Friday, March 07, 2008

Barack Obama Could Be the First Black Jimmy Carter

If the "Clinton Machine" fails to put an end to the presidential aspirations of Barack Obama, for 2008 at least, he could become our next President. I have always felt that any of the Republican candidates would be able to beat Hillary but possibly not Obama. The media has convinced most of America that John McCain was the only candidate who could have a shot at winning and consequently we in the GOP got stuck with him. The Democrat front runner is currently Barack Obama and if he wins the White House it will be Jimmy Carter all over again.

I was first eligible to vote way back when Jimmy Carter was facing Jerry Ford. I knew almost nothing about politics and was a registered Democrat, but then I repeat myself. Despite my naivete I looked at the two men asking for my vote and I voted for Ford. Judging from how the following four years went I stand by my choice. Then came the Reagan years and to this day I have always voted for the person I considered the best choice. I have never voted for a Democrat for President. I was a Republican in my heart only for years. I was on jury duty once and hanging around the courthouse with nothing to do. I noticed the Supervisor of Elections office and went in and officially changed parties.

As I am composing this I hear on the radio that twenty percent of white Democrats say they will vote for John McCain if Obama is their nominee. I can assure you that if twenty percent of white Democrats say that, there is another twenty percent who say they will vote for Obama but will not. People have a limited comfort zone. Some dedicated Democrats will find themselves in that voting booth and either feel unsure about voting for a black man or be uncomfortable with the idea of President Obama. Now, President McCain sounds more like what most of us are accustom to.

However, if some twist of fate puts Senator Obama in the Oval Office I predict that he will be as unsuccessful in that office as Jimmy Carter. President Carter had no true love for this country. Look at the things he said and did in office and since. Carter was and is always critical of the US. You would be hard pressed to find evidence Carter was ever really proud of this country. Carter always proceeded as though the US deserved to be humbled. In his time in office he gave away the Panama Canal, he denied us an Olympics, a national Christmas tree, and warm homes. All this from a Southern white man who had been successful in America and should have had no ax to grind against us.

Then comes Obama. The son of an anthropologist described in the Chicago Tribune last year as a "fellow traveler" the warm and fuzzy term used to describe a communist sympathizer. Obama's mother, Ann Dunham married first a Kenyan economics student who abandoned her and her infant and then an Indonesian. When her second husband had his student visa revoked she followed him to Indonesia in 1967. Ann Dunham's doctoral dissertation reflected her admiration for more primitive cultures. She praised the peasant blacksmiths of Indonesia in terms she would never offer to any Americans. Anthropology was and is one of the far left fringes of our already left leaning universities. Raised by a mother like this Senator Obama could not possibly develop great admiration for America.

The second, and perhaps more important women in Obama's life, his wife is also no fan or the good old U S of A. The subject of Michelle Obama's college thesis was "Blackness at Princeton".
Mrs. Obama stated that she felt like a visitor at Princeton, like someone who didn't really belong. This was presented as the fault of Princeton not due to some sensitivity or shortcoming on the part of Mrs Obama. An average American would look at Mrs. Obama's life and think she had it pretty good. Attending Princeton and then Harvard law School is considered the pinnacle of academic achievement. Again Mrs. Obama speaks not of the opportunities she has enjoyed but of the hardships she has endured.

While urging a group of lower middle class women at a day care center in Ohio to eschew careers in lucrative jobs like corporate law and hedge fund management Mrs. Obama complained about the burden of student loans. Although she had a job at a Chicago Hospital making $120K she claimed they were unable to retire their student loans and save for their children in their 40's. I'm sure things began to look up when her husband was elected to the Senate and her salary was raised to $312K. That impressive raise made the news in the Chicago area.

Much has been said about Mrs. Obama's statement that she is now "for the first time in her adult life, really proud of my country", well, at least she called America "my country". I was more troubled by the rest of her statement. Mrs Obama went on to say that she has been "desperate to see our country moving in that direction" and "feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment". This is a woman angling to be our First Lady and when she describes this great country that has afforded her so much the words she uses are desperate, frustration and disappointment. As negative as these statements sound in print they are much worse when delivered by Mrs Obama. The only word I can find to describe the look on Mrs. Obama's face during these statements is "hate".

Since then Mrs Obama has gone on to repeatedly give a stump speech that she wrote for herself that includes the following. America is a country of "cynics, sloths, and complacents" we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,”. I didn't go to Princeton or Harvard and I never got more then half way to earning a six-figure income but I know that America is anything but a "downright mean" country. I am six years older than Mrs. Obama but I have been "really proud" of my country time and time again.

Has Mrs. Obama never seen the space shuttle launch? She has traveled a lot I would guess. Has she never looked out of the window of the plane with awe and wonder at the magnificence of our great country. Would a "mean" country have given three billion to help the victims of the Sumatra Tsunami in 2004. Americans gave $283.05 billion in 2005 and an estimated $295.02 billion in 2006 to charitable causes, and those figures exclude disaster relief.

Anyway, enough about the wife except to say that no one would be married to this women unless he shared her beliefs. Obama speaks out against the American presence in Iraq in terms that can only undermine our attempts there and demean the country as a whole in world opinion. His own statement that he wants to make it possible for young Americans traveling abroad to "hold their heads high when they say they are Americans" makes clear that he feels they do not have reason to do so now. Like many on the left Barack Obama sees his country as the problem not the solution.

Would General Motors hire a CEO who believed that it was inferior to every other car maker on the planet? Would Starbucks choose a CEO who thought that no one should drink coffee? Should the American people elect a President who thinks that you should hang your heads in shame when you travel the globe? We did so at least once before, and the results were not positive.