Category Archives: Media Criticism

Prove Me Wrong, LA Times

OK, since we’re apparently free to use our imagination, here’s what I think happened at that party.

There are PLO and Hamas flags decorating the room, along with Che and Mao posters. Khalidi, Ayers and Obama are slapping each others’ backs, raising their glasses and toasting the upcoming destruction of the racist Zionist entity, all the while laughing at the thought of the final Final Solution. Obama says, “You know, when I take over, the first thing I’ll do is withdraw all aid from those fascist kikes, and I’ll give the Palis a couple nukes.” Then he turns to Ayers, and asks him if he’s come up with any fresh schemes for mass murder of the millions of recalcitrant capitalists, so that they can be implemented in the first one hundred days. After dessert, they get out an American flag, crumple it up on the floor, and jump up and down on it, shouting “Death to Capitalism, Death to America.”

No?

That’s not how it went down? Well, prove me wrong, LA Times. Show the tape.

[Late morning update]

Doug Ross writes that he has gotten a tip from a person who claims to have viewed it:

Reason we can’t release it is because statements Obama said to rile audience up during toast. He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying “Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine” plus there’s been “genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis.”

It would be really controversial if it got out. Tha’s why they will not even let a transcript get out.

Yes, don’t want to have a little controversy disturb an upcoming coronation.

What Does Barack Obama Have Against Nazis?

In the furor (well, at least as much furor as could be expected, given how in the tank the mainstream media has been for Senator Obama) over his comments about the deficiencies of the Constitution (in regard for its lack of “positive rights”) and the frustrating (at least to him) inability of the courts to deal with it, many have missed another snippet of that radio interview from seven years ago. In it, he also said, “There’s a lot of change going on outside of the court. The judges have to essentially take judicial notice up, I mean you’ve got WW II, the doctrines of Nazism that we are fighting against that started looking uncomfortably similar to what’s going on back here at home.”

“…similar to what’s going on back here at home.”

What did he mean by that?

Well, most people know the characteristics of the Nazi regime (or at least imagine they do), so it’s hard to imagine what he’s talking about here, since he gives no specifics.

Was he referring to the fact that it was led by a charismatic man who gave speeches to mesmerized, adoring throngs in front of Teutonic war memorials?

Or is he talking about the Nazi policy of first registering, then confiscating weapons from private citizens, one of its first acts upon taking power?

Perhaps he was referring to the notion that work exhorted by the leader would set us free? That we need to have national service for all? And that the nation will be inspired by youth singing in patriotic uniforms?

Or was it demanding to see the papers of critics of the leader, and using the state apparatus to discover information that might expose him to ridicule?

No?

Well, was it the nationalistic racism? Or the plans to exterminate a large percentage of the citizenry after taking power?

OK, maybe I’m on the wrong track. Was he talking about the Nazi health care system, that so many here want to emulate? Or the need to spread the wealth around? I mean, isn’t that what socialism is all about?

I just can’t figure it out.

OK, maybe I’m just confused. Maybe this latest slur against Senator Obama of being a “socialist” is wrong. Maybe Senator Obama is something else.

Take away the genocide, and militaristic conquest of neighboring countries. Just what is it about Nazis that Barack Obama doesn’t like?

It would certainly be nice if the Obama campaign would expand and elaborate upon his brief comments about Nazism in America a few years ago to the American people. He has another few days to do so before they have to decide who their next president will be.

A (Rare) Fit Of Sanity

On the part of Campbell Brown (which I’ve always thought a strange name):

Without question, Obama has set the bar at new height with a truly staggering sum of cash. And that is why as we approach this November, it is worth reminding ourselves what Barack Obama said last November.

One year ago, he made a promise. He pledged to accept public financing and to work with the Republican nominee to ensure that they both operated within those limits.

Then it became clear to Sen. Obama and his campaign that he was going to be able to raise on his own far more cash than he would get with public financing. So Obama went back on his word.

He broke his promise and he explained it by arguing that the system is broken and that Republicans know how to work the system to their advantage. He argued he would need all that cash to fight the ruthless attacks of 527s, those independent groups like the Swift Boat Veterans. It’s funny though, those attacks never really materialized.

Yeah, funny about that.

Win Or Lose

McCain should be firing these people after the election:

McCain aides continue to go viciously negative–on their vice presidential candidate. Mike Allen has a McCain aide calling Palin a “whack job.” This is part of the problem with Palin getting assigned aides with no loyalty to her.

There is no excuse for this kind of behavior–dishing dirt on background to a hostile press–in the last week of (or any time during) a campaign.

What’s Wrong With The First One?

Does Barack Obama agree with Marcy Kaptur that we need a Second Bill of Rights?

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D. Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.

Sure he does. He already said in a debate that we all have a “right” to health care. No, I don’t think that I, or anyone, has a “right” to stuff that requires taking from others. This is Eurosocialism.

Not New Ideas

Just bad ones:

Obama plans to resuscitate the welfare policies of the Great Society, but by stealth. It will be the same thing-the dole-but it will be called a “tax credit,” which has a more emollient sound than “relief,” “public charity,” “the dole.”

What I find depressing about this-as, indeed, about the whole Obama juggernaut-is the extent to which it represents a return of bad ideas that have already been tried time and again, have failed and made people poorer and less stalwart, and yet seem poised to make a sorry comeback once again. I’ve written about the “déjà-vu-all-over-again” phenomenon before in this space. Bill Ayers? Haven’t we done that? Jeremiah Wright? Haven’t we done that, too? Haven’t we tried Obama’s “soak the rich,” anti-business economic policies? Haven’t we tried his “can’t-we-all-just-get-along” foreign policy? Don’t we know that economics is about the creation rather than the redistribution of wealth, and that low taxes and strategies that encourage productivity and investment are best calculated to make the entire society, including the less fortunate, more prosperous? Don’t we know where appeasement and capitulation get us in foreign affairs? Don’t we remember Jimmy Carter? Haven’t we learned anything?

We’ll find out on Tuesday.

Transcending Race

Gateway Pundit has a 1995 video of Barack Obama blaming white executives in the suburbs for not wanting their taxes to help black children.

I’m sure he’s changed his mind since, though, right?

[Late morning update]

Barack Obama’s redistributionist obsession:

I suggest henceforth that every time readers hear the word “change” from Team Obama, they insert the work “redistributive” in front of it.

Indeed. He said those words in 2001. Why should we think that he’s changed since? Particularly after his Freudian slip with Joe the Plumber?

[Update early afternoon]

Goody. Here’s some more race transcendance: white people shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Whenever I hear nutty proposals like this, I always wonder, who will decide who is and isn’t “white”? Does Barack Obama get half a vote?

A Good Point

…by John McCain on Meet The Press this morning, though he didn’t press it home–he only mentioned the name in passing, and didn’t point out the connection, apparently assuming that most viewers would get it.

Bernie Sanders is an avowed socialist (I’m not sure about the Senate, but as a member of the House he ran as one, but caucused with the Democrats). McCain pointed out that the number one, two and three senators listed as the most liberal are Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. How far are his votes or views from Barack Obama and Joe Biden?

A suggested McCain campaign ad: “Barack Obama, despite his statement to Joe the Plumber that the wealth should be “spread around,” complains when he is therefore called a socialist. But his brief Senate voting record is to the left of that of Bernie Sanders, who proudly calls himself a socialist. So what does that make Barack Obama?”

He did something else that was good. He pointed out that Michigan is a poster child for the kinds of policies that will result from an Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime. High taxes, more power to unions, big-spending Dems in charge, and the state has (in many cases literally) gone south.

Put together an ad describing Michigan’s straits and the causes, and point out that this is what the OPR regime has planned for the entire country. It would even help him in Michigan.