Posted on 10/27/2008 4:05:37 PM PDT by fiodora
All I can say is "Wow."
If McCain had known of this tape a few weeks ago, the chance to hammer Obama into submission would have been possible. Now, with just 8 days to election, he must work fast to exploit the shocking admissions made by Obama that 1) he believes that the Warren Court did not "break free from the essential constraints" found in the Constitution in order to redistribute wealth to the Black poor; and 2) he believes in "redistributive change" for America.
Here's the video of Obama's interview on Public Radio station WBEZ-FM in 2001:
== PLEASE GO TO: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/obama_2001_scrap_the_constitut.html
Stop the ACLU has a partial transcript (Jay adds that a Gallup Poll in June found that by a margin of 84-13, Americans opposed "income redistribution:)
If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.
I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.
Ed Morrissey draws some conclusions:
The government does not exist to determine the acceptable level of wealth of its individual citizens. For government to assume that role, it would have to end private property rights and assume all property belonged to the State. That is classic Marxism, and as Barbara West of WFTV noted, it runs in Marx’s classic philosophy of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. That economic direction has been an abject failure everywhere it has been tried, and in many cases resulted in famines that killed millions of people.
The RNC and the McCain campaign has to get these quotes out to the American public in the final week of this election.
Update: One more clarifying thought is in order. Barack Obama complains that the Constitution is a “charter of negative liberties”. That’s because the Constitution was intended as a limiting document, to curtail the power of the federal government vis-a-vis the states and the individual. The founders intended at the time to limit the reach of the federal government, and built the Constitution accordingly.
Barack Obama wants to reverse that entirely. And that’s radical change you’d better believe in, or else. Obama wishes to scrap the limits placed on government powers because they get in the way of his redistributive schemes.
What powers are we talking about? Private property rights for one. Since property is distributed "unequally" in Obama's world, policies must be shaped and laws passed to deal with that situation. While he's at it, Obama would like to trash the Bill of Rights by tossing the 9th and 10th Amendments which specifically limit the government's powers vis a vis the people and the several states.
Incredibly (and stupidly) Obama apologist Ben Smith of Politico attempts to come to Obama's rescue by ignoring just about everything he said and putting his redistributive plans in the mainstream:
[T]he RNC and Drudge today are driving a 2001 interview with a Chicago public radio station in which Obama talks about the value of "redistribut[ing] the wealth."
The context of the clip appears to be the civil rights movement, and the fairly commonplace observation (stated beginning with Martin Luther King) that the '60s movement succeeded in winning African-Americans legal rights but stopped short of lifting them out of poverty.
But Obama's professorial talk about "redistributive change," while perhaps an accurate way to talk about an agenda of raising taxes on the rich, sure isn't the language he'd use today.
No mention of Obama's curious views regarding the efficacy of the Constitution. But then, that's not Smith's job. He's there to get Obama elected and something this dangerous must be snuffed out by one of the favorite tactics of the press in this campaign; pretending that what Obama said isn't really what he meant and that what he meant is harmless fluff.
AT contributor Ethel Fenig is a little less casual in her take:
So yes Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Senator Biden, interviewer Barbara West was absolutely correct identifying your running mate's philosophy as Marxist and you are so wrong denying it. No wonder the Obama-Biden campaign refuses more interviews with West, who is not afraid of asking the hard questions. The Obama-Biden duo is afraid of the hard answers.
How will both of you react when that 3pm phone call comes; when both of you are wide awake and alert? And 3am? You can't deny then; you can't take all your marbles and go home; you have to answer. And both of you have proven you can't.
What does this mean for the race?
John McCain has been inching closer in the national polls but still trails in several key red states including Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, and Florida. Perhaps it is not coincidence that since McCain started to highlight Obama's "spread the wealth" comment to Joe the Plumber, some voters may be coming out of their Obama stupor and taking notice of just how far left the Democratic candidate is.
Can this trend continue and can McCain still come back? Yes to both questions although it is very late in the race for a lot of voters to change their minds. The debates are over and unless McCain uses this tape in a massive ad campaign, only a fraction of voters who really pay attention to politics will hear it and understand the consequences.
So what he needs from this godsend of a tape is an altering of the playing field - a real game changer. By all rights, this should be a clincher. But since the McCain campaign will get zero help from the MSM in acting as a loudspeaker to get this out to the voter by reporting on it, McCain will have to do all the heavy lifting himself.
And the helluva it is, it may not be enough.
Posted at 10:20 AM
Let your mom know that under Obama the old people are in the same boat as the unborn. Make way mom the money and medical care you require is much better spent on the inner city children and the welfare moms.
My mother is hard headed. Nothing I say will change her mind. We were kind of poor growing up. My dad like most dads of my youth worked hard. I guess with Obama she thinks it is her time now. She is remarried. I love my step dad. He has always been kind to me. He is not voting because he does not like Sarah. But he won’t vote for Obama because he is black. Kind of messed up. I have always been a Republican. If McCain acted like and had the history of Obama I know in my heart I would not vote for him.
No. She’s a democrat, now a wealthy useful idiot. So the rules won’t apply to her as long as she stays with the program.
The founding fathers were genius if they held back the communist hoard.
We don’t need 4 more years of the failed Karl Marx policies.
Well, we can just keep praying!!! :o)
2 Thessalonians 2
11And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Is your mom an ex-hippie?
That is the only thing that can explain it!!
God Bless America!!!
I never believed in the Anti-Christ until now... When Obama addresses the world it is just creepy... Maybe?
Ask your mother what sorts of “hope” and “change” Obama is going to bring. He hasn’t said. - It is heartbreaking to have a close relative that one even thinks is going to vote for Obama. Our son is 43 and has lived in bastions of socialism for years. - I’ve told him to expect on steroids what we had under the degree of socialism and complete control of Congress under Carter . . horrible unemployment (double digit), 21% interest rates, very high “misery index”, a “malaise” as Carter called it, terrible morale due to the wimpy responses and judgement of Carter (who hated the Shah of Iran but judged the Ayotollah Khomeni as a fine, religious man and left us the legacy of today’s Iran), long gasoline lines when we could even get gasoline, lectures about our “malaise” and how we needed to wear a sweater and quit whining. It was SO bad that I’ve tried to forget most of it and did when President Reagan took over, cut taxes, dealt with foreign entities in a firm way, and raised morale. I have to hope he remembers what I told him if Hussein is elected and Hussein’s regime loses the glow.
He may not be the real one but he is certainly a precursor to it, a dry run for the real thing!!!!
Satan is probably watching this whole thing to see if there are enough fools to make his move!!!!
I believe this guy is delusional, he has a Messiah complex written all over his freaky being...
No
I agree with you, it should be MATTERS!!! Obie’s campaign is nothing but a cult.
Megan Kelley kicks butt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OjTELLwESo
No he WON’T!!!! Remember what happened to Dewwy?
Just before the election, Gallup gave the election to Dewey by 49.5% to 44.5%. Crossley said almost exactly the same. Roper gave Dewey 52.2% to 37.1% for Truman. When the election was over, Truman had beaten Dewey by more than two million votes and carried 28 states (303 electoral votes) to Dewey’s 16 (189 electoral votes). On the way back to Washington, Truman stopped in St. Louis and held up a copy of the Chicago Tribune (published too early) announcing in a big headline, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”
This is way Obama he has stated he wants a national police force as strong and as powerful, just as strong just as well funded as the US Military.
WOW!!!! My trust for Fox kind of reborn... Thanks for sharing this great exchange. Megan really, really kicked Burton’s tail.
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