Topic: Barack Obama
Harold Hill for President Watching how Obama gets away with all of this is reminiscent of Professor Harold Hill from The Music Man. In the musical, every time the townspeople press the traveling scam artist about his background, he starts singing a new tune – literally.by Matthew Bastian
(libertarian)
Friday, October 31, 2008
If the polls hold true, especially those in battleground states like Colorado and Virginia, Barack Obama will win next Tuesday, perhaps handily. If he does it will be the first time in the modern era that a mostly unknown commodity has landed the most important job in the world.
We have three things we can examine when trying to determine how presidential candidates would run the country: their legislative record (what they have accomplished), their ideology (what they believe), and their words on the stump (what they promise).
In the first department Obama has little of which to boast, certainly at the federal level where he has spent most of his time as a US senator running for president. Even with the votes we do have, it can become a maddening exercise to try to discern where he stands on a given issue. His record has been very liberal and mostly partisan, but in explaining it away Obama can nuance until one's eyes glaze over.
On the issue of the 2nd Amendment, for example, Obama says that he respects an individual right to bear arms but with "common sense" restrictions. In late 2007 he said that the gun ban in Washington, DC was legal, but later clarified that was an "inartful" explanation of his own views. And on the same day the Supreme Court overturned the DC ban in the Heller case this year, Obama said he agreed with the decision. He also endorsed a handgun ban in Illinois, wants to prohibit gun shops within five miles of a park or school, and would tax ammunition 500%.
So what are his core beliefs on the matter? Your guess is as good as mine. What is clear is that Obama has never seen a gun control measure that didn't meet his "common sense" standard.
Indeed, when it comes to his ideology and beliefs Obama's campaign has masterfully obfuscated, downplayed, or twisted every story that might offer some insight into the man's thinking. The racist rants of Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger? They are "distractions." Sitting on a board with unrepentant bomber Bill Ayers? That's "guilt by association." Asking what Obama accomplished as a community organizer? That's a secret code for racism. (When George W Bush made a brief campaign stop in 2000 at Bob Jones University, then famous for its ban on interracial dating, Democrats and the media jumped all over it. The story was nothing more than innuendo and speculation, and barely even guilt by association - it was more guilt by appearance. Oh, how the rules have changed.)
All smears and lies, his supporters claim. And focusing on such issues won't make college more affordable for a single person, as Obama himself is fond of saying.
Is Obama a terrorist sympathizer for having served on a board with Ayers? Of course not, no more than he is a closet Muslim because of his middle name. But that is not the point.
We are not are responsible for the actions of those around us, but we are, as the saying goes, known by the company we keep. Throughout his life, Obama has clearly been comfortable in the company of some very left-wing characters - radicals, black racists, and campus Marxists - and they in his. Perhaps it was a matter of political expediency, but it is hardly inconsequential or a distraction to ask how such associations may have shaped his philosophy on the role of government.
Watching how Obama gets away with all of this is reminiscent of Professor Harold Hill from The Music Man. In the musical, every time the townspeople press the traveling scam artist about his background, he starts singing a new tune - literally.
Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, My home sweet home
The townspeople can't resist the catchy ditty and quickly forget what they were asking about in the first place.
And so it is with Obama. When pressed on the more troubling revelations from his past, he either diminishes them (Ayers was a "guy in my neighborhood") or adds a new detail to change the story ever so slightly (a staffer filled out that questionnaire for the handgun ban). The issue goes away, if only temporarily.
That's not to suggest that Obama is a charlatan. I'm sure he believes firmly in his cause, even if it's impossible to discern precisely what that is. Watching how his supporters and the media react to his every bob and weave, however, taking each new excuse or nuanced explanation as gospel, it's safe to say that he can manipulate like one.
With a legislative record that belies Obama's current persona of the thoughtful, bi-partisan moderate, and his background tacitly off-limits, voters are left to focus on his lofty themes: hope, change, unity, health insurance for all, affordable college, universal child care, tax cuts for people who don't pay them, renewable energy, and a healed planet. His list of promises is as hubristic as it is exhaustive.
The only things missing are 76 trombones and snappy uniforms for all the children.
And he's getting away with it. The media are palpably disinterested in pursuing anything that might burst the Obama bubble; his supporters don't want to hear anything they won't like. Obama's brilliance is that he is a Choose Your Own Adventure book for his starry-eyed followers and they all want a happy ending.
Perhaps fittingly, Barack Obama spent Friday campaigning in Indiana.
Gary, Indiana.
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The views expressed in this
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