This video — apparently filmed in March 2008 — creeps me out. Imagine how Texas CPS would respond to a video showing a line of FLDS young men, dressed in military fatigues, chanting Warren Jeffs’ name. The press would be ravenous with comparisons to the Hitlerjugend. But when Obama is the “maximum leader” and object of worship, everyone sleeps. [UPDATE: Since this entry was posted earlier this afternoon, the video was yanked from YouTube and then replaced. Any guesses as to how many anti-McCain videos have been yanked from YouTube? See Foxnews and this post for more information.]
I can already hear Obama apologists crying, “But Obama didn’t approve of this video.” Nonsense. Hitler didn’t “approve” of thousands of misdeeds by his followers, either. But those followers helped make Hitler into the monster that he became. What has scared me about Obama from the beginning is the kind of people he runs with and those who run with him.
Any “teacher” capable of brainwashing young men to worship a politician, as shown in this video, is also capable of far worse once that politician gets into office. Obama is dangerous because of the company he keeps.
The YouTube background provides this additional information:
URBAN COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
1524 PASEO BLVD
18th & Vine District, Kansas City, MO
Educational OrganizationI called and spoke to Bernard, who said he was the assistant Dean. He was very gentlemanly and when I voiced my concerns about the video, he told me that this was taken at the school last year [this was reportedly a falsehood; the video, reportedly, was filmed in March 2008, according to an uncorroborated update at YouTube, but it really doesn't matter when it was filmed] when Obama was beginning his campaign. He assured me that they stopped this “regiment” because they felt the person who was organizing it was pushing his political agenda.
Duh.
He assured me that he didn’t know it was on YouTube. I gave him the link to where to go for this video and when he found it he said, “Oh this is not good. I had no idea” I told him I’d take his word for it. He then asked me, nicely, “what’s the main concern? Because I want to understand where you’re coming from so that I can figure out how to handle this.”
Nicely, I told him that the video looked militant. I told him about the Colburn School video and how it resembles propaganda films from Communist dictatorships. I told him that the US military is frowned upon for going to high schools trying to recruit potential grads into joining their ranks. Why shouldn’t we frown upon those who come to a school like yours to encourage kids to worship a politician? One who is not even a president.
I also said that if this was done to make kids feel better about themselves, why do it in the name of Obama? Why not encourage kids to believe in the power of themselves?
He assured me that he would get to the bottom of the situation, thanked me for my call and we hung up. . .
{ 123 comments… read them below or add one }
MV 10.06.08 at 12:12 pm
Hmmmm. I am not sure what to make of this. About the only phrase I understood was “take responsilbility for “myself, or something similar. That would be good. It is too bad eloquence is no longer taught in schools.
Obama is an eloquent young man, this is why he is capturing the hopefulness in our youth. He is capturing the attention of the college kids with his promises. I do not think they are mature enough to decide who will run this country for the next 4-8 years. If they are not responsible enough to buy alcohol at 18, are they responsible enough to choose a leader?
No, they should not be going to Iraq either!
Kurt Schulzke 10.06.08 at 1:16 pm
What you missed was the repetition of the words, “Because of Obama,” at the front end of every stanza of the chant.
Your reaction, “Obama is an eloquent young man, this is why he is capturing the hopefulness in our youth,” is reminiscent of the reaction of many Germans to Hitler before 1938. He was eloquent. And he captured German youth and then killed them by the millions, in ovens or battlefields.
The fact that anyone responds this way to this kind of video is itself a reason for concern.
Doran Williams 10.06.08 at 4:56 pm
Kurt, how can you be sure this is not a fake?
Kurt Schulzke 10.06.08 at 5:15 pm
Doran –
I can’t be “sure” of anything. The video, however, is consistent with what I k now of Obama and the attitude of his most rabid followers. If you have a reason to believe that it’s fake, please let me know.
MV 10.06.08 at 5:53 pm
Sorry Kurt. You need have no concern for me, I remember Nazi Germany, I definately did not mean to come across that way.
I am not a follower of Obama, I see disaster for this country if elected.
I was merely thinking with my fingers, when I should have thought a little more.
My thoughts at the time, which led me to mention college students, (I am retired from a large university) was Obama’s “rock star status.” These kids are voting for someone who sounds good.
I do not like the video, it does make me wonder what it’s point is.
Doran Williams 10.06.08 at 6:34 pm
Kurt, you pulled documents and comments off this site, those about Natalie, which were much more likely to be legitimate than is this video. You did it because you could not be sure that the documents were legitimate, or accurate, even though they had all the file markings of documents filed in a lawsuit.
What have you to assure yourself and the rest of us that this is nothing more than the functional equivalent of the rumours that the Bush campaign circulated about McCain’s “black” child? Or the slander’s circulated about Max Cleland?
This is your blog, and you can post anything you want, no matter how shakey it is (”vetted” is the word you use), no matter how scurilous. But to throw something so serious out here and then challenge someone to prove it is not legitimate, when you, yourself, don’t know if it is, is just really amazing.
Getting to the substance of the video and of your concerns, you are encouraging us to become highly excited and disturbed because some people in Kansas City may have made a video. There is no connection to the Candidate, other than his name. If we hear, or hear of, powerful, well-connected, politically astute, intellingent people making similar claims for McCain (albeit probably not in the context of a drill team) then maybe we should get excited and disturbed. But with a small group of people who you seem to classify as being close to the loser end of the gene-pool? Naw…….give it up. You can do better.
Cayuga 10.06.08 at 7:09 pm
I don’t know Doran, didn’t Kurt say that he called the Urban…..Community league? Is that not enough for you?
So call yourself. I also saw this on hotair.com.
Scary stuff! The cult of personality just like another leader.
Doran Williams 10.06.08 at 7:42 pm
No, Cayuga, Kurt did not say that. People who cannot read short, declarative sentences vote for……..who?
Anyway, who answered the phone? What is the Urban Center? Your are as ready to jump to the most outrageous conclusions about this, as were the hot-heads, dim-wits, and ninnies of Eldorado were prepared to believe the worst about the YFZ Ranch. Use your brain, for goodness, sakes, even in a Presidential election season.
This thing smacks of dirty tricks.
I agree with you about the cult of the personality. The dumb ones who voted for George Bush for President, TWICE!!, certainly had something wrong with them, wouldn’t you say?
Cayuga 10.06.08 at 8:43 pm
OK, Doran read this!
A middle school teacher in Missouri was suspended Monday for putting a video on YouTube of his students chanting lines from Barack Obama speeches and wearing military fatigues.
The video, called “Obama Youth — Junior Fraternity Regiment,” was posted by a YouTube user named “keepitwildtv” on Oct. 2. The school learned the video was on the Internet and took action against the teacher Monday morning.
Joyce McGautha, superintendent of the Urban Community Leadership Academy, a charter school for students in fifth through ninth grades in Kansas City, Mo., said that the video was probably taken last May during the Junior Fraternity’s morning meeting at the school.
She would not disclose the teacher’s name. “At this time because of the legal action that we’ll probably have to take against the teacher, I’m not going to give his name,” McGautha said.
Cayuga 10.06.08 at 8:45 pm
NO, there was no cult of personality with Bush. There was only the people running against him. For crying out loud!
Sorry, I don’t have a legal degree, like you do.
But my husband does and so does my son. Does that qualify?
It qualified for hillary!
Kurt Schulzke 10.06.08 at 9:10 pm
Doran –
No one has offered to substantiate any of the personal accusations against Malonis with videos or with eye witnesses. All of the allegations on this blog are corroborated, many of them by Barack Obama himself. The Foxnews report, by the way, corroborates the bona fides of the video.
Doran Williams 10.06.08 at 9:50 pm
You guys are getting your pants in a twist because of some teen-agers.
What was your response when the Bushjugend broke into the room where the Florida ballots were being counted, and brought that to a screeching halt?
Yes, Bush had his idolators. Still does. Obama does, too. So does Gov. Palin. [And she is just so adorable!!]
Make a political point of all this if you can. It is lame, though, and your behavior as political propagandists — trying your best to be fear mongers — is obvious and unfortunate.
Doran Williams 10.06.08 at 9:52 pm
BTW, do you recal the witness before the Senate Committee who said she took an oath to President Bush?
Alex 10.06.08 at 9:59 pm
Doran.
Weren’t the Hitler Youth a bunch of teenagers to?
Mac the Knight 10.06.08 at 10:04 pm
This is either really frightening, or those boys are McCain fans!
Doran Williams 10.06.08 at 10:28 pm
Keep up with the Hitler stuff, please, it is so enlightening and so relevant. But maybe this is Communist stuff, too. One of the comments or quotes up above likened it to Communist stuff. Maybe this is some kind of CommunistNaziIslamoFascists stuff.
As I understand you-all, you are totally bent out of shape by some kids in Kansas City who made or starred in a short video about Obama. There was some chanting, maybe like you would hear at a football game. And some stuff about how Obama was inspiring to these kids. No guns. Nor insignia. No violence. No threats. No name calling about McCain. And you are pooping in your panties.
So where is your outrage about what has been going on at McCain and Palin rallies.
Believe me, not all the juvenile jerks are in Kansas City. A number of them are hanging out at this site, enabling threats of violence by Rethuglicans.
Here, follow these links from TPM, and see what you think about a well funded, well coordinated, campaign of fear mongering and inciting to mayhem.
Who They Are, What They’re About
So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out “terrorist.”
And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out “kill him”, though it’s not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn’t seem to matter.
These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.
–Josh Marshall
Cayuga 10.06.08 at 10:42 pm
Is that a quote from you or from josh marshall.
I think you’re watching snl .
Anyone who said kill them would be soundly repudiated by McCain and Palin.
It seems like obama has all the young students from those left leaning professors firmly in his camp. They can’t make a living, they know very little about history, but they do know about hope and change, don’t they? Ask them what obama has ever done and they can’t answer. They can’t name one bill, one thing at all, but according to the msm, he is so hot.
Remember they had to have someone move in the plane because he had jeans on and was on the phone with his legs open and someone was in the way of their view. Tell me they are not in the tank for him.
Name all the former friends he had that he had to throw under the bus and tell me he has any kind of judgement at all
OK, I know I’m in for a lashing from you. But I’m a big girl. Go ahead bring it on.
Kurt Schulzke 10.06.08 at 11:04 pm
Doran/Josh/whoever –
If you have documentary or video evidence to substantiate your claims against McCain or Palin, please share it. What I’ve claimed here, I’ve backed up with evidence. And when I’ve felt McCain or Palin deserved criticism, I’ve delivered it.
Hitler was a totalitarian “community organizer” (doesn’t really matter whether you label him a “communist” or “fascist”. They inflict the same brutality on their opponents.
Hitler was a virulent anti-semite. Obama is either personally an anti-Semite or has deliberately associated himself with them since before he attended Harvard. You could hardly be anything but after sitting through Jeremiah Wright’s sermons for 20 years AFTER having getting into Harvard with the help of Khalid al-Mansour. We can skip “virulent” for the moment but may come back to it.
Hitler rose to power against the backdrop of an economic collapse, promising “change,” on the backs of fanatical supporters who worshiped him as an “alpha and omega” character and scape-goated Jewish bankers for the economy.
The parallels between Hitler and Obama are striking. That you claim not to see them suggests that you are blinded by some kind of anti-Republican animus. Perhaps it is a function of Texas politics. Don’t know. But it’s a mystery how anyone who feigns libertarian sympathies could support an Obama for president. It doesn’t compute.
Cosmo 10.06.08 at 11:13 pm
“So where is your outrage about what has been going on at McCain and Palin rallies.”
Um. What McCain/Palin rally have you attended, Doran? Palin was getting the audience to yell out “kill him”? Do you have a video of her doing that? MSM would be all over that!
I attended a McCain/Palin rally. I put my son in a shirt that had the words, “Hitler Was A” “Community Leader”. A swastika was positioned beneath the first line and above the second line.
The McCain campaign told us that the shirt was confrontational, and they brought my son a campaign shirt for a congressional candidate to cover it up.
And, you’re telling us they are encouraging mob like, anti-Obama behavior at their events?
Toes 10.06.08 at 11:21 pm
If it is true that this video was produced at a charter school, there is indeed a problem. Charter schools are funded by federal and local tax dollars. Developing a drill team routine in support of a particular political candidate, even if it is an extra-curricular activity, is not appropriate. I don’t care who the candidate is.
The chanting does evoke a cult-like image.
That aside, and if I heard it correctly, the fourth student chants “Obama’s health care plan will provide subsidies for parents who cannot afford Medicaid.”
Hmm. Seem to me Medicaid is a FREE program for FREE medical care for children, with a TINY copay ($2 or $4 per visit) for adults. (And if the patient doesn’t have the copay, treatment is rendered anyway.) Counties and cities provide free transportation for medical care if necessary. The only way I can figure out how to subsidize that even further would be to pay the patient the minimum wage for the hours they spend in the waiting room.
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 12:12 am
I don’t think it matters whether it’s a charter school or a “normal” public school in terms of the use of the public money. But the key issue isn’t the money. It’s the brainwashing and manipulation of these kids for political ends in a way that creates a cult of personality around Barack Obama.
The guy already has megalomaniacal tendencies. And with his history of supporting Raila Odinga’s onslaught in Kenya . . .
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 7:28 am
Cayuga, I appreciate your desire to be lashed, but you will have to get it from someone else, today.
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 7:34 am
If you who want to see the videos will go to http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com and find the entry I posted here, there are links to the McCain video and a link to a transcript [and maybe the actual video] of the Palin speech. “Terrorist” and “kill him” were uttered. Sure, McCain and Palin don’t support that and have nothing to do with whomever said it. Give Obama the same presumption when it comes to this really pathetic video that all of you are in a twit about.
Kurt, you have said previously that Obama is the most poorly “vetted” Presidential candidate in American history. Keep in mind that in America, the “vetting” is done through the process of the various political parties. We don’t have some super-secret governmental agency to “vet” candidates, such as those which may exist in Russia and some of the Eastern European and Mid-east nations. People like you do the vetting when they vote and when they make donations to the politician of their choice.
They make mistakes, of course. The “vetting” of George Bush sure turned out to be a farce.
Regina 10.07.08 at 8:28 am
When I watched this video I saw a group of African American kids who had taken the time to think through what they wanted to do. Write the script, learn their lines, practice their routine, actually film and edit it, and get it up on YouTube.
They thought about what the subject should be. What would be an effective way to deliver their message. It was impressive in a very positive way.
Using a military type format is something that is done all of the time, for all sorts of reasons, by all sorts of people. It is no more reminiscent of the “Hitler Youth” than seeing a group of lilly white boy scouts dressed similarly, marching and shouting cadence, on their route to to earn a badge for cleaning up the side of some highway.
This was a group of kids attributing good choices in their lives to inspiration from a public figure who, for once, looks like they do. I guess that’s scary as hell for folks comfortable with this country being ruled by old white men that are completely, totally, disconnected from the realities of youth in America, today.
Slippery, Sneaky, Wink-Wink Sarah and her folksy-fake, ‘I’m just like you’, crappola, is far scarier than a group of urban youth making a video about positive aspirations that supports the candidate of their choice…..
I’m amongst the ‘older than dirt’ crowd, and I feel more energized and rejuvenated by this campaign than I have felt about politics in a very, very long time….
I am ecstatic that we finally have the courage to put a candidate on a major party ticket that really is one of ‘the people’. Someone who does not come from the ‘entitled class’. Someone who has gotten where he has gotten for a number of reasons, not the least of which is plain old being really smart!
And, to the poster who talked about the cost of medicaid;
It varies from state to state how medicaid is used. There are states where there is a ’spend down’, and the co-pay can be substantial for folks….
There are states where access to medicaid is limited to the very, very poor and it is free….
and most states have several ways for a number of different populations to recieve some, or full benefits, with varying co-pays…..
Further, for a very,very poor family, even a few dollars co-pay can be cost prohibitive. I know people who go without needed prescriptions because they do not have the extra dollar co-pay that our state charges medicaid recipients….
The average person in middle America has absolutely no idea what real poverty in America is. It is not about not having “extra”. It is not about living in a smaller house. It is about not having anything. It is about not having any house. It is about not having hope.
John McCain and Slippery Sarah do not inspire HOPE for anyone but white America, people who have never not had hope, anyway…..
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 8:59 am
Regina, I think you left Bill Clinton out of the class of “Someone who does not come from the ‘entitled class’. Someone who has gotten where he has gotten for a number of reasons, not the least of which is plain old being really smart!”
Cayuga 10.07.08 at 9:04 am
Doran, that is what the press is usually used for. They sure want to vet Sarah. Not slippery as regina has stated. The msm have grundles of attorneys up in Alaska trying to get all the dirt on her. Where have they been on obama? Hiding behind him.
However, if you haven’t seen CNN on this ayres thing, you should avail yourself of it.
Regina have you been in Chicago? Have you seen the part of the city where obama was the “community organizer”? Has anything changed when he was there? I’d like to see a report. Let’s see all the poor people that he lifted out of poverty.
I understand that the same people promoting obama, promoted “the screamer” - old dnc head himself. But they failed.
It’s funny I don’t see obama and his wife with all their money (but it’s hard for them to pay off their student loans) actually adopting a black child to give them a better life. Unlike the McCains who took two babies from horrible conditions and adopted one and their good friend adopted the other and raised them directly out of poverty.
But then that would punish them with another child.
Cayuga 10.07.08 at 9:06 am
But then that would punish the obama’s with another child.
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 9:33 am
Cayuga, community organizers don’t lift people out of poverty. What they try to do is educate people, organize people, and encourage people to lift themselves out of poverty.
THIS JUST IN: Ralph Stanley is an Obama Dupe.
Cayuga 10.07.08 at 9:53 am
OK, Doran give me the results of the “community organizer’s” efforts.
Tell me how the schools improved? Give me the rates of graduation? Give me the rates of drop outs, both before he became a “community organizer” and after all of the money that was spent on improving the schools?
Regina 10.07.08 at 10:07 am
Cayuga…
Hmmmm…..High above Cayuga’s waters…….’tis a familiar refrain….*smile*
There are those that claim ‘Cayuga’s waters’ infuse the drinker with a hefty dose of reasoned thinking….must be an urban legend…..
Matter of fact, I have been to many impovershed areas of Chicago, and other major urban areas….worked in several of them…including the Lower Eastside of NYC….Ya know what? The Lower Eastside looks the same today as it did almost twenty years ago when I worked there…I ran a drop-out prevention program for ‘at risk’ youth. In the big picture, I didn’t even leave a smudge, much less a footprint. But you can bet I contributed to positive change in some individual lives….and I can look in the mirror and like what I see….
For those of us who believe that our actions speak for themselves, I am content that I have done the best that I can, given when I was able, never taken more than I needed, and kept my personal moral compass right up front…..
My contributions have been based on my skills and abilities and personal resources. We are each individuals, each with unique abilities and ways of giving. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have consistently given. That is unquestionable.
They are both bright, caring, American leaders.
They have both made mistakes. Some very serious ones. Neither are perfect. We are all imperfect. Neither one of them are the exception.
Both are good men of strong conscience. Both love our country. Both have done good.
I have no doubt about that. I think that both are better than most that are our ‘leaders’, today.
And I think they are both part and parcel of large political machines. You simply do not get to be a candidate for President of the United States otherwise. Both of them have a trail of bloodshed behind them. McCain more so, simply because he is older and has been in the game longer.
I was born and raised in the political machine. My mother was the architect in the dismatling of Carmine DiSapio and the old Tammany Hall machine….I know only too well what party politics look like…..I am also a realist. The politics exist. Period. On both sides.
Given that, I ascribe to the policies of the Obama camp far more closely than I do the McCain camp…McCain really is very close to Bush in his ideals and policies. For crying out loud, the faces change quickly, not the belief systems…Bush was run by the Republicans, McCain is being run by the same machine. Why do you think he turned into such a pandering whore to the far right?
Sarah, on the other hand, is a naive little girl…she is no more ready to play ball with the big folks than my 22 yr.old son. And, she is a sneaky, cut-throat type….she isn’t cute. She is embarrassing to women who think. When a person’s major self identifying aspect is ‘hockey-mom’, or ‘little league coach’, they are not ready for a leadershp role on the national and international stage. When someone is naive enough to think that “golly gee whilakers’ is an acceptable way to speak when vying for a position of national and international leadership then they are clearly not ready.
Barack Obama is a bright, capable, charismatic, inspiring young man….and he is bright enough to realize he isn’t so bright that he doesn’t need to surrond himself with experienced, capable advisors. And equally important, he comes out of a normal life. A life without priveledge. A life where one had to earn, sometimes by the seat of his pants, often by following the prescribed rules of the game, where one got….nothing was given to him.
Neither he nor Joe Biden are wealthy. Both of them are also not poor. And they both quickly admit that. Both of them can be scrappy street fighters when need be. Probably Joe Biden more so than Barack Obama…Barack is far more cerebral than the average person….but Joe grew up in working class neighborhoods….and he knows the rules of the game…Sarah is clueless.
If I was super competetive, and wanted to run a knockdown, drag ‘em out, cookie sale, Sarah’s my gal…. Vice President of the United States, under a president who is 72 years old, has a history of melanomas, and unknown long term effects of years of deprivation and torture…nah…I don’t think so…..I want a person who knows how to think when they get the 3 A.M. call….
And I really, really like the fact that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been able to ignite a fire in young people. Not just whip them into a one time frenzy…but get them excited in a real, fundamentally invested way….because of this election, many of them will be voters for life…will pay attention and not feel disenfranchised from a piece of the American dream….
Persons of color and women can finally believe that the American dream can be real in their lives and not just the white boys of means and connections…..
And you mud slingers can, for once, feel a little fear…and know that finally, you too may have to earn the dream…it isn’t going to be handed to you as an entitlement, anymore!!!!!!!!
Regina 10.07.08 at 10:16 am
Oh, by the way….
The point of Barack Obama being a community organizer is not that he alone made any monumental changes in the specific area he worked…
The point is, he was a really, really bright young man who could have chosen all sorts of jobs that would have put him on the path of secure ‘Yuppiedom” very early in his career…but he CHOSE to take a job in the trenches, working for pennies, getting his hands dirty and going without…going without even the basics of middle-class living…meeting people, suffering alongside them, feeling their pains and tribulations…sharing their kitchen table talks…helping them carve slightly different paths than theymayotherwise would have…
He was gaining real life experience with real life folks…
And, when he came out of law school, he was at the top of the world…he came out the top dog from the top school…he could have writtten any ticket he wanted….
Not even John McCain…or almost anyone else, ever has that position…
He was smart, he was top of his class, he was African American….there isn’t a law firm or fortune five hundred company in existance that wouldn’t have snapped him up in a heartbeat…
He CHOSE a route to public service….and comparatively little money…..says a lot about this young man and who he is….and how much he cares about the average person…..
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 10:25 am
Well said, Regina; very well said.
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 10:26 am
Regina –
Get grip. Obama got into Harvard on the basis of his connections to big Saudi money men. He significantly more privileged on that score than 99.9% of law school entrants. He was no where near the top of his class at Harvard. And he wasn’t hired by any big firms because he wasn’t smart enough. As editor of the Harvard Law Review — a position that he apparently got through affirmative action — he never wrote a single article. Unheard of.
The guy is not that bright. He’s a talker and an agitator. If he wins, he’ll be used by his handlers for their purposes. And we’ll be used with him.
Regina 10.07.08 at 10:33 am
Kurt, your last post is ridiculous. I won’t even bother arguing it. Suffice it to say, I happen to have been with a top NYC firm that tried to recruit Obama both as a second year clerk, and when he graduated. I KNOW what the offer was. I know he wouldn’t even come in for an interview.
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 10:36 am
Proof, Kurt? Documents? Letters from the Law Review? Turn down letters from law firms? Something?
I think I know how you will answer this one. See above.
Regina 10.07.08 at 10:40 am
here’s a ‘cut & paste’ from the University of Chicago’s site regarding Obama…I believe someone, on another of your threads, posted that all Obama did was be a lecturer…in a demeaning way…and you have, basically, said he is none to bright…so I guess U of Chicago Law is a schleppy law school?
Anyway…here’s their statement…verbatim;
“The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as “Senior Lecturer.”
From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.”
Regina 10.07.08 at 10:53 am
And I guess the Saudis bought his magna cum laude status when he graduated from Harvard? Bought all the grades that kept his cum in the cum laude range?
And being elected president of the Law Review is not predicated on submitted writings? Or did they suspend that rule for Saudi money, that Barack brought in?
Geez….just to think, I could have bedded a couple of rich Saudis and gone to Harvard….but I do like that good ole refrain…”High above Cayugas waters sit the towers of….”
Regina 10.07.08 at 12:46 pm
Doran-
I followed your link but had a hard time navigating the page. I have no idea where to go to find your post.Please, either post it here or send me a quick email with it..
thanks
R
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 1:30 pm
Regina –
You wrote:
“I happen to have been with a top NYC firm that tried to recruit Obama both as a second year clerk, and when he graduated. I KNOW what the offer was. I know he wouldn’t even come in for an interview.”
Anyone can write something like this. But until you can produce more evidence than the bare assertion, there’s no reason for anyone to believe what you’ve written.
And if what you’ve written is true, we could begin asking precisely WHY your firm recruited Obama. But we won’t bother with the whys until we know that it, in fact, happened.
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 1:44 pm
Regina –
You wrote:
“Barack Obama is a bright, capable, charismatic, inspiring young man….and he is bright enough to realize he isn’t so bright that he doesn’t need to surround himself with experienced, capable advisors.”
Maybe. But if so, how do you explain Obama’s choice of Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, Franklin Raines, and William Ayers?
Are these the “experienced, capable advisors” that a bright young man with his heart in the right place would choose to follow?
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 2:02 pm
Follow? Follow?
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 2:04 pm
But “heart in the right place” means different things to different people, doesn’t it? And Regina, who is so taken by Mr. Obama, apparently subscribes to the militancy of Jeremiah Wright:
“And you . . . can, for once, feel a little fear…and know that finally, you too may have to earn the dream…it isn’t going to be handed to you as an entitlement, anymore!!!!!!!!”
Here, again, is stereotyping. What do you know, Regina, about how any commenter or poster on this blog lives or earned his/her position in society? You don’t except that most of us have been harmed one way or another by racial profiling and set-asides that run only in one direction.
And yet you are willing to attempt (vainly, I might add) to inflict “fear” just because some happen to believe differently than you.
Telling, isn’t it, that you think that we should “fear”? Fear what, Regina? What do you know about Mr. Obama that he is hiding from the rest of America?
If your story is true — about being on the inside of a big law firm’s offer to Obama — you know an awful lot. And you think we should fear. That says a lot, Regina. Thanks for the heads up.
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 2:08 pm
Regina, and others. Click on that link in my post at No. 23 above. It should take you to Talking Points Memo. Then just keep on scrollin down and enjoy. The articles I mentioned are toward the bottom, but referenced in the first two or three posts at the site.
Regina 10.07.08 at 2:38 pm
Kurt,
Anyone can play with words…and spin them to their own needs…as you did mine…
I am most certainly not going to disclose on an open forum the name of the firm I was with. You can either believe me, or not…makes zero difference to me.
As an aside, I was dealing with a very, very bright person in the PD’s office in the Bronx for several years. Got along famously…went to lunch, several times, both ended up on a couple of mayoral commissions together….she brought me hand-me-downs from her son, for my son…they were a year apart in age…so it worked out well…we were friendly…casual friends/business colleagues…
Long story longer…
I found out recently, twenty years after my association with her that she had also been part of the weather underground…had done time in a NY State prison, etc…I always wondered why she was never in court…but it was only when I found out about her past that I realized she couldn’t be admitted….
If I was running for office, I guess I’d be screwed…
From now on, everyone who was ever part of anything remotely nefarious should be required to wear an open identification badge…that way it’s all really clear….
Now…as to Jeremiah Wright…well, that’s one I think Obama blew it on…
He should have told everyone to ’stick it’ if they didn’t get it…
When that Catholic priest did his ‘routine’ in Wright’s church, I was in stitches…
Wright isn’t radical, or militant, or anti-American, or anything else…he speaks black english to a black congregation in a language that is universally understood in every black american home in this country…and universally misunderstood in just about every white home in America….
And I don’t expect you to “get it”….you are way, way too white….there are a few white folks who ‘get it’…that priest was one….
I think I’m one, most of the time…..
But then there are those who tell me I’m not ‘white’, I’m pigment challenged….
Understanding black America and all of the nuances and language differences is no different than understanding the cultural differences with the FLDS….and most folks just don’t know how, or bother to learn….
So, for now, Barack Obama had to trade his relationship with someone he valued, for the greater good…and I found that very, very sad that we have not come far enough to make it possible for that not to happen…..
On the other hand, I think I do understand what an enormously difficult decision that had to have been for Obama, and I admire him all the more for his ability to truly put ‘Country First’….
And, let me take this opportunity to reiterate what I said earlier…
I think it’s about time that middle class, white, Americans realize that positions of power are no longer an exclusive entitlement for old, white, men!
and Doran, I think of Bill Clinton as the ‘bridge’…the transition personality…he’s pigment challenged, too……
Pliggy 10.07.08 at 3:14 pm
What if you don’t like any of them? Yet I think Regina is kinda jealous of Palin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNvnLFgH5BU
At 6:46 “Welcome President Bush”
“Do some warfare over him”
Regina 10.07.08 at 3:38 pm
Pliggy,
that has to be about the scariest video clip I have ever seen….
Abby 10.07.08 at 3:39 pm
I’m not voting for either candidate, it’s a crying shame this nation didn’t have decent candidates running this year.
It’s the same ole washington politics! as usual!
Obama knows not one iota more about forgein policy than Sarah Palin.
Mc Cain is running on his “prisoner of war” experience.
Whoever wins this election, republican or democrat, it will be the same politics , it’s always been.
Lobbyists will get thier two cents in on every bill passed, and never beleive all the BIG donaters haven’t been made promises, for their little special earmarks.
Government as usual!! By the way, Obama , McCain can make all the promises in the world in speeches, but Presidents don’t vote on bills to be passed, Congres does that.
Pliggy 10.07.08 at 3:51 pm
Wow, now I HAVE to vote for one of them. (j/k)
Regina, does it “scare” you more than the one Kurt put up? Neither one of them scare me. They are two versions of the same thing.
mdallinm 10.07.08 at 4:24 pm
24. “When I watched this video I saw a group of African American kids who had taken the time to think through what they wanted to do. ”
I saw drones who didn’t even know the meaning of what they had memorized to recite. Is was sort of like ABBA singing in English, only not as enjoyable.
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 4:48 pm
Regina –
If it were just Jeremiah Wright or just Franklin Raines (I notice you sorta skipped right past him) or just Raila Odinga or just Bernadine Dohrn (who went wild with delight over the Manson murders — “first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!”) or just Tony Rezko then we might just write it off as youthful indiscretion. But when it’s all of them in a deliberate pattern of association, we would be fools to pretend the pattern doesn’t mean something important.
Your virulent racism — whatever the color of your skin — is bleeding through. Was Clarence Thomas black enough for you? Or is he another “old white male”?
And to how many “old white males” who did most of the fighting in the Revolutionary War, all of the negotiating, wrote the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and who have defended it since do you think Barack Obama owes his opportunity to waltz into the most powerful office in the world with vastly inferior qualifications — both personally and professionally — than Clarence Thomas or Herman Cain?
I don’t know what happened to you in NY to make you so bitter against people on this blog who have done you no wrong, but it’s emblematic of a large bloc of Obama supporters. Why should skin color or age or sex have anything to do with your presidential vote? Isn’t it racism and sexism what you are all enraged about? Don’t you feel some sense of hypocrisy for your commentary?
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 5:05 pm
Pliggy –
I think “your” video — purporting to show the “Christians” welcoming and “blessing” Pres Bush — is equally sinister to that of the drill routine for Obama in Kansas City. But there are two significant differences:
1. President Bush is not running for President this year; Obama is. No, John McCain is not just another President Bush, not by a considerable margin; and
2. the Christian video did show at least one black. There were no whites in the KC video.
But — assuming that the video is bona fide (and I think it probably is) — it demonstrates a distressing social pathology among so-called “Christian” fundamentalists. I would not describe this group as especially politically conservative, but some might.
mdallinm 10.07.08 at 5:05 pm
45. Both video clips frighten me. But, I think raising up a brain washed militia that worships Obama is more frightening than brain washing kids to worship Jesus and break cups. (At least they are worshiping the right being, if a bit confused about their manner of worship.) It was a bit like watching Jack break the clocks in hook.
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 5:08 pm
Regina, your quote from UCLS just supports the claim that Obama did nothing more than lecture.
And, what’s up with being Editor of the Harvard Law Review and never publishing? Why would a “bright” young man do that?
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 5:36 pm
Doran, I tried your link in #23, and I didn’t find the smoking gun you indicated would be there. I did, however, find this by following the “down and dirty” link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0jTKDv5kLQ
But it doesn’t look all that radical to me.
In #23 you said, “Sure, McCain and Palin don’t support that and have nothing to do with whomever said it.”
In #16 you said, “getting members of the crowd to yell out “kill him”…
Which is it? Are you accusing Palin of encouraging people to yell “kill him”? If so, I’m still looking for the evidence of that.
As for vetting candidates, that is not the role of voters. Once the “unbiased” media has properly vetted the candidates, voters cast their votes based on the information that came forth during the campaign. Why is the “unbiased” media so determined to vet Palin, but ignoring the countless skeletons in Obama’s closet?
Regina 10.07.08 at 5:38 pm
Kurt…
I’m an 11th generation American on one side and 13th on yet another…
I have at a minimum four patriots in my background that qualify me for membership in the DAR….I have had family in every war since the Revolution, including a son who just seperated from the Airforce after eight years of service……
I could curl your toes if I were to begin reciting the various ‘characters’ I have had the necessity to associate with over time….
Doesn’t change who I am. Doesn’t reflect on anything except how broad and diverse my experiential base is that I bring with me, wherever I go….
And all of your old white males of days gone by are now quite dead…and a new era has been heralded and it’s no longer a nice, neat melting pot…we’re in a sald bowl, baby…or haven’t you heard…and it’s time for our leadership to reflect who we are…not who some of us pine for….
and, by the by…I do find it heartening that the travesty visited on the FLDS has brought together such a diverse group…I’ve often said it is the silver lining…that so many of us can come together and perhaps all do a little shifting and learning….
and yes, you are terribly white…but you’re also young….you can change….*smile*
oh…oops…yup…forgot…Clarence Thomas is way, way white….he dreams in white….he’s pigment impaired….black is a second language for him…..and you know how those BSL folks are….*bigger smile*
Cayuga 10.07.08 at 5:53 pm
Cosmo, we all know why.
And yes, I like Sarah. It’s refreshing to see someone who doesn’t cow tow to the msm and your political machine.
Does anyone mention obama’s feigned accent? No. He doesn’t talk like anyone I know.
I appreciate your service Regina, but did you have millions to dole out to improve things?
Have you seen one, one, one person that obama worked with on a personal level and helped?
Sorry, I can’t read all of your blog, I have too many things to do.
But I get the point of your blog. I am really, really afraid for this country if your man gets in. He has no character, he has positioned himself with all these anti Americans so that he could be part of the illinois machine. Now he has to account for his associations and he doesn’t want to. I don’t care of ayres blew up buildings 100 years ago, I would never associate with him.
Good bye have to go to a class.
Pliggy 10.07.08 at 5:54 pm
Regina, despite your political leanings, and welfareist view of government, I find your posts here very entertaining.
Kurt, there will be a new “Camp” next year, will it be for blessing Obama? And I didn’t realize that it was a race issue.
Politics sure brings out the vitriol, doesn’t it?
In the debate between McCane and BO, the war hero said he would take out his pen and veto all the “earmark” spending. And then he votes FOR the bailout with TONS of it? Sorry, I don’t believe what he says, I believe what he does, and has done. His “maverick” is “globalist” to me.
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 5:54 pm
“it’s time for our leadership to reflect who we are…not who some of us pine for….”
All the more reason Obama is a bad choice!
Regina 10.07.08 at 5:57 pm
Doran….The George Bush vetting wasn’t a farce….he was every bit as stupid then as he is today….and we knew it…we knew all about his crap with the National Guard…all about his drinking and drugging…and what a piss poor student he was…and we knew his wife was no Rhodes Scholar, either…
It was all out there for public consumption….and folks voted for him anyway…’cept, of course it was Clarence Thomas and his buds that actually put him in office…..
But I must say, the RNC didn’t do an exactly bang-up job with Slick Sarah….
Guess with her choosing to ignore McCain saying Wright was ‘off limits’, her pastor is fair game, too….like his ugly, hate filled comments about the “jew bankers”…..ah….the fun is just beginning…..and Slick Sarah with her forked tongue talking about Israel like she’s planning her next family vacation to the Western Wall….
Randi Rhodes will be busy for a long, long time….and I do love listening to Randi……hehehehe
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 5:59 pm
“In the debate between McCane and BO, the war hero said he would take out his pen and veto all the “earmark” spending. And then he votes FOR the bailout with TONS of it? Sorry, I don’t believe what he says, I believe what he does, and has done. His “maverick” is “globalist” to me.”
Pliggy, I, and most Republicans (including, I suspect, Sarah), agree with you on this. But, our only other realistic choice is for a guy who fraternizes with known terrorists, has a pastor who wants God to damm America, and has a wife who has never been proud of America in her adult life…except for when they vote for her husband. To vote for anyone other than McCain, or to not vote as all, is to vote for the guy who fraternizes with terrorists.
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 6:00 pm
Pliggy –
I’m not denying my disagreement over McCain’s (and Obama’s) vote for the bank sellout. But that hardly hold a candle to Obama’s naivete, irresponsibility and lack of judgment in picking pals and advisors.
His support of abortion — even partial birth abortion and requiring doctors to stand by while living, aborted babies die on the shelf — is revolting. Hard to imagine how you, of all people, could be OK with that kind of mindset in the Oval Office.
Regina 10.07.08 at 6:15 pm
Ayers was protesting an immoral war. Not unlike the one we’re embroiled in now, by the by…
And Ayers and the weather underground were not the only violent protestors…just look to the streets durring the CHicago Convention…or look at what the National Guard did at Kent State…
or look at the SDS or the early African American Society…look at Carmichael and Lewis and the Cornell debacle….look at the building takeovers at Berkley….
Ayers was one amongst many…and Ayers and others, albeit using sometimes despicable methods, did help bring this country, and Richard Nixon to our senses….
And Wright was using all sorts of emotion to get people thinking……we have got to change how we behave in the world…we are ‘the ugly american’…and as wrong as 9/11 was, in so many ways, over so many years, we bullied and blustered and disrespected people and pushed our ways on people and leveraged things we had no business leveraging, like medicines, and food and water….that we should have known that sooner or later, someone was going to come at us…..we allowed our government, over a long, long period, destroy our image and our international greatness, and in so doing put every single one of us at risk for attack by lunatics…..
Obama supports the woman’s right to choose…make choices about her body….
He does not support partial birth abortion…he just refused to vote for a formal ban because of all the tack ons…and a rewrite never came up….not in his tenure…that is not the same as support…
And…he supports putting in place an enormous effort at education and stopping unwanted pregnancies BEFORE they happen….
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 6:18 pm
Regina said “I am ecstatic that we finally have the courage to put a candidate on a major party ticket that really is one of ‘the people’. Someone who does not come from the ‘entitled class’.”
We are talking about the same Obama, right? The guy who went to private school as a child? The guy who went to Harvard? In my world, those who can attend private school and Harvard are among the elite.
Obama and his supporters like to try to make him sound like one of the middle class. He’s never been one of us, and he doesn’t relate to us.
He didn’t fend his way up out of poverty; he’s been one of the elite since childhood. He was hand picked and promoted by his puppeteers.
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 6:40 pm
Ok, I’ve had it with the Obama associates with terrorists and McCain is a pure, great American Hero crap. Time to introduce you guys to McCain’s association with a friend who urged American soldiers in Nam to desert, and to McCain’s association with a Nazi group. Start here: http://phoenixwoman.wordpress.com/. When you finish, look around at some of the non-doctrinaire sites about McCain for info about his “confession” while a POW, the way he treated his first wife, his being the very last in his class at military academy, and the fact that his health care has been provided to him by the US Government from the instant of his conception. And he wants the rest of us to pay through the ying-yang for ours.
mdallinm 10.07.08 at 6:40 pm
“Obama supports the woman’s right to choose…make choices about her body….”
To heck with the baby’s choice about his/her own body! Right?
Afterall, he wouldn’t want his daughters to be “punished” with a baby!
It’s beneath his pay grade to offer a straight forward answer about when he believe life begins. Later he claims that he wouldn’t presume to answer a question for deity, but he doesn’t hesitate to error on the side of murder to allow late-term and partial birth abortions…in addition to refusing to protect the lives of those children born alive after an attempted abortion.
Kurt Schulzke 10.07.08 at 6:40 pm
Regina’s racist and sexist rhetoric, together with her gloating-in-advance over the “fear” that she wants “old white males” to feel because of Obama’s current ascendancy raises questions about her politics and character.
This sentence is revealing:
“I am ecstatic that we finally have the courage to put a candidate on a major party ticket that really is one of ‘the people’. Someone who does not come from the ‘entitled class’.”
She’s an unrepentant stereotyper who, for some unexplained reason, hates white men. Beyond that, her use of the “class” rhetoric evokes marxist class-warfare ideology.
Why does she hate white men? And what is this nonsense about “entitled class”?
Pliggy 10.07.08 at 6:43 pm
I know that using the extreme always sounds better, but I won’t bite.
I don’t “support” BO in the slightest bit, and even though many people like you say that if I don’t vote McCane than BO will win, that it is not true.
As I have stated before, my vote does not count in the Presidential election unless I am in a “swing” state. I am in Arizona which McCane will win hands down, and neither candidate even cares to campaign here because it is already a given.
But that will not stop me from telling it like it is, and voting exactly how I desire. I WILL NOT vote “lesser of two evils”, it goes against my conscience, and makes the “lesser” think that I am one who SUPPORTS his policies. If the country has to suffer with a spend us into oblivion war mongering Liberal in office, I would rather his name have a D next to it, than a R. (aka BUSH)
If McCane was “really” against abortion, he would not have considered a anti-life running mate for so long. The abortion issue is irrellevant, because even the so-called conservatives haven’t supported HR300
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 6:51 pm
Doran, when you find a more reliable source (more reliable than a femi-nazi’s blog) let us know!
mdallinm 10.07.08 at 6:59 pm
Pliggy, I do agree with you. If you are in a state that is in the bag for one candidate or the other, you have the freedom to vote for anyone on the ballot or write in a name. I happen to be in a battleground state, so I don’t have that flexibility. In my state, a vote for anyone other than McCain is a vote for Obama, which I can not allow myself to do.
While McCain may not be a solid pro-life candidate, he certainly beats Obama, who is anti-life. (Playing their “anti-choice” game.) For me, protection of unborn children is the highest priorty, highter than our economy.
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 7:01 pm
“And Wright was using all sorts of emotion to get people thinking……we have got to change how we behave in the world…we are ‘the ugly american’…and as wrong as 9/11 was, in so many ways, over so many years, we bullied and blustered and disrespected people and pushed our ways on people and leveraged things we had no business leveraging, like medicines, and food and water….that we should have known that sooner or later, someone was going to come at us…..we allowed our government, over a long, long period, destroy our image and our international greatness, and in so doing put every single one of us at risk for attack by lunatics…..”
Regina, are you Wright’s official translator?
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 7:03 pm
Regina: “In the big picture, I didn’t even leave a smudge, much less a footprint.”
Sounds like you and Obama have lots in common!
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 7:05 pm
Great ploy Cosma. You don’t like the message, so you attack the messenger. Not at all creative, very old fashioned. But it works for you. So, ignore McCain’s past if it pleases you.
Kurt, I aman old white male, and I don’t feel at all hated or threatened by Regina or by Barack Obama. Have you paid close attention to those aspects of your own character which make you apparently feel so threatened and fearful?
I know what she means by the entitled class. She means George Bush. She means John McCain. She means one or more of the Rockefeller clan, maybe one or more of the Kennedy clan. She may mean Steve Forbes, Jeb Bush, “Bloody Bill” Kristol, and that punky little pant-load who has had a blog and a writing job handed to him by his mother’s associates. She may mean one or more Democrats who have also had privilege, wealth, and access handed to them. I suspect she does not mean Bill Clinton, or Bill Richardson, or Joe Biden, or Jim Webb, the junior Senator from Virginia. I suspect she does not include your father, mine or Gov. Palin’s father.
Jayde 10.07.08 at 7:07 pm
Joe Biden…Speaking of old white men…
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 7:11 pm
Sorry Doran. I took the time to go in there and look. But, there is nothing legitimate about it. Fine. Even if it is on a femi-nazi’s site…as long as it offers legitimate references, I’ll accept it as a secondary source. How ’bout some primary sources though? There are lots of primary sources to witness Obama’s connections to terrorists.
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 7:14 pm
So, she means White Elite? The issue isn’t with being elite, as Obama is, it is with being elite and WHITE.
Regina 10.07.08 at 7:15 pm
Ohmylord! Almost every American child living in an under developed nation goes to private school. When Obama was very small he went to a rather plebian ‘private school’. He went to one the locals used as well as some of the poorer ‘foreigners’.
When he was in Hawaii I believe he went to public high school….and he went to college on small scholarships and student loans and all the other creative packaging every child without a rich dad does….
He left Harvard with thousands in loans…that’s not a free ride….
Good Lord! I had a more elitist education than he did…and I am small town America, through and through….I went to private day schools, high school boarding school, “public” undergrad…and Ivy League grad school…..and I had a rich old white grandfather…who, by the by, made his money running whiskey for Joe Kennedy, to pay for it all…..and I’m about as down to earth as one can get….
I have a pedigree that is as American as one can get…
I work…I parent…I avoid cleaning my house…I garden…I pay my bills….and I enjoy “white priveledge”…not a one of y’all would recognize me for the screaming liberal you think I am if you saw me at the mall…although I am loathe to go to malls so you probably wouldn’t see me there….
Tell me, what does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China?????
Obama was raised by his grandparents for the better part of his formative years..he lived in their home, followed their rules, ate their food, yup…raised by them…white, middle class, working for a living, average folks…from the heartland…with heartland values….and no money….his mother collected food stamps tomake ends meet…not exactly living the life of Riley…..
I am not sexist, nor racist…nor any of the other ‘ists’…and I don’t hate old white men…or young white men…or any group based on their color…I have sons of every hue there is…..and grandchildren who pick up a few of the subtle differences their fathers missed….
And Kurt, my Marxist days are about forty odd years gone by….Remember, I am of your parent’s generation…so much for me is “been there, done that…”
Perhaps my use of the word ‘fear’ was a poor selection…clearly you have twisted it beyond recognition of the context used…
I am just ecstatic that the ’status quo’ is finally toppling…
That it is clearly, and forever, no longer a foregone conclusion that the candidates will be old white men……
As for Doran’s post…I too am sick of the bashing of Obama as though he is some arch villian and McCain is somehow free of sin…original or otherwise…
There isn’t a person walking who reaches where these two are that don’t have a blood trail behind them….both of them are, afterall, politicians!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sneaky Sarah just seems to have a messier, bloodier trail behind her than most neophytes…..says a great deal about her character….yes indeedy…you betcha it does….
And on that note, I am going to go eat some supper….very plain fare, by the way…have a glass of very cheap, but raher good Australian wine with it, and settle in to watch John McCain be decimated…..ttfn
mdallinm 10.07.08 at 7:19 pm
Regina: “Slick Sarah with her forked tongue talking about Israel like she’s planning her next family vacation to the Western Wall….”
Would there be a problem with that? Lots of Christians do take family vacations to Israel. Lots of Christians do have a love for Israel. My parents and a brother have been. I’d love to go.
Regina 10.07.08 at 7:23 pm
Can’t leave without a ‘wave’ to Doran….*waving*….I’m the old white woman…yoohoo…over here…see me???….the one with the big old light up flamingo on the porch….***hiya***
Have a lovely evening, gentlemen, and ladies…iffen you’re represented here….
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 7:27 pm
Hawaii is an underdeveloped nation?
Cosmo 10.07.08 at 7:31 pm
Punahou School, once known as Oahu College, is a private, co-educational, nonsectarian college preparatory school located in Honolulu in the U.S. State of Hawaii. With about 3,700 students attending the school, in kindergarten through the twelfth grade, it is the largest independent school in the United States.[1] In 2006, Punahou School was ranked as the “greenest” school in America.[2]The student body is diverse, with student selection based on both academic and non-academic considerations.[3] In 2008, its sports program is ranked by Sports Illustrated as the best in the country out of 38,000 high schools.[4]
Along with academics and athletics, Punahou also offers visual and performing arts programs. Students have access to a jewelry studio, a pottery studio, a photography darkroom, and glass-blowing facilities. The Punahou marching band goes on a trip once every four years, and most recently they participated in the 2007 Rose Bowl Parade. The student yearbook, The Oahuan, has won national awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association[citation needed] and the American Scholastic Press Association[5], including the first Columbia Gold to be awarded in the State for the 2002 Oahuan[citation needed].
Tuition is $16,675 for the 2008-2009 school year[6][7], not including optional and mandatory fees. Tuition charges do not cover the entire cost of the education of a student, and this “deficit” is met by the school’s endowment.[8]
The 115801 Punahou is an asteroid named in the school’s honor.[9]
Jayde 10.07.08 at 7:38 pm
Obama was raised by his grandparents for the better part of his formative years..he lived in their home, followed their rules, ate their food….his mother collected food stamps tomake ends meet….”
So, was he raised by his grandparents, eating their food, or was he raised by his mother, who purchased food with food stamps to make ends meet? If they needed food stamps, what was he doing at an elite private school like Punahou?
Pliggy 10.07.08 at 7:41 pm
What I meant to say is it wouldn’t matter if I was in a swing state, I would not vote for either one of these candidates. It is not my fault they are the only two choices, and I won’t take that blame no matter what anyone says.
Zoe 10.07.08 at 7:46 pm
I can think of a few black men I would vote for, if they were politicians, but Obama isn’t among them.
You can be white and still be racist against whites. Racist whites want the rest of us to hate our race just as they do.
How do you, as a white woman, have a far better grasp on how it feels to be black than anyone else? What gives you the right to speak for them?
By the way, the white missionary families I know that spend school years in third world areas of South America send their children to public schools with the locals…They don’t go to elite, private schools.
mdallinm 10.07.08 at 7:48 pm
I understand what you meant to say, and I respect you for that. For me though, it is far more important that Obama not be elected than it is to vote for an independent or no one because there is much I dislike about McCain. I’d be a lot more excited about him if he’d stood up to the bail out. But, even still, my first priority is keeping Obama out.
Doran Williams 10.07.08 at 8:15 pm
Regina, console yourself with this thought: Until after election day in November, this site — otherwise a really nice place for clear thought and rational analysis — is Pro-McClain, Anti-Obama, 27/7. Facts don’t matter. The truth don’t matter. Kurt has a Greek chorus who can be depended upon to swallow whatever lies, mis-reps, and slanders about Obama which might get posted here, and to swallow, as a chaser, the lies, mis-reps, and grandiouse descriptions of McSame/Palin. Save your breath.
I spent the morning working on client matters and my own taxes, and the afternoon on my little Kubota, turning horse-shit compost for my fall and next spring gardens. In between, I dealt with the odiferous and not nearly so fertile horse-shit on this site.
I am off to bathe, warm up a supper of one-half pork loin, brown rice, and salad for me and my wife (she works, I do the house and supper stuff), and some good red wine. Have a good evening.
The madness will abate.
Abby 10.07.08 at 8:27 pm
If Colin Powell and Condelissa Rice were running, I’d vote for them.
And it has nothing to do with color. It would have to do with experience, Abundance of Forgein policy!
Both Respected.
First of All, I’m against abortion. But according to Federal Law is legal. So, regardless, if a woman wants an abortion, she legally has a right to have one.
I want a president who is “concerned” about THIS country. The fact, millions of americans either aren’t or can’t get health insurance.
I want a president who doesn’t promise the american public one thing, and turn around and veto a bill that is something that will help americans!
As an american , Im not ready to give away Billons of hard earned taxpayer money to Bail out a bunch of Corporate CEO’s that screwed UP!
Thats your dollar and mine they are using.
I want a president that wants to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not by just jerking all the military out, so America can be attacked again as it was in 911.
Government gives far to much of OUR money away to forgien countries for favors! Bribs! etc.
And I’m sick of politicians putting the elderly on the back burner, taking money out of social security, and cutting medicare expenditures. Do you know how hard it is to find a doctor, just a damn family doctor in America who will take medicare, because the government has cut so much of medicare funding?
My mother in law in 80 yrs old. She called 45 family doctors in our town before she found ONE that would take medicare.
YES, I agree we are in a crisis, because we take care of everyone else’s business before we do OUR OWN!
Sarah Palin, this is what I have to say about her.
Okay, so she isn’t polished politician, who gives a crap? We have had NOTHING but polished polititicans that have taken our country to the cleaners for YEARS.
The one point I’ve found I liked about her, is she isnt ruined by government already. She has done well in her debate, and wasn’t a bit bothered by Joe Biden, the MOUTH!
Regina 10.07.08 at 8:32 pm
Okay…back for a few…
I was wrong about his school in Hawaii…howere’, he did go to a small, private, but not elite, school in Jakarta when he was very young…
His mother collected food stamps when she was in Hawaii when Barack was a toddler, bfore remarrying and moving to Indonesia…when he was a bit older, Barack returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and his mother remained in Jakarta with her new husband and their daughter…Barack’s grandparents paid the tuition, which was much less, then, and he had scholarship money for part of his tuition….
All information any of you could have found by a simple search…..
I am probably more familiar with African American inner ’society’ than most because I have lived there….and because I have long been both a formal and informal student of culture and it’s impact on behavior….
And because I have several sons of various bi-racial and multi-ethnic lineages….and I have had all sorts of folks live in my home, some for extended periods of time…
And I would never, ever presume to speak for any racial group or ethnic group….but I can share some insights that are usually on the money….
And further, I am a pretty trustworthy person…and folks who get to know me, know that about me…my integrity is never for sale…..so I have had the priveledge of having folks trust me with allowing me to see natural and not staged behaviors…natural speech patterns and not affected ones….and,probably most importantly, folks have shared their humor with me in an unfiltered, unedited way…and a group’s humor is very, very telling….
And, what is more telling, is a group’s lack of humor about specific things…or inability to see humor….ergo the catholic priest debacle with rev. wright’s church….most white folks just don’t ‘get it’….and most white folks can’t laugh at how white they are…..
now if y’all want to call that racism…well, have at it….I am actually very proud of my Irish, English, Scotts, etc., etc. background……and iffen you could see me…there aren’t too many folks that get any ‘whiter’ than I am…..I’m reaaalllll pale….
And I wasn’t saying there will never be any other old white men being elected…or that, under the right circumstances, I wouldn’t vote for them…what I am saying is that it is forevermore not a safe assumption to make that that is who will be empowered…that our power structure is forever changed by this election….and for that I am forever grateful that I got to see that shift in my lifetime….
One way or the other…we’re going to have either a woman or an African American in a major power role…..and that is just about as cool as it gets!!!!!!!!!!
We’ve come a looooong way, baby!!!!! Wahoo!!!! Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!!!!!
And now I am going to go listen to the pundits tell me how tonight is apt to go…
Cayuga 10.07.08 at 8:41 pm
For those of us who are tooooo stupid to think for ourselves (thanks Doran) just to imagine what this country will be like with nanci pelosi and dirty harry in the senate and obama in the White House is enough to scare the s#%@% out of me.
I can see raines in the Lincoln bedroom along with ayres and wright. And no, regina, I don’t vote for someone because of their color. But don’t try and sell me on the fact that he came from poverty. That was the most elite school in Hawaii.
And no, I had no idea that black churches were so anti American. Do they want America to resemble Africa?
No wahooo, hip hooray from me. Just a prayer that we can defeat this pretender to the throne.
Abby 10.07.08 at 8:45 pm
Regina, once again, your full of [redacted -- lots of folks are full of redacted these days. ;-)]!
You may know some different racial groups, but you don’t have a clue what it’s like to BE one. Nor will you ever.
Just because you work with them, have them in your home, doesn’t mean you walk in their shoes. Your what most black people would call “Whitey” and that isn’t a compliment.
Reverand Wright made an ass of himself, period. He doesn’t know what it’s like being a poor white person either. They don’t have any more help than poor black people.
Obama separated himself after the Wright deal. Yet he sat and listened to his crap for years, along with his wife and children. Didn’t seem important to him , till he decided to run for president, then he dropped HIS longtime pastor like a hot potato.
I don’t personally care who Obama says he is, or isnt. He has done nothing but double speak since he started his campaign.
As far as a sense of humor, most all humans have a good one, till someone says something that bites them in butt, then it’s no longer funny.
As far as integrity goes, Most people stand on principle. You, Regina go with the flow whatever that might be at the time.
Cayuga 10.07.08 at 8:49 pm
Wasn’t his grandmother a vp of a bank? Did I hear that right? Some one please correct me if I’m wrong. But I understand she had a prestigious occupation and that’s why he went to an elite school.
Pliggy 10.07.08 at 9:23 pm
“this pretender to the throne.”
That is the problem that I see most of all, everyone is voting for King. Congress has more power than the President in the Constitution, they make the laws he must enforce, they declare war and he is commander and chief, no wonder the Presidency has become so important, the Constitution is TOAST. We have lost America if we are voting for our Furor.
Oh that this guy was running
Or people would listen to Ron Paul
Regina 10.08.08 at 6:31 am
Well, just like the folks on Brooke’s blog who abjectly refuse to “see”, even when bopped over the head with reality, some of you folks are so hell bent on hatred, you are blinded by it…..
Barack’s grandmother worked her way up through the ranks at the bank….and it was a community bank….we’re not talking V.P. of Citicorp, here…we’re talking First National of Podunk…..
His family did not live high off the hog AND send him to private schol. They made trade offs and choices and they chose to prioritize his education….
As parents, many of us do the same thing…so why is it commendable when you or I do it, and damnable when Barack’s grandparents did it?
As for who or what groups I am tuned into, well, all I can say is that you can choose to believe me when I tell you I am, or not…..again, makes not a whit of difference to me….
Wright didn’t make an ass of himself. The media, in playing those tapes made him appear assinine…because they were palyed to an unwitting public with generally little understanding of the culture they were peering into…Wright did not give those sermons for ‘average white consumption’……My heart goes out to his congregation for having had to endure all of the ugly badmouthing about a pastor they loved and respected….
It is no different than Waarren Jeffs talks and lessons being taken out of context and played for an audience who chooses to superimpose their own understanding and belief systems over what they are hearing. And doing so with little or no understanding of the language and culture out of which they come….
Barack Obama is no dummy. He is no one’s puppet. We all get used. Those of us who are reasonably bright understand this. We are partners in the process. For those that are either naive or not terribly bright, it always comes as a shock…and those same people are no more aware of their own interconnectedness and used/user status than the man in the moon….which is funny, because it makes that ‘type’ so easy to manipulate….Barack is not amongst that set…
Alex 10.08.08 at 9:34 am
Regina,
Prioritizing? That’s some serious prioritizing and budgeting to be able to send Barry to a high school for $16,000 a year. My parents didn’t spend 16K a year on my schooling. Did yours? And the bank she was VP of was the second largest in Hawaii.
Ugly Badmouthing? Are you talking about Wright? What do you mean “not for average white consumption” that’s bull. The man was said there would be no peace until “whites hate their whiteness”, that’s not for anyone’s consumption. Why is it okay for them to love and respect a bigot like Wright but not okay for me to love and respect someone who says something like “There will be no peace until blacks hate their blackness” (not that I would). hmm… isn’t that a bit of a double standard?
The problem that bright Americans have with Obama’s being used is that the users are radical extremists Wright, Ayers, Rezko.
Lastly, Obama seems to lack basic economic understanding. He would raise taxes and cut spending – a disastrous combination of policy moves in response to a severe economic down turn.
Regina 10.08.08 at 11:20 am
I have no problem, whatsoever, on raising the taxes on those earning over a quarter of a million a year. Including small business owners who are compensating themselves at that rate…which is not a large percentage of them, by the way…
And in fact, he’s increasing spending, although not by as much as the naysayers would have one believe, and it is 100 %+ offset by the tax shift….
In fact the tax shift and increase for those at the top, serves to