Barack Obama with his spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright

In March of 2008, the Jeremiah Wright tapes hit the news, nearly derailing Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.  Obama’s spiritual advisor, the pastor of the church the Obama family had attended for 20 years, was seen on videotape cursing America, among other unsavory things.  But the liberal press quickly circled the wagons and declared it a non-issue.  Nothing to see here!  Move along, folks!

Obama dealt with the issue as he deals with all issues: a scripted speech read from teleprompters.  In that speech, he downplayed the fact that his own campaign had accused his rival, Hillary Clinton and her husband former President Bill Clinton of “playing the Race Card,” when in fact his campaign had taken their comments completely out of context and fed it to the press, thereby playing the Race Card themselves while accusing the Clintons of doing so.

Somewhere in this situation, the phrase “a national conversation about race” was put into our national psyche.  Actually, it was President Bill Clinton who had called for “a national conversation on race” back in 1997.  I guess that phrase was spoken or inferred by somebody during the Obama/Wright flap, because it seems to have become part of that event, but I’ve just spent an hour Googling variations on that phrase and the name Obama, and I can’t find a direct quote of Obama using that phrase.  Interesting.

At any rate, plenty of people, including our best pundits, ran with that phrase after the Rev. Wright dust-up, and it was something everybody was talking about for about a month, during which time it seems the press decided Obama was the nominee and that Hillary was a racist for not conceding.

Like any cunning politician, Obama himself has not personally played the Race Card in an overt and direct way that could be perceived by the general public.  He has not personally called anyone a racist outright.  But his hordes of rabid devotees have certainly played it, and the press has played it, and his campaign has played it.  We’ve all been called racists, those of us who dislike his policies, his actions, or the sound of his voice.  Criticize his clothing, his choice of words, or his taste in salad greens, and you’re a racist.  We know that ridiculous accusation all too well.  I reckon I’m a racist if I call attention to that bump on his nose.

I think most of this comes from white progressives, but clearly many African-Americans make the claims too.  What I don’t hear anyone saying is that people who accuse others of being racists seem way too focused on race, so it seems to me that they are the racists.  It’s kind of like that old frat fart riposte: he who smelt it dealt it.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I often remember those famous words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his dream that someday people “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  I believe in those words.  That’s why I believe my judgments of Obama, which are based on the content of his character and not the color of his skin, are not racist at all.  In fact, they’re just what the Dr. ordered.

Seems we never succeeded in having that great national conversation about race, which I suppose was intended for us all to completely understand, sympathize, empathize, and love one another as spirit souls, to rise above all racial prejudices, to become colorblind, and all that other hippie-dippie new age pipe-dreaming.  Yawn.  Been there, done that, got the headband.

There is racism in every race.  It’s not just a white-on-black thing.  There are as many forms of racism as there are ethnic groups and languages to express them.  It’s all tribal at its root.  It was racism in the Bible when the Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians, and again when the Jews warred with the Philistines (the ancestors of the Palestinians), and they’re still at it some 3,000 years later.  And you think 10 years in Afghanistan is a long war?

Sometimes racism is too subtle to be perceived by races that are further removed.  For example, my maternal grandfather, an Irish Catholic, was often terrorized by the English Protestants during the 20^th century right here in Kansas.  But they’re all white people from Great Britain, right?  Well, we all know that the red-haired Irishmen are hell-raising alcoholics.  And it’s a fact that most Englishmen have puffy eyes and bad teeth.  That’s race distinction.  It was racism when the English-Americans put up signs telling the Irish-Americans they won’t be hired, and won’t be served food or rented rooms.

I’m not implying that the racism my Irish forefathers experienced is on the same level as the racism black folks have had to endure.  I’m just saying that many ethnic groups have been victims of racism.

Almost every war that’s ever been fought involved racism, often in the form of nationalism, but almost always there is some form of tribalism at its root, and tribalism is racism.  All those tiny countries in Europe can tell you how the people in the country next door are different from them in physical ways, which is racial distinction.  There’s nothing wrong with recognizing racial distinctions.  It’s only wrong when there is racial hatred.

But we are now told that the only racism that matters is when whites discriminate against blacks.  The basis of this exclusive relationship is the fact that once upon a time in America, some whites owned black slaves.  Nearly all societies in past ages allowed slavery in one form or another, so it wasn’t a unique situation, but that doesn’t make it excusable.  When one race or tribe conquered another, prisoners were taken, and they were usually put to hard labor, or sold.  In fact, most of the African slaves that were brought to America were purchased in Africa from black or Arab slave traders, like Obama’s Kenyan ancestors.

No doubt about it, white slave owners and those who enabled slavery and kept it legal were very misguided and sometimes cruel.  Our revered Founding Fathers made it legal and some took part in it.  It’s a sad and sick chapter in our history.  But those people have been dead for over 150 years.  I know for a fact than none of my ancestors were slave owners, so I have absolutely no guilt about that whole deal.

Legal, forced segregation was another sad and sick period in our history, and it went on for a hundred years after the Emancipation.  It’s shocking and disgusting that it lasted so long.  It started out as sort of a transitional time, when former slaves were suddenly free to make their own way, but white people still viewed them as second class citizens, or worse.  It was an awful and ugly thing.

Although it’s no longer legal to force segregation, all ethnicities seem to willfully engage in self-segregation.  People of all ethnicities live in their own little enclaves of their own kind, and for the most part, we seem to be happy in our sameness with our neighbors.  Racism and xenophobia exist in all cultures, and we all seem to feel safest amongst our own kind.  That’s not racism.  That’s just nature.

Yes, racism is a horrible and ugly thing.  Most of us know real racists.  We may have grown up with them, in our families or among our friends.  We may still have to endure racist employers or neighbors.  If you know real racists, you know whether or not you are like those people.  I know I’m not like them at all, and I feel no “white guilt” for myself, just because there are so many white racists.

That’s not to say I have no sympathy for blacks, especially the descendants of American slaves.  The indignations they have had to face are unimaginable to the rest of us.  The discrimination they still sometimes face, through no fault of their own, is still a shame upon our culture, in America and abroad.  But just as we should not punish all blacks for the bad behavior of a few, all whites should not be punished for the bad behavior of a few.  The small portion of our white ancestors who were slave owners many generations ago should not be relevant for the vast majority of white people today.

Personally, I’ve have lots of black friends, Indian friends, Mexican friends, and a variety of mutts.  None of it really mattered to me, for the most part, but we all knew full well how different we were from each other.  We weren’t blind or stupid.  Sometimes race became an issue, but I don’t remember it ever ending a friendship.

Sometimes I have instinctive or gut feelings that make me uncomfortable, a little racist I guess.  But those feelings aren’t because I dislike black people.  It’s because I’ve been victimized by young black men, in ways that no other racial or demographic group has ever victimized me or people dear to me.  These incidents include some really bad stuff, including two friends murdered in separate incidents, both by young black men.  I’ve personally been badly beaten by groups of young black men on two occasions, and I’ve had my home and office burglarized by young black men.  So yeah, young black men do scare me, especially if they seem to embrace the “gansta” lifestyle, or if I encounter a group of them in an isolated place. Does that make me a racist?  I don’t think so.  I think it’s a logical reaction to having been a victim of racism.  I feel these things happened because those young men hated white people.  They were racists, plain and simple.

If all the bad experiences you’ve ever had with dogs have been with German Shepherds, you are bound to develop a fear of the German Shepherd breed.  It’s only natural.  Your hair would start to stand on end at the sight of one, as surely as Pavlov’s dogs salivated at the sound of a bell.

So when some naïve progressive Democrat white fool calls me a racist for campaigning against Obama, I resent it.  They don’t know about the many times I’ve argued against racism to my racist friends, family members, and strangers in public.  They don’t know how I bite my tongue in anger when people use the N word at work, where I am powerless to do anything about it.  They don’t know that I felt I was a part of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, before most of them were born.  They don’t know that I employed many young black men and trusted them completely during the many years I owned a business.

I know there is not a thing I can say to enlighten these idiots, so I just try to ignore it or laugh it off.  If I tried to explain it to them, I’d just get all frustrated and angry.

So I just try to silently meditate on those words of wisdom that sum it up so well:  he who smelt it dealt it.

See, I ask because I remember not too long ago, your party, under your leadership, did a pretty fair job of warring on women, too. You, personally, supported a far, far less qualified, experienced man for the highest office in the land over the far, far more qualified, experienced, smarter woman.

Who could forget this exchange between then-Speaker Pelosi and Greta van Susteren after the Democrats, especially Pelosi, managed to drum Clinton right out of the race? I know I can’t forget it:

[snip] VAN SUSTEREN: Let me first focus for a second on Senator Clinton. She is back on the Hill today, and many people email me and say that she is the victim of sexism–not all, but many. Did sexism play a role in this election for her, number one? And number two, I know this morning you were quoting as saying that you, sometimes, have encountered sexism.

PELOSI: I think every woman who is making progress in gaining power is probably a victim of sexism. I can’t document what happened in the presidential campaign as I am too busy being Speaker of the House and running my own races for Congress to retain and grow our Democratic majority in the House.(Emphasis mine.)

But I do not think that there is any question that there is some evidence that there was sexism in the campaign, but I can’t tell you if that is the reason why Senator Clinton won or lost.

She made a great showing. She advanced to the cause of women enormously. We were thrilled with her candidacy, not just because she is a woman, but because she is a woman with great intellect, great dedication, great stamina, that she proved she could be president of the United States.

But there was an election, and I think that Senator Clinton benefited greatly by the enthusiasm of women, there is no question about that. And I do not know what the impact of the sexism and was. I know it is a sign of insecurity on those who exercise it. I do not know what the political impact of it was. [snip]

Well, former Speaker Pelosi, let me just remind you of the scope of sexism then-Senator Clinton received, and other women, as well:

So, yeah – there was just a bit of a war against women in 2008, one perpetrated by the very ones now decrying a “war against women.” Pelosi herself contributed to it by her very actions toward Hillary Clinton, and her very support for the man who ran a sexist campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Are the Republicans above being sexist? Of course not. But they should also not be singled out for a “war against women.” Democrats share plenty to blame in that regard. Using the whole issue of choice as a constant stick to keep women in line while the top Democrat, Obama, invites members of the then-outlawed, Sharia-law demanding, “Modesty police” directing Muslim Brotherhood, while attacking OTHERS is just a bit of a stretch. At least it is for me.

How about you?

Oopsie daisy – sounds like another faction unhappy with Dear Leader. The African American community has been one of the most stalwart groups in supporting Obama in the polls, so this could be a troubling change for Obama. Those days may be coming to an end, at least for some in the community, and with good reason:

[snip]Since Obama has taken office African Americans have faced a number of disproportionate “highs,” few of them good, such as an exceptionally high unemployment rate, a high foreclosure rate, and a high number of African-American political figures deprived of the president’s support or dismissed from his administration (such as former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, former Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod, South Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene, former green energy czar Van Jones, Democratic Illinois Sen. Roland Burris, Democratic New York Gov. David Patterson, would-be Democratic New York Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., and Democratic Reps. Charlie Rangel of New York, Maxine Waters of California and Kendrick Meek of Florida).

Dr. Cornel West, professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, is one African-American leader who has been far from pleased with Obama’s neglect of African-American issues. West told The Daily Caller that he has been extremely frustrated with the president’s relative disinterest in civil rights
issues.

“He can take the black base for granted because he assumes we have nowhere else to go,” West said. “But we just won’t put up with it. He has got to respect us.”

West is not the only black leader who feels this way. Behind the scenes, West says, many African-American leaders are not happy with Obama’s failure to address issues important to the black community, especially considering the support the community gave the president during the 2008 election. But, according to West, many of those dissatisfied leaders are hesitant to step forward.

“There hasn’t been a lot of talk about it because I think most black spokespeople, at the moment, are scared of the Obama machine,” West said. “A lot of us are trying to put the pressure on him without aiding and abetting the right wing.” [snip]

I just have to say, as someone living in SC, surely no one really expects Obama or ANY Democrat, for that matter, to support Alvin Greene. For heavens sake, the man was just indicted on two counts of showing pornography a couple of weeks ago. He was kicked out of a SC restaurant on Tuesday. Originally, it was a campaign stop – until those pesky little indictments came down. The organizers canceled the meeting, but Greene came anyway. He, and a companion, were, um, ushered out of the establishment. Heck, even I don’t blame Obama, or ANYONE, for steering clear of this guy. Just saying.

As for my former professor, Cornell West, it is a bit surprising that he, and others, like Dr. Leon, are speaking out already. Now, West was a Hillary supporter, just to be clear, prior to Obama’s being given the nomination by the rule-breaking DNC. But that does not mean he wouldn’t have some real expectations about what Obama might do for the African American community in this country.

Shelby Steele from the Hoover Institute, has some thoughts on the matter, as well:

[snip] Steele pointed out that Obama does not owe the black community as much as they believe he does due to the fact that whites were the ones who elected him — specifically by throwing their support to him during the Iowa caucus. Initially, the African-American community was significantly supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

“Once blacks began to see that whites were with Obama they didn’t want to be left standing at the station so they jumped on board,” he said. “They were not his base anyway. So he is not confused about that. That said, blacks will continue to vote for him. They vote for every Democratic candidate at a rate of 90% so Obama can absolutely take them for granted and will.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

This raises a couple of points for me. One, not only are whites the ones who elected Obama, they are also the ones who REARED Obama. It is remarkable to me how completely and fully both Obama’s mother and grandmother have been wiped from history. They are the ones responsible for rearing him. That is to say, he was not raised in a traditional African American community. To pretend otherwise has been one of the most glaring manipulations of the entire election.

Two, yes, many in the African American community were breaking for Hillary Clinton. My first rally in Charleston was easily, easily 1/2 African American, if not more. But, when Obama and his campaign played the race card against Hillary Clinton in SC, employing that turncoat, backstabber, Jim Clyburn, that many in the African-American community turned away from her. She, along with her husband, were characterized as racists by Obama, and for some reason I still cannot fathom, the community, the COUNTRY, bought that, despite their long, long history standing in stark defiance of that claim. But they believed Obama.

Instead of a hard-working Hillary Clinton in the White House, who would indeed have worked on behalf of the African American community, and ALL Americans, who would not be taking vacation after vacation after vacation while the Home sales worsen, more jobs are lost, and the DOW tanks, they got Obama. Even if he IS vacationing in the “historically black section of Martha’s Vineyard” at a gazillion dollars a week, I might add.

Still – it begs the question: just what did the African American community think Obama was going to do specifically for them? Oh, wait – I remember:

Wow. That is still hard to believe, that anyone thought that would happen if Obama became president. But someone clearly spread that word – she was not the only one who seemed to think that was the case.

Anyway, I think Leon sums the issue up perfectly:

[snip] “My take on that is, you have to treat him the same way you would treat any other president,” Leon explained. “Especially since he is not giving you any reason to treat him otherwise. And it is going to be very difficult, whether it is 2012 and he is not reelected or it is 2016 and we’re dealing with a new president — who most likely will not be African American — it is going to be very difficult to hold that new president to a different standard.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

There’s a concept – treat Obama like every other president. That would be a change, wouldn’t it? Holding Obama to all the same standards as every other president or presidential candidate? What a novel idea. It’s too late for the latter now, but 2012 is not that far away (it just feels like it is).

I guess we will just see how this continues to play out, and if the dissatisfaction with Obama trickles throughout the African American community, not just the leaders and intellectuals. Time will tell…

But here’s the problem for me. I had really liked President Carter. I had a lot of respect for him, in fact. I was young and naive when he was in office, but certainly the work he had done AFTER leaving the White House was commendable. For instance, the work he and his entire family did for Habitat for Humanity has helped numerous people, including in my home town. I have experienced firsthand seeing the joy and pride the new homeowner as she looked at her house, and talked about what it meant to her. And the group of university students with whom I was working, all female, becoming more empowered, more sure of themselves, because they were helping to build someone a HOUSE, and the sense of pride and accomplishment that gave them.

The work Carter has done in Africa, helping to eradicate a horrible disease of worms that infiltrate too many areas there, doing horrible damage to the people they infest. Or his work in monitoring elections. Heck, even his recent decision to leave his church of many years because they will not ordain women.

My partner and I have visited the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta, GA, a beautiful place in a calming and serene environment. I walked through that buildung filled with a sense of awe, seeing what he gave up, and subsequently his wife, when he left his commission as a Naval officer behind to go back to Georgia and help out the family. As I saw photographs marking historic moments, actual papers from events I had read about, or seen on tv. I was in awe as I saw his actual Nobel Peace Prize. And with pride, we have supported the Carter Peace Center for years now with monthly contributions…

(Photo by rachydachy)

But, things have been changed now. It began with some of his statements about Israel. Then President Carter inserted himself into the Primary Campaign, making some unkind remarks about my hero, “>Hillary Clinton. And now this. Being called a racist because I oppose the way by which Obama became President, but even more, because I oppose his policies. When someone calls me a racist, I gotta say (as we do down here in the South, “Them’s fightin’ words.” And so, I have written this letter to send to the Carter Center when my next payment is due:

Dear Carter Center,

Sincerely,
The Rev. Amy

What a sad day, for me personally, but also for this nation, when a former president makes such a grievous, and unfounded, charge against over half of the population. Because we have the audacity to judge the president by his CHARACTER, rather than the color of his skin, as Martin Luther King, Jr., charged us to do, we are called a heinous name. How sad, and how infuriating.

President Carter, as respectfully as I can muster after being called a racist, I would suggest it is time for you to go into retirement, and leave off sharing your political opinions. You are not doing yourself or your legacy any good, to be sure. Even more, you are not doing this nation any good. Rather, you are fanning flames that divide us, not unite us, all to provide cover for a man who, had he been properly vetted in the first place, and had the DNC followed its own rules, would never have gotten this far. Speaking for me only, I am judging Obama on the merits, not the color of his skin. I suggest you do likewise.

From the original post:

Gatewaypundit has a video from Naked Emperor News with some comments from BO back in 1995. Yeah, it’s a few years ago. But he talks about the same thing he mentioned to “Joe the Plumber.” This sounds like the real BO to me – not the sanitized stump speech version. After all, there are no white people who willingly pay taxes for AA children to go to school, are there?

Here’s the audio:

All day yesterday, Memeorandum featured many, many articles about the second video, including one at the National Review.
Read the rest ->

First, the audio from 2001:

The National Review author provided a transcript of the audio and interspersed parts of it with interesting comments. I’m excerpting a few here, but it’s worth the time to read the entire article.

There is nothing vague or ambiguous about [Obama's comments]. Nothing. 

From the top: “…The Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.”

If the second highlighted phrase had been there without the first, Obama’s defenders would have bent over backwards trying to spin the meaning of “political and economic justice.” We all know what political and economic justice means, because Barack Obama has already made it crystal clear a second earlier: It means redistribution of wealth. Not the creation of wealth and certainly not the creation of opportunity, but simply taking money from the successful and hard-working and distributing it to those whom the government decides “deserve” it. 

This redistribution of wealth, he states, “essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time.” It is an administrative task. Not suitable for the courts. More suitable for the chief executive.

Wow. “.. . redistribution of wealth. . . essentially is administrative.” Redistributing the wealth, then, is both a job for the President and is simply a matter for planning? And “not suitable for the courts” certainly suggests one would not have much chance for redress. Are you kidding?

Then he adds this:

Now that’s just garden-variety socialism, which apparently is not a big deal to may voters. So I would appeal to any American who claims to love the Constitution and to revere the Founding Fathers… I will not only appeal to you, I will beg you, as one American citizen to another, to consider this next statement with as much care as you can possibly bring to bear: “And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and [the] Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

To me, when Obama says “[the Warren Court] didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution,” I get the distinct impression he means the court somehow failed in the “breaking free” part. That would mean Obama feels the constraints engineered by the Constitution should be removed or overcome somehow. This is what the NR had to say about that:

The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human potential available in any population. 

Barack Obama sees that limiting of government not as a lynchpin but rather as a fatal flaw: “…One of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.”

So, the Civil Rights movement, by using the courts to address questions of equality missed out on creating “coalitions of power” that would bring about “redistributive change.” The reason the Civil Rights movement used the courts is because that is what the courts are for – to address such problems in a venue everyone believes has legitimacy and the force of government behind it. Why would community organizing have done any better? How in the world would “redistributive change” have occurred outside the courts? What does he MEAN?

In addition to the author’s comments about Obama’s statements, he notes as well that this video – by Naked Emperor News – was found and reported on by an individual. NOT THE MSM. The 1995 video is also from NEN.

I, do however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation. 

We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them. 

Remember this, America: The press did not break this story. A single citizen, on the Internet did.

I just did a story on the MSM, noting that it had lost all its integrity. This is just another reason to distrust those providing you “news” on tv and print and radio. At least on the ‘net you can look at multiple sources and are not limited to whatever some editor decides to give air time to.

CBSnews did give some cursory coverage to the story by reporting on a remark by John Boehner.

“As disturbing as Barack Obama’s comments about ‘redistribution of wealth’ are, what’s worse is that seven years later his rhetoric is the same,” Boehner said Monday in a statement.

“Obama still wants to ‘redistribute’ our tax dollars and ‘spread the wealth around,’ giving money to people who don’t pay taxes rather than growing our economy for everybody.”

The Obama campaign immediately pushed back, arguing that the Right is deliberately misinterpreting a narrow legal argument Obama was making about decades-old court cases.
————–
“In this seven year old interview, Senator Obama did not say that the courts should get into the business of redistributing wealth at all.

The Obama campaign is whacking away at a straw man here. I don’t think Obama was arguing the courts should redistribute wealth at all either. He plainly said that was an administrative function for the chief executive.

Of course, this audio also has other implications. By discussing the redistribution of wealth and justice within the context of the civil rights movement, Obama also makes this a racial discussion. His context is clearly about AAs and whites.

Obama has said he is all about trans-racial politics even while his past associations with the likes of Rev. Wright, Father Pfleger and other race salary-men suggest otherwise. To me, this audio is simply more of the same in that sense.

And what about the redistribution of wealth and justice? Obviously Obama feels redistribution needs to happen. That’s not even open to question for him. He also seems to think the President can accomplish such redistribution because it is an “administrative function.” And he says the Constitution, rather than define what government cannot do to citizens, should rather define what it HAS to do for citizens. That’s a very different way of approaching the fundamental outlines of how our country works.

And, the Civil Rights movement missed out by ONLY using the courts to work for justice. ONLY? What venues did the Civil Rights movement miss?

Fundamental questions for a candidate, one would think. Will anyone but the bloggers bother to ask? Given that Obama has provided so little about his beliefs (other than his strong Christian beliefs, but NOT at Trinity, no, that was a 20 year fluke) or about him personally (writings, personal information), something like this audio offers a window into what a President Obama would put on his agenda. Had he bothered to make more information available, this audio might be placed within some bigger context. But he hasn’t. So, this audio is as important as it gets.

Obama is remarkably consistent from at least 1995 to 2001 in how he views the ideas of who owes what to whom. I wonder. In the wake of these audio clips, will people try to convince us BO’s politics have changed or his attitudes? Given that he was at Trinity until last spring, I’d say the only viable thing to say is his (mis)representaitons of his politics and his positions have changed. After all, the BO campaign will do whatever they can get away with, not what is true or even passes the sniff test.

The Obama campaign has had a deliberate strategy of calling the Clinton campaign racist and the media has allowed itself to be led along. Obama himself confessed to this strategy in the Nevada debate when shown a copy of a campaign memo directing campaign workers to use race-bating to defame Hillary Clinton.

January 27, 2008:

Please, just fuck off. Bill Clinton made exactly the right point and Obama’s defenders are playing into the worst of the Right-wing racist tropes, that there is something tainted about successful black candidates who get majority black support.

January 28, 2008:

I’ve spent a good amount of time here on this blog defending HRC against bogus claims of racism, and I’ve smacked The Golden One around for engaging in his own race-baiting, trying to milk liberal white guilt for all it is worth.

There is no person, no campaign, no victory that can justify deliberate use of racial divisions. Leave it to the Republicans to immolate themselves on the pyre of racism come November.

February 2, 2008:

Then begins the long slog towards South Carolina, with the media, the blogosphere and Obama’s campaign screaming at every turn that the Clintons are racists.

March 31, 2008:

My point here is not to promote the Clintons (though I think they deserve it), but to emphasize the way in which they are demonized by their own party. They become the embodiment of the old South, the unrepentant, segregationist South, just as northern blue collar voters who challenge the party orthodoxy are labeled Archie Bunkers.

April 5, 2008:

Here is the challenge to the Democrats – how to cease treating working class whites the eternal “Other” of the party, the roadblock to fulfilling the promise of the nation, and seriously address the ways in which the party will help all Americans live their lives with dignity.

April 28, 2008:

I have seen it put cynically (hell, I have put it cynically myself) that Obama was just promising the (mostly white) comfortable class of the party that he wouldn’t insist on looking at those nasty claims of justice if they would just elect a black dude and redeem their souls.

May 2, 2008

The assault on the Clintons has no basis in policy or political philosophy. It is an attack on uppity white trash who dares to succeed in the world without assimilating into the ruling elite, and for the added insult of being adored by the nation precisely for their common connections.

May 4, 2008:

Hannah Arendt, my favorite political theorist, has been excoriated as a racist for pointing out that integration and post-racial sociality is not such a big deal when the person being integrated is already part of your socio-economic class, remains a numerical minority within your enclave, and is no threat to your social standing or economic power.

May 6, 2008:

Obama’s campaign is certainly doing pernicious race-baiting, but mostly to initimidate critics and shame wavering white voters.

May 8, 2008:

What I’m seeing is an amplified, exaggerated perversion of the lessons, biases and attitudes I encountered in my very liberal college education, things that resonate with me in strange ways, playing on the way I learned to see the world as divided into evil whites, good whites and the oppressed Others we good whites had to free from the evil whites.

May 18, 2008:

I don’t see the Hillary campaign saying a bad word about the voters, even those who vote for her opponents. I don’t see the campaign explaining away their losses because of some flaw or failing in the voters.

May 21, 2008:

Failure to create the conditions under which vast majority of the party will have no doubts that he will serve the interests of the party and be protective of those who dissent from him will leave not just Obama but the party itself in dire straits in the months to come. Riverdaughter has a brilliant post up on The Confluence. You need to go read it all beause it is good in every regard

May 23, 2008:

I’m reading the reports on the mendacious attacks the Bogger Boyz are making on Hillary by completely perverting her comments about RFK.

Rather than weigh in on the current idiocy (which is being handled very nicely by Riverdaughter & Co. over on the Confluence. If you have not read that blog, stop, go there, read and bookmark. I’ll be here when you’re done.)

May 31, 2008:

1. I am not saying in any way shape or form that Larry Johnson is lying about the existence of some video of Michelle Obama. Please. Larry would not do that. A video of some kind exists.

2. If you read his posts closely, Larry does not claim to have seen the video in question himself. I may have missed a post where he did state this, but in the posts I have read, he does not. He was very clear that he has spoken to at least two people who do not know each other, who he trusts completely, and who have attested to the existence of a video.

September 24, 2008:

When Democratic women say “The Obama camp has run a sexist, mysogynistic campaign,” we are told we’re wrong, no such thing, there was not any sexism there, except maybe some from Tweety. When Democratic women say, “No, it’s not his race, it’s his lack of commitment to the programs that matter to us,” we are told that, no, we’re all just racist bitches, and that it’s our fault if he doesn’t win.

September 16, 2008:

The ultimate shadow of Reagan is that you don’t win by defending losers, only by securing the interests of the winners. That is the dark heart beating in the chest of the Unity Democrats. They are done with the losers.

May 2, 2008:

It is the deep guilt of the liberal upper class that we know, every last miserable one of us, that our privilege is due to centuries of white supremacy and to the informal, unspoken, but pervasive advantage our skin color and behavioral patterns gives us in this society. It is our Moby Dick, the whale we pursue obsessively through political seas, frantic to have material proof that we are innocent of the crimes of our nation.

This didn’t occur to me until McCain selected Palin. I knew that Obama benefited from and encouraged the misogynistic narrative against Hillary. However, McCain’s nod to Hillary’s voters was exactly what Obama should have done but for which he is psychologically incapable. It shows a level of respect for our grief at the way Hillary was treated and it’s a tacit acknowledgment that Hillary should have been on the ticket. Riverdaughter writes:

McCain is only pandering to you wimmin. Truth: Yup. And??? You think we’re too stupid to realize this? Of course he’s pandering to us. He’s a f%*(ing politician. That’s what successful politicians do. They reach out to voting blocs and offer them something.

Why is Obama so afraid of Hillary that he wouldn’t even vet her for VP? What is so scary about this brilliant and beautiful woman who works 10X harder than him and who won the popular vote?

Much like George W. Bush, I think it’s Obama’s massive but fragile ego. Obama believes the press reports about his greatness, he drinks in the adulation from his adoring fans, and he sees himself as near-divine. Any crack to this facade threatens the whole construct; it would be the death of his ego. The faux presidential seal IS the Mission Accomplished banner. It’s no accident, of course, that the McCain campaign has skewered Obama for his narcissism, comparing him to celebrities and Charlton Heston’s Moses. Team McCain has done their homework. I have no doubt that they have dossier on Obama, not just on his friends, but on his habit of choices.

In a brilliant 12-part series on this issue, blogger Valentine Bonnaire, discusses Obama’s ego in detail. She sees his choices being made out of narcissism. A narcissist will

stop at nothing? Just to bask in the reflected glow of adoration, But really, the followers mean absolutely NOTHING to the narcissist. They are only a means to an end? And, the narcissist is consumed with “winning” except, once having “won” what they are after? It’s on to the next challenge…

Sam Copeland, writing in these pages, asks:

Why did Obama have to select a lower tier candidate – a candidate who has twice left the Presidential sweepstakes (in 1988 and 2008) in early rounds?

One answer that is often given is what we can politely term Obama’s ego. Top talent candidates such as Clinton and Clark would threaten his self-image as a one man crusader – the star of his own Saturday morning action-adventure cartoon series. A big ego can be a serious liability in making political decisions. It prevents one from seeing the world through the eyes of others, and that lack of realism and perspective-taking undoubtedly leads to political blunders.

And make no mistake, bypassing Hillary for the conventional Biden was a political blunder of Titanic proportions. First, of course, it further alienated Hillary supporters. Second, it made McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin that much more damaging to Obama. On the Left, it gives Hillary supporters the opportunity, in good conscience, to exact revenge on Obama and the DNC by actually pulling the lever for McCain. It neutralizes Obama’s insulting but effective race-baiting (“you’re a racist if you don’t for me”) narrative, allowing independents, women, and conservative Democrats a moral redoubt (I’m not voting against a black man, I’m voting for a woman). Lastly, by choosing Biden, Obama undercut his message of Change by choosing a man who has spent his entire life in Washington.

Hillary was Obama’s last chance to bring many of her supporters into the fold. The always astute Anglachel writes:

The real elephant (ahem) in the middle of the room is the unacknowledged fact that the DNC and their selected candidate abused the intelligence and trust of the party base and subjected the base’s preferred candidate to outrageous abuse month after month in the primaries. The blogosphere’s hysterical overreaction to the Palin selection reveals the fear that their hate-filled, explicitly misogynist tactics will backfire on them and that a significant enough percentage of this disaffected base will do more than sit out the election in November, but will actively cast a protest vote.

Obama’s narcissistic drive for power unleashed a politics so ugly that millions of committed progressives are seriously considering voting for his opponent. Palin is McCain’s love letter to Hillary’s supporters. Revenge is a bitch, baby.

But this movement has a twist: Obama lacks legitimacy. The continuation of this rift is not about Hillary “losing.” Clintonistas, like myself, know that losing elections and having your heart broken is the inevitable risk of politics. Anglachel writes:

With John Edwards in the news these days, I have been reflecting on the theme of “Two Americas” and have applied a twist that more accurately reflects the two Americas within the Democratic Party – those whose bigotry and biases are excused because they are of the right class and those whose flaws are inexcusable, even when the flaws do not exist.

This “class” split in the Democratic Party is much more than an economic split. As Anglachel suggests, it is evidence of a values divide. These values are not the black-and-white split of abortion. Instead, this divide is a matter of emphasis. Obama talks about access to health care, but he doesn’t offer a universal plan. Obama criticized Hillary for her Iraq War vote, but he wasn’t in the senate to vote. Obama lectures Americans to learn Spanish–an irony not missed by many– a language he doesn’t speak.

But the differences of emphasis were not themselves the deal-breaker. The deal-breaker, I believe, was about Obama’s tactics in the campaign and the Democratic Party’s complete bias and vote-rigging for their chosen candidate. Donna Brazile’s embarrassing performance at the RBC was so transparent in its bias that she became the most visible Obama shill massaging rules for her candidate, all the while lecturing us on rules. Do they really think we’re that stupid?

Clintonistas, and now PUMAs, are revolted by four major issues. This is by no means an all-inclusive list, but includes the followings:

(1) The Democratic Nomination was Stolen

garyinchapelhill writes about Obama’s lack of legitimacy resulting from a stolen nomination:

Obama’s decision to return full voting status to delegates from Michigan and Florida does not make up for the fact that the RBC stole delegates from the uncommitted voters, as well as all write in votes, AND 4 of Hillary’s delegates. Until that travesty is corrected the votes of those delegates can not be considered legitimate.

And Marc Rubin of The Denver Group considers Obama’s current flip flop on Florida and Michigan as a ploy to entice disgusted Democrats into the fold:

Florida and Michigan were one of the earliest examples of how dishonest, two faced underhanded and fraudulent Obama can be, when he claimed in speeches that he stood for “voices being heard” and “every vote must count”, and then clamped his hand over the mouths of almost 3 million voters in Florida and Michigan because he didn’t like what those voices were saying, which was a loud “go home”. And in all likelihood are still saying “go home and will continue to say it. Clinton beat him by landslide numbers in both states and this little act of political self preservation isn’t going to fool anyone. Anyone, even an Obama supporter can see it’s nothing more than another cynical political ploy to try and win back voters who were disgusted with him a long time ago because he needs them now.

(2) Obama Race-Baited the Clintons

Obama’s race speech was compared to Lincoln by his sycophants in the media. It was closer to Nixon’s infamous “Checkers” speech, a disingenuous, hateful piece of sophistry created to dove-tail with white liberal guilt. The conflation of Jeremiah Wright’s homicidal racism with Geraldine Ferraro’s simple observation was only the most glaring evidence of Obama’s tactics. Anglachel points out that Obama’s demonizing of low income whites was a basic political calculation:

working class voters are not the socio-economic slice of the “white” vote that votes Republican. They are the least likely portion of white voters to do so, which is part of what made the constant slamming of this group so infuriating during the primaries. This was the slice of the white demographic most likely to vote for Hillary, and that was the reason they were being singled out for shaming and insults.

And Alegre puts her finger on why PUMAs find Obama unacceptable:

I think I can speak for millions of Hillary’s 18 millions supporters when I say that Camp Obama stepped over a serious line when they tarred the Clintons as racists in the lead-up to the SC primary (and since). Those attacks were simply unforgivable and may be a big reason (among many!) why many of us won’t get on that unity pony of Howie’s.

(3) Obama Attacked Hillary from the Right

Attacking Hillary from the Right was not by itself a deal-breaker. But the fact that Obama went after Hillary on health care — after everything she had fought for in the 1990s — was a disgraceful appropriation of Right Wing tactics and talking points. As SusanUnPC writes:

The sad reality, of course, is that Obama has no fealty to commitments over issues. Issues are merely fodder to be used to grab what he seeks above all else: Victory…Now, every politician has to be focused on winning. But most politicians have some issues about which they genuinely care and are knowledgeable about. Obama doesn’t seem to hold any issues dear.

(4) The Democratic Party Rejects Racism, Embraces Sexism

Democratic Party leaders and Obama supporters stayed silent while egregious misogyny was leveled against Mrs. Clinton. As feminist blogger Violet Socks said to me, the silence from our “brothers” on the Left regarding this sexism has been one of the most disappointing political events in the annals of progressivism. So we must have an accounting, and a defeat. There are worse things than losing elections, and I believe we have just witnessed them during the primaries. Obama’s use of sexist stereotypes against Hillary gave cultural permission for the venom against Hillary. It was outside the realm of acceptable behavior for a Democratic politician, and must be vehemently rejected. Voting for Obama is condoning tactics which are anathema to why we are Democrats in the first place.

Lynette Long writes:

I am not Lolita. I will not crawl back into bed with a party that raped me. I will not stay in an abusive relationship because I have nowhere else to go. I will not be placated by a pat on the head or a worthless trinket. I will not spend the rest of my life waiting for tomorrow or listening to people tell me that today is better than yesterday.

Defeat is Good

Just as Barry Goldwater’s defeat by Johnson in 1964 was considered the end of the conservative movement, Obama’s victory is seen by the neo-liberals as a rejection of third-way progressivism. However, the PUMA movement is not an end but a beginning. It’s not the continuation of Bill Clinton’s moderate policies, but a movement of dedicated progressives who embraced Mrs. Clinton’s far more bold agenda, an agenda more analogues to FDR than Bill Clinton, and one which is much more progressive than Obama’s. Our nascent movement parallels the rise of the conservative movement:

All the pundits saw the size of Goldwater’s defeat. Almost none grasped the implications of the fact that the Goldwater campaign had twice as many volunteers as Johnson’s — or that while 66,000 people donated to the Kennedy and Nixon campaigns of 1960, over a million gave to Barry Goldwater in 1964. Among other things [it is an] account of how a rebellious and at first marginal political faction moved toward power reminds us of the dynamic character of politics and the dangers of static analysis

I am a Democrat because I believe in universal health care, because I despise racism, race-baiting, and sexism, and because I believe in the democratic process. On all these counts, our Party has failed us. We must rid our Party of race-baiting, sexism, and vote stealing, and return our Party to its glorious heritage of patriotism, equal opportunity, and care for the most vulnerable.

Thanks to Medusa for her help with this essay.