Nightly Ramble:Honorable Mention,Wright’s Wrongs, Shreik Engrish, And More

• Honorable Mention at OTB’s Caption Contest. You know, I wonder how many people didn’t get that one. I see Reader got one, too.
  
• Well, all the arguments about how Wrights views are not Obama’s, and that they’re not working from the same racist stereotypes, just got blown out of the water.
• Shriek Engrish!
  

• Here, too.  Good.

  
  And, by order of the supposed Human Rights Commission, of all things.On what basis does any such “Commission” have a right to decide what happens at a private business?  In event event, getting lynched was not in their plans, yesterday… which I suspect would have come close to happening had they ruled otherwise, given what we saw in Canada, recently. Funny thing; The articles on the are all quite short. As opposed to the hype going in. Almost like the press was disappointed. Screw them.

• As I said the other day, Dick Morris thinks Obama has already won the nomination. Interestingly, he also seems to feel that the Wright business isn’t going to hurt that process. That’s the problem I was looking at in the comments at Q&O the other night… or was it last night? Morris mumbles that Wrights rants are not reflective of Obama on anything… a line I do not agree with.  Unless, that is, the guy is totally without morals and honesty. Which may be the case.
  

• In any event, no, I don’t expect Wright to get in the way of Obama being nominated, but Wright will be front and center for the runup to the general election. The lesson learned, here, though, is how much of their anti-racial-bias claptrap the Democrats are willing to toss under the bus at need.

I’m hearing local congresscritter Tom Reynolds won’t be running again, this fall. He’s supposed to announce around noon, today, according to Buffalo radio.

From the WSJ this morning:

Among the many things Hillary Clinton’s schedule sheds light on are her activities before, during and after major events in her husband’s presidential tenure – such as the death of Vince Foster.

Foster, a lawyer from Arkansas, was in the same kindergarten class as Bill Clinton and worked at the same law firm as Sen. Clinton. After President Clinton was elected in 1992, Foster joined the White House as deputy White House counsel and handled many of the Whitewater-related tax returns. In July 1993, he was found dead in a park in Virginia with a gunshot wound. After a three-year investigation by Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, Foster’s death was ruled a suicide, but many conspiracy theories persist suggesting he was murdered.

The former first lady’s schedules reveal that the last time she met formally with Foster was more than a month before his death, on June 8, 1993. The schedule reads “Briefing for ATLA”-formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, now the American Association for Justice-“w/ Vince Foster.” They met in Clinton’s office from 11 a.m. until noon, after which she had a private meeting. The details of that meeting were redacted from the schedule.

Which of course leaves questions.  Ya know, I’m sure I won’t be the last to make this note, but there seems a pattern among Democrats of leaving questions half answer, or totally unanswered First this week with Obama, and now with Hillary Clinton on the topic of Vince Foster.

Even Newsweek… a rag that went to bat for the Clintons for a generation, now has questions. 

If this were a boxing match, it would have been called.   Another say, another David Paterson mess,    The Daily News, New York, reports, “Gov. Paterson says he may have used campaign cash for hotel hookup:”  

Gov. Paterson admitted Wednesday he may have improperly billed his campaign for at least one hotel tryst with a girlfriend.

The hotel tryst was apparently listed as “constituent services.”

A Daily News review found that in a handful of other campaign expenditures, Paterson may have used campaign funds to cover personal expenses and misstated their purpose in public disclosure forms.

This even beats Eliot Spitzer, who as far as I know, did his whore mongering on his own dime.

In the LA Times, this morning:

In the script for the landmark 1964 film “Nothing but a Man,” actor Ivan Dixon saw something familiar in the character Duff Anderson.

Duff was a railroad worker in love with Josie, a schoolteacher and minister’s daughter who lived in an Alabama town. The story of Duff’s attempts to live with dignity and to love, despite racial injustice, was an honest depiction of black life in America, Dixon said. The character, which Dixon later called the most important role he portrayed, resonated in a way that others did not.

“That was me,” Dixon once said of Duff. “I had lived every moment. . . . I was reliving my whole life on film.”

Dixon, who also played Sgt. James Kinchloe on the popular television series “Hogan’s Heroes,” and went on to a long career as a director of episodic television shows and feature films, including “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” died Sunday at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, N.C. He was 76.

The cause of death was a brain hemorrhage, a complication of kidney disease, said his daughter, Doris Nomathande Dixon.

Ya know, hard as I try, I can’t seem to imagine him at 76.

• Busy watching the Sabres beat up on Tampa Bay, so I didn’t get to this until late. PLayoff time, you know… and it looks to me like they’ll be there. IN this win, they entered the third with a 4 to 1 lead for Tampa Bay, and Buffalo responded to this situation by pounding 6 goals in about 12 minutes. Yikes!
• And anyway, I wanted to hold the comments on Cone close to the top. The traffic we’re getting suggests it’s a topic that won’t go away soon.
• Speaking of Obama and such, something Bruce wrote earlier today tripped my trigger, a little. He quotes Thomas Sowell:
  

  Someone once said that a con man’s job is not to convince skeptics but to enable people to continue to believe what they already want to believe.  Accordingly, Obama’s Philadelphia speech – a theatrical masterpiece – will probably reassure most Democrats and some other Obama supporters.
  …
  Like the Soviet show trials during their 1930s purges, Obama’s speech was not supposed to convince critics but to reassure supporters and fellow-travelers, in order to keep the “useful idiots” useful.

  Compare this to what I said a couple days ago:

  I think the biggest concern of the Obama camp is their base slipping. They’re acting like their internal polling numbers are telling them they have a serious hemorrhage in supporters. It seems to me that the base are the ones who take this race card thing far more seriously than does the electorate as a whole. The Obama base got involved because they thought he race thing was finanly beind them. Imagine their thought processes as they find that their hero, centers his entire campaign on it. In the end it’s that anger he’s dealing with more than anything today.

  Obama can give a great speech when he feels the need. The question that now is being asked is whether or not anyone will believe him, anymore. Some of the “true believers” probably will. they were already predisposed to believe him anyway. It’s not going to take much convincing to get them over this hump. As to the rest of the American voters, I to question that won’t be answered. For some time, November specifically. Assuming he gets quite so far.

  I told them, over there…

  Admittedly, I’m engaged in a SITYS dance. It’s nice to see someone you admire, paralleling your own thoughts on what has become a major issue.

  But there’s more to this comment….

  If two people of rather diverse backgrounds, and educational levels, and ways of thinking can see this speech as what it is, why can the press, who gets paid to think about such matter, cannot?
  Admittedly, as McQ points up ABC’s vaguely aware there’s something wrong with things. But is this as good as our vaunted press corps comes?

  Is it that they’re afraid to get tagged as racist?

  Of course the question is rhetorical, and the answer an unequivocal ‘yes’… but more, I think it’s because the press still hasn’t figured out which direction they’re going to go. The Democrats are split on this one at as near 50/50 as no matter, so they’re going to be floundering for a while at least.

  One of the commenters there offers that obvious answer and makes the observation that we can stick a fork in Obama, now. He suggests this is a transitional moment in this campaign. I respond:

  Certainly, this is a transitional moment, but to what? Hillary Clinton?Thinking aloud, here;

  I hadn’t been quite ready to break out the fork, yet, because the question in my mind has been if Dick Morris is correct when he says there’s no way Hillary Clinton will ever get nominated now, because of the way the Delegate mess has evolved. The delegates are already counted, after all. They can’t very well ‘do over’ the whole country, which is essentialy what it would take.

  Which leads Obama to the nomination, the way the numbers look now, problems or no… but because of those problems, he gets defeated by McCain… indeed, my read is Mccain will have an easy time against Obama, now, assuming Morris is correct and Obama gets the nod.

  The question is, will the DNC react to all of this, and how? Do they contrive something so as to go with Hillary Clinton? Seems to me the Democrats have been trying with all hey had to avoid her being nominated, and now may no longer have much choice in the matter.

  OTOH, I figure McCain isn’t gonna have much problem with Clinton, either, so what difference would such gymnastics on the floor of the convention make, in the end, other than even more serious warfare within the Democrat party?

  And that, I think, is the question that is going to be asked forever when the subject of this cycle comes up in future.  For all the chater about the damage people like myself and David were doing to the Republicans and their chances because of our reaction to McCain, and his not being a real conservative (He isn’t, but he’ll have to do) this situation the Democrats have found themselves in is far, far, worse, and will likely do nothing but accelerate beyond this point. You know, I’m almost sorry when I bust up the game like that. I don’t know as the point I seized on was the central point Bruce was making, though in this case, I don’t think the point I made ran afoul of Bruce’s.  But I focus on this particular point of Sowells because it shows a rather cold and calculated political move, that if people actually identified as such, would most certainly backfire on Obama.  Well, Sowell ID’d it as such, as did both Bruce and myself, and I suppose, a load of others. But why is the MSM so silent on it? That, too, is a political move, cold and calculated. And there, to my mind is the most alarming thing at all, through all of this.

• I haven’t made any comments on Heller, yet, because I honestly don’t know how that’s going to turn out. Based on both the constitution and the questions, it would seem to me to go toward the ban being overturned. But the court has gone against freedom too often before for me to make a pronouncement. So, I’ll wait the 6 months it’ll take to form an opinion.
• Arab women, can be among some of the most beautiful women in the world. So how do the Saudis respond? With a Camel Beauty Pagent. Sorry, but you guys need to work on sorting your priorities.
• A third place in OTB’s caption contest. I’m number three. (No, not Client number three.)

Can we say Governor Bruno?    David Paterson has been governor of New York for two days, and we now know of two mistresses.   Fredric U. Dicker, New York Post: 

March 19, 2008 — ALBANY – An attractive Olympic gold-medalist says she had a close personal relationship with Gov. Paterson earlier this year – during which time she recorded a series of secret telephone conversations with him

The Gov does seem to have good taste in women, albeit rather poor judgement.   Will Michelle Paterson be so forgiving this time?

It’s about time we examine the ideas and ideals at the root of what Jeremiah Wright preaches… what is commonly known by the rather innocent sounding name of “Black Liberation Theology”.

We can best do this by examining the work of James Cone. I say this for two reasons;

* He is regarded by many as the founder of black liberation theorlogy

* Last year, Jeremiah Wright appeared on Sean Hannity’s show.  (Transcript) Hannity couldn’t get a straight answer out of the man, but instead was repeatedly asked by Wright:

“Have you read James Cone, what do you know about black theology? Have you read Cone? Have you read Cone?

And so on.

So, to get  a picture of what Barrack Obama has been enabling for 20 years as a member of Wright’s church, let’s do that… let’s read the guy Wright is following…. James Cone.

“Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him.”

“The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community … Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy.”

“The time has come for white America to be silent and listen to black people.”

“All white men are responsible for white oppression. ”

“Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man ‘the devil.'”

“Any advice from whites to blacks on how to deal with white oppression is automatically under suspicion as a clever device to further enslavement.”

“Black suffering is getting worse, not better. . . . White supremacy is so clever and evasive that we can hardly name it.”

“What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. ”

” Jesus Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants.”

Ya know, it wasn’t so long ago… I think it was the 04 Presidential election cycle, which would make it November of the year… following the DNC speech Obama gave, that Obama showed up on Imus’ show. The show, by all accounts, went well. (here’s one such account) Now, Obama is saying he wouldn’t appear on Imus’ show because he didn’t want to enable a racist.

But look up, and read again at what is being preached from the Pulpit of  Jeremiah Wright.  Tell me that being a member of such a church for 20 years, calling Wright his moral leader, calling him freind, being married by this racist having your daughters baptized by this racist, and perhaps most important to this discussion, giving tens of thousands of dollars annually to this church, isn’t enabling a racist.

As I keep saying…  one simply does not engage in that kind of a long term relationship without buying into the theology being preached there.

Can you imagine any WHITE Candidate being an integral part of enabling racists the way Obama has been, being this close to being nominated?  I’m telling you, gang… The Theology Obama has been pouring his time, talent and money into for two decades, make David Duke on his worst day, look like a big tenter.
And isn’t it interesting that the press, who is usually against any form of Religion… is so quiet about all of this?

The speech yesterday, answered none of this. Of course, Obama can claim he never heard any of it. But why won’t he denounce it, now? And how stupid does one need to be to not understand that this kind of thing was going on, in any event?

McCain can let Obama off the hook for this stuff.

I will not.

Addendum:  (David L)

Of course I disavow Pastor James David Manning remarks, however consistent with the Obama Doctrine, we must seek to  undestand Manning’s anger, video.

[wp_youtube]khuu-RhOBDU&feature=bz301[/wp_youtube]

Well it is is black, purports to be liberating, and is theology. Then, it sure isn’t Reverend Wright’s Black Liberation Theology. Pastor Manning in a calmer voice, video:

[wp_youtube]OfyHQ2PjLzk[/wp_youtube]

For the record, Manning’s views are closer to mine than Wright’s.

Hat Tip: Lucianne.

Once again, as last night, I am looking over the commentary on Obama and Wright and the sorry excuse for a band-aid Obama tried to apply yesterday, and note once again how Obama completly gave the anti-American incendiary a pass, and addressed himself totally to the racial angle of Wright’s outrageous comments.

Perhaps Obama’s people think the race angle the one to play, hmmm? Habit, perhaps?

One Edward Wasserman writing in the Miami Herald argues,” We need online rules:”

As traditional news outfits migrate online to become dot-coms, one of their biggest headaches is how to adapt to the sprawling new frontier of public comment.

In the pre-Internet world of TV and newspapers, public comment wasn’t a problem. Broadcast news didn’t have any — aside from the weekly guest spot, usually some hapless civic association president reading from a prompter and staring terrified into the camera. Papers had their letters pages, but allowed only enough space for a few dozen a week, and they were generally written with care and were easy to prune for taste and diction.

[…]

To say there should be rules, that communicants should be admonished to strive for honesty and civility and respect, is not to justify elitism. It’s not even to prescribe the rules. But it’s to acknowledge that rules are needed, and to kick off the process of writing them

To which I will not say, Who we Paleface?  There is only one rule.  If you don’t like what I write, don’t read it.  (h/t:  Kate Michelman et al).

Hat Tip:  Allah Pundit,  Hot Air.

Did you notice this from Galveston TX the other day?

Galveston city officials said Monday they plan to work more closely with event promoters, such as a weekend rap concert organizer, to prevent out-of-control crowds and traffic jams that resulted in 12 arrests over the weekend.

The city does not expect any other problems this week, spring break for many area school districts and colleges.

“The city welcomes spring breakers, but we ask them to respect our island while they visit and obey our laws,” Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc said. “If everyone can do that, we can all have a good time.”

LeBlanc said the city was not aware of any other concerts scheduled during spring break. Regardless, police plan to have additional officers on duty for the remaining spring break weekends, he said.

Galveston is a popular spring break destination for families, especially since the city prohibits alcoholic beverages on the beaches, with the exception of East Beach, where the rap concert took place Sunday afternoon.

So, lemme see if I understand their confusion, here.  They had a rap concert, which turned into a fight scene.

Yeah, and?

I mean, why on earth are these people acting like they didn’t expect it? What tree did they just fall out of? Have a Nice Duh, Galveston.

Higher education. Two examples of such, from the first ten minutes of this morning’s web travels:
First example: School kids, courtesy of the Jawas:

Actually, it’s spelled “Too many”. And I’m not even going to get into the lack of logic behind the (attempted) statement.

Second example: Professor Scott Erb, University of Maine, at Q&O Last night:

Your imagining things.

It’s spelled “You’re”, Professor… it’s a contraction.

Is this higher education? How high do you need to be?

Addendum: (David L)

Trust me, I know.  Speling humor is tricky.  It seldom works.  Here is the a classic exmaple which did work.

(Clever Typos… Bit) 

I’ve not turned out a single issue ramble in some months, now, Tonight seems the time.

I’ll say this at the outset; I have been predisposed to not trust what Obama has to say on much of anything in general, and I found his mumbling about racism particularly unsatisfying. It would have taken rather a lot to make that last situation any worse. Today, Barrack Obama pole-vaulted over “rather a lot” into the land of the truly titanic. (Not an idly chosen word, I assure you.)

First of all, he has now called his own veracity into question exactly as I suggested he would. Less than a week ago, he issued a statement saying in part that

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.

On it’s face, find this utterly laughable from anyone who was not running for the highest office in our country. is there any reasonable person on the face of the planet, who will concede that they expect the outrageousness depicted on the DVD’s purchased at the back of the church were outstanding in any way? what have been offered up by way of those discs, are three or perhaps for sermons out of many hundreds. Are we really to believe that these represent the total dalliance with hatred of the not so Reverend Wright? further, one simply cannot spend 20 years sitting in a church every Sunday morning ( and dare I point this out, contributing large sums of money) without understanding… and signing on for the hatred inherent in the kind of liberation theology that Jeremiah Wright has been pouring down the throats of his parishioners for at least that long. One does not stick around a particular church for twenty years without buying into the philosophy thereof, or at least putting up with it. But do’t tell me you didn’t know about it; that’s not an option.

Further, as I’ve pointed out, the comments coming from Jeremiah Wright are of a kind with what Michelle Obama has been quoted saying. (The “I’m not proud of America” meme) Obama must have been smarting from comments such as these, because watch what he says now, less than a week later:

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.

The degree of parsing required for those two statements to not conflict with each other, defies belief. Even the Clintons couldn’t construct cover stories that tightly wrapped.
The obvious question to ask at this point is: “Was Obama lying then,or is he lying now?” There is no other choice. one simply does not expose oneself as a liar, unless the consequences of being caught in a lie, hired Rader of the endocrine the original I was about.  To put this on somewhat gruesome terms, there are very few instances where someone would chop off his own arm or leg. having said arm or leg wedged under a car that is seconds from exploding would be one such case, where the trade is advantageous. So, we see that is where Obama found himself today… and he hesitated, then broke out the axe and went to work.

James Joyner notes, today, quoting Obama

I chose to run for president at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together, unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction: toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

And this belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own story. I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas.

I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and I’ve lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners, an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters.

I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins of every race and every hue scattered across three continents. And for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts?-?that out of many, we are truly one.

Now, frankly, I find this narrative ridiculously oversold. Lots of black men have traveled and gotten a great education and his ties with America’s history of racial tension are mostly vicarious. Certainly, Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell have better stories to tell in that regard. Regardless, people are buying into this message and re-establishing it as the backdrop for what is to come is smart.

Indeed, it IS over the top. But given the level of speech he was forced into making, it’s not unexpected. I tell James in reply:

LOL… It was seared, seared, I tell you… not into my memory, but my very genetic makeup.

OK, he’s aiming for large, here, and ending up at bombastic. trouble is, Meatloaf, he’s not. He does, however, sound rather like one of the occupants of the Manor farm, after the removal of Farmer Jones.

Ultimately, I don’t think he’s going to have trouble with intellectuals on this issue.

Of course not.
He’s trying to secure his base, and tryng to keep iffy democrat intellectuals in line. He’s still not won the primary yet, and knows it, and that situation is exactly what this speech was being aimed at… the true believers, and the hangers on. The rest, he hasn’t a prayer of swaying, frankly.

There isn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that the long puppet strings are, at the other end of this mess, in tha hands of an equally desperate Hillary Clinton. Be that as it may, today was a desperate move on Barrack Obama’s part, and one that sold well only to those already pre-disposed towards him.

But, nobody else.

Dick Morris suggests that there’s no way Hillary Clinton can win, now. And he’s right; It’s math mathematically possible, but about as likely as Iran finally changing it’s ways and behaving itself, finally. So, Obama is going to be the Democrat nominee.  I suppose and expect you can thank Howard Dean for that…. the guy who decided to cut off two surefire Clinton States. I suppose that worked about as intended for him. Be that as it may, that all boils down to Obama having to face this issue again, once he goes through Denver.  I may be wrong on this, but it’s my read the American voter in the general election isn’t going to be nearly as generous to Obama and his questionable associations, as the Democrat supporters and the press (A redundancy) have been.

Bruce, over at Q&O has some worthwhile comments, too.

So do Billy,

and Blue Crab

And Sister Toldjah

Addendum: (Bit) Billy just now:

Just now on MSNBC, I heard Chuck Tod state that “no white politician could have given [Obama’s] speech.”

Just that instantly, all the synapses fired and this occurred to me:

Obama could, and should, have gotten started down this road quite without Wright anywhere near him at any time in his life in any way.

He didn’t.

Very true. But more, Billy reminds me of something I wanted to say above and neglected to add, and I take it to be pretty much the same point Todd was trying to make.

Postulate a John McCain having attended the church of someone making statements against Minorities, for 20 plus years. Postulate further his getting married by this preacher. HIs kids attending there, having been baptized there.  Postulate further this preacher making anti-American statements as a matter of routine, as well.

Now, imagine McCain giving a speech of the like Obama did today.

You know as well as I it’d never sell. The Democrats in general, and the blacks in particular would be screaming bloody murder. Most fair-minded people would be denouncing it as not going far enough, and certainly not explaining all the questions I’ve raised above.

So why are we allowing it with Obama? There’s only one reason…You know it, and I know it.

John Hawkins. Right Wing News, continues to explore the gynosphere:

The article and the revelations in it about the trials and travails that female bloggers have had to endure was well received and started a lot of discussion. So, since there are a lot of fascinating female bloggers out there — and because I wanted to see if other women had the same experiences as the first batch of bloggers I interviewed — I thought it would be a great idea to do another article on the subject. Let’s get things started with,

Part One.

They’re all good bloggers.  Their success is both hard earned and well deserved.

Is Barack Obama’s grandmother a racist, or is BO a fool?   BO as attributed by Jim Geraghty, National Review: 

 “I can no more disown [Reverend Wright] than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

Jesse Jackson As attributed by Dr. Walter E. Williams: 

 “There is nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery-then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Obama professes to give a racial reconciliation speech, but breaks twenty years of silence only when his campaign is floundering.   Funny the only solution BO proposes is elect him president.   As BO grandmother is still living maybe what BO denigrates as stereotypes, might be be better classified as wisdom.