Obama’s campaign isn’t as grass roots as he’d like us to believe:

That picture differs substantially from the image offered by Obama of a campaign directed by grassroots activists. Their money clearly doesn’t do the talking. Bundlers direct the campaign, quite literally, and those bundlers represent moneyed interests — a much different reality than what Obama and his advocates admit.

As someone who opposes most campaign-finance reform efforts as misguided and harmful to free speech, I don’t find anything particularly objectionable to this structure. It fits within the legal parameters of campaigning, and it mirrors every other major campaign in American national elections. However, Barack Obama has argued for campaign finance reform and for public funding of presidential elections. His rejection of that money doesn’t come from any high-minded sense of civic duty; it’s a threadbare rationalization for succumbing to what he himself campaigns against — the Beltway mentality.

In short, Obama’s principles are up for sale. He may make a better pitch than most, but in the end he’s just a higher-price sellout than most others. That’s not hope or change, but simply hypocrisy on a bigger scale.

I’m sure that this is that new politics that we’ve been hearing so much about.

Obama’s campaign isn’t as grass roots as he’d like us to believe:

That picture differs substantially from the image offered by Obama of a campaign directed by grassroots activists. Their money clearly doesn’t do the talking. Bundlers direct the campaign, quite literally, and those bundlers represent moneyed interests — a much different reality than what Obama and his advocates admit.

As someone who opposes most campaign-finance reform efforts as misguided and harmful to free speech, I don’t find anything particularly objectionable to this structure. It fits within the legal parameters of campaigning, and it mirrors every other major campaign in American national elections. However, Barack Obama has argued for campaign finance reform and for public funding of presidential elections. His rejection of that money doesn’t come from any high-minded sense of civic duty; it’s a threadbare rationalization for succumbing to what he himself campaigns against — the Beltway mentality.

In short, Obama’s principles are up for sale. He may make a better pitch than most, but in the end he’s just a higher-price sellout than most others. That’s not hope or change, but simply hypocrisy on a bigger scale.

I’m sure that this is that new politics that we’ve been hearing so much about.

“…are like poultry supporting Colonel Sanders.”

I think that he really has done us a favor with this new “dialogue” on race. He’s shown how mainstream bigotry is within the black community. As the commenters point out, it’s (finally, and justly) tearing the Democrat Party apart.

And Roger Simon has more thoughts on the “evil” that those Hollywood Jews have done to blacks:

Lee seems genuinely to espouse the belief that African-Americans should only reconcile with Jews if Jews apologize for the supposed evil stereotypes they created of blacks via, I assume, the movies. I wonder if Lee means that Jew Stanley Kramer who made Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Defiant Ones. Or that Jew Ed Zwick who directed Glory? Maybe he’s talking about me for scripting Richard Pryor’s Bustin’ Loose? It’s not the greatest film in the world (though it did win an Image Award that year from the NAACP), but if I was trucking in black stereotypes, I’d like to know. Richard might have too, if he were with us. Or what Jew does Lee really mean? I’d like to see him name names. I’ll name one – The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Lee is reading from that old racist playback. He is a racist himself.

No, no, no! Blacks can’t be racist. Didn’t you get the memo, Roger?

[Update in the afternoon]

Obama says that no one has spoken out against anti-semitism more than he has. Jake Tapper isn’t impressed:

Really? No one?

Elie Wiesel? Simon Wiesenthal? Alan Dershowitz?

No one?

Wow.

Neither am I. Though, as some point out in comments there, you have to be impressed with his arrogance and self righteousness.

“…are like poultry supporting Colonel Sanders.”

I think that he really has done us a favor with this new “dialogue” on race. He’s shown how mainstream bigotry is within the black community. As the commenters point out, it’s (finally, and justly) tearing the Democrat Party apart.

And Roger Simon has more thoughts on the “evil” that those Hollywood Jews have done to blacks:

Lee seems genuinely to espouse the belief that African-Americans should only reconcile with Jews if Jews apologize for the supposed evil stereotypes they created of blacks via, I assume, the movies. I wonder if Lee means that Jew Stanley Kramer who made Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Defiant Ones. Or that Jew Ed Zwick who directed Glory? Maybe he’s talking about me for scripting Richard Pryor’s Bustin’ Loose? It’s not the greatest film in the world (though it did win an Image Award that year from the NAACP), but if I was trucking in black stereotypes, I’d like to know. Richard might have too, if he were with us. Or what Jew does Lee really mean? I’d like to see him name names. I’ll name one – The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Lee is reading from that old racist playback. He is a racist himself.

No, no, no! Blacks can’t be racist. Didn’t you get the memo, Roger?

[Update in the afternoon]

Obama says that no one has spoken out against anti-semitism more than he has. Jake Tapper isn’t impressed:

Really? No one?

Elie Wiesel? Simon Wiesenthal? Alan Dershowitz?

No one?

Wow.

Neither am I. Though, as some point out in comments there, you have to be impressed with his arrogance and self righteousness.

“…are like poultry supporting Colonel Sanders.”

I think that he really has done us a favor with this new “dialogue” on race. He’s shown how mainstream bigotry is within the black community. As the commenters point out, it’s (finally, and justly) tearing the Democrat Party apart.

And Roger Simon has more thoughts on the “evil” that those Hollywood Jews have done to blacks:

Lee seems genuinely to espouse the belief that African-Americans should only reconcile with Jews if Jews apologize for the supposed evil stereotypes they created of blacks via, I assume, the movies. I wonder if Lee means that Jew Stanley Kramer who made Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Defiant Ones. Or that Jew Ed Zwick who directed Glory? Maybe he’s talking about me for scripting Richard Pryor’s Bustin’ Loose? It’s not the greatest film in the world (though it did win an Image Award that year from the NAACP), but if I was trucking in black stereotypes, I’d like to know. Richard might have too, if he were with us. Or what Jew does Lee really mean? I’d like to see him name names. I’ll name one – The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Lee is reading from that old racist playback. He is a racist himself.

No, no, no! Blacks can’t be racist. Didn’t you get the memo, Roger?

[Update in the afternoon]

Obama says that no one has spoken out against anti-semitism more than he has. Jake Tapper isn’t impressed:

Really? No one?

Elie Wiesel? Simon Wiesenthal? Alan Dershowitz?

No one?

Wow.

Neither am I. Though, as some point out in comments there, you have to be impressed with his arrogance and self righteousness.

Here’s a fund raiser to help out the victims of the Canadian Human Wrongs Commission, and fight its (truly) fascist attempt to suppress speech in Canada.

[Late evening update]

A victory, sort of, for Canadian free speech. The Human Wrongs Commission has dismissed the case against McLeans and Mark Steyn. Not because it was ridiculous (which it was), but because that pesky law prevented them from properly censoring them:

The Ontario complaint was rejected because the relevant portions of Ontario Human Rights Code only address discrimination via signs or symbols, not printed material.

But while rejecting the complaint, the Commission strongly criticised Maclean’s in a statement.

“While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes,” it said.

Note that this is really part of a civil war between moderate Muslims and radical ones in Canada:

Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, however, said that for the Commission “to refer to Maclean’s magazine and journalists as contributing to racism is bullshit, if you can use that word.”

He said the Commission has unfairly taken sides against freedom of speech in a dispute within the Canadian Muslim community between moderates and fundamentalists.

“There are within the staff [of the Ontario Human Rights Commission], and among the commissioners, hardline Islamic supporters of Islamic extremism, and this [handling of the Maclean’s case] reflects their presence over there,” Mr. Fatah said, identifying two people by name.

“In the eyes of the Ontario human rights commission, the only good Muslim is an Islamist Muslim,” he said. “As long as we hate Canada, we will be cared for. As soon as we say Canada is our home and we have to defend her traditions, freedoms and secular democracy, we will be considered as the outside.”

Canadians need to think long and hard about what kind of behavior they want to reward. There is no place for these kangaroo-court, “Human Rights Commissions,” where one is guilty until proven innocent, in a truly free society.

[Thursday morning update]

More thoughts from the human rights violator himself:

So, having concluded they couldn’t withstand the heat of a trial, the OHRC cut to the chase and gave us a drive-thru conviction. Who says Canada’s “human rights” racket is incapable of reform? As kangaroo courts go, the Ontario branch is showing a bit more bounce than the Ottawa lads.

I’d be interested to know whether the Justice Minister of Ontario thinks this is appropriate behaviour. At one level, Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall appears to have deprived Maclean’s and me of the constitutional right to the presumption of innocence and the right to face our accusers. But, at another, it seems clear the OHRC enforcers didn’t fancy their chances in open court. So, after a botched operation, they’ve performed a cosmetic labiaplasty and hustled us out.

Instapundit has more, including this:

…for an organization that is supposed to promote “human rights,” the HRC’s agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the Lemire case, Steacy was asked “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?” — to which he replied “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

[Late morning update]

Here’s more on that Canadian blogger lawsuit. It sounds to me like someone, or several someones, need to sue Richard Warman (what an appropriate name) for false accusations and defamation of character.

Michelle Obama’s handlers wanted to make sure they had enough white people:

While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”

“I didn’t know they would say, ‘We need a white person here,'” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.”

Hey, it must be that new politics we’ve been hearing so much about. Actually, the only thing shocking to me is that it was reported.