Sean Braisted alerts us to a Marie Claire interview in which Michelle Obama demonstrates either some (a) furious spinning or (b) major ignorance on the issue of socio-political “elitism.”
MC: Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen has advised Barack to head to Wal-Mart to connect with the “Wal-Mart women” who supported Hillary. What do you say to people who think your husband is too slick or elite for working-class voters?
Obama: I find it funny that people have tried to label Barack as an elitist. This is the man who grew up not knowing his father, with a young, single mother who he watched struggle to make ends meet — even going on food stamps at one point. And despite the economic struggles that his family went through, Barack turned down lucrative careers on Wall Street and went to work in communities to help folks in need on the South Side of Chicago, helping families who’d been devastated when the local steel plants shut down.
Ed Morrissey does a pretty good job of defining “elitism” here:.
Elitism is a sense that the hoi polloi are simply incapable of governing themselves, let alone a nation, and that a small group of “experts” have to take control of everything they do. That goes far beyond mere matters of state. Elitists see people getting more obese and believe that government has to intervene to remove food choices from individuals, as one rather timely example, as in New York City. They believe that removing personal choices will keep people from making bad decisions, because they — in all their wisdom — will make the right choices for them.
This describes perfectly the policy direction of the Democratic Party, and perhaps even a part of the Republican Party as well. That’s why the charge of elitism sticks so well to Democratic candidates in national elections. Their humble origins are immaterial to the concept of elitism. Candidates who want to grow the federal government in order to increase its nanny-state power are by definition elitists, because they believe individuals cannot make choices for themselves.
Although disclosure is mandatory in the state Senate when members may receive a personal benefit, no House rule requires similar disclosure by its members.
There is nothing illegal about the grant money flowing to the Greshams’ farm or for her votes for the funding. She is in a close race with Democrat Randy Camp for the state Senate seat of retiring Sen. John Wilder, which covers Fayette and seven other counties. (emphasis added)
Apparently, the Tennessee Democrats and the Alaska Democrats really are working from the same play book as the Troopergate report on Governor Sarah Palin’s also makes it clear that the governor was well within her authority to fire the Commissioner of Public Safety yet still considers her doing so an abuse of power. And so similarly Rep. Gresham hasn’t violated any House rule…but it’s still a violation of ethics?
Let’s see, now. Who has controlled the Tennessee House, its committees and so its rules for, gosh how long now? That’s right…the Democrats. Why haven’t they enacted a similar rule for the House long ago?
It only matters to them now, and for the next few weeks, because they want their candidate Randy Camp to win that district seat. That’s pretty convenient. If they retain a majority in the Tennessee House don’t even expect them to make Job #1 enacting the Senate’s ethics rules come the opening of the legislative session in January. These are the same folks whom I heard in committee hearings get distracted and whine about whether they’d have to report grass cutting money earned by their teens. They strained at a gnat in an effort to overlook the log.
If you want to make the House accountable for these kinds of grants…send Republicans to the Tennessee House by voting for them on November 4. I trust Gresham will happily comply with the new rules also.
Side note funnies: In trying to find a link to Camp’s website I googled “Randy Camp vote” and the top link points you to a page of Jackson radio host Mike Slater head shots and links. Even weirder, the tag cloud on the right has Jesus and Drew Johnson (head of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research in the same font size. Does Farrakhan know about this?
Herschel Smith at Captains Journal has been my source of what the ‘bleep’ is going on in Afghanistan. I can tell you I have a vested interest in what’s going on since my SO has been training Afghan troops for a few months now. I can tell you he’s not a happy camper with the situation.
Obama’s explanation now is that he and Bill Ayers first met in 1995. His campaign manager’s explanation was that “they both lived in the same neighborhood and their kids went to the same school.” The school comment appears to be a misstatement as Ayer’s children and the Obama children are decades apart in age.
The bombings that Ayers was involved in all occurred in the early 1970s, and he and Dohrn came out of hiding and turned themselves in to police in 1980. The charges against them were dismissed due to prosecutorial misconduct. Ayers comment at the time was, “guilty as hell, free as a bird. America is a great country!”
There’s some speculation that Ayers and Obama might have met while Obama was completing his undergraduate degree at Columbia from 1981-1983. Ayers was on-campus at Columbia during the 1980’s, working on a doctorate in education (which he received in 1987).
The Weather Underground was still active in the New York area in the early 1980s as well. Indeed, the infamous Brinks robbery occurred in October of 1981 in Nanuet, NY (just west of Nyack NY, and 24 miles/30 minutes from the Columbia University campus) – a few months after Obama enrolled at Columbia. At that time, Obama was 20 years old. The Brinks robbery was committed by members of the Weather Underground and members of the Black Liberation Army.
I’m NOT suggesting that Obama had any remote connection with the Brinks Robbery, but it seems equally inconceivable that he would have been unaware of it. I was a college student in NC in the 1970s. If an armed robbery involving radical students and black liberationists had occurred twenty miles from my campus, resulting in a shoot-out which left 3 police officers dead – it would have made a big impression.
Two of those involved in the Brinks robbery (Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert) were friends of Ayers and Dohrn. When Boudin and Gilbert received life sentences for their roles in the Brinks robbery, Ayers and Dohrn became legal guardians for Chesa Boudin, their son, then 14 months old. Ayers and Dohrn later adopted Chesa.
Obama and Ayers and Dorhn may have passed like ships in the night at Columbia in the 1980’s. But it is curious that they were all there at the same time. And when they became neighbors in Chicago in the 1990s, do you suppose they never talked about it?
In 1995, Chesa Boudin, adopted son of Ayers and Dohrn would have been 15 years old, living with his parents in the Hyde Park neighborhood, three blocks down from the Obamas.
The current stance of Ayers’ and Dohrn’s adopted son Chesa – see website here where he describes himself in 2007 as “growing up as the son of political prisoners” - is morally repugnant.
Chesa’s comments are one more significant piece of evidence that Ayers and Dohrn have not changed their radical views much over the years.
I find it more than a little outrageous that Chesa Boudin would describe his parents as “political prisoners.” They helped plan and carry out a violent robbery of an armored car at a mall in Nanuet, NY. The robbery began with a shootout with the armored car guards which killed one of them. The robbers escaped with $1.5 million in cash. This was not a robbery gone bad, the robbers attacked the guards with guns blazing. When the getaway vehicle (a u-haul truck driven by Kathy Boudin, with Gilbert on the front seat beside her) was stopped by police, six men burst out of the rear and opened fire on the police, killing two of them. Boudin and Gilbert (Chesa’s father) were convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life for felony robbery and murder. Boudin was paroled in 2003. Gilbert is still behind bars.
There’s an interesting, but chilling profile of Chesa Boudin from 2002 at Slate (of all places). Here’s the key graf:
To make clear he has embraced the ideology of all his parents, he observes: “We have a different name for the war we’re fighting now—now we call it the war on terrorism, then they called it the war on communism. My parents were all dedicated to fighting U.S. imperialism around the world. I’m dedicated to the same thing.”
It seems quite likely that Ayers and Dorhn bear some responsibility for Chesa’s opinion that his parents are “political prisoners,” and were “fighting imperialism” by robbing armored cars and murdering police officers. After all, they raised him from the time he was 14 months old.
I would hardly describe Ayers as repentant or rehabilitated. His Ph.D. in education does not atone for his actions.
To bring it back to relevant current events. Obama’s relationship with Ayers appears to go back to at least 1987 when he was a 26 year old community organizer in Chicago and Ayers was a new Ph.D. from Columbia.
Ayers was an activist in the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools. Community organizer Barack Obama’s Developing Communities Project was a member of that Alliance. – Bob Owens, at Pajamas Media
After returning from law school, Obama worked closely with Ayers on various boards and projects over ten years in Chicago. When Obama decided to run to the Illinois State Senate:
“It was in 1995 that Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn hosted the gathering, in their town house three blocks from Mr. Obama’s home, at which State Senator Alice J. Palmer, who planned to run for Congress, introduced Mr. Obama to a few Democratic friends as her chosen successor.” – NY Times
And Ayers’ adopted son thinks his natural parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, are political prisoners.
In its never-ending desire to secure the election of Barack Obama, the mainstream media seems willing to commit all manner of journalistic malpractice.
The latest is the attempt to deflect the attention from Senator Obama’s Illinois political allies and supporters, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn (founders of the 1970’s terrorist group, the Weather Underground).
To do this, they’ve resorted to the fantasy that Todd Palin associated with terrorists in Alaska. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. posted an article on the Huffington Post attempting to do this. Kennedy’s article is a deceptive, misleading collection of half-truths. It has been accepted as gospel truth and widely circulated by defenders of Obama. It is a despicable piece of shoddy research, which even the author has to know is a falsehood.
In the article Kennedy asserts that Todd Palin joined the Alaska Independence Party and that the AIP was rabidly and violently anti-American.
Ironic of course, for any member of the political left to wrap themselves in the flag and profess outrage at “anti-Americanism.”
The facts in the story are simply wrong. Todd Palin didn’t “join” the AIP, and the AIP is hardly a hotbed of anti-American terrorists.
Todd Palin didn’t “join” the Alaska Independence Party – he selected it as his “party preference” when he registered to vote This may seem like a mere technicality, but anyone who lives in a state where voters record their “party preference” knows what that means. In Alaska, voters have the option of registering their party preference. Todd Palin registered his party preference as Alaska Independence Party in October, 1995. In 2000, he changed his party preference to “undeclared,” and then a few months later changed it back to “Alaska Independence Party.” In July of 2002, he again changed his party preference to “undeclared.” See: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/todd_palin_was_registered_memb.php
Note the headline on this site is misleading. You don’t have to be a “member” of a political party to register your preference with the state division of elections. You are simply recording your party preference. There are three “third party” political groups in Alaska, the Alaska Independence Party, the Green Party, and the Patriot Party. Third parties in AK can have their nominees automatically placed on the ballot if at least 3% of the registered voters indicate the party as their “party preference” in their voter registration. This is obviously a great advantage to a third party, so they encourage as many voters as possible to select them as their party preference.
But what is the Alaska Independence Party?
I would encourage everyone who has an interest to surf over to the Alaska Independence Party website. (http://www.akip.org). It’s an opportunity for a good homeschooling moment on political science, the election process, and tracking down sources.
The Alaska Independence Party is remarkably mainstream. To characterize them as the “Weather Underground” of the frozen north is laughable. In fact, in 1990, the Alaska Independence Party nominated Walter Hickel for Governor. Hickel had been elected Governor of Alaska as a Republican in 1966, and in 1969 he was appointed US Secretary of the Interior. In 1990, he won the election for Governor of Alaska as the Independence Party Candidate, becoming one of only six third party candidates in US history to win a governor’s race (Jesse Ventura of MN, and Lowell Weicker of CT are two of the others). In 1994, the AIP nominated then Lt. Governor Coghill in the race for Governor. Coghill finished third, behind the Democratic winner Tony Knowles, and the Republican nominee Jim Campbell, but ahead of the Green Party and Patriot Party nominees.
In 1970 following the shooting of college students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard, Hickel wrote a letter critical of Nixon’s Vietnam War policy and urging him to give more respect to the views of young people critical of the war. This dissent garnered worldwide media attention, and on Nov 25, 1970, Hickel was fired over the letter.[1]
In 2006 Hickel endorsed Sarah Palin in her bid to become governor. In 2008, he called for the resignation of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
Somehow, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. managed to leave out of his Palin smear on the Huffington Post the fact that Walter Hickel, candidate of the Alaska Independence Party, had actually been elected the Governor of Alaska in 1990.
A post over at Dan Cleary’s blog expresses a concern I’ve heard expressed by some Republicans/Conservatives that a McCain victory might be diminished if there is evidence of the so-called “Bradley Effect.”
I’m not sure that it being a factor would necessarily diminish a McCain victory, unless “being truthful to pollsters” is the moral standard. Though racial prejudice MAY be one motivation for being a “Bradley Effect” voter, it is inarguable that concern about appearing racially prejudiced for not voting for Obama is really the motivation . . . and who’s (here, here) to blame for that? Indeed, I think trumpeting this issue is simply another way to influence uncommitted voters toward Obama.
I AM NEEDING TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.
I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 700 BILLION OF YOUR DOLLARS ( US). IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.
The Foundry (Heritage Foundation blog) reports on a new independent health-care analysis by The Lewin Group on the presidential health care plans. It’s not a major surprise although it’s good to get this information out from a non-partison health care econometrics firm.
Barack Obama clearly favors an expansion of government programs (and the creation of new ones); more regulation handed down from Washington; new mandates, rules, and penalties; and restrictions on individual choice. John McCain advocates empowering consumers; reigning in government programs; freeing up insurance markets; and enabling individuals and families to make personal health care decisions. America is at a crossroads.
Bill Kristol has a great op/ed demonstrating why non-Obama-fans should take heart (”Can They Catch Up?”). He writes about the kind of “offensive” necessary to prevail on November 4th:
The positive component is pretty straightforward: McCain and Palin are common sense conservatives and proven reformers. The record of reform can be emphasized and contrasted with Obama’s and Biden’s record of conventional, go-along, get-along liberalism. And implicitly: If McCain and Palin are reformers and outsiders, it’s not Bush’s third term. More important is the negative message. The McCain campaign has to convince 51 percent of the voters they can’t trust Barack Obama to be our next president. This has an ideological component and a character component.
I encourage you to read the rest of the article . . .
And Dan Cleary has a thoughtful post up regarding how Conservatives should interpret the current polling data. I liked the comment from an Obama person earnestly arguing, no, he really should accept that Obama has this thing in the bag. Sorry, Libs, if I am going to choose not to ensure–by throwing in the towel, that Obama wins the race.
