work with local election boards in gathering information in advance of the 2008 presidential election. "Protecting the right of every eligible American to vote is a top priority for our party," Dean and Brazile said in a joint statement. "Every eligible American deserves the confidence that when they go to the polls to cast their ballot they can do so without fear of intimidation or harassment, and that their vote will be counted fairly and accurately."

Throwing Mama Under the Bus

On May 31, 2008, the rules committee reconvened to discuss those "eligible Americans" living in Florida and Michigan. A week before the meeting, the Democratic Party tried to attach an air of legitimacy to the proceedings by having legal counsel weigh in on the dispute. Although by Brazile’s own account, the Supreme Court gives political parties wide latitude for determining how they pick their nominees, the lawyers claimed it would be unlawful to fully honor the certified votes of January 15^th and 29^th . The committee could do no more than restore half the nearly 350 convention delegates up for grabs.

Always amenable to compromise, the Clinton campaign accepted that limitation but rejected a proposal for Obama to receive some of her Michigan delegates, plus those of all the other candidates in the Michigan primary. After all, the Illinois senator voluntarily withdrew his name from the ballot, then vetoed a re-do primary which Clinton donors raised $10 million to fund. In a sane world, one could argue that he forfeited the state and therefore deserved no delegates.

Former Governor of Michigan Jim Blanchard didn’t present that line of attack, however. The Clinton spokesman stuck to the modest request that the candidate receive delegates in proportion to the votes cast for her. A few minutes later, it was Brazile’s turn to speak, and the CNN analyst first took the opportunity to congratulate herself for displaying restraint in the meeting up until that point. Then she repudiated Blanchard as if he were a child.

"My mama taught me to play by the rules and respect the rules…When you decide to change the rules, especially, in the middle of the game, it’s called cheating."

Dispatching the governor to go stand and in a corner and contemplate the error of his ways, Brazile’s committee allocated the Michigan delegates according to a fruitcake-like recipe involving exit polls, alleged write-in votes for Obama, the palm-reading of a psychic (just kidding) and the actual tally. In the end, Clinton gained a mere 4.5 delegates from the contest.

Any masochist following the 2008 election knew by then that Brazile had disregarded her own mother’s counsel long ago. Neither she nor her co-horts have lost any sleep over the thousands of complaints filed about the conduct of the caucuses, including some 2,000 submitted in Texas alone. Voter intimidation, stacks of fabricated sign-in sheets slipped in with the legitimate records, phony declarations from Republicans about their intention to switch parties, votes delayed until deep into the night, inaccurate tallies called in by phone, and other dirty tricks have yet to warrant even a cursory investigation by those who preach that playing by the rules represents a core value of the Democratic Party.

Even in the aftermath of her power grab, Brazile continues to denigrate those who challenge the authority of the party’s new African American leadership. In a July 22nd post on Daryl Cagle’s website, she groaned, "How many ways do these Hillary delegates, voters and supporters need to hear it before they get it? Sen. Barack Obama is the party’s nominee. He won. He will get to choose his running mate. Obama sets the agenda for the convention, and, while I understand their passion in wanting Hillary to be on the ticket and to have a prominent role at the convention, it’s not her decision… As much as we all would have loved to see a woman in the Oval Office, it wasn’t Hillary’s time. Period."

It’s ironic when you think about it. The DNC’s Voting Rights Institute was created to stop exclusionary practices and increase participation at the polling booth. Now its chairwoman is presiding over one of the most hostile and fraudulent campaigns since those newspaper delivery trucks ran over the boy scouts in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

"Mr. Rove proved you can win elections with rumors, fear, division and manipulation." Brazile wrote back in 2007, after that friendly exchange with Air Force One. "But you can’t win hearts that way."

No, you can’t. But then, this influential political fixer no longer appears to have use for that particular organ. Which may be why she finds men like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist so appealing.

- Rosemary Regello editor@thecityedition.com

(For more on the G.O.P. manipulation of the Democratic Primaries, see our in-depth report Bamboozling the American Electorate Again)

Copyright 2008 TheCityEdition.com

SEN. OBAMA: George, but this is an example of what I’m talking about.
This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.
So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow — somehow their ideas could be attributed to me — I think the American people are smarter than that. They’re not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn’t.

“I think the American people are smarter than that”. Well, Senator Obama, some are smart enough not to take your word for it but to investigate it. And what is revealed once again, as it was with Rezko and with Rev Wright: you lied!

Let’s challenge the media to report. Will they have the honesty and integrity to do so?

In my previous piece, I mapped the workings of the Chicago machine surrounding Obama. It was a tad lengthy, but I had to show the people in play in Chicago!

Now it is time to follow the money and the players!

As I discuss in my previous essay, there is a two-tier power structure in Chicago: tier one is the Money, specifically Foundation and Associations money, and tier two is the Organizers of people and votes. So let’s examine some of them for a moment, specifically those related to the School Reform of the 1980’s.

Mary O’Connell wrote a report in the spring of 1991, giving a lengthy 40-page narrative overview of the School Reforms in Chicago in the 1980’s. Bill McKersie also wrote a lengthy 50 plus page report in the Spring of 1992 outlining the functionality of the various groups involved in the Chicago School Reform battles that took place. Both concentrated mainly on the years 1987 to 1990. Neither knew that in the year 2008 they would be referenced in order to place the following three people together during that period of time: Barack Obama, Thomas Ayers and William Ayers.

What is learned through the reports is as in any contest or battle there are different factions. There were the Business Community Organizations, the Business Association Groups, the Charitable Foundations, the Community Organizer Groups, who worked with and did the bidding for the People, and finally the Government. Now prior to 1987 it is presently unclear as to the alliances formed, as there are no reports on them (but they will be done shortly in another piece incorporating more of the Obama story he refuses to tell). What are known are the alliances made in 1987 in one alliance called the ABC’s Coalition (Alliance for Better Chicago Schools). This summary will strictly concentrate on three (3) groups in the ABC’s Coalition.

The first is the Developing Communities Project (DCP), Obama’s group. Now Obama was the Executive Director of the DCP at the time. He was pretty much since he was hired in 1985. If you look on the last page of O’Connell’s report, it shows the DCP as a member of the ABC’s alliance. Now the information provided by O’Connell does not list the members of the DCP or persons, but one can deduce from news reports that Executive Director Barack Obama represented the group.

The second is the powerful Commercial Club of Chicago Civics Commitee, a section of the jewel of Chicago and Illinois Clubs, The Commercial Club of Chicago, of which everyone who is anyone in the Chicago Business world is a member. One of its most powerful people was Thomas Ayers, the father of Bill Ayers. The Commercial Club of Chicago Civics Comitee was put in place in 1983 in response to Mr. Thomas Ayers sounding the alarm of the poor quality of Chicago Public Schools in 1980, when he was Chairman of the Board of Education at the time. Thomas Ayers was also a high ranking member of Chicago United, who released a report of the state of Chicago Schools with the intention to provide business sector leadership in support of the reform of the Chicago public school system and public school financing. The head of the Chicago School Reform impulse since 1987 was Mr. John Ayers, son of Thomas and brother of terrorist William. If you look on the last page of O’Connell’s report, it shows the Commercial Club of Chicago Civics Committee as a member of the ABC’s alliance.

The third part is the ABC’s Coalition itself. If you look again on the last page of O’Connell’s report, it shows the go to person for the ABC’s Coalition is Professor William Ayers of the University of Illinois Chicago, the terrorist who was a member of the Weather Underground.

Barack Obama collaborated with William Ayers, Thomas Ayers and John Ayers when they coalesced to form the ABC’s Coalition in 1987.

One of the major Charitable Foundations behind the push for School Reform, as noted in Bill McKersie’s report, was the Woods Fund Chicago, the fund on whose board both Obama and William Ayers sat. The Woods Fund was and is primarily a foundation for the underprivileged in Chicago’s Southside, which had some of the worst schools in Illinois. The reasoning for the Foundation’s funding of Activists was to make sure that multiple and diverse voices were heard! Obama was recruited by the Woods Fund to work the Afro-American community on the Southside, the one community that they could not previously reach with their previous white Jewish Organizers, thus putting Obama front and center finally for the Southside Black group of voices representing the DCP with all the powers to be since the movement for School Reform started in 1984. Slate is correct in stating Obama has more than 20 years experience in School Reform. Unfortunately for Obama, his work in School Reform has been a failure!

The Woods Fund worked mostly at the grass roots level, and on the last pages of McKersie’s report, it shows the dispersal of funds during the period of 1987 to 1990. It is noted that these funds listed on McKersie’s report are funds directed solely for work done on the School Reform as noted in the different Funds’ tax returns.

Now if you follow the money, the Woods Fund provided the DCP the following:

• 1987 – $7,500
• 1988 – $10,000
• 1989 – $7,500 again
• 1990 – $3,750 (first half of 1990 was to implement the passed legislation on School Reform)

First off, the DCP was the only organization member of the ABC’s Coalition representing African-Americans. Obama was the only Organizer of Blacks working for the DCP.

Second, why the 25% increase in funding in 1988? Sound deduction leads to only one thing: Obama was leaving in the last quarter of 1988 for Harvard, and thus a replacement was needed to be trained in his work for School Reform. Obama made it clear in 1987 he was going to Harvard the next year: hence the bump in funding.

Third, Obama’s mode of operating was to be in the background, a Saul Alinsky mode to empower people and not become exposed as a leader but have the people to lead under an organizers control.

O’Connell’s report states: the coalition was made up of all sorts of people working together, meeting weekly, expecting to be spending what Mayor Washington estimated 7 or 8 hours a week resolving the School problem. But as one person in O’Connell’s report put it, it worked out to more like 28 hours a week, including weekends at peoples homes.

One thing noted throughout O’Connell’s report was the passage by the State legislature of state Senator Emil Jones’ School Reform Act. Obama actually met Emil Jones in 1986, when they immediately became friends.

Another quick note here, which will be revealed more in another piece: Miner of Davis and Miner, the law firm Obama that represented Rezko for whom Obama worked from 1991 through 2004, after Harvard, wanted more political contacts. This is why he joined Davis Miner. But Obama had plenty of political contacts of his own from his DCP days! This could only have come from the School Reform work with terrorist William Ayers!

What this endeavour of School Reform brought to Obama, and why Obama doesn’t talk about it, is the open door to William Ayers. It also brought him closer to the powers to be at the Woods Foundation and other organizations such as the The Joyce Foundation and ACORN, who not coincidentally endorsed Obama. The Joyce Foundation, by the way, is an anti-gun foundation that has funneled money to corrupt Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago.

When the coalition was finally formed and Thomas Ayers finally implemented his vision with his terrorist son William and Barack Obama, imagine who the head of the school reform coalition was? None other than Thomas Ayers’s son and Bill Ayers brother John Ayers! Coincidence?

It opens the door now for “Who Really Brought Obama to Chicago”?

That will become clearer in another essay.

So responding to Senator Obama’s Debate Statement at the beginning: Senator Obama, your relationship with this TERRORIST goes back over 20 years and your association is not based upon a howdy on the streets, but is one of you working side by side putting forth this TERRORIST’S agenda, especially when it comes to educating children! If they are not your values you share with him, then why did you sit on many foundations, support many of his causes and work so closely with him?

Yes, we are smarter than to be conned by a liar who collaborates with known terrorists, Senator Obama! You claim to be a true Christian and believer in Jesus Christ. It is a sin to lie, and a moral sin to lie in the House of the Lord, Senator Obama. You lied in the church where Civil Rights began about the Kennedys airlifting your father out of Kenya (you need to work on the accent, by the way), just as you lied about your deep and problematic relation to Ayers during the ABC debate in Philadelphia:

You may have bamboozled and hoodwinked some people with your fake accent and your lies, but you did not bamboozle and hoodwink me with your lies during the ABC debate in Philadelphia.

Chicago Politics Godfather passes Down the Reins and Anoints Obama! Follow the Money!

Since Carl Bernstein, Keith Oldberman, Tim Russert et al have exposed their complete lack of journalism ethics, exemplified by acting like awe struck teens of the 1960’s over the arrival of The Beatles combined with the excitement of dirty old men in a sleazy, out of the way, XXX Porn Theatre, WE THE PEOPLE are forced to do a long line of Googles, reading, investigating in order to find the truth about Barack Obama!

In an August 2006 interview with Ayers and Dohrn it was stated: Despite their critiques, Ayers and Dohrn are eternal optimists. Over coffee, Dohrn reflected that their activist days can serve as a metaphor for a “candle” that illuminates the past—and the future. Stay vigilant. The light will come.
Funny how Obama started doing due dilligence in August 2006 to run for POTUS!

One thing Obama said during the ABC debate in Philadelphia was: “I think the American people are smarter than that.” Well Senator Obama, some are smart enough to not take you word for it, but to investigate and what is revealed once again, as it was when we investigated Rezko and Rev Wright, is that you lied! How big a lie, unlike Rev Wright where it is all on tape, is revealed with time, as it was with Rezko. But once a liar always a liar. So with that said, let’s begin investigating!

Mountie Captain: I do not approve of your methods!

Ness: Yeah, well… You’re not from Chicago.

- The Untouchables, 1987.

Let’s challenge the media to report. Will they have the honesty and integrity to do so?

What makes Illinois run and who controls the actual power in Illinois, especially in Cook County, isn’t some Mayor or some Senator, or even some Judge; it is actually a two tier power control. Tier one is the Money, and not just any money, but the Foundation and Associations money. Tier two is the Organizers of people and votes. So let’s examine them for a moment!

Foundations and Associations

Chicago has some of the strongest Foundations and Associations in the country, not because of what they control, but because of the large dollars they control and the powerful philanthropists controlling those dollars. These Foundations and Associations have and control Billions upon Billions of dollars. The circle of people within these groups is small, and while claiming to be philanthropists, they like everyone else are simply pushing their own agendas under the guise of doing so for the well being of the community. The more Foundations and Associations a person is on defines the power that person controls, because the greatest of strengths is the networking of the Foundations and Associations, thus controlling more of the money and its usage.

The Foundations and Associations of which a person is allowed to become a member is based upon the position they have in the working world. Status also increases the person’s chances of securing a Chairmanship of Foundations and Associations. That can bring immortal power and even more status to such an individual.

Chicago has many such Foundations and Associations, but the top ones that control the workings of Illinois life are:

• the Chicago Urban League ,
• the Chicago Symphony Orchestra ,
• Chicago Chamber of Commerce and Industy ,
• the Chicago United,
• the Community Renewal Society (Project funder for the United Church of Christ – Rev Wright anyone? Today a Minister from TUCC sits on the board),
• the Illinois Council on Economic Education,
• the Chicago Public Education Fund,
• the Chicago Community Trust,
• the Erikson Institute,
• the Woods Fund Chicago

and the jewel Commercial Club of Chicago, Chicago’s most prestigious business group.

These philanthropy associations drive politics in Illinois.

First discover who is Thomas Ayers. This man welded power in every way!

Thomas G Ayers was many things, but most importantly, he was the behind the scenes Godfather of Illinois Politics right up to his death last June and beyond. He passed the torch to his sons, especially Bill Ayers, Obama’s terrorist friend.

Normally, when you have a child who turns out to be a criminal of major proportions, more so when a child is one of the FBI’s most wanted and a terrorist, life usually becomes unbearable: you’re shunned from the community, and employment is at risk. But not for Thomas Ayers. While his son Bill was bombing America, Thomas Ayers was being promoted to one of a highest profile and prestigious positions in Illinois and the country. He was also handed the keys to the most Nuclear Plants in the country as Chairman of Con Ed!

So why did no one questioned his promotion? When you control a monopoly and you’re the Godfather of Illinois politics, anything is possible and no one can stand in your way.

Many think Mayor Richard J. Daley was the Chicago Kingpin till his death, only to be followed by his son, Mayor Richard M. Daley, but that is not really so. They in fact are simply crooked politicians in fancy suits, mouthpieces for those behind the scenes!

A lot of the following information was pulled from Tom Ayers Obituary of June 8, 2007, at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, but for some reason they are no longer available. This is also the case with stories on Thomas Ayers. But other sources were found with it!

He was the Chicago establishment, he served on many boards, including that of G.D. Searle & Company (Donald Rumsfeld was CEO from 1977 to 1985 – that why Obama had such high praise of Rumsfeld?), Chicago Pacific Corp (sold Hoover to Maytag in 1985 – Crown Family), Zenith Corp., Northwest Industries, First National Bank of Chicago, the Chicago Cubs and Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune.

But it was during his time as CEO of Con Ed that Thomas Ayers learned to work both sides of the street, making him the go to person in Illinois, the man with the “power”. It all started in the early 1960’s when he helped negotiate the first labor contract between Con Ed and the 12,000 member International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers! Thomas Ayers learned then that power comes from the streets; he also learned that power came from championing the plight of the Black community that provided real power in Chicago!

When Rev. Martin Luther King Jr brought his open house campaign to Chicago in the mid 1960’s, Thomas Ayers was called upon to negotiate between Mayor Richard J. Daley’s administration and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He also developed the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities to fight racial discrimination in housing.

Mr. Thomas Ayers learned then the power of philanthropy and became a leader in Chicago Philanthropy circles and an agent for change. He worked with many powerful nonprofit groups and many Foundations, serving as the chair of the Chicago Urban League, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Chamber of Commerce and Industy, Chicago United, Community Renewal Society (Project funder for the United Church of Christ – Rev Wright anyone? Today a Minister from TUCC sits on the board), Illinois Council on Economic Education, The Chicago Public Education Fund, the Chicago Community Trust, Bank Street College of Education in New York (where Bill Ayers went to school after surfacing in 1980), Erikson Institute and the jewel Commercial Club of Chicago, Chicago’s most prestigious business group. These philanthropy associations drive politics in Illinois, especially with a combined worth exceeding $5 billion. Thomas Ayers knew how to network (new name for manipulate) them all for his own agenda!

If you look at all these Associations and Foundations Board of Directors, you will see the Who’s Who behind Obama’s campaign! According to Thomas Ayers, it all starts at the basics, elections and grass roots, in order to be working from inside the establishment and not fighting from the outside!

James O’Connor, former Chairman and CEO of Com Ed summed it all up about Thomas Ayers: “He had an extraordinary social conscience. He was willing to step into situations where very few people were willing to risk their reputation. He had total courage and never seemed to weigh the consequences of that sort of activity. He never did anything for applause or for any sort of recognition.” In other words it was “all about the power”!

“He was a guy of great intelligence and integrity, and he was willing to put the time in as well,” former Northwestern U president Arnold Weber said. “Those offices are not just honorary or for social distinction.” Again, it is for the “POWER.”

Michael Klonsky (former SDS leader and Founder of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) USA, and author of “Remembering the Summer of ‘66″ (Klonsky also collaborated with Bill Ayers on several projects over the years, and the duo, along with Gabrielle Lyon, of A Simple Justice: The Challenge of Small Schools) had these comments about Thomas Ayers:

Tom Ayers, was a force in the civic life of Chicago. “He will be remembered, not only as a business leader, but as an individual committed to civil rights and school reform. I loved to argue politics and baseball with Tom although I can’t say I ever made him see it my way in either area.”

Equally important to Mr. Thomas Ayers was the educational and financial advancement of African-Americans. “He felt the black community’s success was key to Chicago’s success,” son John Ayers said. “He pushed business people to be more open in the 1960s.”

Look at Thomas Ayers present day successor at Con Ed, Mr. Frank M Clark, who joined Con Ed under Ayers’s reign in 1966. Now compare Clark to Ayers by the Foundations Clark is on: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Family Services, The Chicago Community Trust, the governing board of the Illinois Council on Economic Education, the Economic Club of Chicago, The Commercial Club of Chicago, and the Executives’ Club of Chicago. Clark also was ranked among the 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America by Fortune magazine in 2002. Mr. Clark also happens to be a super bundler for Obama. He is also a lobbyist.

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“In the ’60s and ’70s, we went through some rough patches in our family,” he said. “He was very sweet and supportive of us all. He used to say, ‘It takes all kinds’ to get the world moving forward.” John Ayers worked on School Reform in the 1980’s representing the powerful Commercial Club of Chicago Civics Commitee that was put in place in 1983 in part to provide business sector leadership in support of the reform of the Chicago Public School system and public school financing.

During a 1993 interview by the Chicago Magazine with Bernadine Dohrn, many revelations materialized, some lies (she is a terrorist, after all), some not! She and her husband Bill Ayers have held high-profile dinner parties and seem to do so often. Obama’s campaign and political career launch party in 1995 was just one in a line of them.Terrorism today according to Bill Ayers’s good friend and fellow Weather Underground member, who is also today’s MDS partner, Mark Rudd is explained on his website. It starts at the basics, elections and grass roots, to be working from inside the establishment, according to Thomas Ayers, and not fighting from the outside!

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So how powerful a man was Thomas Ayers? Well when Bernadine Dohrn was seeking her NY State law licence, two people wrote on Dohrn’s behalf to the Ethics Committee in her application. Her supporters included two powerful lawyers, Don H. Reuben (Sydley Austin), at one time the Chicago Tribune’s lawyer. The other supporter was a very well respected Federal Judge Harold Tylor!

How did she get into Sidley Austin Law Firm, where both Michelle and Barack Obama not coincidentally both worked? Howard Trienens, a partner at Sidley Austin since 1956, has been a member of the Northwestern University board of trustees since 1967 and chairman of the board from 1986 to 1995, replacing Thomas Ayers as Chairman (One more item: Ayers’ wife, fellow ex-terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, is a law-professor (without a licence to practice law) at Northwestern U since 1991. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but Thomas Ayers served as the Chair of the Board of Trustees from 1975 to 1986 at the prestigious college. He was named a Life Trustee in 1987). He received two degrees from Northwestern, a bachelor’s degree in 1945 and a J.D. in 1949, and was editor in chief of the Illinois Law Review. Read More. And Read More.
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Equally important to Mr. Thomas Ayers was the educational and financial advancement of African-Americans.
“He felt the black community’s success was key to Chicago’s success,” son John Ayers said. “He pushed business people to be more open in the 1960s.” “In the ’60s and ’70s, we went through some rough patches in our family,” he said. “He was very sweet and supportive of us all. He used to say, ‘It takes all kinds’ to get the world moving forward.” John Ayers worked on School Reform in the 1980’s representing the powerful Commercial Club of Chicago Civics Commitee that was put in place in 1983 in part to provide business sector leadership in support of the reform of the Chicago Public School system and public school financing.

When William Ayers resurfaced in the 1980s, it was as though no time had passed between him and his father. “It was as if we were in the middle of a conversation and nothing much had changed,” William Ayers said. Probably because the communication was always there while in hiding!

While chairing the Northwestern University Board of Trustees, he helped start Chicago United in 1968 upon the request of Mayor Daley. Chicago United was dedicated to racial minority group access to jobs and education. In 1973, Chicago United joined with other civic organizations to create the Regional Transit Authority.

After the Board of Education’s financial collapse of 1979, Mayor Jane M. Byrne named Mr. Thomas Ayers as her choice for president of the new board.

In 1987, Mayor Harold Washington asked Chicago United (Thomas Ayers) to head a broad-based school reform coalition, one that lead directly to the landmark School Reform Act of 1988.

Active in the local control from below, on the “community” side of this effort was the University of Illinois, where Bill Ayers who had returned to Chicago in 1987 as an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Illinois’ Chicago Circle campus. Another ally in this battle at the same time was Executive Director Barack Obama’s Developing Communities Project (DCP), as Obama notes briefly in his Dreams From My Father. The DCP had its origins in the “radical” movement started by Saul Alinsky.

A lengthy report done by Bill McKersie, published in 1992, on Philanthropy’s Paradox: Chicago School Reform (The Role of Chicago Foundations in Reform, 1987-1990) for the American Educational Research Association, exposes several things. McKersie wrote this having experience on the inside, having worked for the Joyce Foundation.

McKersie points out that the money funnelled to Community Activists was to represent parents and Community residents and that these Activists were pushing for a fast moving change agenda. The shift of Foundation money only occurred after the School Reform act was completed and sent for passage at the State level. Thus prior to late 1988, Foundation money was used and targeted to Activists to voice the peoples concerns to those involved in representing the Government (Thomas Ayers group) and the researchers and developers of the Reform Act (Bill Ayers group).

Two of the Foundations continually funded mainly Community Organizations, the Wieboldt and the Woods Fund. In 1987, the DCP, Obama’s group, was given in excess of $36,000/yr directly for School Reform work. What is important to note is that these two Foundations used Community Organizers to shape the agenda for School Reform for much larger Education funders, demanding also faster action to Reform. How does this happen? By being active with the Communities and those working for the Government and Institution researchers setting the agenda for School Reform!

But unfortunately, the Activist side of setting the agenda was squashed in late 1987, hmm-same time Obama decided to go to Harvard! It was in early 1988 that AT&T, Chicago Community Trust (Thomas Ayers), Joyce Foundation and McArthur Foundation came together and decided it was time to look at everything and actually do something concrete after linking up with the Community Renewal Society (Thomas Ayers), and the project came to fruition. Basically, it was the convergence of groups, the Activists (Obama et al) attempting to set an agenda without a plan and the Institutions able to forge a plan (Thomas/Bill/John Ayers et al). Basically, it is noted that the Foundations via the Activists attempted to have “Bought Reform.” But in the end, they didn’t: all they bought was moving certain ideas through discussions, but it took the Institutions to enact the final outcome and resolve. Sounds exactly like a POTUS campaign going on presently!

The reasoning for the Foundations funding of Activists was to make sure that multiple and diverse voices were heard! Obama was recruited by the Woods Fund to work the Afro-American community, the one community that they could not previously reach with their white Jewish Organizers, thus putting Obama front and center for the Black group of voices representing the DCP with all the powers to be, namely Thomas Ayers, since 1985 when the movement started on School Reform! Therefore, Slate is correct in stating Obama has more than 20 years experience in School Reform. Unfortunately, Obama’s work in School Reform has been a failure!

What this endeavour of School Reform also brought to Obama was not only his meeting Thomas Ayers, but also brought him closer to the powers to be at the Woods Foundation and other organizations such as the Joyce Foundation and ACORN, who endorses Obama, just to name a few.

When the ordeal was finally resolved, imagine who the head of the school reform coalition was, none other than Thomas Ayers son and Bill Ayers brother John Ayers! Coincidence?

So who brought Obama to Chicago? The DCP? Well, yes and no! The DCP brought him, but actually was funded by The Woods Fund Chicago!

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So what is the Woods Fund?

Frank Woods had a broad vision of philanthropy. Under his leadership, institutions like the Art Institute, which he chaired, were great beneficiaries. But he also gave grants to help equalize opportunities before the Civil Rights era and supported small community-based groups. He appeared to have valued risk taking in philanthropy, setting up fund at Chicago Community Trust (Thomas Ayers), whose purpose was to encourage “high risk grants.” He was known to be very open to community organizing and got involved early in its funding. Following Frank Woods’s death, George Kelm provided leadership. One critical leadership contribution of Mr. Kelm was hiring the Fund’s first full time staff director, Jean Rudd. She shaped the Director’s philanthropic visions into clear grant making guidelines, creating two major grant making programs – in community organizing and in public workforce development policy – that remain to this day. So you know, George Kelm was President and CEO and Chair of Sahara Enterprises and Sahara Coal Company, Illinois largest coal company, a main supplier to Con Ed (Thomas Ayers, David Axelrod and Obama’s vote for the Bush-Cheney Energy Bill)!

The Woods Foundation has a lot bigger a role than expected!

The Woods Fund, in many ways, is responsible for helping start Obama as an organizer and shaping his political identity. In 1985 the foundation gave a $25,000 grant to the Developing Communities Project, which hired Obama, at 24, as an organizer on Chicago’s economically depressed South Side. Obama became friendly with Woods director Jean Rudd (why if he was working for the DCP? The School Reform Act of course), and after he graduated from Harvard Law School and moved back to Chicago (1991), Rudd asked him to join the board, which met four times a year to review grant proposals. (Obama also served on the board of the larger Joyce Foundation, which specialized in environmental conservation, welfare reform and education.) “Community organizing was a central priority of this foundation, so more and more we drew him in,” says Rudd, who retired in 2000. Obama and Ayers happened to not only fund Rezko on the board, but also Dohrn and Rev. Wright via the Gamaliel Foundation.

Note: Obama was on the Woods Fund board for at least 6 years before Ayers joined it! Also, the Joyce Foundation is an anti-gun foundation hidden under the guise of being an environmental Fund. How come Obama never mentions this Fund he was on? Maybe because the NRA calls the Joyce Foundation an activist foundation whose “shadowy web of huge donations” leads “straight to puppet strings that control the agenda of gun ban groups.”

What seems to be critical is why would Obama be known to a Foundation, when the money was a grant to the DCP? Following this logic of Jean Rudd being involved in where the Woods Fund money goes, then is Jean Rudd’s involved in the money the Woods gave to Rezko, Ayers, Klalhia, and other assorted people, as today she heads the oversight for all Chicago slum rehabilitations?

I found the old Woods Fund site (hidden not removed). Some links don’t work, but I find it interesting who they gave money to! And notice the dates: everything is deleted during Obama years. Wonder why?

Obama also tends not to mention another Foundation he was on in the 1980’s, the Gamaliel Foundation, which teaches the works and practices of Saul Alinsky to community organizers! The Gamaliel Foundation is a church based Foundation, supported by many of Tom Ayers Foundations and happens to be a part of the United Church of Christ. Rev. Wright ring a bell?
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Also, another lie of Obama’s is his claim to meeting Illinois Senator Emil Jones in the Senate, not true; Obama met his State Senate Godfather in 1986!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/21/politics/main3858237.shtml

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Richard M. Daley, Chicago Mayor and member of Mayors against Illegal Guns member that receives big funds from The Joyce Foundation, stated after the ABC debate:

The liberal blogs are still aghast about the whole incident, and to varying degrees; many mainstream voices have denounced what’s being called a smear campaign.

On the surface, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s statement on the affair is surprising.

There are a lot of reasons that Americans are angry about Washington politics. And one more example is the way Senator Obama’s opponents are playing guilt-by-association, tarring him because he happens to know Bill Ayers. I also know Bill Ayers. He worked with me in shaping our now nationally renowned school reform program. He is a nationally recognized distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a valued member of the Chicago community.

I don’t condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep re-fighting 40 year old battles.

So while it would appear on the surface that Richard M. Daley picked William Ayers, well, out of the air, to help guide the reform of Chicago’s school system; upon a closer look, in a city like Chicago, where people get ahead on who they know and who they are related to, Daley’s selection made a lot of sense.

But there is something else the mayor will remember. Ayers father was Thomas G. Ayers, the head of Commonwealth Edison, which was then Chicago’s electrical utility. Just as Obama and the younger Ayers are, in the words of Obama aide and Com Ed lobbyist David Axelrod, “friendly,” so were the elder Daley and the senior Ayers.

Funny for Axelrod to say, considering David Axelrod happens to come from a politically communist family: his mother use to write for the NY paper “PW” which was a communist oriented paper. Axelrod also met Obama in the early 1990’s (1991 to be exact), when Obama was a community organizer leading a voter-registration drive on the South Side. Axelrod served as advertising director for Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign. A former political reporter, Axelrod, 53, left the Chicago Tribune in 1984 (started in 1977) to become press secretary for then-Rep. Paul Simon, D-Ill., who was running for the Senate. He established himself as a fixture in Windy City politics, as well as statewide. In 1989, Axelrod went to work for Richard M. Daley in his first successful bid to be Chicago’s mayor, and he has remained close to the Daley machine ever since by displacing the African-American leadership from City Hall. Read More.

Then there is Valerie Jarrett: Jarrett in 1991 was Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Deputy Chief of Staff. After serving at Daley’s side, Jarrett was a Commissioner in the city’s Planning and Development Department (key to distort Obama’s claims of not knowing about Rezko’s dealings and failures) and went on to chair the Chicago Transit Board (Thomas Ayers created Board), which oversees the city’s flawed and failed public transportation system. Jarrett is a fixture in Chicago politics and in the Obama family. Jarrett, 51, is a senior unpaid adviser to the campaign, and is a confidant of both the candidate and his wife, Michelle. Jarrett’s role as an honest broker in the campaign stems from her deep friendship with the candidate and his wife. Barack Obama met Jarrett in 1991 when she was interviewing Obama’s then-fiancée for a job in City Hall. The three have been close ever since. A lawyer, Jarrett got her start in city government as a deputy corporation counsel for finance and development. She is also a member of the University of Chicago’s board of trustees, and she chairs its Medical Center Board. She served as chairman of Obama’s finance committee during Mr. Obama’s 2004 (alongside Tony Rezko) campaign for U.S. Senate. Her associations also helped pave the way for Mrs. Obama’s job at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Ms. Jarrett was on the board of directors. Read More. Jarrett also is a Director of The Joyce Foundation, which claims to be an enviromental Foundation, although it is also an anti-gun foundation. Since 2003, the Joyce Foundation has paid grants totaling over $12 million to gun control organizations. Gun rights groups including the National Rifle Association call the Joyce Foundation an activist foundation whose “shadowy web of huge donations” leads “straight to puppet strings that control the agenda of gun ban groups. Read More. Obama was a Director of the Joyce Foundation also. Read More. Was Jennett put in place to keep control over the OBAMA’s?

The list of names go on, but they all lead back to Mr. Thomas Ayers!

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So as stated above, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, upon return to Chicago, spent a lot of time holding “High Profile Dinner Parties”, basically doing the passing of the torch from Tom Ayers to the new Godfather duo of Illinois Politics based upon Thomas Ayers years of building power and control by ways of civil rights and school reform!

Everyone remember Senator Leahy (D-VT) speaking out for Clinton to quit a couple of weeks ago? Well, actor and activist Peter Coyote talking on the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago on his website mentions a couple of times about having to inform his wife “Martha that I’m dragging her to the apartment of old friends, ex-Weathermen, Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, hosting a party for Senator Leahy. Perhaps Edward Said will be there I urge her to come by promising that the event will push the edges of the envelope of her centrist politics.” (Wonder who got Senator Leahy to demand Clinton withdraw?)

But, all these social trappings notwithstanding, she and her husband say they have not lost any of their old, anti-Establishment fervour. Ayers, who still carries his SDS card in his wallet, says he feels no better about this country “just because a bunch of 40-year-olds are now part of the Establishment.”

Ayers says electoral politics is a tool to connect causes, like gay rights, disability rights, voting rights, human rights. “That’s how you use electoral politics. Not as an end in itself, but as an organizing mechanism. Our deepest belief, I think, is that we need to connect all these good projects and build the movement. …we should always be positioning ourselves, thinking, okay, if I’m involved in this next election, how am I positioned to help contribute to building a movement, raising consciousness, making the connections, and that’s a real tricky business.” (Any wonder who is behind Obama?)

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So what would attract someone like Obama to William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn?

Obama’s relationship with communist Frank Marshall Davis, Obama’s adopted grandfather and life advisor, of course. Add to that Obama’s continual obsession for following Marxist types of organizations and education makes Obama a natural fit with his gift for being illusive!

So we are left to figure out, was 1987 the first time Obama met the Ayers or was it sooner, such as:

• At Cooper Union in New York during a Marxist convention?
• At Columbia U with Ayers or Dohrn as a political Science class guest speaker? (Is that why Obama’s Columbia records are locked up)?
• Any other time in NYC at some rally?

And do not forget, the Anti-war speech Obama gave in 2002, was organized by former terrorists of the SDS days, Carl Davidson, Marylyn Katz and others!

Lies, deception, corruption and so many links to radicals, and the Democratic Party feels someone like this is the future?

Answer: Dohrn stated: “I don’t look to the Democratic Party. I don’t have hope for the Democratic Party. I think the Democratic Party is bankrupt. And I think the only answer is for us to build an independent, radical movement, and, I mean, the big ‘us.’ “Stay vigilant. The light will come”…….is the light Obama, yes to them he is! JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY!!

And this is what Obama stated during the Philadelphia ABC debate when questioned about his relationship to William Ayers:

SEN. OBAMA: George, but this is an example of what I’m talking about.
This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.
So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow — somehow their ideas could be attributed to me — I think the American people are smarter than that. They’re not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn’t.

My Response: Senator Obama, first, your guy who lives in your neighborhood happens to be a terrorist teaching education to children and not English, and you, sir, being a Political Science Major from Columbia U should know that! Second, your children cannot possibly go to school with Ayers kids, as his kids are all over 21 years of age, Mr. Liar! Third, your relationship with this TERRORIST goes back over 20 years and your association is not based upon a howdy on the streets, but is one of you working side by side putting forth this TERRORIST’S agenda, especially when it comes to educating children! If they are not your values you share with him, then why did you sit on many foundations, support many of his causes and work so closely with him? Simple answer is because you are one of him! Yes, we are smarter than to be conned by a thug and a corrupt Chicago politician, Senator Obama! You claim to be a true Christian and believer in Jesus Christ, it is a mortal sin to lie and a moral sin to lie in a place of worship, Senator Obama, but you did.

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Now in 1990, Obama was pretty much set as far as power from the streets was concerned, since Michelle Obama’s father was a powerful Democratic Precinct Captain, but timing is everything and Michelle’s father died in 1990, thus Obama lost his street power and to recoup it went out and worked for the Project Vote and registered 150,000 new voters in 1992 (Marilyn Katz of SDS fame happened to be leading Project Vote and working on many of Thomas Ayers Foundations, including working for Davis Miner Law firm, Barack Obama’s former employer, doing PR work). Funny thing, Miner happened to work on Mayor Washington’s staff from 1984 to 1987 and also happened to be classmates at the University of Chicago law school with Bernadine Dohrn!

Why must we do the media’s job to find out the workings of the corrupt Chicago underground attempting to control the DNP and now the White House?

Hillary is telling her supporters that this race isn’t about the math, it’s about the map. She is well aware that she is much more likely to beat Mcain than Obama.

The endorsement of Obama by John Edwards dampened the hopes of many Hillary supporters. But Hillary is running hard and making some very interesting last-minute moves.

So, what is happening in Camp Hillary right now? Consider the picture prominently featured on Hillary’s Web site:

Hillary as Sun Queen — beautiful, strong, iconic — is a rather unusual move at the end of a campaign. She radiates power, empathy, and the vulnerability of John F. Kennedy and is strikingly similar to another woman of the people, Eva Peron:

Her conference call with bloggers on Friday was a move more normally associated with a campaign’s kick-off than the final few weeks. Also on Friday she began running an ad in Oregon which specifically targets Obama’s biggest supporters in the media:

What we’re seeing, I suspect, is another New Hampshire moment where there’s a disconnect between the media’s desire to quickly anoint Obama and the reality that this is a very tight campaign in which Hillary has a legitimate path to the nomination. I believe that Hillary remains in the race because she knows the state of the race better than the media or the neo-liberal bloggers. She knows what many super delegates are telling her in private; the fact that she will do very well in Kentucky and Puerto Rico; the potential for Obama to implode; and the imminent decision on how Michigan and Florida will be seated.

Although it’s a minority view, there are pundits out there who see a scenario where Hillary wins. Jay Cost of Real Clear Politics writes:

I will predict that West Virginia will be either her best or her second best finish, behind only Arkansas. Kentucky should come in right behind the two. This alone should be enough to induce some caution. I think it is too hasty to declare her finished just days before two of her three best states.

If, for a moment, we turn off the volume on Obama’s cheerleaders in the media and consider the results of Pennsylvania and West Virginia (41 point landslide!), it’s clear that Obama is the far weaker candidate to face McCain. The Clinton Team knows this to be true. They know Hillary will be ahead in the popular votes. And that without the DNC’s self-destructive but intentional games with Michigan and Florida, Hillary would have spent months with an “insurmountable” delegate lead and the nomination. Remember, Hillary was counted out before New Hampshire. Unless she says so, there is still a very real contest, and with Hillary we could win the White House this year.

As riverdaughter writes:

she’s not getting out of the race, not when she’s winning in the popular vote by more than 50,000 votes. There’s still Kentucky, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana and Puerto Rico and more voters to help her put some distance between herself and Obama. So, she’s in it to win it. And why shouldn’t she? She’s won more of the crucial states than he has.