Who is Barack Obama? The Sum Total of his “Snippets,” “Distractions,” and “Associations”!!
Who is Barack Obama? The Sum Total of his “Snippets,”“Distractions,” and “Associations”!!
Have you noticed that whenever Obama’s Pastor, wife, terrorist friends, corrupt cronies, or other assorted glimpses into his personal life are mentioned, Obama tries to change the subject by suggesting that these references are distractions or snippets and/or efforts to tarnish his otherwise impeccable character with gestures of “guilt by association”. So let’s take a closer look at the significance of these references to Obama’s past.
First, let’s examine his “distraction” argument. Distractions from what, one wonders. Distractions from trying to find out who the real Obama is. And isn’t that what an election is all about; trying to figure out who you are voting for. Obama wants to focus on the “what,” the issues, if you will. And I fully agree, the issues are important — but not nearly as important as the person who will address those issues. First, who cares about the issues if the person who will deal with them is not possessed of the requisite character and/or competence. For example, Mussolini was right on the issues; he just happened to be a reprehensible character. No, I want to know who I am voting for. Why? Because if I can’t believe the candidate, don’t trust him, or don’t find him qualified, how can I possibly believe that he can adequately address the issues to which he wishes to direct our attention. The answer is simple — I CAN’T!!! The point —WHO comes before WHAT because it infuses the what with credibility as well as viability. Obama’s distraction argument is in fact the real effort at distraction. What he is saying is don’t look at who I am, look rather at the problems that confront our nation and my proposals to address them (but don’t look too carefully; just listen to my eloquently soothing tones). In the case of the Primaries this was doubly disingenuous for not only was it his effort to divert your attention from who he really is, it was meaningless for there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between his position on virtually any issue and that of Hillary Clinton.
His “snippets” argument is really amusing. You’ll recall that he raised it in connection with his Pastor’s statements (after first telling us that he never heard any of those or similar statements on those occasions when he was in attendance at the Church, leading the unsuspecting or incredulous to believe that the good Pastor only issued such statements when Obama was absent from Church). When the “attendance” lie didn’t wash, Obama sought to minimize the damage of these ugly utterances by suggesting that (1) we didn’t understand the “black” experience that gave these utterances meaning, (2) that they were taken out of context, and, finally (3) they were insignificant pieces of a much larger whole, i.e. they were snippets. Snippets that his opposition and the media played over and over again to dramatize their effect, while distorting their relevance by taking them out of context.
And, then, lo and behold the good Pastor Wright — who, from Obama’s point of view, might more appropriately be labeled Pastor Wrong — came out of his Church to address an NAACP annual meeting in Detroit (to thousands of enthusiastic attendees) and the National Press Club in Washington D.C., followed by an absurdly soft-ball interview by Bill Moyer (NPR’s Marxist in residence). And guess what, it turns out that the “snippet” is who Pastor Wright is, i.e. it is the totality of the man; it is his only context — a racist whack job.
And in doing so, he suggested that the different construction being placed on remarks by him and Obama was due to the fact that he is a Pastor and Obama is a politician. Implicit in this construction was that Obama was merely acting as a typical politician, i.e. in a manner that was politically expedient. Wait a minute, I thought that Obama was the new savior, a man above the political fray. Apparently, I was wrong.
This was the final straw; Wright’s truth having been revealed, Obama feigned disgust and tendered his resignation from the Trinity Church. Now let me ask you a question, who repeatedly changed his story here, Obama or Wright? Clearly Obama, on any number of occasions; Wright was Wright on each and every occasion — a race hustling bigot, but one who made no bones about it. On top of that, we are constantly reminded that Obama is an intelligent man, a Harvard man, if you will. That being the case, he would like us to believe that he had no clue as to the real nature of Pastor Wright — he sat in the man’s Church for 20 years, had to have read the Church’s hate-filled monthly magazine, was aware that the Church had designated Louis Farrakhan its man of the year, must have heard his wife’s angry statements (which reflected Wright’s views), and, through it all, he had no clue as to the true nature of the Church, i.e. its being a Black Liberation Church. Do you believe that? Only a true believer could buy into this absurd rendition of events!
And, should you get over the “distraction” and “snippet” hurdles, you are then instructed that Obama is not to be damaged by the views of “associates” as intimate as his Pastor of 20 years (the man who married him, baptized his children, and led him to his faith) and/or his wife. This would be guilt by association. Hold on; do not those with whom we intimately associate say something about us? Of course they do! The guilt-by- association label is usually associated with a casual connection, not one involving a person or persons with whom you intimately align yourself. To put the lie to the association argument, he conjures up notions of moral equivalence, a typically flawed left-wing reaction to almost any criticism. That is, a couple of Pastors — James Hagee and Rod Parsley— who have made inappropriate statements in the course of ministering to their respective flocks have endorsed McCain. And Obama has stated that he doesn’t believe that McCain holds those views. Isn’t that the same as his stituation with Pastor Wright? No, of course not! There is all the difference in the world between who endorses Obama, and who Obama endorses. McCain did not sit in the Churches of these gentlemen; they were not his Pastors, Ministers, or spiritual advisors. Indeed, there is no indication that he had any personal relationship whatsoever with these gentlemen. In short, he did not endorse them or in any other manner “associate” with them. Obama, on the other hand, chose Wright to be his Pastor, sat in his Church for 20 years, was married by Wright, had his 2 daughters baptized by Wright, and credits Wright with having played a fundamental role in his spiritual life. And he would have us believe that this is the same as the endorsement of 2 random religious figures with whom John McCain has no direct relationship? Give me a break! This defies any basic notion of credibility.
The bottom line? Wright is Obama, and Obama is Wright and Michelle Obama!