This hasn’t been a good week for Barack Obama. His week took a downturn when he got defensive when he heard something that wasn’t said. Now he’s saying that his impending loss in Kentucky is all Fox News’ fault. All this happened after he lost West Virginia’s primary by 40 points. His accusations of FNC are bizarre. Here’s what he said about them:

“Part of it is because there have been these e-mails that have been sent out very systematically, presumably by various political opponents, although I don’t know who,” he said. “And there are a lot of voters who get their news from Fox News. Fox has been pumping up rumors about my religious beliefs or my patriotism or what have you since the beginning of the campaign.”

If Fox was actually starting rumors about him, shouldn’t he be able to cite them and refute the specific rumors? It’s like hearing John Murtha tell Charlie Gibson that he knew “there was a coverup somewhere” regarding the Haditha Marines.

The insulting thing about Sen. Obama saying that “there are alot of voters who get their news from Fox News” is that it insinuates that “alot of voters” are easily bamboozled. It’s like saying that “they can’t help it that they’re gullible enough to trust Fox News.”

This plays into Sen. Obama’s elitist image, too. Sen. Obama obviously doesn’t trust people. If he did, he’d believe that they can filter out the things that aren’t accurate. Here’s the opening paragraphs to the McClatchy article:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, facing a likely defeat in next Tuesday’s primary election, won’t travel to Kentucky before the voting, but said he hopes to have much more time to win over Kentucky voters before the November general election.

He also blamed Fox News for disseminating “rumors” about him and said that that and e-mails filled with misinformation that have been “systematically” dispersed have hurt him in Kentucky.

I can’t blame him for not telling the truth in this. he can’t outright say that he can’t connect with rural voters right now. If he did, this election would be over.

Still, it’s a bit aggravating to hear him blame others for his inability to win over voters. His whining won’t play well, either. I’d doubt that voters want a whiner as their president. He’s running to be the next leader of the free world.

Ronald Reagan faced a hostile press during his campaign and his administration. He didn’t break stride, just taking his message straight to the people. By comparison, Sen. Obama starts whining about the press, specifically Fox News, for not giving him a cakewalk.

Shouldn’t we ignore Sen. Obama if he isn’t willing to cite specifics what rumors Fox is allegedly spreading? After all, allegations aren’t proof.

Technorati Tags: Fox News, Obama, Rumor-mongering, Ronald Reagan, Appeasement, Media Bias

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Now that the North Carolina GOP advertisement is the latest buzz, John McCain weighed in against the ad. That’s a shame. He should’ve said he didn’t agree with it but that it’s the NCGOP’s call on whether they should run it. Instead of doing that, he tried lecturing Republicans:

McCain called the ad “offensive” and said it “degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats.”

“From the beginning of this election, I have been committed to running a respectful campaign based upon an honest debate about the great issues confronting America today. I expect all state parties to do so as well,” McCain wrote in an e-mail to Daves, asking her to pull the ad.

Sorry, Sen. McCain, but this isn’t part of your business. If the North Carolina GOP wants to tie Rev. Wright to Democratic gubernatorial candidates, then they should do so without getting lectured by an outsider, even if that outsider is the GOP presidential nominee. PERIOD.

I’d further ask Sen. McCain what he finds offensive about the ad. The fact that it’s causing Sen. Obama grief tells me that it’s worth running. I’d also suggest that the Pastor J-Wright issue is important to alot of people. Just because John McCain doesn’t want to hit Obama hard on the character issue doesn’t mean that those issues are off limits. I suspect that the North Carolina GOP is attempting to put the Democrats’ candidates for governor on the defensive for endorsing Sen. Obama. I suspect that they’re trying to say that his judgment isn’t solid and that these candidates have exercised poor judgment in endorsing him.

I also suspect that this ad is having great effect in North Carolina because it’s a solidly red state. Pastor J-Wright’s anti-American diatribes won’t sit well with North Carolina voters.

That’s fair game as far as I’m concerned.

Technorati Tags: John McCain, RNC, North Carolina GOP, Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

NRO’s Andrew McCarthy column introduces America to the Barack Obama that’s kept tucked in the closet.The picture he paints with Obama’s decisions isn’t pretty. The first glimpse into Sen. Obama’s beliefs is through his wife Michelle:

After four years at one of America’s most esteemed academic institutions, Michelle recoiled at the thought of “further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.” That the sky has been the limit for her, that she has managed to ride the “periphery” from Princeton to Harvard Law School, to one of the country’s top law firms, and to a plethora of prestigious institutional positions, has not much altered her perspective. Through the windows of her mansion on Chicago’s south side, American society still appears as a caste system.

The first question that I’d ask Michelle Obama would be about the belief system that’s required to ignore the realities that she’s ignored. She’s lived in a world that few are privileged to enter yet she’s utterly jaded. Why? What justification does she have for maintaining that mindset? It’s downright scary that a woman of that much privilege can think that way.

As scary as that is, it pales in comparison to Jeremiah Wright. Sen. Obama once called Pastor J-Wright his spiritual mentor. We also learned that Pastor J-Wright believed in something called Black Theology. Here’s the heart of Black Theology:

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community…Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

As an evangelical Christian, I’ll confidently tell you that this ‘theology’ goes against the central teachings of the Bible. The Bible says that God isn’t “willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” That’s directly at odds with Black Theology. Black Theology is the polar opposite of the Great Commandment,too, part of which says that we are to love our neighbor as ourself. (continue reading post »)

KSTP-TV is reporting that the Minnesota Department of Education is starting an investigation into the TIZA charter school. Tiza was first highlighted by Strib columnist Katherine Kersten in this column. Here’s what KSTP is reporting:

A Star Tribune newspaper column has prompted a state investigation into a charter school. A substitute teacher said a school in Inver Grove Heights is blurring the line of separation of church and state.

Being a charter school Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, or TIZA, is supported by tax dollars. The teacher told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the presence of religion she observed at the school took her by surprise.

TIZA Executive Director Azad Zaman insisted the school follows with state and federal laws. “TIZA does not endorse any religion,” he said.

Substitute teacher Amanda Getz thinks otherwise:

“I’ve been in a lot of schools and I’ve never been in a school where they had washing rituals, or they had prayer, or where they had a room where you had to take your shoes off,” Getz said.

Of course, Imam Zaman denies Ms. Getz’s allegations: (continue reading post »)

Kathy Kersten has a great article in today’s Strib on a charter school in which religion isn’t just taught, it’s mandatory. After reading the article, I have numerous concerns. Here’s the heart of Ms. Kersten’s article:

TIZA has many characteristics that suggest a religious school. It shares the headquarters building of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, whose mission is “establishing Islam in Minnesota.” The building also houses a mosque. TIZA’s executive director, Asad Zaman, is a Muslim imam, or religious leader, and its sponsor is an organization called Islamic Relief.

Students pray daily, the cafeteria serves halal food, [food] permissible under Islamic law, and “Islamic Studies” is offered at the end of the school day.

Zaman maintains that TIZA is not a religious school. He declined, however, to allow me to visit the school to see for myself, “due to the hectic schedule for statewide testing.” But after I e-mailed him that the Minnesota Department of Education had told me that testing would not begin for several weeks, Zaman did not respond, even to urgent calls and e-mails seeking comment before my first column on TIZA.

Now, however, an eyewitness has stepped forward. Amanda Getz of Bloomington is a substitute teacher. She worked as a substitute in two fifth-grade classrooms at TIZA on Friday, March 14. Her experience suggests that school-sponsored religious activity plays an integral role at TIZA.

Arriving on a Friday, the Muslim holy day, she says she was told that the day’s schedule included a “school assembly” in the gym after lunch.

Before the assembly, she says she was told, her duties would include taking her fifth-grade students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform “their ritual washing.”

Afterward, Getz said, “teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day,” was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man “was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered.”

“The prayer I saw was not voluntary,” Getz said. “The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred.”

Islamic Studies was also incorporated into the school day. “When I arrived, I was told ‘after school we have Islamic Studies,’ and I might have to stay for hall duty,” Getz said. “The teachers had written assignments on the blackboard for classes like math and social studies. Islamic Studies was the last one, the board said the kids were studying the Qu’ran. The students were told to copy it into their planner, along with everything else. That gave me the impression that Islamic Studies was a subject like any other.”

First off, it’s troublesome that TIZA’s executive director would directly lie to Ms. Kersten. That’s clearly meant to hide something from the taxpayers who fund the school. That’s really just the tip of the iceberg, though. I just googled Islamic Relief to find out more about them since IR is the school’s sponsor. Here’s what I found: (continue reading post »)

Prior to the Wisconsin Primary, Michelle Obama said that she was finally proud to be called an American. At the time, it seemed like a peculiar statement at the time. After reading Ed Koch’s column about the Obamas, her statement takes on a totally different complexion. Here’s the YouTube of Michelle Obama’s statement:

Here’s one of the key portions of Mayor Koch’s column:

It is also disturbing to me that Obama’s wife, Michelle, during a speech in Wisconsin last month, said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Strange. This is a woman who has had a good life, with opportunities few whites or blacks have been given. When she entered Princeton and Harvard and later became a partner in a prestigious law firm, didn’t she feel proud to be an American? When she and the Senator bought their new home, was there no feeling of accomplishment and pride in being a U.S. citizen? When her husband was elected to the state legislature and subsequently to the United States Senate, didn’t she feel proud of her country?

As powerful a set of questions as that is, they pale in comparison to this portion of Koch’s column: (continue reading post »)

Conservatives have frequently complained about the media’s anti-conservative bias. That’s why it’s worth commending ABCNews for this article about the contradictions highlighted in Obama’s J-Wright speech. Here’s the opening of their article:

Buried in his eloquent, highly praised speech on America’s racial divide, Sen. Barack Obama contradicted more than a year of denials and spin from him and his staff about his knowledge of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons.

Similarly, Obama also has only recently given a much fuller accounting of his relationship with indicted political fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a longtime friend, who his campaign once described as just one of “thousands of donors.”

Until yesterday, Obama said the only thing controversial he knew about Rev. Wright was his stand on issues relating to Africa, abortion and gay marriage.

This msut be one of the worst weeks anyone’s ever suffered in the history of American politics. The biggest problem currently facing Obama is the Pastor J-Wright problem. Sen. Obama initially told FNC’s Major Garrett that he hadn’t heard any of Pastor J-Wright’s inflammatory speeches. Yesterday, he admitted that he’d heard them but did nothing about them. (continue reading post »)

We all remember the stink that erupted when Hillary essentially said that, yes, Dr. Martin Luther King’s speeches mattered but it took an LBJ to get the Civil Rights Act passed. Part of the reason why we remember it so well is because Sen. Obama replied by saying this:

“Don’t tell me that words don’t matter.”

NHale Media just put together a devastating YouTube video based on that theme. Here’s that video:

Barack Obama would be wise to learn the lesson that actions matter, too. Frankly it would’ve been nice to see Sen. Obama stand up to Pastor J-Wright for the saying the inflammatory, hate-filled words he said.

It’s difficult to respect someone who won’t stand up to that type of hatefulness until it’s a politically necessity. That isn’t a portrait in courage. That’s a portrait in political damage control. You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel particularly inspired by that.

Technorati Tags: YouTube, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Jerermiah Wright, Hillary Clinton, Martin Luther King, LBJ, Racism, Bigotry, Hatred, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

People have said that Sen. Obama needed to come forward and explain why he didn’t leave Trinity United Church of Christ. Today he did that in this speech. In so doing, he’s opened up new questions, questions that don’t reflect positively on him. Here’s one such passage:

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely, just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

Actually, I’ve never had a strong disagreement with anything that my pastors have said. That’s because they’ve thought things through before they said anything from the pulpit. From what I’ve seen, it isn’t that Pastor J-Wright hasn’t thought things through. It’s a matter of his letting his violent emotions control him.

That he’s allowed himself to act on these disgustingly ill-informed emotions is testament to his being unfit to be pastor of any congregation, much less of such a large congregation.

It’s also worth noting that Sen. Obama has all but admitted that he’s heard Pastor Wright at his divisive worst. He tiptoed to the edge of doing that but stopped a step short of that. I’m not convinced that he didn’t hear some of these hateful, anti-American diatribes. (continue reading post »)

TNR’s Michael Crowley has posted something on TNR’s blog that is today’s must-reading. Here’s how Mr. Crowley cuts through the clutter and highlights what’s important:

Jeremiah Wright’s 2003 “War on Iraq IQ Test” underscores that the now-infamous Wright clips playing on television were neither isolated outbursts nor mere efforts at
being “provocative,” as Obama described the post-9/11 tirade to the New York Times last April. (People didn’t much note this at the time because a) the Times didn’t directly quote from the sermon and b) seeing/hearing the rhetorical power, and anger, of Wright’s rhetoric takes it to a different and jarringly visceral level.) It’s also clear that the question of whether Obama was present for those particular sermons now in the news isn’t really the issue. Wright’s oft-iterated political worldview, which apparently includes the belief that the US created AIDS to keep the Third World in poverty, should be quite apparent to anyone who knows him as well as Obama does.

While it’s important to know if Obama attended any of these services from the standpoint of whether Sen. Obama is honest, it isn’t that important from the standpoint that he must have known that his spiritual mentor had a penchant for anti-American diatribes.

It’s time for Sen. Obama to come clean, even if it costs him the election. Without giving the American people a straightforward, honest explanation, there’s no way Sen. Obama will ever be Commander-In-Chief. It’s just that simple.

Technorati Tags: Jeremiah
Wright, Obama, Scandal,Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog