Two years ago, I was thinking I might back Barack Obama, but not now... and here are my reasons. He has successfully, with the help of the mainstream media, kept his past medical records, education records and business associations in relative obscurity like the mystery surrounding his birth certificate. His vacillation on some issues is uncomfortable, but most of all I am astonished at his secular expressions of "fundamental change" and "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek".
At a New Hampshire rally on October 18th, Barack Obama vowed that he will "change the world". That is poetic, but I need to know definitively, what change that is. His followers want to accept his idealisms and rhetoric, forgetting the harsh realities and facts behind the issues. A recent study on populist politicians concluded that Americans make up their mind in fractions of a second when they meet someone whether they like them or not. It attempted to illuminate the political-celebrity likeability quotient, but the danger lies in our disregard or inability to consider the facts... when we are so star-struck.
I agree with Hillary Clinton when she said, "Barack Obama is a talker". He says what people want to hear, he feels strongly he can unite us, however lacking details it may be a very disappointing experience for Americans. One example was when he "pledged" to accept only public financing as a unilateral agreement among candidates. He actually signed a paper agreement. When Obama felt he could do better via private funding he gave out this press statement, "It's not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections". Obama stood on what was in his own best interest instead of his word.
It's a pattern of his saying what is expedient and then acting self-interestedly, regardless of his commitments. When pressed for response or rationale he almost always follows the logic which accuses others [usually his opponent] of having made him do it. In the aforementioned case of public financing he noted a concern that his opponent and the Republican Party could not be trusted. Maybe that is true... maybe it is not, but that is not the point. The point is he cannot be expected to do what he says he will do... time and time again.
During another televised debate with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama said, "I will sit down and negotiate with John McCain about public financing before I make a decision". He never offered and never did... but... most important he was on record as having said he would.
When Senator Obama was first asked by John McCain if he would meet for a series of town hall debates, he said, "Any place, any time", but of course he never did. If you don't want to argue the facts of your political tenet, it is best to keep your rhetoric in the controlled arena of on-message stump speeches and feel-good commercials.
Here is a good example in his book, The Audacity of Hope, he points out that he was elected as Illinois State Senator in 1996 because his message to people was "... we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done."
This was his message alright, but it was not why he won. He was running against four other contenders. Illinois State Law required that each candidate get petition signatures to get on the ballot. Obama authorized a consultant named Ronald Davis to take advantage of this rule by going through each signature and eventually disqualifying each of the other four candidates on technicalities.
The incumbent Alice Palmer was one of the candidates. She had asked him to wait in the wings during this 1996 election cycle. He decided to run anyway [against her]. One of the other candidates, Gha-is Askia in an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 2007 said, "Why say you're for a new tomorrow, then do old-style Chicago politics to remove legitimate candidates? He talks about honor and democracy, but what honor is there in getting rid of every other candidate so you can run scot-free? Why not let the people decide". A "new tomorrow" sounds exactly like Obama, but it is his tomorrow. In other words, what he says is not the way he acted.
It was legal, it was technical and it was sneaky. He had no opposition... he was on the ballot alone... and as it turns out that is the way he plays the game... time and time again. His message, "... if enough people believe in the truth..." for me was now only a pretense.
I find no fault with playing by the rules, even the technical ones, and I am not sure that I can sympathize with those he threw off of the ballot assuming it was legal. What bothered me was his deception in his book. What he said, I was beginning to realize, was not what happened. This was just the beginning of many deceptions which I came across. For him to argue that he won on message was dishonest. To his unquestioning aspiring apostles it was a win. To Obama it was a mark on his soul.
On another note, I noticed the writing style Obama used in his books is not always the prose of Barack Obama. I had told several acquaintances that his book, Dreams of My Father, was not written by the same person who wrote his next two books. I was astonished when I found the following story on the news wire on the 17th of October, "Jack Cashill, writing for The American Thinker, did an article on October 17 alleging that former domestic terrorist; Bill Ayers either wrote Dreams of My Father or ghostwrote it.
Subsequently, Cashill has been supported by four other forensic firms who did computer statistical analysis on its phraseology, sentence lengths, metaphors, and other parameters. They all conclude the same. A very good analysis of this can be had by visiting http://www.breitbart.tv/ and searching for an interview posted 10/30/08 called, "New Computer Analysis Fingers Ayers as Author of Obama's 'Dreams'. Here again, the deceit is in the fact that Obama claimed he had written it himself. Cashill writes, "I believe that after failing to finish his book on time, and after forfeiting his advance from Simon & Schuster, Obama brought a sprawling, messy, sophomoric manuscript to the famed dining room table of Bill Ayers and said, 'Help.'"
In light of Barack Obama's earlier statement that Bill Ayres was, "a guy who lives in my neighborhood" and when pressed with the known facts that they sat on two boards together, he revised his argument to say, "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8." As if to imply that the issue has to do with his age or involvement. Mr. Obama, your logic is amusing... If the Unabomber gets out of jail, do you think it will be okay to pal around with him? By the way, he only killed three people, but maimed 22. Bill Ayres organization killed 7.
Obama's obtuse statement is his obvious attempt to disguise the fact that he chose Bill Ayers, an admitted terrorist, cop killer and unrepentant America hater, as a business associate. What does it say of Obama's judgment... unless of course he sympathized with Ayres cause? We cannot allow an America where people like, Wright, Ayres or Dohrn live vicariously through Barack Obama.
This raises questions such as does Barack Obama believe there should be a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings and killing people? Does Barack Obama know that who he associates with reflects on his judgment? The most insulting question is... How ignorant does Obama think people are to use non sequitur logic, as transparent as a picture window, to throw them off course?
Never mind, I think I know the answer to that.
Don Snyder is an American who is fed up with the low fat, salt free diet of bull crap he gets every day from the mainstream press more aptly referred to as the mainstream mess.
