A Question of Barack Obama's Character

RealClearPolitics ^ | 10/10/08 | By Charles Krauthammer

[IndianPrincessOK]

WASHINGTON -- Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.

But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.

[IndianPrincessOK]

I love this guy....he is blatantly correct and I always feel when I hear him speak on Fox he cares for America and is trying his best to help McCain. He makes one observation very clear in this article. McCain should have gone after Obamas character a while back...and he should of...but it's not too late!!

[tutstar]

bump

[RC2]

People need to read the following and compare the two candidates. Obama’s people and Obama say that character should not be an issue. Really? Read the following and decide. http://archive.patriotpost.us/pub/08-41_Digest/index.php#continued

[IndianPrincessOK]

ping

[Columbo]

Obama’s associations, especially his past membership in the socialist New Party (he also signed a contract with them) as well as the endorsements and praise he received from the Democratic Socialists of America tells us how he would approach this economic situation.

“When Obama participated in a 1996 UofC YDS [Young Democratic Socialists] Townhall Meeting on Economic Insecurity, much of what he had to say was well within the mainstream of European social democracy.” http://www.chicagodsa.org/ngarchive/ng69.html#anchor540108

[kaspergutman]

With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue [of Obama's character]

This is key. The markets are tied to Bush and, by implication, the Republicans. As long as this holds McCain will have a difficult time gaining traction on any other issue. Hasn't helped that McCain's approach to the financial collapse has been tepidly unimaginative.

[Cicero]

Why is it that conservative pundits always feel a need to be "fair" and "evenhanded," even if it makes them say preposterous things?

He doesn't share Rev. Wright's poisonous views of race nor Ayers' views, past and present, about the evil that is American society.

He doesn't? How do you reach that conclusion? He has hung out with racists and terrorists almost his entire life. He seems to have no other friends at all. Where is even ONE friend or associate who is not an extremist, a terrorist, or a kook? His wife thinks that America is racist and evil, and she will only be proud of it when he is president and has finished straightening it out.

Even his autobiography is racist, although it is filtered through PC Speak.

His grandfather was a communist. His mother was a communist. All of his friends were communists, racists, or terrorists.

His grandmother may be the one decent person who was ever close to him, but he appears to have locked her up somewhere in a straitjacket for the past year, where no one can see or talk to her until after the election is safely over.

Old school buddies? College friends? Business buddies? Apparently he has NONE--except for his terrorist friends.

Cousin Odinga?

[The_Macallan]

You Are Who You Associate With:

Obama either didn't know or didn't care about whom he intentionally chose to associate with in college just as long as they were, in his own words, "the more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets... we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints."

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that his friend and fellow partner on several Chicago community organization boards and in whose home he launched his political career, William Ayers, was an infamous and unrepentent radical leftwing terrorist who boasted about planting bombs and killing people in this country.

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that the Chicago Community Organizing group that he chose to join was founded by self-avowed Communist-supporter Saul Alinsky (who actually dedicated his book, "Rules For Radicals" to Lucifer) and that he was mentored by one of Alinsky's students John L. McKnight who was also an unapologetic radical Socialist.

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that his colleague, supporter and personal friend, Rashid Khalidi, who was married to the President of the Arab American Action Network to which Obama helped funnel $40,000 from one of his Community groups, was also a long-time anti-Israeli and an ardent supporter of the PLO while working for the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that Raila Odinga, the Kenyan candidate for President that Obama was directly communicating with, that Obama had met with and whom Obama was directly supporting during Odinga's campaign had repeatedly stated that Odinga's goal for Kenya was create a "safe haven" for Islamic terrorists, that Odinga would institute radical Islamic Sharia Law, that Odinga had close financial ties to Mohammar Khadaffi and that Odinga had been responsible for the mass persecution, attacks and killings of Christians in Kenya.

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that his friend Tony Rezko who bailed Obama out of financial trouble and bought him a home was a such a corrupt slumlord that he was just convicted for years of committing extortion, fraud and money laundering.

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that one of his vice-presidential search committee advisors, Jim Johnson was the former Chairman & CEO of Fannie Mae which, in a 2004 Federal Investigation, was found to have improperly deferred $200 million in expenses, substantially under-reported his own compensation to the tune of almost $20 million and who personally received below market-rate loans from Countrywide Financial because the corporation considered them to be "FOA's" - "Friends of Angelo" (Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo).

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that his close friend, Frank Marshall Davis, whom he wrote about with such admiration in his book "Dreams Of My Father" was a radical member of the Communist Party USA, an ardent Stalinist and a outspoken supporter of the 60's Black-Power movement.

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that his own Church, Trinity United, was founded on the racist 'Black Liberation Theology" teachings of the 1960's radical Black-Supremacist James Cone who wrote and spoke extensively of his hatred of whites including: "If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy."

Obama either didn't know or didn't care that his own pastor of over 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who conducted his marriage and children's baptisms and served as adivsor on his campaign had regularly spewed the most offensive, racist, white-hating, America-hating "sermons" in his very own Church and praised the likes of Louis Farrahkahn, Mohammar Khaddaffi and sympathized with Hamas.

Gee, what a wonderful judge of character this guy is.


BOTTOMLINE: You Are Who You Choose Associate With.

And Obama Has Spent His Whole Life Intentionally Associating With Militants, Marxists, Radicals, Racists, Crooks And Communists.

[IndianPrincessOK]

“With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue [of Obama’s character]”

True statement IF anyone but a muslim, radical ACORN supporter as Obama. It can also work the other way. The economy is starting to get used to the decline....and McCain is still not out of the running. We can win this...and it will happen!

[chippewaman]

There is no question about Obama’s character. Simply put, he has NONE!

[fluffdaddy]

Dr. K gives far too much away here.

Obama doesn't have a “first rate” (or even a third rate) intellect. His temperament is even less praiseworthy. He is, in fact, bovine in both temperament and intelligence.

Where does the idea that Obama is ideologically distinct from Ayers, Wright et al. come from? Why should anyone assume that Obama used them rather than the other way around? There is very little doubt that Obama is a hard left revolutionary. It's possible that he's an opportunist who just went along with the leftist stream in Hyde Park. But the betting odds are that he was quite comfortable being part of that stream and he's being opportunistic now, painting himself as mainstream as he tries to win a national election.

Dr. K should pause to consider that we may be watching a socialist revolution unfold before our very eyes.

[Salgak]

You keep forgetting, we’re supposed to vote for President based on the color of his skin, not the content of his character. . . (evil grin)

[RC2]

Yeah right! That’s exactly what Obama is trying to do. He thinks he can scare us into believing that. I don’t mind a black as President.....just not this one.

[tutstar]

gnip...