Obama gets gold in skating

By Erik Rush

A rather timely occurrence transpired just the other day: Apparently, since the Iowa caucuses people are trying to secure everything on one Barack Hussein Obama that they can get their hands on. A gentleman who had stumbled upon my column "Obamination" (The New Media Journal, February 20, 2007) wrote to me claiming that he couldn't find much about [the issue the column addressed] in the news. He actually did quite a bit of digging before writing to me, I surmise to determine that I hadn't just made the whole thing up. He finished with the question: "Has anybody ever asked Obama about it?"

"Curiouser and curiouser," as Alice (of Wonderland fame) said...

Bearing in mind that those who gave presidential hopeful Barack Obama victory in the Iowa caucuses were dedicated Democrats, I don't believe there's any cause for panic just yet. I've received a lot of flak not only for being an evil race traitor (I guess some expected me to switch parties and support Obama simply because we're both mulatto), but for vigorously turning the soil in his yard. Indeed, sometimes I feel like one gesturing wildly to the beat cop to come see the dismembered body I just found in the flowerbed, with the officer too eager to get to the pub to cross the street and have a look.

Apparently, since they're both white, it's acceptable for me to declare that I'm anti-Hillary because I believe she's pathologically narcissistic and a borderline sociopath, or that I'm anti-Edwards because I believe he's an elitist ambulance-chasing hypocrite who's done more than his share to drive up our medical costs and now claims to have a solution for America's healthcare woes. Criticize Obama, especially to the extent that I have however, and somehow that places me lower than whale dung. Go figure.

Obama has been handled well and he's got exceptional talent as a politician; this is undeniable. Were I a Democrat or a nonpartisan voter listening to his words, I might feel he could actually make a good choice, and a welcome change, for America — something like the perception people — even disillusioned Republicans — had toward Bill Clinton in 1992.

Early in the campaign, Obama was challenged by allegations of "Islamic ties" due to the Hawaii-born candidate's childhood education at an interfaith school in Jakarta, Indonesia. The references were cheap and worthless shots, and I believe only served to "cry wolf" regarding Obama's allegiance to our nation in the age of Islamofascism. Personally, I think Obama as president would almost certainly further legitimize and cater to fringe black poverty pimps and "civil rights" organizations even more than the far-Left at large does at present, but that's another issue. To the average voter, it doesn't matter if his father was a radical Muslim and his mother was an atheist and his stepfather was an even more radical Muslim. It is what voters perceive (in him) that matters (to them), and most have already established that they're tired of the depths to which modern politics has sunk in the dubious art of mudslinging.

I don't see that issues of faith — and Obama at least claims to be a Christian — carry much weight with the majority of voters. Frankly, I'm more concerned with his loyalty to the United States of America, and in my opinion, his public refusal to place hand over heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance itself ought to have creamed his campaign — but he skated.

Why?

This brings me to a recap of the "Obamination" reference. Much more substantial are Obama's ties to Chicago's United Church of Christ (http://www.tucc.org), an extremely afrocentric outfit that is pastored by black nationalist the Reverend. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, who preaches a separatist doctrine called "Liberation Theology." Obama had claimed Wright as his spiritual mentor and the latter was a very prominent fixture at Obama events — until February 2007 and thereafter.

Aside from some of the more critical media follow-ups, most accounts were simply Wright and other far-Left black talking heads rebutting the story outright with arrogance, condescension, personal attacks on me and everyone else who expressed the same concerns I had in my column, and the usual boilerplate racist, culture of victimization retorts.

The story died, such as it was; I don't believe Obama personally addressed it at all, although he did distance himself from the foul-mouthed curmudgeon Reverend Wright. Even when Obama began speaking out on faith in June, 2007 — an audacious and potentially dangerous move — it was a mere media blip.

He skated again.

I believe that there are many conscientious Democrat voters who hear his words and are being misled, as were many Democrats, Independents and even Republicans who believed the "New Democrat" con Bill Clinton put over in 1992. In truth, Obama might not be any worse as President than Bill (yikes), but I hasten to add that I count all of the pack vying for the Democrat nomination as profoundly objectionable.

So are the media ignoring the questionable aspects of this candidate because he's black? Yes and no. Part of his appeal to the establishment media and some Democrat voters lies with his ethnicity. I know some black folks who would vote for him if he had a murder rap in his jacket. I think the reason he has skated on issues such as Trinity United, and even more fundamental ones (such as his manifest lack of experience as a junior senator) is that the far-Left and the more critically-thinking media are fearful as regards charges of racism.

Obama probably skated on the issue of faith for another reason as well: There's a condescending "conventional wisdom" that's been fostered by the Left for decades: It perceives black Democrats of faith as quaint, whereas white Republicans of faith are quite likely closet neo-Nazis, or perhaps even cannibals.

If Obama truly means what he says, then he's the one getting over — on all of the far-Left ideologues who will expect him to turn America into Brazil once he's inaugurated, but I'm certainly not going to give him the benefit of the doubt just because he's black. That, my friends, would be height of hypocrisy.

© Erik Rush