Some people have the way with words, and the personality so electric that they can get a way with the contradiction of their messages, and the enigma of their very selves. Obama has been riding high on the campaign trail mostly because of his way with his speeches. In fact, speeches are all he's been about. However, a couple of deep, discerning thoughts can unmask him.
Flip/Flop #1:
He is saying that he is the agent of unification, of hope, of reconciliation. Beautiful words, and, truly, very high aspirations that we can easily identify with. Who wouldn't want that in these United States with a stark history of racial inequality and, at present, racial distrust. Then here comes his pastor spewing all those venom that flips Obama's call for the opposite. Granting that he did not say those words, at least in public, but his pastor, instead, the fact that he is going to this Church for twenty years and listening to this same pastor begs the question of his acceptance, if not approval of such views. Pronouncements like his pastor's are not the kind that just slip out of nowhere; they are the kind that are deeply embedded in the psyche. Which then follows that in all of twenty years, it is very unlikely that this same pastor has not made the same pronouncements in his sermons, where Obama and his family are in audience.
First, he refused to denounce his pastor, and tried to play with words again in his speech in Philadelphia. Some bought that same spin, but the majority saw some sense and withheld the votes from him, thus his defeat in Pennsylvania. Then, more of the same pronouncements from the pastor came out, and he finally denounced him.
An intelligent question should be: Did he denounce his pastor because, as the popular media keep on hammering, he is hurting Obama's campaign, and nothing else? Is it authenticity, or expediency? This is a contradiction or flip/flop that should give us the reason to keep a hold of our emotion, and use our head, instead.
There are so much to know about him, for he just shoots out of nowhere. The fact that he is so close to being an enigma, is one thing that may give us all pause to collect all the facts about him, and where he really stands. Right now I consider him an "Empty Suit."
Flip/Flop #2:
$84 million, or what the government has available to hand out to both the Republican and Democratic nominees for president, is more money than most people will ever see in their lifetimes, making some wonder why it's not enough for Barack Obama to run his campaign. In announcing last week that he will fund his general election campaign with private donations, Obama suggested that the fat check he's declining (and that John McCain plans to accept) couldn't float him adequately to Election Day. In the primaries, Obama was the biggest spender overall, blowing through $244 million through May of this year. More than $100 million, or at least 41 percent, has gone toward media.
Had Obama accepted public funding, his campaign would be limited to spending about $1.2 million per day from the end of the Democratic convention until Election Day. And that would have to cover everything--his staff's salaries, travel around the country, office space in each state and, most significantly, advertising.
Granted, both Obama and McCain will receive free media coverage throughout their race for the White House, as their campaign events are often televised and their surrogates make daily appearances on cable newstand talk radio, a luxury not often bestowed upon Fortune 500 companies.
$84 million to promote a presidential candidate may seem like a lot of money, but if choosing the next president is as important as buying the right cell phone plan or picking a suitable bottle of wine off the shelf, it just might not be enough. Fact is this agent of unification, of hope, of reconciliation will try anything to buy the presidency and in doing so plans to rape the pocketbooks of the young, new first-voters. It didn't work for McGovern and I don't think it will work for him.
Dick Morris at DickMorris.com states, "Have you noticed a change in Barack Obama’s campaign? Instead of avoiding controversies over values, religion and race, he seems to welcome them and wade into the debates with an increasing enthusiasm.
Characterizing how the Republicans will attack him, he predicted that they would criticize his 'funny name' and add 'and by the way, did you notice that he’s black?'
Obama used to go out of his way to avoid this kind of reference, but now he brings it on. Deliberately. Why?
Obama and the conservative right are mutually trying to keep the debate about his candidacy on the existential level — is he the hope for America’s future or a Manchurian Candidate, a kind of sleeper agent sent to destroy our democracy? That debate, which pits Obama’s rhetoric against the Rev. Wright’s rantings, is a contest that could go on all day, and Obama would win it. It is simply a bridge too far to believe that Obama is that evil and that invidious.
But the more the debate covers such fundamental questions, the more it ignores the details — details which could bring Obama down.
Quite simply, Obama would rather address his religious views and his optimism about America and his embrace of diversity than talk about his plans to raise taxes, let gasoline prices soar and socialize healthcare.
In our new book, Fleeced, we try to bring the debate back down to earth, focusing on the specific plans that Obama has announced during his presidential primary campaign and discussing the consequences. This is the debate Barack Obama hopes he can avoid.
Consider his proposals:
• In effect, he would legislate a 60 percent tax bracket for upper-income Americans, killing all initiative and innovation. He’d raise the top bracket to 40 percent. He’d apply FICA taxes to all income, not just that under $100,000 as at present. So add 40 percent plus FICA’s 12.5 percent plus Medicare’s 2 percent plus state and local taxes averaging, after deduction, at 5-6 percent, and you have a 60 percent bracket.
• He would double the capital gains tax, saddling the 50 percent of Americans who own stock with dramatically higher taxes.
• He’d double the dividend tax, hitting elderly coupon-clippers now retired and depending on fixed incomes.
• He wants to cover 12 million illegal immigrants with federally subsidized health insurance, dramatically driving up costs and forcing federal rationing of healthcare. As in the U.K. and Canada, you will not be permitted certain medical procedures if the bureaucrats decide you are not worth it.
• He proposes requiring Homeland Security operatives to notify terror suspects that they are under investigation within seven days of starting the investigation
• He says that unless they can establish that there is “probable cause to believe that a certain individual is linked to a specific terrorist group,” Homeland Security cannot seize his documents and search his business. The current standard is only that the search be “relevant” to a terror investigation.
He does not oppose $5-per-gallon gasoline but only says that he wishes there had been a more 'gradual adjustment' to the higher prices.
Obama can talk about the Rev. Wright and flag lapel pins and his wife’s love of America all day long. But what he resists is a specific discussion of his own plans for our country. That’s the discussion he fears and he avoids. And it’s the discussion John McCain must force upon him if he is to have any realistic chance of winning the election."
The frenzy they have about Obama is scary. Germany had the same frenzy about Hitler in the 1930s. There were contradictory signs about him, but the Germans ignored them, for Hitler played on the very basic nerve that appealed to the Germans at that time: restoration of German pride after its defeat in WW I.
Obama has contradictions written all over him and is also playing with our deepest need: the restoration of American pride at the time of our morale and economic hardships, both at home and in the world stage.
Candidates like him play more with generalities, like McGovern and Carter, with so much to be desired for in terms of specifics. The popular media has lavished him with so much accommodation that it makes me sick to turn the TV on, but it is us, not the media, who will live with our choices in November 2008.
May we use more of our head, and less of our emotions. As Bernard M. Baruch, that American thinker, writer and diplomat, said: "There is madness in crowds from which even the wisest, caught up, in their ranks, are not immune."
.....Warph
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