Quote of the day
posted at 10:15 pm on October 17, 2008 by Allahpundit
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
“That Obama’s loss in the general election may have more to do with his performance than his melanin will be treated as something to acknowledge parenthetically at best. And that will be a dismissal of the very lesson Dr. King tried to teach us. Two decades ago, when Jesse Jackson ran for president and Time magazine did a cover with his picture and the headline “The Jackson Factor’, it was just to sell copies: We all knew America wasn’t ready for a black President. Perhaps the reaction was partly due to certain things about Jackson himself, but who knew that not so long later, a black man would be within a hair’s breadth of the White House in part because of his race? Yet, if we truly understand that King’s lesson was that black people are whites’ equals and not eternal poster children, then we must confront the fact that race is not the only reason Obama could lose.
King’s next birthday celebration will be, as it happens, the day before Inauguration Day, and I dread the prospect of black America treating King Day as an opportunity to rue how McCain’s swearing in will show ‘far we have to go’ 40 years after King’s death, rather than celebrating that how close Obama came to the prize showed how magnificently far we have come.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2 3
Disclaimer: While I disagree with much of this authors political positions, much of this makes perfect sense.
The Barack backlash (partial post)
Even after the media have mocked and pilloried Palin and ceded Obama and Biden victory in all four debates, the nation, according to Gallup, is slowly moving back toward the Republican ticket.
Moreover, Obama knows Middle America harbors deep suspicions of him. Thus, he has jettisoned the rhetoric about the “fierce urgency of now,” and “We are the people we’ve been waiting for,” even as he has jettisoned position after position to make himself acceptable.
His “flip-flops” testify most convincingly to the fact that Obama knows that where he comes from is far outside the American mainstream. For what are flip-flops other than concessions that a position is untenable and must be abandoned?
Flip-flopping reveals the prime meridian of presidential politics. If an analyst will collate all the positions to which all the candidates move, he will find himself close to the true center of national politics.
Thus, though he is the nominee of a party that is in thrall to the environmental movement, Obama has signaled conditional support for offshore drilling and pumping out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
While holding to his pledge for a pullout of combat brigades from Iraq in 16 months, he has talked of “refining” his position and of a residual U.S. force to train the Iraqi army and deal with al-Qaida.
On Afghanistan, he has called for 10,000 more troops and U.S. strikes in Pakistan to kill bin Laden, even without prior notice or the permission of the Pakistani government.
Since securing the nomination, Obama has adopted the Scalia position on the death penalty for child rape and the right to keep a handgun in the home. He voted to give the telecoms immunity from prosecution for colluding in Bush wiretaps. This onetime sympathizer of the Palestinians now does a passable imitation of Ariel Sharon.
No Democrat has ever come out of the far left of his party to win the presidency. McGovern, the furthest left, stayed true to his convictions and lost 49 states.
Obama has chosen another course. Though he comes out of the McGovern-Jesse Jackson left, he has shed past positions like support for partial-birth abortion as fast as he has shed past associations, from William Ayers to ACORN, from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to his fellow parishioners at Trinity United.
One question remains: Will a President Obama, with his party in absolute control of both Houses, revert to the politics and policies of the left that brought him the nomination, or resist his ex-comrades’ demands that he seize the hour and impose the agenda ACORN, Ayers, Jesse and Wright have long dreamed of?
Whichever way he decides, he will be at war with them, or at war with us. If Barack wins, a backlash is coming………Patrick Buchanan LINK
Rovin on October 18, 2008 at 7:32 AM
Problem is, the major media in this country has abdicated its responsibility to the electorate. We’re dealing really with something that we’ve never had to deal with before on such a massive level: A media that has completely and openly almost 100% aligned with one political party and that has dropped all pretense of objectivity. The major media in the United States has become a defacto propaganda arm of the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party. Those of us who are immigrants from Eastern Europe, China, and elsewhere know what this is and how to effectively deal with it, but the greater part of us, unfortunately, are receiving a crash course in totalitarian state journalism for the first time.
While the media efforts to discredit and destroy Joe the Plumber have, I am sure, brought a great deal of personal misery to him, there is something of a silver lining: As a result of their actions against this normal citizen who simply asked a question, the greater of this country got a good look at two very important things: 1) Thanks to Joe’s question and Obama’s answer, this election has now been framed in one very succinct question: Do you want this country to become a socialist country or not? and 2) The people now have gotten a very good look at what a state controlled media can do to the average person. Joe the Plumber could easily have been me or my neighbor or my friend or anyone of us. That alone should give us pause for concern when we go to the polls on Nov. 4.
Soon, it will be up to the American people, but thanks to Joe the Plumber and the unwitting and heavy-handed and cruel assistance of the media, that same American people now know the stakes and must now make a conscious decision.
Matt Helm on October 18, 2008 at 7:40 AM
JiangxiDad – I love and respect America.
I wouldn’t even wish Obama on France!
uptight on October 18, 2008 at 7:41 AM
Took a peek this morning and I think you can accomplish what you want to do using Automator and then Configure Folder Actions. Open Finder and select your Pictures folder. Hold down CTRL and click… a menu will appear. Choose Automator. From there, choose Preview on the left column and drag the Thumbnails option to the right panel. Save that item and then use the item you saved under Configure Folder Actions. This should give a little popup showing thumbnails of the contents.
If it’s what you were looking for, great. If not, sorry.
CC – BHO: “my Muslim faith”
CapedConservative on October 18, 2008 at 7:42 AM
lexhamfox:
No, it is not all about Bush. Bush was competent enough to win a second term. In 2003 Republicans won back the Senate thanks in large part to Bush. The Republicans then had control of both houses and some of the blame for their failure to live up to their promises should go to those Republicans. Bush did not tell them sell favors or send obscene IMs to teenage boys.
The truth is Bush has had to deal with a lot of really difficult issues, not the least of which has been the fickleness of his own party.
After all, the incompetence that the Democrats have shown in the Congress in the last two years is so obvious that their most recent approval numbers are about 12. It was Democrats who ran Louisiana during the Katrina debacle. It was Democrats who created the Fannie Mae catastrophe and blocked reform for years. The people might be more aware of all that than you give them credit for.
Terrye on October 18, 2008 at 7:44 AM
Matt – why hasn’t McCain brought up Obama’s New Party membership?
I guess that’s related to the question “why hasn’t McCain mentioned Jeremiah Wright?”
uptight on October 18, 2008 at 7:44 AM
I think what we’re seeing here is something of a fatal flaw of McCain’s–an unwillingness to go for the jugular against someone he sees as a “colleague” or a “shipmate”. I’m no psychologist, I only play one on tv, but I have a feeling that by the end of this campaign and election–win or lose–a good chunk of McCain’s basic worldview will have been shattered. He wants to see Barack Obama and Joe Biden as being honorable men with whom he has basic political disagreements, but their actions are forcing him to see them as what they are–ideologically and greed driven men who seek power and will do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. He also has to feel a deep sense of hurt and betrayal at how quickly and ruthlessly those he had once joked and palled around with in the media and on the late night talk shows have turned on him. I also think he felt deeply betrayed by the actions of the Democratic leadership and Barack Obama in the wake of his suspending his campaign to deal with the fiscal crisis. While there probably was an underlying motive of using the crisis to exhibit his leadership in a visible manner, I also think that he genuinely thought it was the right thing to do–in this case the moral dovetailed with the pragmatic in his mind. When Obama and the Democrats instead took advantage of the crisis for political opportunity rather than putting country first–I think that was a rather shocking eye-opener for him that took him some time to recover from.
While I think now he knows the stakes and he knows the true agenda of Obama and the Democrats in the House and Senate, I think that there’s still this reluctance within him to drive that final blow in, because if he does so, it would pretty much destroy, in his mind, everything he’s believed in and worked for throughout his years of public service–and that’s a hard pill for anyone to swallow.
Or I could be completely and totally off base here…
Matt Helm on October 18, 2008 at 7:58 AM
Melanin is the only connection between Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The heritage is completely different.
The value of America is completely different.
The value of the individual is completely different.
The religious affiliation is completely different.
The ideologies are completely different.
The party affiliations are completely different.
And the means to achieving goals are completely different.
The mannerisms and the messages are completely different.
Martin Luther King’s assassination would as likely have occurred by the Black militants than anyone else, and yes, I’m pointing at Jesse Jackson’s crowd. MLK and his constituency saw that they were getting their civil rights legislation. The militants no longer wanted MLK or any peace loving Christian in their way as they wanted and still want MORE VIA TAKING. Any militant’s rationale is to take whatever, regardless of who “earned it”, and Marxism paves with gold the road of takers. The only effort required of Obama’s followers is to take what is not theirs simply because they want it, and because Obama will allow it. For the rest of us, our efforts to work and produce goods are taxed AGAIN in order to give MORE to the takers, particularly the drones who refuse to work for welfare benefits.
“Because I could” was Clinton’s reason for having broken the law while POTUS under oath. Obama will revise, repaint and resculpt every legacy of Bill Clinton, erasing his entire footprint if given Obama’s “10 years” as POTUS.
So far as Barack Hussein/Hoover Obama is concerned, he is alpha and omega. All that came before merely paved his way. Relevance is Obama’s exclusive monopoly. OBAMA is already MLK so far as he and “the world” are concerned.
NOT!
I remember MLK.
Barack, you are no Martin Luther King.
And if MLK were alive today, Obama/Ayers would have him assassinated.
So what if Obama at the last minute feigns outrage at his closest allies Wright, Rezco, Ayers, etc. Gadaffi said Obama would post his Egyptian Clearance Sale of lies in order to get elected, and not to believe anything that Obama says during the campaign. Until we hear Ayers and everyone else repudiate Obama, they are still palls.
maverick muse on October 18, 2008 at 8:52 AM
Hawkdriver, I am not familiar with Vista so I may not be answering your question, but if you click on the Finder (little face thingy in the lower left of your toolbar) you’ll see at the top left a series of four little “panels” adjacent to each other. Click on the one on the right, that has a large square in the middle and two lines on each side. That changes the view, and gives you a preview feature. I don’t know that it will help you with photos, but it’s a useful way to view all kinds of items. I’m not an expert Mac user, having switched a year ago looking for a computer that just works properly, but I have found their tutorials helpful (their support pages are a little more challenging for me than I would like).
My apologies to the rest of you for straying off topic.
DrMagnolias on October 18, 2008 at 10:21 AM
In my observations, having taught at a black university, MLK is more revered as someone who should be revered–actually knowing what he said, other than “I have a dream something-or-other,” doesn’t seem to be a goal. The whole “content of one’s character” ideal is cast by the wayside, and poor Dr. King is dragged out only when someone wants to be a pretender to the morality throne.
DrMagnolias on October 18, 2008 at 10:28 AM
If Barack Obama had an R after his name and spoke a conservative message the asylums would be full of liberals who would not be able to stop frothing and hyperventilating even with powerful drugs and thousands of not yet committed liberals would be fainting and falling down in the streets.
Liberals have a pronounced prerequisite for acceptable, tolerable behavior and anyone who doesn’t conform must be annihilated.
Democrats love prejudice for so many reasons including as a security blanket.
Speakup on October 18, 2008 at 11:17 AM
One of the greatest advantages liberals gain from media bias is that they never have to repudiate anyone. Republicans have to ritually denounce nonexistent supporters allegedly shouting “Kill him!” at rallies.
Democrats can get away with treason and body counts in their past, and Che posters in their campaign offices. Republicans are not only destroyed by a single questionable figure in their past, they have to publicly repudiate their constituents.
This has a big effect on the “moderate” and “undecided” voters. In fact, it’s one of the reasons there are so many of them. They barely pay attention to the campaign until the last couple of weeks, then they ask how bad this William Acorn guy could be, if he’s a respected Chicago educator and Obama hasn’t been forced to speak out against him. They have a bad feeling about Obama and his socialism, as reflected in the tightening polls, but there’s a certain nebulous air of unsavoriness about the Republicans to them. They’re the party of racism or something, and a lot of them come from weird little ghost towns in Alaska and think dinosaurs roamed the earth a thousand years ago. It makes the Democrats the default choice for unserious voters, and it’s why McCain should have hammered Obama harder on all this, right from the start.
Fortunately for us, communists are even more repellent to the casual voter than religious people, so I think we’re going to win this thing. Barack Obama is the one guy at the Halloween party who won’t be wearing his costume any more.
Doctor Zero on October 18, 2008 at 11:23 AM
Yeah! I love MachoSauce! And their press secretary should be that guy with the awesome rant from last night.
techno_barbarian on October 18, 2008 at 11:43 AM
Three RNC/McCain commercials we need to see: One:
Announcer: If you think you might vote for Obama, do you know what you’re getting?
Announcer: When a leftwing blogger claimed that someone at a Sarah Palin rally had yelled “kill him” about Obama, major newspapers and networks called the McCain campaign racist and treated the story as a national disgrace.
Later, after the secret service reported it hadn’t happened, the same newspapers and television networks told you nothing.
And when thugs supporting Obama burnt McCain signs and threated a hotelier they also said nothing; when Obama supporters smear Sarah Palin, they say nothing; when Obama supporters tried to shut down Radio station WGN to stop Stanley Kurtz from talking about Obama’s past, they said nothing.
So if you think you might vote for Obama: listen carefully to what his campaign says about Sarah, look at who his friends are, and think about what you’re really voting for.
This ad paid for by …
— Two:
Announcer: If you think you might vote for Obama, do you know what you’re getting?
He says he’s for bringing the troops home early – but interfered in IRAQ to slow the withdrawal process. He’s been for energy independence, but against against drilling, against nuclear; he’s been for NAFTA, anad against NAFTA.
So what’s real? Actions speak louder than words: he’s for late term abortion – which means letting babies born alive, die. He’s for higher taxes, he’s opposed to your right to bear arms.
He’s benefitting politically from the current financial crisis – but when reform might have prevented the disaster in 2004, and again in 2006 – he opposed it.
The people most responsible are among his best friends: congressional democrats like Barney Frank, and senior executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – like Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines, both of whom he brought into his campaign organization.
If you think voting for Obama makes sense in this economic crisis: remember who created it, remember who benefits from it – and bear in mind, please, that John McCain was among those who tried to stop it.
This ad paid for by …
— Three:
Announcer: If you think you might vote for Obama, do you know what you’re getting?
Lets talk honestly about race for a moment. Everything the McCain campaign says about Obama is filtered through the mass media’s concern that Obama may not be getting a fair hearing because he’s half black.
We agree: it is unfair and racist to vote against Obama because his father was Kenyan. However.. it is equally unfair and racist to vote for him only because he’s half black.
Don’t judge this guy on his skin color, it does not matter. Judge him by his friends: judge him by Jeremiah Wright, by William Ayers, by his twenty year relationship with ACORN – a group now charged with organizing electoral fraud in eleven states and under national investigation by the FBI.
Remember: it’s what’s in his heart, not the color of his skin, that counts – and you know a man’s heart by friends.
This ad paid for by …
Paul Murphy on October 18, 2008 at 11:46 AM
Been reading your comments like this in the different threads. You’re making some very important points as a voice from the near possible future.
Well done. Please do keep it up.
techno_barbarian on October 18, 2008 at 11:47 AM
That’s a winning series of ad scripts, Paul. On the last one, I would’ve said, “Don’t judge this guy by his skin color. Judge him by the content of his character and the people who surround him.”
Notice I didn’t say ‘the people with which he surrounds himself.” Obama is not in control here. He is a puppet controlled by people working very hard to usurp total power in this country.
Americans should see this for what it is; an attempted coup to take us socialist once and for all.
Obama must and will be defeated Nov. 4. Even with ACORN cheating as furiously and outrageously as they can.
techno_barbarian on October 18, 2008 at 12:37 PM
Excellent.
LegendHasIt on October 18, 2008 at 2:42 PM
Comment pages: « Previous 1 2 3