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Selwyn Duke
©
2008 Selwyn Duke
If you interview someone for a job, you’ll expect him to tell you what you want to hear. There’ll be a façade, and his darker side will remain well-hidden. Now, let’s say a requirement for the job is that the applicant likes children, and he does his best Captain Kangaroo. But then you find out he has a job history of indifference to and perhaps even abuse of them and that, during unguarded moments, he has expressed disdain for them. What will you believe, what he tries to sell you or history and hair-down revelations?
Remember this when evaluating the profound discrepancy between Barack Obama’s damage-control denials and flowery rhetoric, and his long track record. Understand that he, like the other candidates, is interviewing for the job of president with you, the interviewer. His job is to bend the truth; your job is to discern it. The only question is: Who will do a better job, he or you?
Either Obama really is a savior for the third millennium, or the answer is that he is, thus far, besting many of you. Millions flock to him, registering oohs and ahs, fainting and fawning. Even critics and watchdogs heap praise upon him; Bill O’Reilly said he likes Obama and Sean Hannity proclaimed him a “good man.” But what is the truth about this applicant?
Let me tell you a story. In 2002, President Bush signed into law a bill titled the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act” (BAIPA). This law was necessary because, believe it or not, infants were being born alive during attempted abortions and then, ancient Spartan style, left to die. Jill Stanek wrote about this last year, saying:
“As
a nurse at an Illinois hospital in 1999, I discovered babies were being aborted
alive and shelved to die in soiled utility rooms. I discovered infanticide.”
The act was so vile that even staunch abortion advocates would not oppose BAIPA. Stanek tells us that it passed the Senate by unanimous vote, garnering the support of senators Kerry, Kennedy and Clinton. She then pointed out:
“The bill also passed overwhelmingly in the House. NARAL went neutral on it. Abortion enthusiasts publicly agreed that fighting BAIPA would appear extreme.”
But the state version of BAIPA failed for years in Illinois. Any guesses as to why? Stanek goes on to explain:
I
testified in 2001 and 2002 before a committee of which Obama was a member.
Obama articulately worried that legislation protecting live aborted babies might infringe on women's rights or abortionists' rights. Obama's clinical discourse, his lack of mercy, shocked me. I was naive back then. Obama voted against the measure, twice. It ultimately failed.
In 2003, as chairman of the next Senate committee to which BAIPA was sent, Obama stopped it from even getting a hearing, shelving it to die much like babies were still being shelved to die in Illinois hospitals and abortion clinics.
If asked about this, I’m sure Obama would be a very effective interviewee; he is good with words. (Of course, one is better with words when they’re managed by a sympathetic media.) Yet, when you look beyond the rhetoric, a picture of Obama starts to emerge.
There are his damnable associations. We know about William Ayers, the college professor and “education advisor” who, as a Weather Underground terrorist in the 1970s, planted bombs in a campaign against our government. You might point out that this was three decades ago, but know that Ayers is unrepentant and wishes that he had planted more bombs.
What does this piece of history teach us? For starters, it is one thing to understand something is wrong; it is another to feel it. Emotion is a stronger motivator than logic (Captain Kirk had the passion, not Mr. Spock). My point is, given Obama’s cordial dealings with Ayers – a man with whom many wouldn’t break bread – I’m left to wonder how much terrorism really bothers the senator on a visceral level. If his tolerance for the Weatherman is any indication, we have to ask: As president, would his zeal match that of our Islamist foes? Or will Osama bin Laden be a department chair in the Ivy League?
Then there is the now infamous Reverend Wright, the man of the cloth poised to move into a house with a 10-million-dollar line of credit. His bigoted, virulently anti-American bile has received enough press so that I don’t have to provide a complete run-down, but this is a man who equated America with al-Qaeda, said we deserved 9/11, made anti-white statements, and called our nation “the US of KKK.” This prompted, as you know, a well-crafted and rendered speech on race by the interviewee (as the infanticide story, should it receive enough play, may inspire a speech on the sanctity of life), but, again, what is the reality behind the words?
Obama called Wright a friend, mentor and uncle; he had a 20-year relationship with him, during which time he attended Wright’s church; he was married and had his child baptized by the reverend; and last year he donated $26,000 to the church. Yet some would give Obama credit for not casting his friend to the winds. After all, the interviewee said that he “cannot disown him.” But my question is: Why, Mr. Obama, did you ever own him in the first place?
So we again have to wonder about his emotional constitution, his heart. Even if he doesn’t share Wright’s passion for the hate, he certainly was tolerant of it – and I suspect sympathetic to it. And a man is known by the company he keeps.
The woman he marries is some indication, too. Michelle Obama vigorously advocated partial-birth abortion (which is also infanticide) in 2004, and we all know about her notorious pronouncement: “For the first time in my adult life, I’m proud of my country.” As for the comment, it has caused many to question her patriotism and apologists to counsel against rash judgment.
But the truth is plain. As I’m sure Jesse Lee Peterson – a black minister and the president of B.O.N.D. – would tell you, anti-American sentiment typifies leftist blacks (it’s quite common among leftist whites, too). Think about it: How many blacks on the left can you think of who don’t fit that mold? It’s a consequence of imbibing the philosophy of hatred and bitterness dispensed by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and other racial hustlers.
Then we
have Obama’s moment of honesty in San Francisco. As a refresher, here is what
he said:
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years . . . . And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Many
have labeled these comments elitist, and Obama has been trying to explain them
away. But, again, the truth is plain. Apologists have asserted that Bill Clinton
expressed the same sentiments in 1992; in other words, the best they can muster
is that Obama is just like Clinton.
And that is the point.
Obama is a leftist, Clinton is a leftist, and that’s what leftists believe about “flyover country,” just as Michelle Obama’s statement reflects what they believe about the whole country. You needn’t be a clairvoyant to discern it.
To
understand what is most striking about those comments, though, you have to look
more deeply. Notice he mentioned “religion” in the same breath as “guns”
and “antipathy to people,” sandwiched right in-between the two. It’s hard
to escape the conclusion that he draws an equivalency among those things, which
speaks volumes.
If you’re a person of faith, you understand that we’re supposed to cling to religion. After all, if you are serious about your faith, you must believe it is the Truth and that it is God’s will that you should practice it. And why wouldn’t you have the Truth at the center of your life?
The only kind of person who wouldn’t have this perspective is one who has little or no faith. That certainly wouldn’t make Obama unique, but remember that he has often masqueraded as a man of faith, just as he now touts his support for second-amendment rights (in 1999 he supported a law that would have eliminated gun stores from virtually the whole country). But this bespeaks of a reality: There is Obama the myth, and Obama the man. If you want to know the former, listen to what he says; if you want to know the latter, accept what he is.
And what is he? What is the truth about Barack Obama? You won’t hear it from the Sean Hannitys of the world, who will tell us that he is a “good man” with bad ideology. Such people are simple telling you what they’re supposed to believe; it’s what “fair and balanced” commentators do, the stuff of “acceptable” conservatives. The truth about Obama is that he is not a good man.
He is a bad man.
Good men don’t turn a blind eye to unrepentant ex-terrorists; support vile, anti-American bigots; lie about their core beliefs; and look down on traditional Americans. Most significantly, good men don’t allow beautiful babies – the least among us – to be discarded like refuse and die miserable, lonely deaths in dark utility rooms. In fact, if we cannot call Obama a bad man, there is no such thing as a bad man. And calling him a good man doesn’t just strain credulity, it puts it in the hospital in traction.
Ah,
yes, hope, change, unity, infanticide, bigotry, terrorism, Obama . . . good? We
all know what is wrong with this picture.
Selwyn Duke is a freelance writer out or Larchmont, NY. He has written for various publications including: IntellectualConservative.com, AmericanThinker.com and is a regular columnist for RenewAmerica.us.