Obama isn't playing race card, just touting lack of experience

Yesterday, Barack Obama once again claimed the McCain would attack him for how he looks:

So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama told a crowd in Springfield. "You know, 'He's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name.' You know, 'He doesn't look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills.' "

McCain's camp hit back, saying :

Obama "played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck," McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement. He called Obama's remarks "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."

Well now, Obama's campaign has come back and claimed that Obama, when he said "doesn't look like all those other presidents", wasn't talking about skin color, but about experience:

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the senator was not referring to race.

"What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn't get here after spending decades in Washington," Gibbs said. "There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene. He was referring to the fact that he didn't come into the race with the history of others. It is not about race."

I don't believe it for a minute, especially since Obama regularly says things like:

Addressing supporters Tuesday night at a fundraiser in Springfield, Mo., he said, "It's a leap, electing a 46-year-old black guy named Barack Obama."

But if Obama wants to argue that what he meant was that he doesn't have the experience that every other President we've elected has had, I'm not going to argue with that. Obama is the most inexperienced, incapable, unready person we have ever picked as a major party nominee for President. He looks nothing like ANY other president we have ever chosen when it comes to being capable and knowledgeable enough for the job.

Obama Denounces American Ability to Solve our Problems

Of course, Barack knows he is incapable of being President, he knows he is inexperienced. But now Obama has claimed that America can not solve our problems, that we need to be rescued by Europeans. And not just our "foreign" problems, but our domestic ones as well.

From US needs overseas partners to resolve domestic problems: Obama:

XinhuaLondon, July 26 (Xinhua) The US needs the help of overseas partners to solve its domestic problems, US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said here Saturday.

Now, he's not saying we are entirely helpless. He just thinks that unless we make Europeans like us so that they will help us, our DOMESTIC problems will be harder to solve:

“The reason that I thought this trip was important as I am convinced that many issues we face at home are not going to be solved as effectively unless we have strong partners abroad,” he told a news conference.

He also made several more of his banal, self-evident statements, the ones he thinks makes him sound "presidential":

Commenting on his meeting with British Prime Minister Gorden Brown, Obama said, “We share the same language and the same belief and Britain and the US have gone through the world wars together and share same views on the world order.”

Of course, that includes Britain being our number one ally in the war in Iraq -- a war that Obama wanted to surrender over a year ago. So while America and Britain shared the same views, Obama and Britain do not -- and the America of Obama will not.

Obama lies about snubbing troops in Germany

Barack Obama, as part of his magical mystery tour where he would learn where countries were on the map, was scheduled to meet with wounded soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

Barack was treading a fine line on campaign finance with this trip. Part of the trip was a "senatorial fact-finding mission", paid for by we taxpayers. There were campaign-like events on that part of the trip, like Obama's trip to the Wailing Wall complete with campaign banners strung up on the fence. But when he visited military bases, no campaigning was possible -- the pictures were even shot by military photographers, not the campaign or the campaign volunteers in the media.

But halfway through the trip, the congressional visit ended, and his campaign began. The entire Germany visit was part of his campaign, he flew on his campaign plane, and he had his campaign staff, not his senatorial staff.

But he scheduled a visit to the military hospital as part of his senatorial duties -- because you can't campaign there. The rules are easy to understand. However, since Obama had sent his senate staff away, and since apparently he's scared to be alone, he tried to bring one of his campaign advisors, General Scott Gration -- thinking that since he previously served at the base and was retired military that the base would make an exception to the "no campaign staff" rule.

And when the base said sorry, you are welcome, but Gration must stay in the waiting room, Obama decided to cancel the trip rather than risk being alone with the troops.

Now, however, Obama is making things worse, by lying about the entire event. He's actually told several lies, but the last lie is such a blatant one that it can't be ignored. Not that the media won't ignore it -- few reporters bothered to tell us that Obama lied about being on the Banking Committee, for example.

Let's go over all the lies he told just about this one thing, starting from when the press figured out he had cancelled a scheduled visit to the base.

First, his campaign issued the statement that "The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign."

Of course, that raised the question as to why they had ever scheduled it, and why the Senator felt he couldn't visit the troops without making them into political props.

So then the campaign tried to float the lie that the pentagon had changed the rules and raised the issue of a "political visit", and that was why they cancelled: "We learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event. Sen. Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perveived as a campaign event when his visit was to show his appreciation for our troops and decided instead not to go."

That didn't go over well, so then the campaign tried to stir up a rumor that it was all John McCain's fault, getting Andrea Mitchell to carry the water for him. But nobody bought that lie.

So now Obama has a new lie. In this lie, he claims the event was never even on the schedule:

"The staff was working this so I don’t know each and every detail but here is what I understand happened," Obama said. "We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off -- that is why we left it off the schedule.

Except if you go back to where this started, you find out it was ON the schedule, until they removed it. As the Washington Post reports:

When Obama arrived in Germany on Thursday, a printed schedule said he would fly to the military hospital Friday. Asked at the time about the schedule, an Obama adviser said it was incorrect, that the stop had been considered but ultimately rejected.

Senior adviser Robert Gibbs said in a statement, "The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign."

Get it? In three short days, we went from an event on the schedule that was removed at the last minute out of a belated respect for the troops, to Obama claiming the event was left off the schedule because it wasn't a political event.

It is clear they made a mistake, just like Obama was wrong about the Surge. And just like the surge, Obama simply cannot admit he makes any errors. When he's not pretending that he said the opposite of what he really said, he stubbornly sticks to wrong-headed decisions, even insisting he refuses to learn from his mistakes or fix them. When Fox news asked Obama if it was a mistake not to take time for the troops, Obama said "No".

Of course, if you saw the picture of the girl he got to work out with instead of seeing the troops....

Obama's challenge: Pick a VP that doesn't show him up

Barack Obama is about the least experienced major-party candidate for President in modern history.

Generally, even if a candidate lacks some particular experience, say in foreign policy, they have an overall proven capability to lead (like Bill Clinton).

But Barack Obama has nothing. He never really ran a business. He was a "community activist" but wasn't even president of his Homeowner's association. He was a low-level member of the state legislature for a while, and has 150 days or so of work in the Senate spanning about 3 1/2 years.

He wasn't in the military, he wasn't a law firm partner, he wasn't an elder in his church, he didn't captain a sports team, he wasn't even a boy scout senior patrol leader.

Barack Obama actually has less leadership experience than I do.

So Barack has a unique challenge -- to pick a Vice Presidential candidate who doesn't immediately make people think "why isn't this person the Presidential Pick?", while at the same time not picking a candidate who people say "wow, that person couldn't be dog catcher".

In his latest attempt to thread the needle of an inexperienced but not spooky-scary VP candidate, the Obama campaign has floated the name of a Republican Cabinet Official from the Bush administration, Ann Veneman:

Barack Obama's vice presidential search team has floated the name of a member of President Bush's first-term Cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Obama's running mate.
...
But Veneman, 59, has a biography that could be suited to Obama's unifying message. A Republican raised on a California peach farm, she rose to become the nation’s first female agriculture secretary. In 2002 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which was treated successfully. Today she serves as executive director of the United Nations children's agency, UNICEF.

As you can see, she is properly inexperienced in elected office. However, her directorship of Unicef means she has more executive experience than Obama, and as Agriculture Secretary she showed an ability to lead an executive department with a multi-billion-dollar budget. Obama has barely shown an ability to keep his own staff operating without embarassing him.

This is a crass political move -- and they admit it:

"You select a strong independent woman who appeals to Republicans and independents, and so that's hard to beat," the Hill source said, explaining the logic of the possible choice. "Choosing someone like [Veneman] doesn't hurt you with the Democrats. It just doesn't hurt you. But it helps you with Independents and Republicans."

Of course, in the real world none of us really remember Anne, or care much about her. She wouldn't make any Republicans or Independents vote for McCain, and I doubt she would draw any to vote for Obama, unless he swapped places with her.

Not that there is any chance of this happening. Some democrats are already blasting the idea:

... the mention of her name was met with incredulity on Capitol Hill."Are you serious?" one lawmaker asked vetters when Veneman's name came up, a second source familiar with the conversations said.

The surprise stems from the fact that, while Veneman was seen as an experienced leader for her department, she often clashed with Democrats on a central battle front of the Bush years: regulation. Venemen was criticized by some Democrats and environmentalists, and praised by agriculture and food interests, for lightly regulating the industries and for encouraging trade and biotechnology during her tenure.
...
also clashed with Democrats — including then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who is now an Obama confidant — over subsidies for small farmers, which they sought to expand.

On 2nd thought, I think I like this woman. All the more reason Obama won't pick her, and if he tries, his handlers will slap him down.

Obama Signs desecrate Wailing Wall

Obama doesn't know what Senate Committee he's on.

I'm actually wlling to give him a pass on this one. He's only been a senator for a few years, and during that time he's hardly been in the senate itself, about 150 days or so total.

And during that short 150 days of work, he had to attend lots of meetings, listen to a lot of other senators give speeches, meet with lobbyists and money-men, and who knows what else.

Heck, he never even had time to hold a hearing for the subcommittee he actually leads.

So when Obama claims that he is on the Banking committee, maybe he really just doesn't know what committees he was assigned to since he never shows up (he showed up once for one committee he's on that deals with Afghanistan). It's not like Barack Obama is a leader. He's just a follower, a go-along-to-get-along guy.

A guy who would sit in a church for 20 years, fostering close personal relationships with the pastor only to be shocked to find the church is a racist church with a racist, anti-american pastor.

A guy who would take mortgages that look bad because he is told it's how things are done. A guy who lets a criminal buy the lot next to him and sell it to him at a discount.

Senator Reid, no real leader himself but obviously considered a much better leader than Barack Obama, simply assigns people to committees, and Barack shows up where he's told (or actually doesn't show up because they probably told him they didn't really need him, like the 3rd-string right-fielder on the softball team).

Barack Obama says that if you want to know what a man can do, look at what he's done. Well, if you look at what responsibility the Democratic Senators have given to Barack, you'll see they aren't really all that excited about his abilities. He's not the one they call on to lead or sit on the big committees, or to write the major legislation, or to make the big floor speeches. He's not doing the hard grunt work, or even heading the press conferences to explain the Democratic position.

He's just "good old Barack Obama", the guy they assign to committees but don't care if he shows up.

Hey, at least he didn't confuse himself with another Senator with a similar name, like John Kerry did.

So, as I said, it doesn't really bother me that CNN reports that Obama lied about membership in the Senate Banking Committee:

“Just this past week, we passed out of the out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee - which is my committee - a bill to call for divestment from Iran as way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon,” Obama said at a press conference in Sderot, Israel.
...
Except that he isn’t a member of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

I wonder if Obama will throw himself under the bus for embarrassing himself with this -- "That's not the Barack Obama I knew", he'd say.....

Obama Can't Count?

A few months ago, Barack Obama told how he had visited 57 states during his primary run. While this was humorous, and was just one of many stupid things Barack has said, it seemed nothing more than a simple mis-statement.

But now there is additional evidence that Obama just doesn't know how to count. For example, several of his childhood stories show that he can't count from his age back to his birth.

In his latest indication that Barack is not ready to be the leader of anything, from Jake Tapper:

Today on CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in Afghanistan, told the paparazzi-pursued correspondent Lara Logan that "the objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years.

Ignore the blatant arrogance of Barack speaking as if he is already President (which goes along with Obama creating his own Presidential Seal). If Barack wins the Presidency, he will serve at most two terms. Which, as those with a 3rd-grade education know, is in fact 8 years long, not 10.

The notion that Obama will be dealing with world leaders for eighjt-to-ten years, possibly up through July 2018, suggests that either (a) he believes that not only will he be elected and re-elected, but the 22nd amendment will be repealed and he will be elected for a third term, OR (b) he was speaking casually and just meant two terms.

Of course, he probably was thinking "8", but then realised he wasn't President yet, and then couldn't figure out how many more months that would be, so gave a broad range so as not to get into trouble.

Jake had his own theory about Obama's inability to say things that aren't stupid:

Some Democratic allies of Obama's are -- off the record -- concerned that the senator too often doesn't consider the potential butterfly effect of his diction.

Take his support for an "undivided Jerusalem," or his remarks about women seeking abortions when they're "feeling blue," which upset feminist leaders.

Or the media kerfuffle after his "refine my policies" presser.

On his press plane on July 5, after that incident, Obama said, "I’m surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured."

A reporter noted that that is precisely what happens with the president, he can change world affairs with one word, finely calibrating your words is what happens.

Oops. As I noted in a post yesterday, Obama's campaign statement about Maliki put our ally in a terrible bind. But Obama isn't serious enough of seasoned enough to understand:

"Well, of course, no, I understand," Obama said. "But for me to say that I’m going to refine my policies, you know, I don’t think in anyway is inconsistent with prior statements and doesn’t change my strategic view that this war has to end and that I am going to end it as president."

Btw, of course the "war has to end". Generally that happens when you win the war, or when you lose the war. Sometimes it happens when the Democrats take over and surrender in the hope that people won't realise they just gave up.

All About Obama

OK, I've always wanted a blog to be about issues. And while what Obama does is an issue, it's not really the only issues around.

So I've created this blog to host all my posts about Obama. I might throw something about McCain here as well in contrast from time to time, but mostly this will be all about Obama.

Obama like the Cowardly Lion from Wizard of Oz

IN the movie "Wizard of Oz", when we first meet the Cowardly Lion, he is quite the talker. Standing before the cowering trio of Dorothy, Tin Man, and Scarecrow, he challenges them to a fight:

Put 'em up! Put 'em up! Which one of you first? I'll fight you both together if you want! I'll fight you with one paw tied behind my back. I'll fight you standing on one foot. I'll fight you with my eyes closed.

So long as the Tin man and the Scarecrow are intimidated, Lion continues his brave front:

How long can you stay fresh in that can? (laughs) Come on -- get up and fight, you shivering junk yard! Put your hands up, you lop-sided bag of hay!

Of course, we all know what happens next. Lion goes after Toto, and Dorothy, ever the brave young girl, slaps his hand. And the brave Lion broke into tears.

Obama reminds me of the Cowardly Lion, hardly the picture you want to project if you are looking to be the leader of the Free World.

See, when he still had the reputation as a great speaker, while McCain was ridiculed as being unable to string sentences together, Obama gave the equivalent of the Cowardly Lion's calling-out (Chicago Tribune, May 17, 2008):

Challenging McCain to a debate on foreign policy "anywhere, any time," the Democratic front-runner said the Arizonan shared a "naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism."

But it turns out that McCain, a decorated war hero, wasn't as easy to intimidate as a scarecrow. McCain took up Obama on his challenge, offering a series of town hall meetings on various subjects including foreign policy.

The New York Times now reports that Obama, like the Cowardly Lion, has chickened out:

Obama Won’t Commit to Event at Military Base

A coalition of military groups is planning a nationally televised town-hall-style meeting with the presidential candidates near Fort Hood, Tex., the largest active-duty military installation in the country. But so far, only Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, has agreed to attend.
...
Carissa Picard, managing director of the Fort Hood Presidential Town Hall Consortium, said she had suggested Aug. 11 and asked the campaign to suggest other dates if that was not convenient, but after several conversations she had not been able to work anything out.

“I’m having extreme difficulty getting the Obama campaign to commit to this event, and we do not understand why,” said Ms. Picard, whose husband is deployed in Iraq. “We made it very clear to them that if they would commit to the event, we would work with them on dates.”

The Cowardly Lion shirked away from his promised battle because he lacked courage. Maybe that is why Obama won't appear on stage with McCain anytime, anywhere.

Obama has made a lot of promises in his short campaign for President. Time and again, he has broken those promises. Whether he is backing out of debates, reversing his pledge to adhere to public financing guidelines, or even stupid promises like his promise to filibuster the FISA bill, One thing is certain -- Obama is the "change" candidate.

Obama to Rob America for next four years

In 2006, a young Barack Obama spoke on the Senate floor, as recounted at his web site:

“The cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and states of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. . . . If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we'd see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.”
— Barack Obama, Speech in the U.S. Senate, March 13, 2006

As this is listed on his campaign web site, one might assume this is a major campaign promise, to reduce our debt. But if you assumed that, you would be wrong, as Associated Press reports:

Barack Obama says John McCain's plan to balance the budget doesn't add up. Easy for him to say: It's not a goal he's even trying to reach.

Not only does Obama say he won't eliminate the deficit in his first term, as McCain aims to do, he frankly says he's not sure he'd bring it down at all in four years, considering his own spending plans.

"I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America's families," Obama told reporters this week when asked if he'd match McCain's pledge.

So the debt is robbing America, and Obama wants to continue to rob America for the next four years.

I guess he's not serious about honest tax relief. Because if he was, according to Obama, he'd at least make an effort to reduce the national debt.

Obama -- Change you can count on.

Obama opposes mental health abortions -- no, he supports them.

Barack Obama is just about the most pro-abortion person ever to get nominated for Congress. You have to look pretty hard to find candidates who actually support post-birth abortions.

So it was a bit of a shock when Barack recently claimed that he opposed late-term abortions for the mental health of a mother. From Relevant Magazine:

Obama: I absolutely can, so please don’t believe the emails. I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that “mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.

Online pro-abortion lefties went nuts. For example:

NARAL leaders ought to feel like idiots.
...
Looks like no one will be pleased with his new position. As I've said all along about his religious outreach, you don't get something for nothing and if he wants the evangelical vote, he's going to have to offer them something. Is this it?

Well, Obama couldn't take the heat. So his campaign has "clarified" his obviously inartful words:

Reporter: You said that mental distress shouldn't be a reason for late-term abortion?
Obama: "My only point is this -- historically I have been a strong believer in a women's right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family. And it is ..I have consistently been saying that you have to have a health exception on many significant restrictions or bans on abortions including late-term abortions.

In the past there has been some fear on the part of people who, not only people who are anti-abortion, but people who may be in the middle, that that means that if a woman just doesn't feel good then that is an exception. That's never been the case.

I don't think that is how it has been interpreted. My only point is that in an area like partial-
birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue. I don't think that's how pro-choice folks have interpreted it. I don't think that's how the courts have interpreted it and I think that's important to emphasize and understand."

I'm not surprised. After all, Obama has already said that his own children should be allowed to have abortions so they wouldn't be "punished with a baby".

But did Obama just make a mistake in his previous statement? Or was he, as some left-wing groups insist, trying to buy off the evangelical vote by taking their side on the notion of a mental health exception.

Current late-term abortion law mostly just has a life-of-the-mother exception, not a health exception. The reason is that health exceptions invariably are no exceptions at all. And before anybody says I'm being unfair and that women and doctors wouldn't lie, remember this;

In Roe Vs Wade, "Roe" presented herself, with expert testimony support, as a victim of rape, even though she admitted later she was never raped. It was a lie to try to win popular support for her case. (Some probably don't know that Roe never aborted her child, her child is now pro-life, as is Roe. Not surprising, as being able to love and be loved by a human being you were trying to kill can have that effect on you).