The Pink Flamingo :: The Arrogance of Barack Obama's Campaign

This morning on Fox I heard something fascinating. The Obama Campaign is in it for the long haul. Why would he say that this morning? Do they know something we don't know? AJ Strata has noted the same downward trend. I trust you will enjoy dealing with what I am calling a Kitchen Sink post. Race42008 has some numbers for the evening. My question: If Hillary does win, is the Obama campaign going to continue to demand she pull out of the race? I have no doubt that they will.

Any confrontation, question, or criticism of Barack Obama, POTUS – elect already yet, and you are accused of racism, cruelty, and crimes against humanity. One of these days just the idea of questioning him will lead to charges or either treason or terror. They say his day with the press dealing with his business associates was anything but pleasant today. He can lie about anything, and get away with it.
His arrogance is now saying the Sermon on the Mount is reason enough for same sex marriages. He has lied about NAFTA. Flopping Aces has all the new details. Now Canada is saying there was no deal. How does he do it? (Thanks Sally Vee) From the WSJ. Then there is Byron York on "NAFTA-Gate".

His operatives bully the media. He is a man without honor. He also a big crybaby. What would happen if he loses big today? Why is it only the Chicago press have his number? Captain Ed has a fascinating little piece today on Hot Air. (Thanks Sally Vee for bringing this to my attention this morning). He proves why he is a master at these things. Speaking of the Rezko trial, here is a barrel o' info and video links)

"... It appears that the local press has managed to do what the national media could not — treat Obama as a politician and not a secular messiah. They asked tough questions about Obama’s political connections to a fixer and his campaign’s outright false answers on an Obama adviser’s contacts with Canadian diplomats regarding Obama’s rhetoric on NAFTA. Instead of handling the questions calmly and patiently, Obama accused the media of having an agenda against him, and then angrily stalked off.

Compare this to the press conference John McCain held after the New York Times smeared him by accusing him of having a sexual affair with a lobbyist. Not only did McCain — whose temper has its own zip code, according to some Capitol Hill staffers — give a lengthy and reserved statement, but then stood at the podium until the reporters ran out of questions. In fact, at the end, McCain had to ask twice whether anyone had anything else to ask him before leaving the podium.

By my count, McCain answered 36 questions in this press conference. How many did Obama take before walking off in a huff?..."

How long is it going to take the national media to figure out this man is not ready for Prime Time. He truly does not have the maturity for being POTUS. Can you imagine George W. Bush stalking off in a pout when things get a little hot? His rank immaturity is going to make John McCain look like the stalwart statesman he is. James Lewis at American Thinker says Hillary is right about his lack of experience.

"...Mrs. Obama, as it turns out, doesn't like capitalism. She contrasts the "money-making industries" with the "helping industries." Even after going to super-wealthy, super-high-tuition institutions like Princeton and Harvard Law, she hasn't gotten the simple fact that the "money makers" are the very same folks who create an economy powerful enough to subsidize the "helpers" -- and that the "helpers" themselves are amazingly interested in making a ton of money: Viz., the Clintons, the Kerrys, the Gores, and yes, even the rich Obamas.

We don't need a wishful thinker in the presidency. We need somebody who can be trusted to do the toughest and most important job in the world, and to do it supremely well. In any other job search we look at past performance to predict future actions. It's the only reliable predictor. But if there is no past performance, we have nothing but Hope.

About half the voters are going to vote for Hope. It's just their mentality. They live in Hope, and as Samuel Johnson remarked, in their case Hope always triumphs over Experience...."

ABUSING THE RACE CARD
From Patterico’s Pontifications we learn that the left is positive John McCain is going to run a racist campaign against Barack Obama.

“…Yes. Because McCain denouncing such tactics is clear proof that his strategy is to engage in such tactics.
Marshall says:
If McCain really wants to repudiate this stuff, he can start with the Tennessee Republican party which dished all the slurs and smears about Obama being a Nation of Islam-loving anti-Semite, just today. And once he’s done talking to the people who will be running his Tennessee campaign, we’ll have a number of others he can talk to, like the head of his Ohio campaign, former Sen. Mike DeWine, who gave that Cunningham guy his marching orders. Never mind that the man Obama calls his “spiritual adviser” has praised Louis Farrakhan’s perspective as “helpful and honest” — an issue he managed to dodge in the debate. Any concerns about Obama’s connections to Farrakhan are manufactured. And never mind that DeWine didn’t actually tell Cunningham to use Obama’s full name, as Marshall’s “marching orders” comment suggests. No wonder Josh Marshall is the winner of journalism’s prestigious Polk award. He has perfected the critical art of false insinuation, and ignoring inconvenient facts. No, Josh Marshall, John McCain is not playing the race card. But in The New Republic, Sean Wilentz argues that Obama is….”

John Marshall wrote:

“…Hopefully, everyone can now see the McCain strategy for running against Barack Obama. Yes, we have some general points on taxes, culture wars and McCain as war hero who can protect us in ways that flash-in-the-pan pretty boy Barack Obama can't. But that's not the core. The core is to drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab. Maybe a little hustler and shifty thrown in, but we'll have to see. The details and specific arguments are sort of beside the point. They're like the libretto in a Wagner opera, nice for some narrative structure. But it's the score that's the real essence of it, the point of the whole exercise. Now, a good deal has been made out of John McCain's repudiation of talk radio yakmeister Bill Cunningham, who led off for McCain at one of his rallies with the full run of Obama sludge. But don't be distracted or fooled. This is more like an example of what the digital commerce folks refer to as 'channel conflict'. You've got your multiple distribution channels. You've got the way McCain's selling the product. Broadcast. Broad and thematic about McCain. But you've got a number of other product channels to sell through, most of them a lot grittier, but no less essential for ultimate success.

Both can work simultaneously. In fact, in the kind of campaign McCain's running, they're both essential for success (see the 2000 Republican presidential primary in South Carolina). The key is just that the channels don't cross. Because that's when the trouble starts and they can begin to undermine or even short-circuit each other. And that's what threatened to happened here….”

SCARED STIFF
AJ Strata has noticed something about Barack Obama that isn’t good. I think he is right on here.

“…But the big story seems to be that the news media seems to be detecting a problem with Barack. I still say he peaked way too early and he has never shown any ability to handle a crisis. And as one poll noted most of people agree that he has not explained his positions enough. Their over reaction to this Hillary ad, making it sound so negative and scary exposed their efforts to shield Barack from hard issues that expose is blatant weaknesses. He is a naive, liberal, one-term junior Senator. He has no proven experience outside giving good speeches. Obama should never have cowered in the face of the ad. He tried to look as if it was a sad nuisance, but the fact is he did not pull it off. Instead he looked like he was whining about how it is unfair of people to ask whether he has what it takes to be President. If he can’t take a question, how can he handle the real crisis when it comes? Is he going to act is if it is all a sad nuisance and unfair to him and his place in history?...”

Frank Rich in the NYTimes today declared John McCain a double agent. I'm still trying to figure this out. Maybe you can, but then I'm not that bright. The whole thing is a thinly disguised love affair with Obama.

“…You’ve got to love a guy who said a few years ago that he regretted likening Mr. Limbaugh to “a circus clown” because of all the complaints from circus clowns insulted by the comparison. “I would like to extend my apologies to Bozo, Chuckles and Krusty,” Senator McCain told a rather startled Neil Cavuto of Fox News….In desperation to land some knockout punch, some McCain supporters, following the precedent of Clinton surrogates, are already invoking Mr. Obama’s race, middle name and tourist snapshot in Somali dress to smear his patriotism. The idea is to make him a Manchurian candidate, a closet anti-Semitic jihadist trained in a madrassa run by, say, Louis Farrakhan.

What repeatedly goes unrecognized by all of Mr. Obama’s opponents is that his political Kryptonite is the patriotism he offers in lieu of theirs. His upbeat notion of a yes-we-can national mobilization for the common good, however saccharine, speaks to the pride and idealism of Americans who are bone-weary of a patriotism defined exclusively by flag lapel pins, the fear of terrorism and the prospect of perpetual war.

A few more “macaca” moments for the nearly all-white G.O.P. could spell its doom. Recognizing the backlash that has followed the racially tinged smears leveled at Mr. Obama so far, Mr. McCain wasted no time in publicly scolding the right-wing radio talk-show host who railed against Barack Hussein Obama at one of his rallies last week. Or perhaps, as those of us who like Mr. McCain want to believe, he is simply a man of honor: he knows that history will judge him exactingly on how he runs against America’s first black or female presidential nominee, win or lose…”

ARROGANCE – NOT HOPE

“…The Sunday Times was aboard Obama One, his private campaign jet, as he crisscrossed the two key primary states. It was an exhilarating ride with a candidate on the cusp of making history and robbing Clinton, who aimed to be America’s first woman president, of a distinction she thought was hers for the taking. Obama is cutting a dash through Texas, addressing up to 20,000 people a day, and has overtaken Clinton by two points in the polls, according to Real-ClearPolitics. In blue-collar, recession-struck Ohio, he has narrowed the gap to within five points of his rival. From snowbound Cleveland, where the ice was scraped off the wings of the jet before it could take off, to balmy Texas, where spring has arrived, the journey took Obama from one rally to the next where huge, multiracial crowds cheered wildly and stomped to cries of: “Yes, we can.”

On the plane Obama walked the aisle, chatting to journalists with a confidence that came from knowing his mighty opponent might be on her way out of the race in 48 hours and a slight edge of nervousness that the nomination is now his to lose…Obama believes he will be able to neutralise McCain by drawing on the expertise of independent Republicans such as Hagel and Lugar, who is regarded by Obama as a potential secretary of state.

Larry Korb, a defence official under President Ronald Reagan who is backing Obama, said: “By putting a Republican in the Pentagon and the State Department you send a signal to Congress and the American people that issues of national security are above politics.” Korb recalled that President John F Kennedy appointed Robert McNamara, a Republican, as defence secretary in 1961. “Hagel is not only a Republican but a military veteran who would reassure the troops that there was somebody in the Pentagon who understood their hopes, concerns and fears,” he said. Obama intends to pour more troops and resources into defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan. He told The Sunday Times he would expect European allies to contribute more to the fight. “You can’t have a situation where the United States and Britain are called on to do the dirty work and nobody else wants to engage in actual fire-fights with the Taliban.” He praised Prince Harry’s “commendable” service - “I’m sure the British people are very proud of him” - and said America would have a “special, special relationship” with Britain should he win the White House. “That’s inviolable,” he said. Europe, he added, would get something in return for an extra push in Afghanistan. “It’s important for us to send a signal that we’re going to be listening to them when it comes to policies they find objectionable, Iraq being top of the list.”

ENUF ALREADY YET
Evidently ObamaRama is starting to get a little old. Then there is the cult of self esteem.

MANDATE?
Okay, it’s Lent. I have promised not to use profanity. This is a rough one. Obama is already working on his Mandate. BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK he’s not even blank blank blank elected and they’re talking manadate?

LOSING THE JEWISH VOTE
Then there is the possibility that he will lose the Jewish vote.

"...Assemblyman Dov Hikind yesterday predicted that Jewish voters would make "a mass movement toward Sen. McCain" if Barack Obama knocks Hillary Rodham Clinton out of the race in tomorrow's critical Democratic primaries. Hikind, an Orthodox Jew whose Borough Park district includes the largest Hasidic bloc in the United States, blasted Obama for what he called his half-hearted support of Israel and his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who has repeatedly praised anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has endorsed Obama...."

OBAMA'S CULT
I am fascinated by this little ditty on Obama and the generation of selfishness. They are made for one another.

“…Inevitably, however, such over-indulgence of students leads to increased narcissism, self-absorption, and sense of entitlement. Those with self-esteem disproportionate to their achievement tend to be less willing to take responsibility for their own failures, shortcomings, or bad behavior.Coddled children raised to believe that any dream is not only attainable, but an entitlement granted regardless of actual effort and accomplishment are increasingly growing into depressed and stressed young adults as they rudely discover that the post-school world is not so cooperative and doesn't really care about their dreams or their feelings. In the real world, they keep score.

But not in Obama-world. That is a world of Hope; of Action; of Change You Can Believe In; of Yes We Can; of Coming Together; of Moving Forward Into the Future, and of other banalities that can mean absolutely anything to anyone. "I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations." It's all about us and our good feelings of youth and unity. Nothing so difficult as spelling out tough policy choices or arguing about a particular program's merits or ramifications is involved.
Why, that might instigate analysis, or arguments about right or wrong answers, which would divide us; that would interfere with our focus on how good we feel about ourselves and the restoration of the soft, fuzzy future which once belonged to us. "I intend to lead the party of tomorrow, not the party of yesterday." Unification for "change," "hope," and "the future" is perfect for Obama's young, esteem-fueled supporters: just as their academic self-esteem was divorced from actual achievement, and their competitive self-esteem was insulated from scorekeeping, Obama-supplied political self-esteem is disconnected from any actual opinions, policies or analyses.

Notably, Obama's rhetorical flourishes never involve policy choices or the big, bad, complex world outside the campaign rally. "In the face of change lies hope, and in the face of hope lies change." Brilliant! Dreams are restored! We're all 14 again! Just close our eyes and hope a perfect future into existence. Problems with the genocidal Iranian neighborhood bully? Simple, we'll use our seventh-grade conflict resolution methods on Ahmedinijad. Those pesky student loans and subprime mortgages we took out? No worries, Obama will make someone else pay for them. Israeli-Arab conflicts and daily missile barrages on civilian populations? No problem, everyone just come together -Obama's very presence will melt hardened hearts and pacify Hamas and Hizbullah. There. Problems solved. No need to think about all that anymore….”

TEFFLON STARTING TO FAIL?
Then there is all that Chicago mess.
The Novak version
John Fund
His mentor and extortion.
From the Chicago Tribune