Obama's Chickens

Obama's chickens have come home to roost; to paraphrase Obama's long time pastor and spiritual mentor.

Reverend Wright has been enjoying his 'fifteen minutes of fame,' at the expense, presumably, of Barack Obama. Wright's diatribes include swipes at the USA (naturally), Dick Cheney (double naturally), the Jews, the Italians and on and on and on. He is clearly the most visceral bigot on the talk show circuit today. He even claimed that blacks 'learn differently' than whites - a theory that we might expect from David Duke or Adolf Hitler. He believes the AIDs virus was started by whites to destroy the black race. Wow !!

None of this seems to have hurt Obama with his base...which is really the biggest concern here. There will always be nuts and paranoids, but their front-runner status in a major political party is a sign of the times.

From Myway.com


Wright has been Obama's pastor for more than 20 years. Wright brought Obama to Christianity, inspired the title of his book "The Audacity of Hope," officiated at his wedding and baptized his daughters. Wright also told reporters Monday that he prayed privately with the family right before Obama announced he was running for president, although he didn't appear with them publicly.

His Vote Counts More Than Mine? How Democratic of You!

She's done it again!

Written off by the press, begged to drop out by the Democrats in authority, and besmirched by the Obama campaign, Hillary Clinton wins another primary election and proves...

1. Obama can outspend his opposition, but he can't win the hearts (and votes) of certain voters;
2. This election is going all the way to the convention; and...
3. The Superdelegates will make the decision as to who represents the Democratic Party in 2008.

Now I don't know about you, but this Superdelegate thing has me confused. What is a Superdelegate, and how do they vote? According to newspapers and other media sources, I've collected a few bits and pieces:

Superdelegates...aren't these generally elected officials and other political wonks, rather than the general population?
Superdelegates...who each get a vote, equal to a delegate representing a state?
Superdelegates...people who do not need to vote in a manner that represents the USA population or the constituents they were elected to represent, but rather who can vote in a manner that could maximize their personal political stature and position?

I was confused, so I looked up superdelegate on dictionary.com:
a party leader or elected public official chosen as an uncommitted delegate to a national political convention

That piqued my interest. It didn't sound very democratic to me, but maybe my public policy and government knowledge has eroded over the years. I also decided to look up a few other words:

democratic
1. pertaining to or of the nature of democracy or a democracy.
2. pertaining to or characterized by the principle of political or social equality for all: democratic treatment.
3. advocating or upholding democracy.

elitism
1. practice of or belief in rule by an elite.
2. consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favored group.
------------------------------------

Superdelegates sure don't seem to meet the definition of democratic to me. So why is our country using an elitist approach to selecting a presidential candidate from one of the two major political parties?

I guess it's the only way to ensure that the Democratic Party can select someone that the political machine wants, rather than what the country wants.

So just remember... Ted Kennedy's vote counts more than yours or mine. Heck, Ted's vote counts more than the votes of the populations of Michigan and Florida combined. (He probably drinks more too, but we'll leave that for another day.)

And we call that the Democratic Party?!?

-- Submitted by R Wellesley

"Where are all the white people at?"

During the prepartion for a Barack Obama speech at Carnegie Mellon University, Michelle Obama was heard to complain that there were not enough white people sitting directly behind her husband's podium (and thus in the camera's view).

If we need someone in the White House to help this country get over race..it's not these two !!

Only the Carnegie Mellon Student newspaper, The Tartan, originally picked up the story. Drudge later linked to it.

While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.” “I didn’t know they would say, ‘We need a white person here,’ ” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.”

Note: The title of the blog entry was a quote reference from the movie Blazing Saddles - not that that makes it right :-)

Submitted by D. B. Jackson

Farewell to a Grand Old Patriot

Charlton Heston.

Just to say his name is to evoke memories of the epic characters he played on the big screen. Moses...Ben Hur...El Cid...Andrew Jackson...He held an entire generation enraptured with this great acting, powerful screen presence, and chiseled good looks. In the days before cable, VHS, and DVD, I lived for the frequent network showing of The Ten Commandments, where Mr. Heston's Moses was probably his most iconic and memorable role.

Today we mourn the passing of not only a great actor but a great American. Charlton Heston loved his country. He was never embarrassed to say that nor was he afraid to take stands on issues that had the potential to hurt his acting career.

He was a supporter of civil rights for African Americans before it became politically popular to do so, marching with Dr. Martin Luther King and being present for his "I have a Dream" speech.

He was a supporter of the United States military. When first talking to the recruiter about joining the Naval submarine force, I was shown a video hosted by none other than Charlton Heston. Being a fan of both the Mr. Heston and the navy, my admiration for him grew even more. When naval deployments were long, Charlton Heston personally called families of deployed personnel with holiday greetings from their loved one.

Charlton Heston offered the prayer at the commissioning ceremony of the USS Chicago (SSN-721) in September, 1986. An officer friend of mine had the pleasure of accompanying Mr. Heston to the airport to pick up his mother. He spoke of his personal kindness and how Mr. Heston make himself totally accessible to the crew.

As the nation became more politically polarized between right and left, Charlton Heston once again made his voice heard. He had never hidden his conservative politics but the contemporary political environment made his political views the most public part of his persona, much to the consternation of a Hollywood that was growing ever more radical and militantly anti-American.

Mr. Heston, always a gun owner, was elected president of the National Rifle Association in a time of decline. In his acceptance speech, he lofted high a musket and uttered the words, "From by cold dead hands," earning him the immediate disdain of those who considered themselves to be the elites in our nation. Under his leadership and public image, the NRA grew in membership and influence while the left painted this great American as a right-wing loon.

In 2002, Mr. Heston announced to the world that he had Alzheimer's disease. He made this announcement with the same gravitas and grace which he had always shown on the screen and in his public life. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003, the highest American civilian honor. It was a richly deserved award for him and capped a lifetime of living his beliefs and loving his country.

Charlton Heston...a real American. We will miss him greatly.

-- Submitted by B. Bryant

Obama X

The real Obama, according to his own writings in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams from My Father, is a race-obsessed, resentful young man...filled with conspiratorial thoughts.

His characterization of his white friends and his frustration with 'living with white rules' are disturbing.

While his mother was white and his father an African National, who abandoned Barack in his childhood, Obama clearly identifies with the black movement and the worst of it.

My personal belief is that systemic racism is dead in America. While there is a tiny minority of people that still harbor racist views against blacks (and vice versa), there is no longer any infrastructural or legal reasons keeping blacks from achieving all that whites, Asians and Indians achieve. Only race merchants like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (and now Barack Obama), who profit from racism keep it alive. They are helped by white liberals - plagued by white guilt.

As long as racism remains the scapegoat for black poverty and the breakdown of the black family, no progress can be made in solving poverty among blacks and others.

Study after study has shown that blacks and whites have the same statistical likelihood of success (in financial terms) as long as they are compared with like groups (not based on race). The groups are 'single parent raised,' 'high school dropout' 'high school graduate' and 'college graduate.'

America, the least racist country on earth, has removed all obstacles for all races to achieve marriage, high school and college graduation. We need to look beyond race and understand the isssues that are driving unwed births and high school dropout rates.

Let's start with the elements of LBJ's Great Society to find what incentives the 'war on poverty' has put in place to discourage marriage and employment. Social engineering has ruined the black family, not racism.

Obama has identified himself, in this 1995 book, as a person who cannot move beyond race. He will drive us to more programs and more ideas that will worsen poverty in America and will cause more black and white resentment.

In the words of Ann Coulter regarding this book "You might want to take a peek. If only people had read "Mein Kampf"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_from_My_Father


Submitted by D. B. Jackson

A Winning Change in Strategy

In an apparent attempt to win back mainstream America, while capitalizing on the support she's garnered from political radio host Rush Limbaugh, Hillary Clinton has declared that she will disassociate herself from MoveOn.org and run on a "platform that more accurately reflects Main Street USA" than her Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.

"I'm tired of being a pawn for George Soros and MoveOn.org. I tried to be a good soldier, but I see that I've just become a target for snipers again. This time, the snipers are people who claimed to be my supporters just a few months ago. The Democratic Party, the press, even my cleaning lady...everyone has lost their senses and now support a person who has officially spent more time running for President than he spent as a US Senator in Washington. It's gotten so bad that I'm almost on the verge of tears."

Obama countered Clinton's claim by stating, "We've all heard claims in the past that weren't true. As far as I've been told, this attempted character assassination by Senator Clinton is simply wrong. This is a situation where a losing candidate is unable to come to grips with reality, and is blaming her situation on the fact that I'm a minority candidate that has curried favor with the media. Her position couldn't be any further from the truth. For more information, please see my web page, which is proudly sponsored by MoveOn.org and hosted for free by ABC News."

Clinton now says that she supports the suppression of terrorism in the Middle East, reduced taxes, a stricter immigration program that includes secure borders, and free trade. She has also filed for divorce from Wild Bill Clinton.

John McCain was unavailable for comment, because he was conducting business on the Senate floor.

-- Submitted by R Wellesley
Happy AFD