Posted on 05/12/2008 7:40:50 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
While Senator Clinton tries to prove that in counting delegates, 1 + 1 doesn’t equal 2, the rest of us are already weighing the choice between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama.
Obama has, however, learned a valuable Clinton trick from this protracted primary -- how to obliquely reference the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” to misdirect people’s attention away from glaring, personal deficiencies.
During his victory speech in North Carolina on Tuesday night Obama said, “We know what’s coming…the same names and labels they (Republicans) pin on everyone who doesn’t agree with all of their ideas.”
Actually, we have some new names and labels thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Obama’s own words and ideas, as well as the Senator’s cozy relationships with corrupt influence peddlers, domestic terrorists, and a hateful, bile-spewing spiritual advisor. Continued
That right-wing conspiracy shtick is going to work out about as well for Obama as it did for Clinton and for the same reason -- because it is without merit.
“Swift-boated” has been added to our political lexicon by the Left to lament the alleged unfair attacks to which John Kerry was subjected in the 2004 Presidential race.
And yet, it was John Kerry who made his military service an issue. He sought to use his service to distinguish himself from President Bush and to characterize both Bush and Cheney as reckless chicken-hawks.
It was John Kerry who saluted the nation nearly four years ago and said, “I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.” It was John Kerry who brought several of those with whom he had served in Vietnam on stage at the Democrat National Convention to show them off to the country.
On the contrary, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were effective with their anti-Kerry message because it was a substantive one. The facts were on their side. The fact was that Kerry’s entire chain of command, every officer under whom Kerry served in Vietnam, questioned his fitness to be Commander-in-Chief. Many Kerry detractors were Democrats but they were also proud and decorated veterans who believed that Kerry had acted dishonorably and that his campaign was being run disingenuously. Theirs was a legitimate perspective for the country to hear.
Similarly, it is Barack Obama who has presented as his core argument that he possesses the requisite judgment to be President. That demands a thorough examination of both his personal history and professional record.
The process demands and will extract the same from John McCain.
So as we begin the compare and contrast on the matter of the two men’s judgment at the behest of Obama, consider these two snapshots at a watershed moment in each one’s life:
At the same respective points in their lives as grown men in their early 30s, Obama decided to sidle up to Chicago political machine bosses and their financiers and the chichi Hyde Park set of pseudo-intellectual socialists to begin advancing his political career. That earned Obama an appointment to a State Senate seat in 1996.
At a similar age, John McCain made an important decision as well. He decided to forgo his early release from a North Vietnamese POW camp, an offer extended to him because of his father’s position in the military. McCain would not walk unless the other POWs who had been captured before him were also released. That earned McCain an additional five years of torture in a Viet Cong prison camp and, for all he knew at the time, was a decision that would cost him his life.
What would you have done if presented with the same offer with which McCain was presented?
What do you think Barack Obama would have done as you have watched him over the last couple of months provide ever-evolving answers and, ultimately, denunciation of his 20-year pastor (only because Rev. Wright wasn’t properly concerned about Obama’s campaign)?
These snapshots of course do not tell the whole story of either man, but they do tell an important part of the story for each, about the values that have informed their lives.
Thus, it will not be GOP-engineered distractions that do in Obama’s ethereal campaign but rather his own bad judgments measured against the very standard he has set to define the race for President.
Bad choice of words there, B. Hussein.
There is apparently a swift-boat type group out there who want to sink McCain. Haven’t read any of it, I don’t want to know anymore than I already do.
Hussein’s Hive
Black Liberation Army
Brown Berets
Gay Liberation Front
Gray Panthers
I Wor Kuen
Former Black Panther Party
Nation of Islam
New Black Panthers
New Communist Movement
Red power
Symbionese Liberation Army
Weather Underground
Young Lords
Protesters of 1968
Hamas
PLO
FARC
Chavez
Kaddafhi
Farrakhan
No, that empty vessel will be Wrighted.
....thanks....that’s a great poster....of course just showing the truth like that will be considered “swift boating”
Excellent book about the facts re the Swifties. The libs still think swift boating was a bad thing, but it was anything but bad. I loved the Swiftees and what they did to sink Kerry, the traitor.
Better put some ice on it.
I believe there’s still a $million on the table for anyone who can prove anything they claimed was a lie.
The truth is the truth.
It should be known, especially when it comes to the next possible President.
The Chicago Tribune might been some help getting Obama that state senate seat. A couple of names: Hull and Jack Ryan. Anyone recall these guys? There's an article,I'll see if I can find it again.
What would you have done if presented with the same offer with which McCain was presented?
An excellent question...that should be embarrassing to keyboard warriors who so breathlessly work to enable Obama.
I say there is nothing wrong with swiftboating. I define swiftboating as exposing truth to reveal character. I love swiftboating as long is it is truthful.
The swiftboaters greatest phrase was “release your records” “Sign the paper”. There was never a response to this.
It should be embarrassing to them but, the sad fact is that it will not be.
Has anyone ever even actually refuted anything they claimed? Not including character assasination of the men themselves.
I roomed on a dorm floor that had 4 rooms to the floor, two men to each room.
There was a real honest to God war hero in every room on that floor. One room had two.
Typical was Edgar Denton, still a kid in his 20’s who was a B17 pilot, shot down over Germany and who had spent enough time in a POW camp that he was skin and bones.
Bill Bellew, who had flown in China before the US got into the war and who like the rest of his kind, came home and joined up when we declared war. A Marine fighter pilot.
Karl Kurbjohn, who flew B24’s out of England.
My room mate, A. P. Ellis, who walked across Italy from the first day of the invasion.
All real heroes.
Did that make them qualified to be president? Great men and I learned much from them all, but it takes more than being a war hero to qualify for president.
McCain is a hero, but like my heroes in college not qualified.
This country is in trouble.
I’d like to give Obama a “swift boat’ right up his arse!
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