Thomas Sowel article on Obama's record

[Trigg]

This man has an article in our local newspaper. Seems he doesn't think much of Obama's voting record or his associations with racist hatemongers.


For any politician, what matters is not his election year rhetoric, or an election year resignation from a church, but the track record of that politician in the years before the election.


Yet so many people are so fascinated by Barack Obama's rhetorical skills that they don't care about his voting record in the U.S. Senate, in the Illinois state senate, the causes that he has chosen to promote over the years, or the candidate's personal character and values, as revealed by his actions and associations.


Despite clever spin from Obama's supporters about avoiding "guilt by association," much more is involved than casual association with people like Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger.


In addition to giving $20,000 of his own money to Jeremiah Wright, as a state senator Obama directed $225,000 of the Illinois taxpayers' money for programs run by Father Pfleger. In the U.S. Senate, Obama earmarked $100,000 in federal tax money for Father Pfleger's work. Giving someone more than 300 grand is not just some tenuous, coincidental association.


Are Barack Obama's views shown by what he says during an election year or by what he has been doing for decades before?

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell060308.php3

Now, I realize that by liberal standards I'm just a racist who doesn't want to vote for a black man. Funny how this writer, a black man, has the same questions regarding Obama that I do. He has associated with racists and anti-Semites in his church for 20 yrs and has NO experience.

Remember way back when during the last Bush election??? People were saying how he had no foreign policy experience. That inexperience has come back to bit us in the ass. Yet, here again is a man with NO foreign policy experience and the liberal media just can't get enough praise crammed into their shows.

[Trigg]

I thought at least one of our resident libs would have something to say about this article.

After all here is a black man who is saying all of the things that many here have said regarding Obamas church, his associations and his lack of experience.

Does he not want a Black man in office???????????

[Kathianne]

I thought at least one of our resident libs would have something to say about this article.

After all here is a black man who is saying all of the things that many here have said regarding Obamas church, his associations and his lack of experience.

Does he not want a Black man in office???????????

Trigg, this oped by John Bolton is connected to the Sowell quote of Obama, regarding the 'small threat' of Iran:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bolton5-2008jun05,0,5282011.story


Obama the naive
His views on world affairs ignore history and imperil the U.S. and our allies.
By John R. Bolton

June 5, 2008

Barack Obama's willingness to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea "without preconditions" is a naive and dangerous approach to dealing with the hard men who run pariah states. It will be an important and legitimate issue for policy debate during the remainder of the presidential campaign.

Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy's first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Obama saw it as a meeting that helped win the Cold War, when in fact it was an embarrassment for the American side. The inexperienced Kennedy performed so poorly that Khrushchev may well have been encouraged to position Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus precipitating one of the Cold War's most dangerous crises.

Such realities should cause Obama to become more circumspect, minimizing his off-the-cuff observations about history, grand strategy and diplomacy. In fact, he has done exactly the opposite, exhibiting so many gaps in his knowledge and understanding of world affairs that they have not yet received the attention they deserve. He consistently reveals failings in foreign policy that are far more serious than even his critics had previously imagined.

Consider the following statement, which was lost in the controversy over his comments about negotiations: "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. ... Iran, they spend 1/100th of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance."

Let's dissect this comment. Obama is correct that the rogue states he names do not present the same magnitude of threat as that posed by the Soviet Union through the possibility of nuclear war. Fortunately for us all, general nuclear war never took place. Nonetheless, serious surrogate struggles between the superpowers abounded because the Soviet Union's threat to the West was broader and more complex than simply the risk of nuclear war. Subversion, guerrilla warfare, sabotage and propaganda were several of the means by which this struggle was waged, and the stakes were high, even, or perhaps especially, in "tiny" countries....

[Trigg]

Consider his facile observations about President Kennedy's first meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Obama saw it as a meeting that helped win the Cold War, when in fact it was an embarrassment for the American side. The inexperienced Kennedy performed so poorly that Khrushchev may well have been encouraged to position Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, thus precipitating one of the Cold War's most dangerous crises.

I watched a news show, forget which one, that mentioned this also.

I wonder why no one seems to be worried about Obama's total lack of foreign policy knowledge. The man has no experience with anything really since he's spent all his time in office running for another office.

[Kathianne]

.

I watched a news show, forget which one, that mentioned this also.

I wonder why no one seems to be worried about Obama's total lack of foreign policy knowledge. The man has no experience with anything really since he's spent all his time in office running for another office.

I think plenty are worried, they just don't write for the MSM. Perhaps it will change, (*cha ching*), with the general, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Trigg]

I think plenty are worried, they just don't write for the MSM. Perhaps it will change, (*cha ching*), with the general, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I wouldn't either, they can't seem to pile enough praise on him. Makes me ill.

[Yurt]

*crickets*