The 'not qualified' argument isn't persuasive. Many said women weren't qualified to vote in the 1920's, blacks weren't qualified to vote in the 1950's and Bill Clinton wasn't qualified in the 1990's. They were wrong. Barack Obama is better qualified to lead this country than his opponent, who abandoned his maverick status and endorses the same bad policies of the current Administration, imo.
I never heard Bill Clinton was not qualifed and with all due respect, Obama doesn't hold a candle to Bill
The other "qualfications" had to do with rights, not having a pretty important job title and that leadership thing that is kind of important. Bill Clinton ran a state very effectively before taking on the presidency. We don't have to agree, because we will not, but facts are facts.
N2K
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
Posts: 11344
Need2KnowPosted:
Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:45 am
Is it not very revealing that before the DNC both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton are on the record saying Obama is not qualified to be president? What does that tell you? What do we believe about their opinions of this, when they were talking as an opponent or now to try to unite the party and get voters to their side? What would be the intelligent way to look at that?
N2K
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
Posts: 11344
PhantomPosted:
Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:54 am
Barack Obama, Aspiring Commissar
While the Obama coronation proceeds apace in Denver, it is in Chicago that Americans are getting a disturbing demonstration of his thuggish methods of stifling criticism.
Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Harvard-educated social anthropologist and frequent contributor to National Review, among other publications. He is widely respected for his meticulous research and measured commentary. For months, he has been doing the job the mainstream media refuses to do: examining the background and public record of Barack Obama, the first-term senator Democrats are about to make their nominee for president despite the shallowness of his experience and achievement.
Kurtz has written extensively, and with characteristic attention to factual detail, about Obama’s early career as a “community organizer,” his cultivation of benefactors in the most radical cauldrons of Chicago politics, his long-time pastor’s immersion in Black Liberation Theology, his ties to anti-American zealots, and the years in the Illinois state legislature this self-styled agent of change spent practicing the by-the-numbers left-wing politics of redistribution and race-consciousness, remaining soft on crime and extreme on abortion.
This has led Kurtz, naturally, to scrutinize the relationship between Obama and one of his early political sponsors, William Ayers. Ayers, as we have previously detailed, is a confessed terrorist who, having escaped prosecution due to surveillance violations that came to light during his decade on the lam after a bombing spree, landed an influential professorship in education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). As he has made clear several times before and after helping to launch Obama’s political career, Ayers remains defiantly proud of bombing the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and other targets. He expresses regret only that he didn’t do more. Far from abandoning his radical politics, he has simply changed methods: the classroom, rather than the detonator, is now his instrument for campaigning against an America he portrays as racist and imperialist.
Obama supporters risibly complain that shining a light on the Obama/Ayers relationship is a “smear” and smacks of “guilt by association.” A presidential candidate’s choice to associate himself with an unrepentant terrorist would be highly relevant in any event — does anyone think the Obamedia would keep mum if John McCain had a long-standing relationship with David Duke or an abortion-clinic bomber?
But we are talking about more than a mere “association.”
Bluntly, Obama has lied about his relationship with Ayers, whom he now dismisses as “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.” Ayers and Obama have made joint appearances together; they have argued together for “reforms” of the criminal justice system to make it more criminal-friendly; Obama gushed with praise for Ayers’ 1997 polemical book on the Chicago courts; and they sat together for three years on the board of the Woods Fund, a left-wing enterprise that distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to their ideological allies. Most significant, they worked closely together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC).
The CAC was a major education reform project, proposed by Ayers, which was underwritten by a $49.2 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation, complemented by another $100 million in private and public funding. The project ran for about five years, beginning in 1995. As the liberal researcher Steve Diamond has recounted, Ayers ran its operational arm, the “Chicago School Reform Collaborative.” Obama, then a 33-year-old, third-year associate at a small law firm, having no executive experience, was brought in to chair the board of directors, which oversaw all “fiscal matters.”
By the time the CAC’s operations were wound down in 2001 it had doled out more than $149 million in grants but had failed to achieve any improvement in the Chicago schools. What little is known about the grants Obama oversaw is troubling. As Diamond relates, one of the first CAC awards in 1995 was $175,000 for the “Small Schools Workshop,” which had been founded by Ayers and was then headed by Mike Klonsky. It was only the beginning of the CAC’s generous funding of Klonsky — a committed Maoist who had been an Ayers comrade in the radical Students for a Democratic Society (the forerunner of Ayers’ Weatherman terrorist organization), and who hosted a “social justice” blog on the Obama campaign website until his writings were hastily purged in June after Diamond called attention to them.
IMO it sounds like Obama was providing funding for domestic terrorists
The CAC records, said to comprise 70 linear feet of files, have long been maintained at the library of the UIC, the public university where Ayers teaches. This summer, Kurtz made an appointment to review them and, after being assured access, was blocked from seeing them by library administrators, who stammered about needing permission from the “donor” — whom they declined to identify. Kurtz energetically raised public awareness to the stonewalling, and the library finally relented this week. That is, as Barack Obama prepares to accept the Democrats’ nomination tonight, the records of his only significant executive experience just became available for review on Tuesday.
Kurtz began his review, and on Wednesday was invited on Milt Rosenberg’s radio program to discuss it. Rosenberg is a Chicago institution. His program, “Extension 720,” has aired for more than 30 years — a civil forum where knowledgeable guests from across the political spectrum discuss important issues in revealing two-hour interviews. What happened Wednesday night was stunning, as even the normally unflappable Rosenberg observed.
The Obama campaign — which has emissaries appearing everywhere — declined Rosenberg’s invitation to have a representative appear on the program and respond to Kurtz’s factual assertions. The campaign did, however, issue an “Obama Action Wire” that encouraged supporters to contact the program (telephone information was provided) and use scripted “talking points” to disrupt Kurtz’s appearance, which it deemed “unacceptable.” As the Politico’s Ben Smith reported, the campaign also urged supporters to demand that Rosenberg scrap the appearance of Kurtz, whom the campaign libeled as a “smear-merchant” and a “slimy character assassin.” The rant was reminiscent of the work of the left-wing media “watch-dog” Media Matters for America.
Other than denigrating Kurtz for being conservative, Obama’s operatives have provided no response to the substance of his claims. In their only pretense of engaging him, they accuse him of telling “a flat out lie” that Ayers recruited Obama for the CAC. Though it is a reasonable inference that Ayers recruited Obama, the careful Kurtz has stopped short of making it — observing only that Obama offers no explanation of how he was recruited if not through Ayers, his friend and the CAC’s driving force.
The station, WGN, has made a stream of the broadcast available online, here, and it has to be heard to be believed. Obama’s robotic legions dutifully jammed the station’s phone lines and inundated the program with emails, attacking Kurtz personally. Pressed by Rosenberg to specify what inaccuracies Kurtz was guilty of, caller after caller demurred, mulishly railing that “we just want it to stop,” and that criticism of Obama was “just not what we want to hear as Americans.” Remarkably, as Obama sympathizers raced through their script, they echoed the campaign’s insistence that it was Rosenberg who was “lowering the standards of political discourse” by having Kurtz on, rather than the campaign by shouting him down.
Kurtz has obviously hit a nerve. It is the same nerve hit by the American Issues Project, whose television ad calling for examination of the Obama/Ayers relationship has prompted the Obama campaign to demand that the Justice Department begin a criminal investigation.
The flak is always the heaviest right over the target
Obama fancies himself as “post-partisan.” He is that only in the sense that he apparently brooks no criticism. This episode could be an alarming preview of what life will be like for the media should the party of the Fairness Doctrine gain unified control of the federal government next year.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:07 pm
What Lurks in the Ayers-Annenberg Files?
The panicked reaction of the Obama campaign suggests they hold very damaging information.
Do Democratic presidential campaign committees think we are all stupid or do they suffer from some sort of group delusion? In 2004 they tried to peddle a man who made claims about his military career that were easily proven to be lies (Christmas in Cambodia, outrageous charges about war crimes by his fellow soldiers) as a war hero “reporting for duty.”
This time around they are trying to take a man whose entire career has linked him with far-left anti-American characters, political agendas focused on redistribution of wealth, and racial spoils and pawn him off on us as a man who transcends race and partisanship.
As the façade’s cracks begin to show through — largely outside the focus of the major media — the Obama camp is behaving badly and thereby telegraphing that the charges involving Obama’s role in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) are not only true, but both unanswerable and exceedingly damaging to the campaign’s make-believe narrative about their candidate.
First, someone — still unknown but undoubtedly linked to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge as an executive or board member during the time Obama was its chairman — tried to prevent the University of Illinois’ Richard J. Daley library from making available to writer Stanley Kurtz the organization’s records.
Then the campaign falsely asserted that ads respecting the CAC and Obama’s links to Ayers through it had been made by McCain, sent threatening letters to stations brave enough to carry the ad, and topped it off with two letters to the Department of Justice laughably demanding a full investigation into the organization which sponsored the ads, a 501(c)(4) organization legally permitted to engage in such activities.
Wednesday night the campaign conducted an outrageous and preposterous “swarm” of Chicago radio station WGN, the mild and moderate radio host Milt Rosenberg, and the equally temperate guest of his show, Stanley Kurtz.
Kurtz, in Chicago to review the 1,000 CAC files the university library relented and allowed him to see, was asked to discuss the matter with host Rosenberg. The Obama camp was invited to send a representative and refused to do so although the headquarters is but four blocks away. Instead the campaign organized a swarm of non-stop callers to WGN attacking Kurtz as a “vicious racist” a “slimy character assassin” and suggesting WGN failed its obligations as a broadcaster by allowing him to publicly air his views. The baseless charges and the vitriolic nature of them were startling to the station, the host, and the guest. Except for telling outright lies about the Ayers connection and the CAC, the campaign has done everything in its power to show us that it does not believe there is a free speech right to examine Obama’s record — such of it as has not been buried or “lost.” The unexamined life of Barack is what they prefer we vote on.
In any event, despite these objectionable tactics Kurtz was able to tell us a bit about what he found in the first few days of the five-day window he’s been given to study the CAC files.
He reiterated what I’ve said earlier: CAC seems to have gone through $110 million to fund an educational program which two assessments — one by the Annenberg Foundation and one by an outside team — both found had accomplished nothing for the public school children of Chicago. It is still unclear how and why Obama was made chair of the CAC, but so far it seems that former Weathermen bomb-maker and leader Bill Ayers picked him for the slot.
In any event, contrary to Obama’s early efforts to brush off his relationship with Ayers through a series of false claims, Ayers applied for and got the CAC grant, was chair of the other collaborative group that closely worked with CAC, was present at board meetings and retreats with Obama, and was considered an “ex officio” member of CAC’s board.
The CAC files show the organization funneled money to activist organizations and did so on ideological grounds, favoring applications that focused on ethnic identity and bilingual education and turning down grant proposals which did not. Thus, CAC funded a Juneteenth effort by the South Shore African Village Collaboration and a peace school but rejected proposals by the Chicago Algebra Project aimed at increasing student achievement and the District 5 Math Science Initiative which was trying to increase the math and science competence of Hispanic youngsters.
Kurtz added that Obama’s pre-CAC organizing work for the Gamaliel Foundation was for a group whose views were remarkably like Obama’s “spiritual mentor” Rev. Wright’s anti-American liberation philosophy. He recommended the book Doing Justice: Congregation and Communities, by Dennis Jacobsen, which he described in an NRO article “Senator Stealth.” Notable is not only the views of this organization but that like all organizing groups founded on the work of Saul Alinsky, the organizers were practiced at hiding their extreme leftist views, a tactic considered essential to gain credence with the groups they were working with. He also noted that these racial spoils schemes and redistributionist views were utterly consistent with all the positions Obama took as a state senator.
While Obama’s camp is trying to suggest that his critics are linking him to Ayers’ conduct in the 1960s, in fact, we are talking about the views and conduct of both these men — now clearly established as close allies, not passing acquaintances in the Hyde Park neighborhood they both inhabit — in the 1990s, along with the utter failure of the generously funded program to help inner-city Chicago school children they managed into the ground.
Two more points in passing:
1) We are talking about other people’s children, not Ayers’ or Obama’s. At one point the Obama campaign disingenuously said their children went to the same school, implying it was at the same time. Ayers is considerably older than Obama and so are his children who attended the private Lab School of Chicago years before the Obama children did. Obviously neither of these men considered their dream world’s little red schoolhouses for their own offspring.
2) Take a close gander at the draft Democrat platform. It is full of plans to bring community organizers to your own neighborhood — undoubtedly offering us all the chance to watch more money wasted on programs and people unable to improve public school academic performance.
Oh well, if that fails, maybe we can just all enroll our kids at the Lab School.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:12 am
Resume of a Terrorist: Obama’s Buddy Ayers
While the likes of the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and other news organizations have their reporters digging for dirt on Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice for vice president, their savior-in-waiting Barack Obama is getting a free ride at the expense of truth.
It’s no secret that the denizens of America’s newsrooms want Obama sitting in the Oval Office, but Americans are being purposely duped by the Democrat National Committee’s volunteer publicists, formerly known as the mainstream news media.
If it weren’t for talk radio and the blogosphere, even what is known about Obama and his friend, former Weather Underground domestic terrorist and leader William Ayers, would only be a paragraph or two in the backpages of most newspapers, or a sentence or two on most TV and radio news programs.
On Friday night, one of America’s top talk show hosts—who happens to be an attorney and worked in the Reagan Justice Department as chief of staff—recited a list of terrorist acts that would elicit envy from Osama bin Laden. Mark Levin had his listeners glued to their radios or PCs as he read the resume of a man who should be serving life in prison instead of enjoying a tenured professorship at a major university and entertaining a possible US President in his home.
Because of so-called “prosecutorial misconduct” Ayers escaped what could have been a life-sentence.
As I write this “resume of a terrorist,” I find it difficult to understand how a man who is running for president of the United States would even know someone as anti-American and destructive as William Ayers. Plus, Ayers, his wife and their comrades at the Weather Underground are cop-killers. And Obama doesn’t just know him personally—he’s a close friend with Ayers.
Here is the “resume” of an American terrorist:
7 October 1969 – Bombing of Haymarket Police Statue in Chicago, apparently as a “kickoff” for the “Days of Rage” riots in the city October 8-11, 1969. The Weathermen later claimed credit for the bombing in their book, “Prairie Fire.”
8-11 October 1969 – The “Days of Rage” riots occur in Chicago in which 287 Weatherman members from throughout the country were arrested and a large amount of property damage was done.
6 December 1969 – Bombing of several Chicago Police cars parked in a precinct parking lot at 3600 North Halsted Street, Chicago. The WUO stated in their book “Prairie Fire” that they had did the explosion.
27-31 December 1969 – Weathermen hold a “War Council” meeting in Flint, MI, where they finalize their plans to submerge into an underground status from which they plan to commit strategic acts of sabotage against the government. Thereafter they are called the “Weather Underground Organization” (WUO).
13 February 1970 - Bombing of several police vehicles of the Berkeley, California, Police Department .
16 February 1970 – Bombing of Golden Gate Park branch of the San Francisco Police Department, killing one officer and injuring a number of other policemen.
6 March 1970 – Bombing in the 13th Police District of the Detroit, Michigan. 34 sticks of dynamite are discovered. During February and early March, 1970, members of the WUO, led by Bill Ayers, are reported to be in Detroit, during that period, for the purpose of bombing a police facility.
6 March 1970 – “bomb factory” located in New York’s Greenwich Village accidentally explodes. WUO members die . The bomb was intended to be planted at a non-commissioned officer’s dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The bomb was packed with nails TO INFILICT MAXIMUM CASUALTIES UPON DETONATION.
30 March 1970 – Chicago Police discover a WUO “bomb factory” on Chicago’s north side. A subsequent discovery of a WUO “weapons cache” in a south side Chicago apartment several days later ends WUO activity in the city.
10 May 1970 – Bombing of The National Guard Association building in Washington, D.C..
21 May 1970 – The WUO under Bernardine Dohrn’s (Ayers’ current wife) name releases its “Declaration of a State of War” communique.
6 June 1970 – The WUO sends a letter claiming credit for bombing of the San Francisco Hall of Justice; however, no explosion actually took place. Months later, workmen in this building located an unexploded device which had apparently been dormant for some time.
9 June 1970 - Bombing of The New York City Police Headquarters.
27 July 1970 - Bombing of The Presidio army base in San Francisco. [NYT, 7/27/70]
12 September 1970 – The WUO helps Dr. Timothy Leary, break out and escape from the California Men’s Colony prison.
8 October 1970 - Bombing of Marin County courthouse. [NYT, 8/10/70]
10 October 1970 - Bombing of Queens traffic-court building . [NYT, 10/10/70, p. 12]
14 October 1970 - Bombing of The Harvard Center for International Affairs [NYT, 10/14/70, p. 30]
1 March 1971 - Bombing of The United States Capitol . “ [NYT, 3/2/71]
April, 1971 – abandoned WUO “bomb factory” discovered in San Francisco, California.
29 August, 1971 - Bombing of the Office of California Prisons . [LAT, 8/29/71]
17 September 1971 - Bombing of The New York Department of Corrections in Albany, NY [NYT, 9/18/71]
15 October 1971 - Bombing of William Bundy’s office in the MIT research center. [NYT, 10/16/71]
19 May 1972 - Bombing of The Pentagon . [NYT, 5/19/72]
18 May 1973 - Bombing of the 103rd Police Precinct in New York
28 September 1973 - Bombing of ITT headquarters in New York and Rome, Italy . [NYT, 9/28/73]
6 March 1974 - Bombing of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare offices in San Francisco
31 May 1974 - Bombing of The Office of the California Attorney General.
17 June 1974 - Bombing of Gulf Oil’s Pittsburgh headquarters .
11 September 1974 – Bombing of Anaconda Corporation (part of the Rockefeller Corporation).
29 January 1975 - Bombing of the State Department in (AP. “State Department Rattled by Blast,” The Daily Times-News, January 29 1975, p.1)
16 June 1975 - Bombing of Banco de Ponce (a Puerto Rican bank) in New York .
September, 1975 – Bombing of the Kennecott Corporation .
October 20, 1981 - Brinks robbery in which several members of the Weather Underground stole over $1 million from a Brinks armored car near Nyack, New York. The robbers murdered 2 police officers and 1 Brinks guard. Several others were wounded.
1981 “Guilty as hel*. Free as a bird. America is a great country,” Ayers said when interviewed by David Horowitz.
September 11, 2001 “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Ayers is quoted in a New York Times article.
Message to the News Media: Instead of trying to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin, why don’t you cover indepth stories such as the Obama-Ayers relationship just for starters. If you need more leads for stories regarding Senator Obama and other unsavory characters, contact me at this publication.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
K HemingwayPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:30 am
Obama's a close friend with Ayers?
The Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one best.
Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.
The only hard facts that have come out so far are the $200 contribution by Ayers to the Obama re-election fund, and their joint membership of the eight-person Woods Fund Board, an anti-poverty group.
Whatever his past, Ayers is now a respected member of the Chicago intelligentsia, and still a member of the Woods Fund Board. The president of the Woods Fund, Deborah Harrington, said he had been selected for the board because of his solid academic credentials and "passion for social justice."
"This whole connection is a stretch," Harrington told me. "Barack was very well known in Chicago, and a highly respected legislator. It would be difficult to find people round here who never volunteered or contributed money to one of his campaigns."
Maybe we can talk about Rezko's ties to Karl Rove and Mit Romney, Attorney Gate, and the Seiglman investigation.
I'll be glad when the all smears stop so the conversations move to actual issues.
Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 8838
Location: Nirvana
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:34 am
Obama's skeleton (AKA Bill Ayers)
Let’s suppose that a public official has something in his past that he would prefer remain there. Something that might make voters wonder whether the rhetoric of today is something that should be believed. Let’s suppose that someone got their hands on documents about the skeleton in the closet, and went on a popular radio show to talk about them.
And let’s suppose that instead of a civilized debate about what may have happened years ago, the public official ordered his legions to jam the radio station’s phone lines in an effort to make sure that whatever happened all those years ago remained hidden.
We suppose if that were to happen, then there would be some truth to whatever those allegations are.
And we suppose that’s why Barack Obama and company worked overtime last week to shut down Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center when he appeared on a Chicago radio program to talk about the connections between Obama and the terrorist William Ayers back in Obama’s neighborhood organizing days.
Ayers, don’t forget, was the terrorist who bombed, among other things, the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. He has said his only regret is that he “didn’t do more.” He lives in the same South Chicago neighborhood as the Obama and Obama has said that they are nothing more than passing acquaintances.
But that’s not really the case. The two were fellow board members for the Woods Fund, an ultra-left wing organization that doles out money to other left-leaning groups. They also worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a group that Obama chaired.
The files from both organizations are held at the University of Illinois, where Ayers now teaches. Kurtz, after navigating many obstacles, got possession of those files last week. And they do, indeed show that Obama and Ayers were more than simply neighbors.
He scheduled an appearance on Milt Rosenberg’s radio program, “Extension 720,” to discuss what amount to the records of Obama’s only executive experience.
The Obama campaign declined an invitation to appear on the program with Kurtz. The campaign’s preferred tactic instead was to tell supporters to tell Rosenberg to cancel Kurtz’s appearance. They called Kurtz a “smear-merchant” and “character assassin.”
What they did not do, though, was take issue with any of the connections between Obama and Ayers that the files document.
The incident says much about how Barack Obama operates and how he will operate as president.
Obama Should Come Clean On Ayers, Rezko And the Iraqi Billionaire
Even as Barack Obama gave his soaring speech Thursday night, his campaign was playing hardball with its critics.
Team Obama has launched an offensive against WGN, the Chicago Tribune's radio station, for interviewing Stanley Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is a conservative writer who this week forced the University of Illinois to finally open its records on Sen. Obama's association with William Ayers, the unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist.
An Obama campaign email to supporters called Mr. Kurtz a "slimy character assassin" whose "divisive, destructive ranting" should be confronted. WGN producer Zack Christenson says the outpouring of negative calls and emails is "unprecedented." He also notes that it is curious -- because "we wanted the Obama campaign's take" on Mr. Kurtz's findings, but the campaign declined to put anyone on air.
Separately, Mr. Obama's lawyers have also demanded that the Justice Department prosecute an organization called the American Issues Project for running an ad about ties between their candidate and Mr. Ayers.
Obama aides believe John Kerry lost in 2004 because he failed to respond to the "Swift Boat" ads attacking him, and they are lashing out. Sometimes the Obama objections have merit, as when they exposed errors in Jerome Corsi's sensationalized Obama biography. But sometimes they are designed to shut down legitimate questions. "They're terrified of people poking around Obama's life," one reporter told Gabriel Sherman at the New Republic. "The whole Obama narrative is built around the narrative that Obama and [campaign strategist] David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it's not entirely true." The stakes are high. If the full story of Mr. Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright had been revealed before the Iowa caucus, he wouldn't have won.
Aides claim Mr. Obama "has taken voluntary transparency steps" that allow "his constituents, the media and his political opponents to fully examine him." In reality, anyone questioning the approved story line is liable to be ignored, misled or even bullied. This isn't what reporters expected when Mr. Obama began campaigning for a "new politics" that would bring honesty and openness to government.
Walking the rows of media outlets at the Denver convention, I had no trouble finding reporters who complained the campaign was secretive and evasive. Ben Smith of Politico.com has written about Team Obama's "pattern of rarely volunteering information or documents, even when relatively innocuous." Politico asked months ago if Mr. Obama had ever written anything for the Harvard Law Review as a student. The Obama campaign responded narrowly, with a Clintonesque statement that "as the president of the Law Review, Obama didn't write articles, he edited and reviewed them." This month it turned out Mr. Obama had written an article -- but it was published a month before he became president.
Chasing the rest of Mr. Obama's paper trail is often an exercise in frustration. Mr. Obama says his state senate records "could have been thrown out" and he didn't keep a schedule in office. No one appears to have kept a copy of his application for the Illinois Bar. He has released only a single page of medical records, versus 1,000 pages for John McCain.
Then there's the house that Mr. Obama bought in 2005 in cooperation with Tony Rezko, his friend and campaign fund-raiser -- a move the candidate concedes was "boneheaded." Rezko was convicted in June of 16 counts of corruption. (Mr. Obama was not implicated in Rezko's crimes.)
Rezko's trial raised a host of questions. Was Mr. Obama able to save $300,000 on the asking price of his house because Rezko's wife paid full price for the adjoining lot? How did Mrs. Rezko make a $125,000 down payment and obtain a $500,000 mortgage when financial records shown at the Rezko trial indicate she had a salary of only $37,000 and assets of $35,000? Records show her husband also had few assets at the time.
Last April, the London Times revealed that Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi-born billionaire living in London, had loaned Mr. Rezko $3.5 million three weeks before the day the sale of the house and lot closed in June 2005. Mr. Auchi's office notes he was a business partner of Rezko but says he had "no involvement in or knowledge of" the property sale. But in April 2004 he did attend a dinner party in his honor at Rezko's Chicago home. Mr. Obama also attended, and according to one guest, toasted Mr. Auchi. Later that year, Mr. Auchi came under criminal investigation as part of a U.S. probe of the corrupt issuance of cell-phone licenses in Iraq.
In May 2004, the Pentagon's inspector general's office cited "significant and credible evidence" of involvement by Mr. Auchi's companies in the Oil for Food scandal, and in illicit smuggling of weapons to Saddam Hussein's regime. Because of the criminal probe, Mr. Auchi's travel visa to the U.S. was revoked in August 2004, even as Mr. Auchi denied all the allegations. According to prosecutors, in November 2005 Rezko was able to get two government officials from Illinois to appeal to the State Department to get the visa restored. Asked if anyone in his office was involved in such an appeal, Mr. Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times last March, "not that I know of." FOIA requests to the State Department for any documents haven't been responded to for months.
After long delays, Mr. Obama sat with the editorial boards of the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune in March to answer their questions about his connection to Rezko. He had no recollection of ever meeting Mr. Auchi. He also said he didn't understand a lot about house buying, and gave vague answers to other questions. Since then, he has avoided any further discussion of the Rezko matter.
Some inquiries could be cleared up if the Obama campaign were forthcoming with key documents. Mr. Obama claims that in buying his house in 2005 he got a low mortgage rate from Northern Trust bank because another bank made a competitive bid for his business, but his campaign won't reveal from which bank. While he has released 94 pages of documents relating to the Rezko sale, they don't include the single most important one -- the settlement statement that shows the complete flow of funds that were part of the house sale. When asked why that last key document isn't being released, the Obama campaign issued a boilerplate statement saying, "we have released documents that reflect every one of the final terms of the senator's purchase of the home." But key data are still being withheld.
The Obama campaign didn't hesitate to criticize Hillary Clinton for not revealing the names of donors to the Clinton Library, or John McCain for releasing only two years of tax returns as opposed to Mr. Obama's 10 years. Those were proper questions. But so too are requests for information from Mr. Obama, a man whose sudden rise and incompletely reported past makes him among the least-vetted of presidential nominees.
Reporters who decline to press Mr. Obama for more information now, whether it be on William Ayers or the Rezko-Auchi partnership, may be repeating an old mistake. Most reporters failed to dig deep enough into the Nixon White House's handling of Watergate before the 1972 election. The country was soon consumed with that scandal. Most reporters pooh-poohed questionable Whitewater real-estate dealings of the Clintons before Bill Clinton's 1992 election. Within months of his inauguration a tangled controversy led to the appointment of a special prosecutor and an endless source of distraction for the Clinton White House.
All presidential candidates resist full examination of their records. But it should be the job of reporters not to accept noncooperation, stonewalling or intimidation when it comes to questions about fitness for the nation's highest office.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:21 pm
12 Annenberg/Ayers questions for Obama
1.) Senator Obama, when did you first meet William Ayers?
2.) Records from the Chicago Annenberg Foundation show that William Ayers, along with Anne Hallett, co-founded the organization in 1995. How then, and when, did you come to be elected as Chariman of the Board for the Chicago Annenberg Foundation? Who appointed you to this important position of this new organization?
3.) You told the American people that Ayers was simply "a guy who lives in my neighborhood." Yet recently reviewed documents for the CAC show a close working relationship between the CAC Board, which you presided over, and the Collaborative, which William Ayers presided over. Can you expound on the extent of your interaction with Ayers while working at the CAC?
4.) Given Ayers' radical views on education reform ("education is the motor-force of revolution"), shouldn't one conclude that you share somewhat similar views, since you served as Chairman of the Board for the organization he started?
5.) In 2007, Linda Darling-Hammond, a prominent professor at the Stanford University School of Education, in an article in The Nation, endorsed the idea of "education debt,"-defined as the repayment of centuries of “education debt” that allegedly is owed to people of color as a result of slavery and discrimination. This idea is also endorsed by William Ayers. In late 2007, Darling-Hammond was named an education advisor to your campaign. In February 2008, Darling-Hammond issued a blueprint for education reform by the next President that set as its #1 priority the repayment of the “education debt,” as proposed originally by University of Wisconsin Professor and former President of the American Education Research Association (AERA), Gloria Ladson-Billings.
Senator Obama, can you explain to the American people exactly what education debt is and if you espouse this idea? If not, why do you have someone that eschews such radical ideas serving as an education advisor for your campaign?
6.) According to CAC records, in 1995, an Implementation Grant of $175,000 was given to the Small Schools Workshop, headed by Mike Klonsky. The Workshop had been founded by Bill Ayers in 1992 and was headed up by his former Weather Underground comrade and hardcore Maoist, Mike Klonsky. What is the extent of your relationship with this former Weather Underground collaborator of William Ayers? What role did he play in the CAC?
7.) Klonsky also hosts his own blog on your official website. Is this something you're proud of Senator?
8.) You and Ayers also served together on the board of the Woods Fund. Do you mean to say, that you never had any formal relationship with Ayers during all your time at the CAC and while serving on the Woods Fund board?
9.) Can you explain why your campaign for the Illinois senate was kicked off at a meet and greet at the home of William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn in 1995? Was this before or after you were named Chairman of the Board for the CAC?
10.) Your campaign manager David Axelrod said you have a friendly relationship with Ayers. Why would Axelrod come to such a conclusion if you have no relationship with Ayers?
11.) Before the CAC was dissolved in 2001, you stayed with the organization as a consultant of sorts. Do you know who the donor of the CAC records to the University of Illinois-Chicago library is, that initially restricted access to these files at the Richard Daley Library?
12.) Senator Obama, would you like to apologize to the American people for being dishonest about the extent of your relationship with Bill Ayers and admit that you made some very poor decisions in judgment to associate yourself with this self admitting, domestic terrorist?
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:32 pm
CAC Doc Drop: Obama Has More Than Ayers To Worry About Now
Continuing to follow up on what can be learned of Barack Obama's tenure as the Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), evaluations of the program during his tenure available on line demonstrate that in his only real executive test, Barack Obama was a dismal failure squandering millions of dollars on education programs which had basically no real effect. They also strongly suggest Obama's claim that un-repentant terrorist Bill Ayers is just a teacher who lived down the block is an outright lie. The structure and tone of the CAC, addressed in the documents, leave a strong impression the two men had to work together closely over a number of years. Also, as copies of CAC internal documents were given over to the evaluators, any notion that they now shouldn't be immediately shared with the public is an absolute farce.
Given Obama's significant lack of experience, aside from any Ayers connection which Stanley Kurtz continues to pursue, it's doubtful he'd want America to learn any details behind his obviously failed performance during the one time he was expected to perform as an executive in the real world.
Obama began his CAC board chairmanship in early 1995, and stepped down from the chairmanship in late 1999, though he remained on the board until CAC phased itself out of existence in 2001.
These evaluations cover precisely that period of time. At some points the criticism of the organization Obama led is scathing, particularly as it was primarily tasked with giving away millions of dollars.
Reading through the documents gives the impression that as Chairman, Obama did little more than assist the most Leftist of activists in shuffling around millions of dollars, often to themselves in their own misguided initiatives, few if any of them producing real results. In fact, in many people's minds, they were never even designed to.
Obama as chair didn't even have the foresight to appoint an Executive Director until some two years on - and then it was only done in response to concerns from others, including the Annenberg Foundation itself. One portion of the document claims they gave money away so fast and so early, the effort may have been doomed from the start - all while Obama was Chair.
Another portion of the document demonstrates that a full two years in, relevant independent, concerned members of the education, political and business communities in Chicago didn't even have an effective idea what the challenge was about when asked by evaluators. But that didn't stop Obama and CAC from handing out cash to someone, apparently.
When those independent interested parties were asked what it was they believed the Chicago schools needed most, they generally responded in practical terms - improved test scores, better grades and improved overall performance. But the CAC didn't see those things as relevant. It was more focused on fuzzy-headed, presumably liberal ideals expressed as "time, size and isolation" - yet, said ideals were never more properly defined, making it impossible to even know what it is they set out to accomplish through spending all that cash. Is it a wonder Obama and his fifty million had absolutely no impact at all?
How's that for fifty-million dollars worth - ultimately under Obama's control? One can only imagine how much he might have squandered were the US treasury involved - God forbid.
And as for documents being available - the text at right indicates many were copied at least once for the mid-project evaluation. So, why is it that the man who wants to be the next president doesn't appear to want the American public to view them now?
It cannot be emphasized enough that these evaluations speak directly to the only real world executive experience of a gifted rhetorician with incredibly light political experience, hardly any of it at the national level. That he suddenly somehow fancies himself ready and able to become the chief executive of the United States is a bad joke. Based on these evaluations, it's doubtful he is qualified for a mid-level administrative position within a school district in a mid-sized town. If the mainstream media doesn't follow up on this and the work of Stanley Kurtz and Steve Diamond, it's they who will be playing the worst of jokes on the American people. .
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:55 pm
The Authoritarian Radicals: Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge
INTRODUCTION
As the records of the $160 million dollar six-year long Chicago Annenberg Challenge project are liberated and analyzed in coming weeks, it makes sense to ask just what was the Challenge, or CAC, all about.
(Prior to the release of the official records of the CAC I was able to analyze board minutes, financial records and annual reports of the CAC provided to me by Brown University. I have posted them here for others to review.)
After all, the CAC was the first chance for Barack Obama to take on a serious executive role in a controversial political environment. And the Challenge failed, badly.
Most of the criticism of the longstanding relationship between Bill Ayers, who founded the CAC, and Barack Obama is, unfortunately, coming from the conservative side of the political spectrum. That is natural enough – they want their candidate, John McCain, to win and they know that any association between Ayers and Obama is toxic because of Ayers background as a terrorist.
But silence on this issue from the left is rather puzzling – well, not exactly silence. Critics of the Ayers-Obama alliance whether on the right or, like me, on the left, are actually subject to loud and constant attack.
Of course, those on the attack whether high brows like E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, or Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic, or the mobs mobilized a la the Sandinistas or Hugo Chavez by the Obama campaign to attack a Chicago radio talk show host and guest, ignore the facts. So as far as advancing the debate is concerned they might as well be silent.
The left, however, should be particularly concerned about what it is that brought Obama and Ayers together in the same movement some 20 years ago, because there is very little about that movement that can be called progressive or democratic. In fact, it was a bureaucratic and potentially authoritarian movement to control the public school system in the city of Chicago against the Chicago Teachers’ Union, the Chicago School Board and the Mayor’s office, in particular, Mayor Daley, in the mid-1990s.
WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN?
The starting point was a 1987 strike by the Chicago Teachers’ Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and AFL-CIO. Teachers’ strikes are always very controversial as teachers perform a vital public service. In Chicago, unfortunately, there was a very frayed relationship at the time between the teachers and the city. There were deep fiscal problems as well as the city was transitioning away from a manufacturing center to a services dominated urban environment.
In the wake of that strike, a coalition of business, community and education reformers emerged to form a group called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, ABCs.
According to Columbia University education scholar Dorothy Shipps, the strike "enrag[ed] parents and provid[ed] the catalyst for a coalition between community groups and Chicago United [the business lobby] that was forged in the ensuing year."
More cynically, CAC defender and Obama ally "journalist" Linda Lenz says Chicago was "blessed" by the long teachers strike because it opened the door to reform. (One is reminded of the more recent comment by Michael Moore that Hurricane Gustav proves "there is a God.)
Bill Ayers was a leading activist in ABCs and later became its head. His brother John was also active in the reform campaign as was the business group founded by Bill's prominent father Tom, Chicago United. (That's Tom next to Barack and Bill above.)
ABCs came up with a proposal that was then lobbied for in the state legislature to establish a new governance structure in the schools. Power over individual schools would be de-centralized and placed in the hands of new Local School Councils, or LSC's, which would be comprised of elected representatives of six parents, two community members, two teachers, the principal, and, in high schools, a student. They would be able to hire and fire, unilaterally, principals of their respective schools, who were now stripped of tenure and placed on four year contracts. The principals, in turn, could recruit teachers to particular schools, thus undermining union seniority protections.
The proposal struck a popular chord among some community groups, particularly the Hispanic United Neighborhood Organization, a strong force in certain city neighborhoods modeled on Saul Alinsky’s controversial and troubling, in my view, organizing principles.
But the idea was decidedly less welcome to black organization like Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH. Why? Because becoming a teacher in Chicago or a public school administrator or staff member was one of the few routes in 1970s and 1980s Chicago for a black person to establish a secure middle class existence.
The idea of imposing a new power center through the LSC’s on top of teachers and schools, and outside of the collective bargaining process, was viewed as a threat to the gains that black teachers had fought long and hard to achieve.
In fact, one of the few, if only, black community groups to support the LSC’s was the Developing Communities Project (DCP), whose Executive Director at the time was Barack Obama. The DCP was very vocal and up front about pushing for school reform, according to press reports.
So the LSC reform was pushed by Hispanic community activists angered by a recent strike, Barack Obama’s DCP, elite business groups looking to solve the school system’s fiscal crisis, and Bill Ayers who saw the LSC’s as the fulfillment of a dream for radical school restructuring.
The LSC’s were put into place in 1988 and conducted elections every two years thereafter. Hundreds of principals were duly fired or resigned but student achievement languished. Naturally, apathy began to set in. Moves were afoot to gut the LSC’s and re-centralize power in the hands of the Mayor’s office. The business sector support for the LSC’s was waning.
SOME IMPORTANT HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
It should have been no surprise that the LSC’s were both controversial and problematic. They actually had been tried once before and the result was a disaster.
The setting that time was 1968 New York and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district in Brooklyn. There a similar local control effort ended up in a divisive clash with the teachers’ union headed up by Sandra Feldman and Albert Shanker. Then, sadly, there were few, if any, black teachers and the black power movement was on the ascendancy. As was the New Left, that would soon give birth to the authoritarians Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
A new school board fired teachers, in violation of due process rights according to the union, and a strike ensued. According to a thoughtful study by Peter B. Levy of the New Left and the labor movement, the conflict led to the New Left siding with the community control activists against the union:
Local black community activists and their new left supporters claimed that the union’s actions demonstrated its traditional autocracy. One black activists [sic] declared: “The current issue…with the union is clearly one of old time boss politics. Mr. Albert Shanker has handled himself in a manner reminiscent of the traditional UNION BOSS.” His were the callous actions of a power broker who would “do everything possible to prevent us from really ever controlling the education of our children.”
The UFT [the American Federation of Teachers NYC affiliate] countered that it was a young progressive union that had historically fought for the rights of all workers and that it too had only just won basic rights. [In fact, as the author points out elsewhere the UFT had supported and participate in the Mississippi Freedom Rides, the Congress on Racial Equality and the 1963 March on Washington]. Most important, the teacher’ union reiterated that due process, the essence of democracy, was their main concern. Or as Shanker proclaimed: “The issue is…will we have a school system in which justice, due process and dignity for teachers is possible, or will we have a system in which any group of vigilantes can enter a school and take it over with intimidation and threats of violence.”
Among the supporters of the UFT defense of due process rights were A. Philip Randolph and Negro Trade Union League. Randolph had been the organizer of the black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters’ union and a close ally of Martin Luther King.
DEMOCRACY OR ANOTHER LAYER OF BUREAUCRACY?
As Dorothy Shipps has pointed out local control efforts like that tried in New York and later Chicago profess to be democratic but are, in fact, something else altogether.
Shipps argues in her study of what was called at the time the Chicago “school wars” that the local control movement in Chicago, though backed by “radicals” like Ayers, gave "business the clearest voice in systemwide reform."
She argued that a district level democracy effort such as an "Education Assembly" is required rather than the parochial local control approach:
"A large districtwide elected group intended to serve as a legislative body, such an assembly would have both the staff and structure of one. This alternative vision of democracy rests on citizenship and stewardship even as it builds on the private interests and knowledge of concerned parents and neighbors. As an example of a different form of democratic governance, [the assembly idea] serves to remind ordinary Chicagoans that they now have no systemwide forum through which to debate broad issues of equity, standards, and accountability."
What Shipps is proposing, of course, is a vibrant representative democracy as opposed to the various notions of "participatory" democracy favored by the New Left and its progeny. The advantage of the former is that it serves as a constraint on the emergence of charismatic hero-leaders who can run roughshod over an atomized mass in the membership. Local councils cannot overcome that problem without electing representatives to a district wide body, a notion clearly absent in Chicago.
While I do not know of any incidents that rose to the level of vigilantism by LSC’s, as in New York in 1968, one can readily see why the now black dominated Chicago Teachers Union would be particularly concerned about the creation of this new watchdog group.
It is interesting to point out as well, as Levy notes, that when the NYC UFT went out on strike, white members of the New Left volunteered to teach, serving then as strike breakers against the union. This was another sad chapter in the inability of young white student radicals to comprehend the nature and significance of the labor movement.
Some in the New Left set out to set up new power centers in poor communities through community organizing precisely because they did not want to compete inside the labor movement with the already democratically elected leadership. That was a leadership and movement that they could not mold to their authoritarian models.
As a veteran labor and student activist of the period later wrote about the SDS and the trade union movement:
"The problem was that these middle class students thought of themselves as leaders. Without thinking about it - because they didn't think about it explicitly - they rejected the trade union movement because it was already organized, it already had a leadership. There was no room at the top for them there. At least not in any reasonably near future. The "poor," on the other hand, were not organized and had no leadership."
(One could easily see a young Barack Obama making the same calculation - how to get to the top in a city like Chicago which already had an established political leadership in the Democratic party and the Chicago Federation of Labor. Well, how about the community organizations, and who better to ally oneself with than Bill Ayers, a 20 year veteran of this milieu.)
Instead of supporting activists inside a democratic labor movement to consider new approaches to education that were genuinely responsive to community concerns, Levy notes the New Left adopted a “romantic view of Black Power”:
“…white radicals tended to believe the rhetoric of the Panthers and other black militants. They found in it proof that a revolution was imminent and thus a rationale for their own militancy.”
That “militancy” in 1968 would soon turn into sectarianism, violence, terrorism, authoritarianism and Maoism among a segment of the New Left. That segment would be the home of Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers and Ayers’ education reform ally Mike Klonsky (the fortunate recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the CAC for his Small Schools Workshop).
In fact, Ayers and Dohrn would take their initial interest in the Black Power movement to an extreme arguing then, as they do now, that "white supremacy" and "white skin privilege" are the central sins of American life. Thus, Ayers has endorsed a proposal made by Linda Darling-Hammond, an education advisor to Barack Obama, to repay something she calls "education debt" that has, she argues, accumulated over centuries to people of color.
The idea was initiated by a colleague of Darling-Hammond's and Ayers', Gloria Ladson-Billings, who roots her proposal in the argument among some in the black community, like the Trinity church that the Obama family belongs to, that whites owe blacks reparations for slavery.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
So just as the Ayers/Obama community organizer dream of a new power center in Chicago schools was flailing, along came Walter Annenberg with his $500 million national grant to school reform in 1993. Bill Ayers saw an opportunity to rescue the failing dream.
According to Shipps:
"The Challenge sought to build on the momentum of the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act which had radically decentralized governance of the Chicago Public Schools.”
As Ayers himself would explain in his proposal to receive $49.2 million from Annenberg:
“Chicago is six years into the most radical systemwide urban school reform effort in the country. The Annenberg Challenge provides an unprecedented opportunity to concentrate the energy of this reform into an educational renaissance in the classroom.”
And:
“We envision a process to unleash at the school site the initiative and courage of LSC’s….” Later, it states “[t]he Local Schools Councils…are important both for guiding educational improvement and as a means of strengthening America’s democratic traditions.”
With the initial grant secured Ayers formed the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which he co-chaired, as the operational arm of the CAC. The Collaborative, in turn, recruited a new board of directors including Barack Obama who was selected its Chairman in the spring of 1995.
Over the next six years the CAC would match the initial grant with $110 million of matching grants for a total of $160 million to be invested to meet their goals. At the heart of the effort was a proposal to recruit and train new leaders for membership on the Local School Councils.
According to Ken Rolling, the executive director of the CAC, who had been recruited to the CAC from the Woods Fund where he had earlier funded efforts to create the LSC’s in the late 1980s, its aim was:
“…to make clear the connection between organizing a base of supporters for school reform with local schools, and a training program on educational issues to assist parents and community members participate in their schools”
That proposal from the Ayers-led Collaborative was questioned by board members and specifically by business sector board member Arnold Weber as a potential “political threat" to the power of school principals. It was Barack Obama who volunteered to help shepherd the proposal through the board after consultation with the Ayers-led Collaborative. More than $2 million was spent to shore up the failing Councils.
And all of this was done in direct confrontation with the Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley.
After seven years of the LSC reform the schools were not raising test scores and Daley pushed successfully to recentralize power in his hands over school governance at the end of 1995. The LSC’s were not eliminated only handcuffed, yet the CAC persisted. At one point according to a report to the Ford Foundation, Daley even attempted to wrest the Annenberg money away from Ayers and Obama.
According to Ken Rolling:
"There were two or three attempts from them [Chicago city officials] to just “get the money.” Even the mayor got into at one point. The mayor asked the ambassador [Annenberg] to come into Chicago and he wanted to tell him, “You are wasting your money. You should give it to me.” The ambassador never responded to him and never agreed to a meeting. But [new School system CEO Paul] Vallas tried it, his staff worked on how to wrest that money away from us."
THE END RESULT
What was the result of the battle led arm in arm by Barack Obama and Bill Ayers against Mayor Daley? Was this reincarnation of the New Left’s authoritarian dream of a radical upheaval of American education effective in helping actual students?
Obama partisans and veterans of the Chicago school wars natually take the side of the CAC yet ignore the reality. Thus, in the Chicago Sun Times Linda Lenz, affiliated with Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond at the Alliance for Excellent Education, and who edits a journal for an organization, the Community Renewal Society, whose board of directors includes Warren Chapman, a co-founder of the CAC and also a former staffer for the Joyce Foundation on whose board Obama served, writes that there is much to "applaud" and "admire" in the work of Ayers and Obama on the CAC.
Hmm, little wonder. At least she corrects the disinformation campaign of the Obama camp about the long standing Ayers/Obama alliance. One wonders whether or not this was done with the guidance of the Campaign. After months of denial, are they finally ready to admit the existence of a close relationship between the candidate and Ayers?
But what really happened with that $160 million? Did it really create an "educational renaissance" as promised by Ayers?
It turns out, thankfully, that the CAC also funded a third arm, the Consortium of Chicago School Research (CCSR), in parallel with the two operational arms, the Board and the Collaborative. This arm was to conduct research on the impact of the CAC’s funding on student outcomes. The CCSR is lauded and cited by Ms. Lenz in a talk she gave in September of 2006 about Chicago school reform but ignored in her assessment of the CAC.
In 2003 the final technical report of the CCSR on the CAC was published. The results were not pretty.
The “bottom line” according to the report was that the CAC did not achieve its goal of improvement in student academic achievement and nonacademic outcomes. While student test scores improved in the so-called Annenberg Schools that received some of the $150 million disbursed in the six years from 1995 to 2001,
“This was similar to improvement across the system….There were no statistically significant differences in student achievement between Annenberg schools and demographically similar non-Annenberg schools. This indicates that there was no Annenberg effect on achievement.”
The report identified the political conflict between the Local School Council promotion efforts of the CAC – such as the $2 million Leadership Development Initiative - as a possible factor hindering a positive impact on student achievement.
The Challenge allowed Barack Obama and Bill Ayers to work together, no doubt closely, in the heat of political battle to help disburse $160 million to allies, particularly in the LSC’s, in the Chicago School system.
Under the circumstances, it seems more than a bit disingenuous of Senator Obama to dismiss Bill Ayers as “some guy who lives in my neighborhood.”
On a more serious level, of course, the CAC effort raises the question of the fundamental world view of Barack Obama. It would appear to have a lot more in common with the perspective of Bill Ayers, a perspective that dates back 40 years because of its roots in the New Left, but continues today as Ayers pushes for his racially divisive authoritarian agenda in American schools.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:06 pm
Fire in the Night (The Weathermen tried to kill my family.)
During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up “a gentleman named William Ayers,” who “was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He’s never apologized for that.” Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama’s answer: “The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.” Obama was indeed only eight in early 1970. I was only nine then, the year Ayers’s Weathermen tried to murder me.
In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of February 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car. (Today, of course, we’d call that a car bomb.) A neighbor heard the first two blasts and, with the remains of a snowman I had built a few days earlier, managed to douse the flames beneath the car. That was an act whose courage I fully appreciated only as an adult, an act that doubtless saved multiple lives that night.
I still recall, as though it were a dream, thinking that someone was lifting and dropping my bed as the explosions jolted me awake, and I remember my mother’s pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn’t leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside. The same night, bombs were thrown at a police car in Manhattan and two military recruiting stations in Brooklyn. Sunlight, the next morning, revealed three sentences of blood-red graffiti on our sidewalk: FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS.
For the next 18 months, I went to school in an unmarked police car. My mother, a schoolteacher, had plainclothes detectives waiting in the faculty lounge all day. My brother saved a few bucks because he didn’t have to rent a limo for the senior prom: the NYPD did the driving. We all made the best of the odd new life that had been thrust upon us, but for years, the sound of a fire truck’s siren made my stomach knot and my heart race. In many ways, the enormity of the attempt to kill my entire family didn’t fully hit me until years later, when, a father myself, I was tucking my own nine-year-old John Murtagh into bed.
Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family’s life, there was never any doubt who was behind it. Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse. The same cell had bombed my house, writes Ron Jacobs in The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. And in late November that year, a letter to the Associated Press signed by Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife, promised more bombings.
As the association between Obama and Ayers came to light, it would have helped the senator a little if his friend had at least shown some remorse. But listen to Ayers interviewed in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, of all days: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Translation: “We meant to kill that judge and his family, not just damage the porch.” When asked by the Times if he would do it all again, Ayers responded: “I don’t want to discount the possibility.”
Though never a supporter of Obama, I admired him for a time for his ability to engage our imaginations, and especially for his ability to inspire the young once again to embrace the political system. Yet his myopia in the last few months has cast a new light on his “politics of change.” Nobody should hold the junior senator from Illinois responsible for his friends’ and supporters’ violent terrorist acts. But it is fair to hold him responsible for a startling lack of judgment in his choice of mentors, associates, and friends, and for showing a callous disregard for the lives they damaged and the hatred they have demonstrated for this country. It is fair, too, to ask what those choices say about Obama’s own beliefs, his philosophy, and the direction he would take our nation.
At the conclusion of his 2001 Times interview, Ayers said of his upbringing and subsequent radicalization: “I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.”
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:21 pm
Barack "The Silencer" Obama's Gangland Assault on Free Speech
Where are all the free speech absolutists when you need them? Over the past month, left-wing partisans and Democratic lawyers have waged a brass-knuckled intimidation campaign against GOP donors, TV and radio stations, and even an investigative journalist because they have all dared to question the radical cult of Barack Obama. A chill wind blows, but where the valiant protectors of political dissent are, nobody knows.
On August 11, I called the American Civil Liberties Union national headquarters in New York for comment about the Chicago gangland tactics of one of these groups -- a nonprofit called "Accountable America" that is spearheaded by a former operative of the Obama-endorsing MoveOn outfit.
"Accountable America" is trolling campaign finance databases and targeting conservative donors with "warning" letters in a thuggish attempt to depress Republican fundraising. (You'll be interested to know that the official registered agent of Accountable America is Laurence Gold, a high-powered attorney for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) who has testified before the Senate complaining about the use of campaign finance laws to stifle the speech of union workers -- a pet cause of the ACLU.)
The ACLU press office failed to respond to my initial call. On August 13, I followed up through e-mail:
"I called on Monday requesting a statement from the ACLU about Accountable America's intimidation campaign against GOP donors. What is the ACLU's position with regard to such efforts? Waiting for your statement..."
ACLU press officer Pamela Bradshaw e-mailed back:
"Michelle, My apologies that I cannot be of more assistance, but we don't have anyone available. Thanks, Pam."
My reply: "Pam -- Does this mean you don't have anyone available today, this week, or for the foreseeable future?"
On August 20, after a week of silence, I forwarded the message again to the ACLU press office. No response.
So, I won't bother asking the ACLU's opinion of the latest wave of speech-squelching moves by the Obama campaign:
On Monday, Obama demanded that the Justice Department stop TV stations from airing a documented, accurate independent ad spotlighting Obama's longtime working relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama summoned his followers to bombard stations, many of them owned by conservative-leaning Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails to squelch the commercial.
On Tuesday, the Obama campaign sent another letter to the Justice Department demanding investigation and prosecution of American Issues Project, the group that produced the Ayers ad, as well as Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who funded it.
And on Wednesday, Obama exhorted his followers to sabotage the WGN radio show of veteran Chicago host and University of Chicago Professor Milt Rosenberg. Why? Because he invited National Review writer Stanley Kurtz to discuss his investigative findings about Obama's ties to Ayers and the underwhelming results of their collaboration on a left-wing educational project sponsored by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The "Obama Action Wire" supplied Rosenberg's call-in line and talking points like this:
"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse. ... It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves."
Behind the glowing, peaceful facade lies Barack "The Silencer" Obama and his silent enablers on the left. While mainstream journalists schmoozed with liberal celebrities in Denver, practiced yoga with left-wing bloggers and received massages at the Google convention tent near touchy-feely Barackopolis, Team Obama was on an ugly, aggressive warpath sanctioned by Mr. Civility. While compassionate Obama prepared to stand before thousands of worshipers at Invesco Field, purporting to give voice to the voiceless, his Chicago-schooled campaign machine was working overtime to muzzle conservative critics. "We want it to stop," ordered one pro-Obama caller to WGN.
Welcome to the future: the politics of Hope and Change enforced by the missionaries of Search and Destroy.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:54 pm
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
paxPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:23 pm
Need2Know wrote:
I never heard Bill Clinton was not qualifed and with all due respect, Obama doesn't hold a candle to Bill
The other "qualfications" had to do with rights, not having a pretty important job title and that leadership thing that is kind of important. Bill Clinton ran a state very effectively before taking on the presidency. We don't have to agree, because we will not, but facts are facts.
It's fact that many said Bill Clinton was not qualified to be President.
I think Obama-Biden is well-qualified and would be less divisive than the Clinton presidency.
On the most significant decision of a nominee, choosing a vice president, McCain gambled and threw 'all in' with vacuous hypocritical fundamentalist zealots. IMO.
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 20569
Location: No H8
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:25 pm
pax wrote:
It's fact that many said Bill Clinton was not qualified to be President.
I think Obama-Biden is well-qualified and would be less divisive than the Clinton presidency.
On the most significant decision of a nominee, choosing a vice president, McCain gambled and threw 'all in' with vacuous hypocritical fundamentalist zealots. IMO.
In your opinion, and please provide details, what makes Obama "well-qualified" to be POTUS?
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:51 pm
Ayers Head
Barack Obama's supporters insist that an ad from a conservative group attacking his ties to unrepentant 1970s radical William Ayers is irrelevant to the campaign. Cass Sunstein, a University of Chicago law professor and close friend of Mr. Obama, says that while he is "very disturbed by [Mr. Ayers'] past and by his refusal to disavow what the did . . . the implications of this for Obama are zero."
You wouldn't know that from the reaction of the Obama campaign. Yesterday, it took the extraordinary step of airing a response to the Ayers ad, which links Mr. Obama to the former Weather Underground organizer who took credit for a series of non-fatal bombings at the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon during the Vietnam War era. "With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the 60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?" the Obama ad asks. "McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers' crimes, committed when Obama was just 8 years old."
Obama lawyers have also sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project, the conservative group behind the ad, for potentially violating campaign finance laws.
McCain aides say they are perplexed by the Obama ad. "It is misleading," McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt told National Review. "It states the McCain campaign is running an ad on the issue and it's not. Obama described Ayers as just a guy who lives in his neighborhood. We know that's not accurate."
Also unexplained is the sudden sensitivity on Team Obama's part. It's already known that Mr. Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, hosted a key fund-raising party during Mr. Obama's first bid for public office and also served with Mr. Obama on the board of a Chicago-based charity until 2002. Today, the University of Illinois will finally release documents it tried to keep from the public on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the liberal school reform effort founded by Mr. Ayers and chaired by Mr. Obama. Obama campaign aides insist the two men had only a casual relationship. During a Democratic primary debate last April, Mr. Obama said that "the notion that . . . 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."
We may know more about the relationship between the two men later this week, after reporters have plowed through the once-suppressed Annenberg Challenge records.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
paxPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 3:56 pm
Phantom wrote:
In your opinion, and please provide details, what makes Obama "well-qualified" to be POTUS?
In my opinion, all his life Barack Obama has defied what people say about him by being his own man, working hard and winning over adversaries and who underestimate or misrepresent him. He has exercised good judgement every step of the way. At law school he was elected by his peers to head the law review. Despite receiving high paying job offers on Wall Street, he chose to work in poor communities in Chicago, helping people maintain hope and dignity and get jobs. He has served well as a United States Senator of a very populous state, earning high praise from republicans and democrats. He has run his campaign with dignity, humor and optimism. In the most significant decision of a presidential candidate, he chose someone who has been vetted thoroughly for many years, and who knows the difficulties of our present economy and how to handle foreign policy in a way that earns respect from our allies who we need strongly beside us fight the horrendously complex challenges of terrorism. He knows the only good terrorist is a dead one and that you combat terrorism by making sure you fight it in the right places. He is not against war, he is against stupid ones. He inspires people who want to bring positive change to Washington. He appeals to anyone who understands that it is up to all of us to help improve the country, not just up to government. Toning down shrill rhetoric in DC is a good start, because I'd prefer those folks in Washington stop pointing fingers at each other, roll up their shirtsleeves, and get to work improving our country.
In your opinion, and please provide details, what makes John McCain well-qualified to be the next President of the United States?
Last edited by pax on Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:04 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 20569
Location: No H8
K HemingwayPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:00 pm
pax wrote:
In your opinion, and please provide details, what makes John McCain well-qualified to be the next President of the United States?
Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 8838
Location: Nirvana
PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:04 pm
Annenberg Papers: Putting On Ayers?
The Obama camp tries to suppress a campaign ad and university archives linking the candidate to a '60s terrorist who hosted his first campaign fundraiser. Is he being "swiftboated," or is this a cover-up?
When Obama's association with William Ayers was raised at a Democratic debate this year, Obama replied: "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood. . . . He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis."
Tuesday's release of papers from a Chicago school reform project known as the Annenberg Challenge shows once again Barack Obama has a problem with the truth.
The long-sought records that were kept under wraps at the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), show that Obama and Ayers attended board meetings, retreats and at least one news conference as the education project got under way. The records also show the two continued to attend meetings together during the 1995-2001 operation of the program.
Clearly the relationship between Ayers and Obama is much deeper and longer than Obama admits. They in fact were partners in various entities and regularly exchanged ideas, including on how to turn Chicago schools into re-education camps to create a generation of social revolutionaries.
Tuesday's release of the papers of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge were sought by the National Review's Stanley Kurtz, who had met a stone wall erected by Obama's UIC friends. UIC temporarily closed the supposedly public archives after Kurtz inquired. Ayers, who has long taught there, may have had a hand in suppressing the documents showing Obama to be a liar.
The UIC records show that in the 1990s, Ayers was instrumental in starting the Annenberg Challenge, securing a $50 million grant to reform the Chicago Public Schools, part of a national initiative funded by Ambassador Walter Annenberg, who died in 2002.
Obama was given the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office. He ran the fiscal arm that distributed grants to schools and raised matching funds. Ayers participated in a second entity known as the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, the operational arm that worked with grant recipients. They met and talked often.
When Obama first ran for office, articles in the Chicago Defender and the local Hyde Park Herald mentioned his Annenberg chairmanship among his qualifications.
During Obama's tenure as Annenberg chairman, Ayers' own education projects received substantial funding. As we've noted in our series, "The Audacity of Socialism," Ayers, now a tenured distinguished professor of education at UIC, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.
One of Ayer's descriptions for a course called "Improving Learning Environments" says prospective K-12 teachers need to "be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation."
The Annenberg papers are quite extensive — 132 boxes containing 947 file folders with 70 linear feet of material. They undoubtedly contain more surprises regarding Obama's relationship with Ayers, one of many relationships Obama has sought to hide.
Obama is actively trying to suppress a campaign ad by an independent group that notes Obama's long and intimate relationship with Ayers. The ad is put out by the conservative American Issues Project (AIP) and financed by Texas billionaire Harold Simmons.
Simmons was one of the main funders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Democrats cry Obama is being "swift boated" and blame that examination of John Kerry for his loss, not his less than swift campaign.
The ad factually states: "Obama's political career was launched in Ayers' home. And the two served together on a left-wing board. Why would Barrack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"
We say not nearly enough. As columnist and political analyst Michael Barone points out, Obama has left no papers from his Illinois Senate days. Nor has he listed his law firm clients or provided more than one page of his medical records.
Obama has tried to distance himself from Ayers, his former campaign contributor and foundation colleague. When asked in the Pennsylvania debate if he could "explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Obama's lame response was that "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 to me."
It makes sense to us. Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization that bombed the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon four decades ago, wasn't just a passing acquaintance to Obama.
When Obama was making his first run for the Illinois Senate, Ayers and terrorist wife Bernadine Dohrn had Obama to his house for a 1995 campaign event. Ayers also served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago for three years and made a donation to the Friends of Barack Obama in 2001
The AIP ad has run about 150 times in markets in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Michigan.
Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer has warned station managers suggesting their broadcast license might be at risk: "Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity."
Bauer has also written twice to the Justice Department demanding "prompt action to investigate and to prosecute" Simmons and AIP for violation of campaign laws and individual contribution limits. The problem is that, as the Annenberg papers show, the ad is breathtakingly true and accurate.
The only thing needing investigating is why Obama is trying so hard to hide his past. Full disclosure is change we can believe in.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 3332
Location: My only friend, the end
paxPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:08 pm
K Hemingway wrote:
It's good question. K Hemingway, what are your thoughts? Who do you feel is best (or better) qualified to be our next President, and why?
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 20569
Location: No H8
dithersPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:17 pm
Quote:
pax wrote:
In your opinion, and please provide details, what makes John McCain well-qualified to be the next President of the United States?
The biggest reason is that he's not a socialist like Obama.
Deactivated by User's request
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Posts: 5037
K HemingwayPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:48 pm
pax wrote:
It's good question. K Hemingway, what are your thoughts? Who do you feel is best (or better) qualified to be our next President, and why?
Between the 2 candidate, I'm voting for Obama. Mind you, I'm a regstiered Republican. I may change that to independent AFTER the election, but I want to cast my vote as a republican for Obama.
The reasons...wow...I will have to make a big ol long summary post of my pro's for Obama and con's for McCain. I've done a LOT of homework on both. Plus I watch a lot of CSPAN.
I believe our country's public institutions can only provide leadership in establishing our national priorities, and I believe lasting change IS grown from the bottom us, but only if citizens have access to the information necessary to make well-reasoned judgments about the issues facing them.
Obviously the country wants change. Obama started out with a change message, and now McCain is parroting it...and trying to reclaim his maverick image...but that's hard to do when you look at his voting record, and his policy positions/plans.
Is it true John McCain voted with George Bush 95 percent of the time?
The Obama campaign keeps claiming McCain has voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Is this true? Is this significant?
A:
Yes, it's true, according to Congressional Quarterly's assessment of
The claim is true. According to Congressional Quarterly's Voting Studies, in 2007 McCain voted in line with the president's position 95 percent of the time – the highest percentage rate for McCain since Bush took office – and voted in line with his party 90 percent of the time. However, McCain's support of President Bush's position has been as low as 77 percent (in 2005), and his support for his party's position has been as low as 67 percent (2001).
IMO, at one time, McCain WAS a maverick. But no more. I dunno about you, but I can't afford 4 more years of Bush...and don't even get me started on how Bush gutted the constitution.
I am CONVINCED McCain will lead us in to more unnecessary wars.
It seems to me, the number one issue this fall will be the economy to include energy issues...like gas prices, food prices. Then I think it will be a toss-up between National Security and Healthcare,
The war in Iraq will come in to heavy play as it related to the economy, our military and ability to provide for a common defense, and strengthening our military as opposed to stretching it, and then not treating our troops with the respect, honor, and BENEFITS they deserve.
I've posted some independent analysis of the two candidate's positions on the economy, taxes and healthcare.
I wish we could move past the same old smears that didn't work in the primary, and I don't believe will ring any truer in the general...and talk about the issues.
Joined: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 8838
Location: Nirvana
Elaine SPosted:
Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:04 pm
K Hemingway wrote:
pax wrote:
It's good question. K Hemingway, what are your thoughts? Who do you feel is best (or better) qualified to be our next President, and why?
Between the 2 candidate, I'm voting for Obama. Mind you, I'm a regstiered Republican. I may change that to independent AFTER the election, but I want to cast my vote as a republican for Obama.
The reasons...wow...I will have to make a big ol long summary post of my pro's for Obama and con's for McCain. I've done a LOT of homework on both. Plus I watch a lot of CSPAN.
I believe our country's public institutions can only provide leadership in establishing our national priorities, and I believe lasting change IS grown from the bottom us, but only if citizens have access to the information necessary to make well-reasoned judgments about the issues facing them.
Obviously the country wants change. Obama started out with a change message, and now McCain is parroting it...and trying to reclaim his maverick image...but that's hard to do when you look at his voting record, and his policy positions/plans.
Is it true John McCain voted with George Bush 95 percent of the time?
The Obama campaign keeps claiming McCain has voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Is this true? Is this significant?
A:
Yes, it's true, according to Congressional Quarterly's assessment of
The claim is true. According to Congressional Quarterly's Voting Studies, in 2007 McCain voted in line with the president's position 95 percent of the time – the highest percentage rate for McCain since Bush took office – and voted in line with his party 90 percent of the time. However, McCain's support of President Bush's position has been as low as 77 percent (in 2005), and his support for his party's position has been as low as 67 percent (2001).
IMO, at one time, McCain WAS a maverick. But no more. I dunno about you, but I can't afford 4 more years of Bush...and don't even get me started on how Bush gutted the constitution.
I am CONVINCED McCain will lead us in to more unnecessary wars.
It seems to me, the number one issue this fall will be the economy to include energy issues...like gas prices, food prices. Then I think it will be a toss-up between National Security and Healthcare,
The war in Iraq will come in to heavy play as it related to the economy, our military and ability to provide for a common defense, and strengthening our military as opposed to stretching it, and then not treating our troops with the respect, honor, and BENEFITS they deserve.
I've posted some independent analysis of the two candidate's positions on the economy, taxes and healthcare.
I wish we could move past the same old smears that didn't work in the primary, and I don't believe will ring any truer in the general...and talk about the issues.
I couldn't agree more with your post, K. You've said everything I think and feel! I've been a registered Replublican more years then I care to remember... but, in good conscience, I can't vote my party for all the reasons you stated!!
Eline
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 5754
Location: Pennsylvania
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
