By the time a person rises to the level of the leader of his party and becomes their nominee for the office of President of the United States, people already know a lot about what kind of person he is. Like John McCain, they know his history, his legislative background, his core beliefs, and his character. That is, until now. So when you have a candidate for the top spot that has limited legislative experience, no executive experience, and no public presence beyond a well delivered speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, knowing more about who our candidate is rises to a level that it would not otherwise be.
Critics of Obama, and I’ll include myself in this, are wrong when they bring up Obama’s ‘associations’ with unsavory people. Until I read Thomas Sowell’s article regarding who ‘the real’ Barack Obama is, I’ve come to the realization that it is not Obama’s associations that matter as much as his ‘alliances.’
From Thomas Sowell’s article . . .
Critics of Senator Barack Obama make a strategic mistake when they talk about his “past associations.” That just gives his many defenders in the media an opportunity to counter-attack against “guilt by association.”
We all have associations, whether at the office, in our neighborhood or in various recreational activities. Most of us neither know nor care what our associates believe or say about politics.
Associations are very different from alliances. Allies are not just people who happen to be where you are or who happen to be doing the same things you do. You choose allies deliberately for a reason. The kind of allies you choose says something about you.
About the names that are part of Obama’s past and present, Sowell writes . . .
Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, William Ayers and Antoin Rezko are not just people who happened to be at the same place at the same time as Barack Obama. They are people with whom he chose to ally himself for years, and with some of whom some serious money changed hands.
Some gave political support, and some gave financial support, to Obama’s election campaigns, and Obama in turn contributed either his own money or the taxpayers’ money to some of them. That is a familiar political alliance- but an alliance is not just an “association” from being at the same place at the same time.
Obama could have allied himself with all sorts of other people. But, time and again, he allied himself with people who openly expressed their hatred of America. No amount of flags on his campaign platforms this election year can change that.
What we do know about the kind of politician Obama is, is not well known. A testament to the effectiveness of his enablers in the mainstream media in reshaping and repackaging their chosen candidate. Ask yourself if this is the first time you’ve seen or heard this about Barack Obama.
The story of Obama’s political career is not a pretty story. He won his first political victory by being the only candidate on the ballot- after hiring someone skilled at disqualifying the signers of opposing candidates’ petitions, on whatever technicality he could come up with.
Despite his words today about “change” and “cleaning up the mess in Washington,” Obama was not on the side of reformers who were trying to change the status quo of corrupt, machine politics in Chicago and clean up the mess there. Obama came out in favor of the Daley machine and against reform candidates.
Senator Obama is running on an image that is directly the opposite of what he has been doing for two decades. His escapes from his past have been as remarkable as the great escapes of Houdini.
So the next time a liberal, like Pensacola’s Air America Radio host Mike Papantonio, tries to defend Obama by equivocation, by bringing up McCain and the ‘Keating Five’ association of 20 years ago, bring up the alliances that Obama has had for the 20 years since then.
related links:Thomas Sowell, The Real Obama | ‘Character Attacks Emerge’ Says MSM