A Presidential Catastrophe For America

The first in a three part series on why to vote against Sen. Barack Obama and for Sen. John McCain.

Will America elect an inexperienced Chicago machine politician, a radical, extremist, leftist, liberal, elitist, with no legislative or other accomplishments, who has demonstrated he is a world-class flip-flopping zigzagger? Will we go for someone with a painfully thin resume and body of experience, who has already demonstrated bad judgment by his selection of associates (racists, bigots, terrorists, and crooks) and by his output of ideas? This candidate is totally unfit to be our commander-in-chief and president in a time of unprecedented peril to the survival of our nation and western civilization.

If you examine the record and pronouncements of Barack Obama, you will discover he is not only totally unprepared and unqualified to be president, but is in fact a fraud being sold to the American people by his campaign managers and promoters, the mainstream media. I would recommend he change his slogan from "change you can believe in," to "a fraud you can believe in."

We'll be answering that question in November. But first a note on the mainstream media, the source of news for most Americans. The mainstream media is acting as press agent for Mr. Obama, campaign manger for Mr. Obama, and advertising agency for Mr. Obama. Their bias, fraud, and dishonesty are so thick and heavy it is almost unimaginable.

I have been saying the mainstream media has been sinking into the journalistic sewer and cesspool, but recent developments indicate the mainstream media can't sink any lower. It can only shift its position in the slime. The recent developments involve his trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe and the Middle East and the McCain letter to the New York Times:

* The three major networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, sent their anchors, something they ordinarily do not do for a presidential candidate, and something they did not do when Sen. John McCain made his multiple trips abroad this year. In fact, they often barely covered his trips abroad. This should make it obvious that the mainstream media are totally in the tank for Mr. Obama, and fairness, balance, and objectivity are totally out of the window. They obviously have no shame in the lengths they will go to glorify, sanctify, canonize, and deify Mr. Obama, treating him more like the Messiah than a presidential candidate. They no longer even pretend to be fair and balanced.

* The second media development was the New York Times rejecting his letter-to-the-editor on his plan for the war in Iraq. They printed Mr. Obama's but told Mr. McCain he'd have to redo his letter to include a timetable for withdrawal and cover other issues. In other words, they are telling Mr. McCain in the revised letter to adopt Mr. Obama's position. As Karl Rove has pointed out, the rejection by the Times is arrogant, condescending, and stupid - arrogant because the Times is telling Mr. McCain what to say, condescending because they are outlining subjects to be covered, and stupid because they are making it obvious that they are biased, fraudulent, and dishonest in their coverage beyond belief and beyond reason. Of course, the Times can no longer be thought of as a newspaper. It is a propaganda sheet, and a worthless one at that, for its radical leftist ideas, which are shared by Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party. The Times has always been biased against conservatives, Republicans, and Pres. Bush. This was documented by an excellent book by Bob Kohn entitled Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted. Mr. Kohn gives hundreds of examples of the incredible bias of the Times, and the situation seems to have gotten steadily worse since then.

If the public permits the mainstream media to push an unvetted, untested, untried, unexamined political toddler down its throat, it will be a disaster for the U.S. This is not just a matter of a little media bias on one side of the line or another. It is the greatest piece of journalistic malfeasance in American history, with the mainstream media in a full court press to sell Mr. Obama, virtually amounting to an attempt at a coup d'etat, using the media to improperly seize control of our government. What's worse, they do this in the middle of a war when we face the threat of Islamo-fascist terrorism, one of the most dangerous threats in the history of the nation. That's why it is essential to read some of the alternative media (a question we will return to later), and not trust the political reporting coming out of the mainstream media, which include such outlets as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS, National Public Radio, the New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, Newsweek, and the rest.

* On one of the central issues of his campaign, the war in Iraq, Mr. Obama has been flip-flopping and demonstrating bad judgment in the extreme. He has said that he would get out of Iraq in sixteen months and then has said he would listen to the generals and the others on the ground in making his decision. As with so many other matters of grave importance, he is on both sides of the issue and seems to be devoid of guiding principles and values. He has said time and time again he will bring one or two brigades out each month and will have our combat troops out in 16 months. But on other occasions, he keeps explaining how he will listen to the generals on the ground and will refine his position accordingly. In other words, he will go to Iraq and Afghanistan and listen to the generals and then do what he decided to do before making the trip. He pays lip service to conditions on the ground, but worships at the altar of a fixed and irrational timetable. You can't fight and win a war on the basis of a timetable and a calendar.

* He has demonstrated an almost moronic decision making process on Iraq and on other matters as well. He made his major speech on Iraq and Afghanistan before going on his fact-finding mission to the war zones. This is a classic cart-before-the-horse routine, making decisions first, and gathering facts and evidence last. With his 300 advisers on foreign policy, if Mr. Obama can't get that basic an issue right, he probably can't get anything right. Needless to say after his visit to Iraq and Afghanistan, he said he hasn't changed his mind. Of course not, as he had made up his mind before he went.

* He has demonstrated his foolhardy judgment on foreign policy that even goes beyond what those first two points above have demonstrated. He said he would invade our ally Pakistan if necessary. So he proposes invading our allies and negotiating with our enemies (e.g., Iran) without preconditions. He has been willing to make these grand decisions on the war against terror without even talking to Gen. Petraeus and the military and political leaders on the ground. What could be more foolish and dangerous than that? He only went to Iraq and Afghanistan on his recent trip after being embarrassed into doing so by the criticism of Mr. McCain. The trip abroad is just eyewash and part of his political campaign, having nothing to do with his decision making process. He was proclaiming his eagerness to meet (without preconditions) with our enemies, such as Mr. Ahmadinejad of Iran, Mr. Chavez of Venezuela, and Mr. Castro of Cuba without even thinking about or mentioning meeting with Gen. Petraeus or other military leaders on the ground. Only Mr. McCain's prodding finally forced Mr. Obama to take a trip to the war zones to talk to the generals.

*His phoniness on the visit to Iraq and Afghanistan is demonstrated by his conduct in the Senate for years. He is chairman of the Subcommittee on European Affairs with NATO oversight, but Mr. Obama never called or held hearings on Afghanistan or Iraq. Apparently, he only became interested in the war on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan when it became necessary for reasons dictated by his campaign for the presidency. This is standard for Mr. Obama, rarely operating out of conviction or principles, usually operating out of political ambition and political necessity. If you look closely at his record, you see a hyper-ambitious politician, willing to do anything to get elected (in the tradition of Chicago politics), and with little concern for principles and values.

* He likes to say he has good judgment and that's why he opposed the Iraq war in the first place. But that was not a real decision when the money was on the line. He was a state legislator at the time speaking to one of the rabid anti-war rallies. He told them what they wanted to hear. But when he was actually in a decision- making capacity in the U.S. Senate, he was wrong on the surge, perhaps the most important decision made during his brief tenure in the Senate (most of which has been spent campaigning, not legislating).

* Most fundamentally Mr. Obama simply doesn't understand the war against terror. It is a worldwide attack on us from a collection of terrorists' organizations, rogue states, and their sympathizers that are determined to destroy us. Mr. Obama thinks if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will accommodate us and leave too, rather than take over Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. This is simply a fundamental failure to understand our enemy, where they are and what they intend, and that we cannot defeat this challenge to our survival by ignoring or denying it.

* He has also demonstrated his utter phoniness and hypocrisy on his claim that he is a different kind of politician and will bring us altogether - not red states and blue states but the United States and all that jazz about unity and change and non-partisanship. In fact, on the central issues in his campaign, his actions are exactly the opposite of his rhetoric. His voting record is a hard-left, liberal, Democratic Party line, without a hint of bipartisanship and non-partisanship. The respected National Journal found him to be the most liberal member of the Senate in 2007, outdoing even Teddy Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry on the loony left.

* His voting record also suggests when he is not voting the hard liberal leftist line, he is a political coward. While a member of the Illinois legislature he was known for "present" votes - 130 to be exact. That's when you don't want to take a yes or no position so you just indicate you are present, and are thus worthy of being in the book Profiles in Cowardice.

* He shows a remarkable lack of political courage and honesty when it comes to admitting he was wrong. He was against the surge in Iraq when it was first proposed, saying it would not work and would only make things worse militarily and bring on a catastrophe. Mr. McCain was the moving force behind the surge. When the surge worked, Mr. Obama would not admit he was wrong. He even said that, even knowing what he knows now, he would still vote against the surge. During his overseas trip, he said, "There is no doubt if we put in 30,000 troops ... they're going to make a difference." Before there was no doubt they would make things worse militarily and bring on a catastrophe. What are we to take for that? Is he so invested in defeat in Iraq (along with the defeat and retreat Democratic Party that he heads) that he would vote against the surge, which almost everyone now says is the key to turning the tide and victory. As Mr. McCain said, Mr. Obama's politics mean he would rather lose a war than lose an election. In contrast, Sen. McCain would rather lose an election than lose a war.

* This other kind of politician, Mr. Obama, who will bring us change, has demonstrated he is different from other politicians only in changing his mind and position faster than other politicians. He is flip-flopping faster and changing his positions to meet the political winds on a more massive scale. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has called his recent flip-flops the most total and rapid in history. On issues that are central to his campaign, such as public financing, he has made the 180-degree flip-flop without even giving some rational explanation. He also made a classic flip-flop on gun control. Before the recent Supreme Court decision in the Heller case, he said the District of Columbia gun control law was constitutional. After the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional, he agreed with that, too. So this former teacher of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, thought the D.C. gun control law was constitutional before he thought it was unconstitutional. He is this confused and contradictory in the area where he is supposed to be most expert - constitutional law. Imagine what happens when he gets into areas he knows less or nothing about. He was against giving the telecommunications companies immunity from lawsuits, until his recent flip-flop. He was for an undivided Jerusalem under Israeli control ... until the day after he gave his speech on the subject. He would not disassociate himself from his pastor, Jeremiah "Damn America" Wright, until it became politically advantageous for him to do so. At first, Mr. Obama said Rev. Wright was being taken out of context and was improperly reduced to a few snippets. When that zigzagging didn't hold up, he finally denounced Rev. Wright. He would not wear an American flag on his lapel, branding it a device of false patriotism. But now he can't get it off his lapel and always poses with flags and chants God bless America. He's done his flip-flop on NAFTA and other issues as well. This is a guy whose central principle is to get elected, even if that means throwing his grandmother under the bus (which he did) and flip-flopping on the central issues of his campaign. This has moved even his friends in the media to note that he is moving to the center, but is in fact lurching in that direction. Will the real Mr. Obama finally stand up...for once?

* There is one thing about the flip-flopping more damning than the flip-flops themselves. That's his penchant for not explaining his reasons or for giving reasons that are totally irrational. On his central issue of public financing, he suggested by getting massive Internet contributions from huge numbers of people, he has come up with a form of public financing. That is intellectual garbage and gibberish at best. It is Orwellian in nature, calling what you want in fact the opposite of what it is in fact. In Orwell, war becomes peace and slavery becomes freedom. In Obamese, private financing becomes public financing. In my next column, I'll have more reasons to vote against Mr. Obama and for Mr. McCain.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.

Glad to see your keyboard is working. Thought it might have overload from all the threads....the no show to the wounded HAS ME saying WHAT???

How do you think he got this far anyway? He is the dark skinned fellow who says what he thinks people want to hear and changes it to fit each new situation he is in. But doesn’t he speak well?

Obama’s biggest problem is that historians and the public have memory. Without it, he could keep switching his schpiel with each new audience. He is a disaster in the making.

the no show to the wounded HAS ME saying WHAT???

It was hard to believe, even for him. If ever there was proof that leftism is a mental disorder, BO is it.

“He is flip-flopping faster and changing his positions to meet the political winds on a more massive scale.”

When I was a kid growing up in Long Beach, California I used to fish considerably. Primarily off the old pier, but also off the Barge moored at the end of the breakwater.

I caught many an Obama...I guess I’d call them that if I were to be fishing again today. They flipped and flopped all over the deck, were slippery as “H”, couldn’t get a grasp of what they were going to do next, and would stab my hand with their boney fins if I tried to grab them. I knew I had to get the suckers into the bucket to contain them.

I see some similarity to fishing here. The part missing is the “contain” part.

“recent developments indicate the mainstream media can’t sink any lower. It can only shift its position in the slime”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Oh, this is so perfect, I wish I had written it!

Barry has actually achieved a "jump the shark" moment. He is not getting any bounce from his college-backpack-hostel tour of Europe, but actually is in free-fall.

From Wiki: "Jumping the shark is a colloquialism used by U.S. TV critics and fans to denote the point in a TV or movie series at which the characters or plot veer into a ridiculous, out-of-the-ordinary storyline. Shows that have "jumped the shark" are typically deemed to have passed their peak, since they have undergone too many changes to retain their original appeal, and after this point critical fans often sense a noticeable decline in the show's quality."

I remember Herb Denenberg. He was insurance commissioner in the liberal Shapp administration in the 1970’s, when Pennsylvania became Taxylvania.

As for the Presidential race - both candidates have, and will continue to, increase government at the expense of our liberty.

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