Thread: Vetting Obama-Your Right To Know

Originally Posted by gunnut

My problem with the liberals (American) is that they are so smug and egocentric. People who agree with them are smart (Obama). People who disagree with them are dumb (McCain). When their guy pulls a parity with the opposition, well, there must be some cheating going on because their guy is smart and the other guy is dumb. That's the problem I have.

All true, but you could substitute the word conservatives for liberals and McCain for Obama, and the same would be true for liberals.

It seems to me liberals and conservatives on the extremes are the vitriolic ones. Closer to the middle, the point of compromise, one finds more reasonableness on both sides. No one side is going to solve all the nation's problems singlehandedly, and those times when the legislative balance swings very far to one side produce the worse results.

McCain understands that. The hyperactive conservatives who were critical of him during the primaries played into his hands. He knows that to win the election he cannot be perceived as just another conservative out of the recent past. They helped separate him from them and continue to do so today, albeit in a less vehement way.

McCain is conservative enough but not very far right, while Obama appears, whether true of not, as too far to the left. The close polls bear out that McCain's constancy since the campaign began is appealing, while Obama's shift to the center is not credible to independent voters.

Originally Posted by JAD_333

McCain is conservative enough but not very far right, while Obama appears, whether true of not, as too far to the left. The close polls bear out that McCain's constancy since the campaign began is appealing, while Obama's shift to the center is not credible to independent voters.

McCains move to the center is more believable because he has a bi-partisan record to back it up. Obama, however, does not.

Also the extreme left occupies places like colleges and mainstream media, while the extreme right are dismissed as loons.

That is one other major difference.

Originally Posted by gunnut

Also the extreme left occupies places like colleges and mainstream media, while the extreme right are dismissed as loons.

That is one other major difference.

I disagree. True, there is a liberal bias in those institutions, but relatively little on the extreme end, and not hugely lopsided. I went to college, too, y'know, and I worked with the media for many years. The popular image is exagegerated, but it does make for potent campaign slogans.

Don't extremists at both ends of the spectrum sometimes seem like loons to you?

Originally Posted by Julie

McCains move to the center is more believable because he has a bi-partisan record to back it up. Obama, however, does not.

Exactly the point.

The cloak of media invisibility is slowly beginning to lift from Barack Obama's most important administrative leadership experience, helming an expensive educational reform effort in Chicago that failed to produce any measurable academic gains, according to the project's own final report.

Add in the fact that former Weatherman and admitted terrorist William Ayers (whom Obama described in the Philadelphia debate as merely a "neighbor") was head of the operating arm of the CAC, working with Obama on distributing scores of millions of dollars to grantees in the wards of the city, and you have a topic that the Obama campaign wishes to avoid at all costs.

A compliant media has averted its eyes so far. A timeline of Obama's career from George Washington University omits it. Why the McCain campaign has not raised more questions on the subject is a question beyond my pay grade. But there are signs it is on the case.

The four plus years (1995-1999) Barack Obama spent as founding chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) represent his track record as reformer, as someone who reached out in a public-private collaboration and had the audacity to believe his effort would make things better. At the time he became leader of this ambitious project to remake the public schools of Chicago, he was 33 years old and a third year associate at a small Chicago law firm, Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland.

This was a big test for him, his chance to cut his teeth on bringing hope and change to the mostly minority inner city school children trapped in Chicago schools. And he flopped big time, squandering lots of money and the time of many public employees in the process.

Given Senator Obama's lack of any other posts as leader of an organization, someone unschooled in the ways of the American media might expect that for months reporters have been poring over the records of the project to get an idea of how it managed to fail so badly. Examining the track record of the guy who wants to lead the federal government would seem to be part of the campaign beat for media organizations.


But as a matter of fact, until recently, only a few bloggers were looking into the most important organized effort ever led by Barack Obama, prior to his successful campaigns for public office.

The Cover-up

Now, it appears a cover-up is underway, in order prevent journalists and researchers from getting access to the records of this charitable project housed in a taxpayer supported library. And there is a mystery:

The UIC Library says it is acting on behalf of the donor, whom it refuses to name.

It took Stanly Kurtz, of National Review Online to ask permission to see the files held by the publicly-funded University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). After initially agreeing, The Richard J. Daley Library withdrew permission.

American Thinker: Obama's Lost Annenberg Years Coming to Light

Yeah, Kurtz has been pretty relentless on this for the last week or so. I read that he's gotten access to some docs today, but I don;t know anything more.

Mortgage deals from felonious friends, ranting anti-American racist mentors, and now possibly a much closer financial relationship with an unrepentant terrorist that someone is trying to cover up? How can it get much worse for Woebama in the social circle arena?

-dale

Won't the democrats just say he's being "swiftboated?"