Two Dozen Reasons To Vote Against Obama

Here are two dozen reasons to vote against Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. I found one of my most widely read and circulated columns was the one on "Twenty-two reasons to vote against Obama" (Sept. 1, 2008) at www.thebulletin.us. So I've updated and expanded that column and here it is.

1. Sen. Obama says Iran is a tiny country that doesn't pose a real threat to us. Here is some of his exact language as reported by ABC: "If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance." That's ridiculous. Iran is killing Americans in Iraq all the time and sending weapons and terrorists to kill Americans among others. Iran has developed ballistic missiles and is getting close to going nuclear. And yet, Sen. Obama thinks Iran doesn't pose a serious threat to us, and even if they eventually do pose such a threat, "they wouldn't stand a chance." That is incredible nonsense of the first water. They may well try to smuggle a suitcase nuke into the U.S. or a dirty bomb of some sort. Why wouldn't that pose a serious threat and why would they not stand a chance? But wait a minute. Isn't killing and trying to kill Americans and American servicemen a "serious threat?" They've already killed Americans and others around the world.

2. Sen. Obama says the present financial crisis is the most serious threat to our financial system since the Great Depression. Yet, he didn't go to Washington as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., did to try to resolve the problem, and showed up only for the vote. He says, I have a phone, if you need me call me. The nation is on the edge of an abyss holding on by its fingernails, and he says if you need him call. Is that the way to handle a major crisis? This is another variety of his voting present more than 100 times in the Illinois legislature, meaning he doesn't want to vote yes or no, but wants to sit on the sidelines and not take a position.

3. During the presidential debates, Sen. Obama never used the word "victory" once. He also avoids the words "Islamofascist terrorists." Do we really want a commander in chief who omits the word "victory" from his vocabulary but incessantly calls for retreat and defeat in Iraq? Do we really want a commander in chief who refuses to use the words necessary to describe those that are now warring against us, now plotting terrorist attacks upon us, and are now killing or trying to kill Americans in Iraq and across the globe?

4. Sen. Obama keeps saying, "Put the middle class first." Do we really want a president who engages in class warfare? Why should the "middle class be first" ahead of all others? Why should those who are not in the middle class all come in second? Shouldn't all Americans get the same treatment regardless of "class?" In fact why is "class" even part of the vocabulary of presidential politics?

5. Sen. Obama simply won't admit he makes mistakes and turns away criticism of any kind as off-limits because it is the "old politics." Even when everyone proclaimed the surge as a success, Sen. Obama refused to admit it was a success, and went into verbal gyrations of the most extreme form to try to paint the surge as a mistake. One important quality of presidential leadership is the ability to admit mistakes. Sen. Obama lacks this essential quality of leadership and of honesty.

6. Do we want a president who voted for infanticide and murder? There is now proof beyond contradiction that Sen. Obama voted against a bill in the Illinois legislature that would have given an infant that survived a botched abortion the right to medical care. This voting position has been confirmed seven ways to Sunday, and yet Sen. Obama tries to lie out of it. This simply proves he is an advocate of infanticide and political lies.

7. Sen. Obama has the distinction of being the most radical pro-abortion advocate in the Senate. He has said, "The first thing I'd do as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act." This legislation would wipe out all restrictions on abortion imposed by federal or state laws, including the ban on partial birth abortion. Sen. Obama, who once taught constitutional law, thinks the chief purpose of our constitution is to legalize and facilitate abortion in all forms and in all circumstances without any restrictions or limitations. This is just one sign of Sen. Obama's extremism and radicalism that pervades his thinking, policies and associates.

8. Should the highest office of the land go to someone who campaigns as a race baiter and a race hustler? You've heard the sound bites from Sen. Obama that play the race card in various ways. Sen. Obama says the Republicans will try to scare you, as I have a funny name, and as I don't look like the other presidents. And then he adds that I'm also black. If that's not race baiting what is it?

9. Sen. Obama's tax policy shows that he is so enslaved to his radical, socialistic, redistribution ideas that he can't even set rational policy. His crowing glory of irrationality is a proposal to raise the capital gains tax, even though he knows that will cut tax revenue. He says that's because of his insistence on "fairness." Dr. Ernie Goss, an economist at Creighton University, said of this proposal, "Too bad that even the poor will end up with a larger piece of a smaller pie." Sen. Obama, the ideologue, puts his leftist ideology ahead of reason. Dr. Goss put this tax idea at the head of his list of the dumbest economic moves of the year.

10. Another one of Dr. Goss's list of dumbest economic moves of the year is the Obama proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies. This is dumb on multiple counts. First, it will cut oil production, as the more you tax something the less you get. It will discourage further production and further exploration of alternative energy sources. Second, it will put American oil companies at a disadvantage in global competition. Sen. Obama has a knack of packing a lot of stupidity into a single proposal. But he can't help himself. It's part of the Sen. Obama/Democratic Party reflex action to soak the rich, to tax and to spend. When you're talking about close to a trillion dollars in new spending, when you're promising everybody everything (health care, tax cuts, tuition payments, etc.), you have to stay up nights dreaming up new ways to tax.

11. Another wacky and unsound tax proposal of Sen. Obama's is to abolish income taxes for all senior citizens making less than $50,000. This shows Sen. Obama's radical, extremist approach as the idea has been condemned by almost everyone. Both the Brookings Institute and the Urban Institute panned the idea: "The proposal would exempt comparatively well-off, though not affluent, senior citizens from taxes and give them a benefits not generally available to working Americans." Investor's Business Daily (Aug. 13, 2008) points out that due to an array of resources seniors are now better off in many cases than their kids and grandkids. What's more the poverty rate of seniors has gone down from 35 percent in the late 1950s to about 10 percent today. This is just another reckless promise Sen. Obama tosses out to win votes and to please his far-left liberal base.

12. To appreciate the full stupidity of the Sen. Obama tax approach, you have to put it into a broader context. He wants to go on a spending binge, including such things as universal health care, just like Congressmen get. So he's promising everyone a Cadillac of health care at a time when we're under a budget-breaking, back-breaking deficit arising out of entitlements already on the books such as Medicare and Social Security. The total unfunded liability of Medicare and Social Security is now $85 trillion (yes, trillion with a "T"). And Sen. Obama is going full steam for even more entitlements. He hasn't figured out how to finance Medicare for those 65, and older, a program which is breaking us. But now he wants to dramatically extend that program to the whole population. You're supposed to learn to walk before you try to fly.

13. In case you think that Sen. Obama might leave one piece of the economy undisturbed and undestroyed you're wrong. He has proposed killing NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. He said that NAFTA was "devastating" and "a big mistake." One of his advisers told Canadian officials that his call to kill NAFTA was just part of overheated campaign rhetoric, and Sen. Obama has since partially flip-flopped, admitting NAFTA was at least a partial success. What he would do about NAFTA if elected is hard to say, as he lacks core principles that control what he says. But the unions oppose free trade so Sen. Obama will, too.

14. The best example of his total lack of core principles is his reversal on public financing of campaigns. Such campaign financing was about as central to what he claimed to believe as anything. He proclaimed his dedication at all times in all ways to public financing. Of course, as soon as he realized he could raise more money by not adhering to public financing, he shifted his position. This is just another one of his endless flip-flops that suggest his only principle is getting elected and advancing his personal interests. What would you expect from someone who came right out of the most corrupt political machine in America - the Cook County Chicago political machine - to which he is still attached.

15. Don't forget that Sen. Obama is at core a radical, an extremist, and a liberal. The National Journal found him to be the most liberal member of the Senate, more liberal than Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Edward Kennedy, and Sen. Joe Biden. He has surrounded himself with "political, social, and spiritual mentors who are so far to the left that many push the envelope on ideological respectability" (David Freddoso, The Case Against Barack Obama). You can be sure that if elected his cabinet and other appointees will come from that same group of liberals, radicals and extremists that he has always associated with.

16. Sen. Obama's record shows that he says one thing but does the opposite. His rhetoric has no relation to his reality. He talks about bipartisanship and bringing us altogether. Yet careful studies show he votes the party line almost exclusively, and he and his supporters are unable to specify a single time when he went against his party's call on any matter of significance.

17. Sen. Obama, among his many other qualities, is a certified liar. Perhaps the best proof of that is his 20-year association with Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright. He was a member of Wright's Trinity Church, he sat in the pews with his wife, he received the church's newsletter, he was a close associate of Rev. Wright's and even worked with him. He read the Chicago press, which often reported on Rev. Wright's raving and ranting, and yet when the media exposed Wright's view, he claimed he didn't know anything about it. This led to a Jackie Mason joke - he never listened even though he was there, he said these things on Tuesday and he was there on Thursday, etc. In fact, there is good reason to believe that Sen. Obama joined Rev. Wright's church because he was attracted to his beliefs. As Mr. Muravchik points out in an important article in Commentary (October 2008) titled "Obama's Leftism," "Obama, under pressure from the Hillary Clinton campaign, declared himself 'shocked' at Wright's vitriol. But in truth not only was he aware of Wright's views, they were what had drawn him to Trinity church in the first place." Either Sen. Obama was aware of Wright's racist and anti-American views for 20 years, or he is the dumbest man in America.

18. Another one of his noteworthy lies relates to whether he was ever a Muslim. Daniel Pipes has carefully documented his Muslim's connections in an article titled "Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood: How his deception about his past makes him unfit to be president." Mr. Pipes shows how he was educated, raised and worshipped as a Muslim in his childhood. Mr. Pipes writes, "Obama's having been born and raised a Muslim and having left the faith to become a Christian make him neither more nor less qualified to become president of the United States. But if he was born and raised a Muslim and is now hiding that fact, this points to a major deceit about himself that has profound implications about his character and suitability as president."

19. His speeches call for energy independence but his proposals and record call for continued energy dependence. Like the Democratic leadership in Congress, he opposes drilling and coal. These are the energy sources that dwarf what's in Saudi Arabia and could make us energy independent. His most famous energy initiative is to have everyone check their tires and tune-up their cars.

20. He has a remarkably thin resume, and seems to have spent most of his time in advancing himself rather than any cause or idea. In fact, those who have studied his career say that they can't find a single accomplishment of significance during his working life.

21. He has committed a series of gaffes that might have sunk another candidate. One of my favorites is his call to send the dispute between Russia and Georgia to the U.N. Security Council, apparently unaware that Russia has a veto in the Security Council. He said one of the first things he'd do is tell the Joint Chiefs of Staff to make plans to withdraw from Iraq. The Joint Chiefs don't even have jurisdiction to do that, as it rests with field commanders. Even after it has been pointed out many times he's off base on this, he keeps repeating the proposal. Another colossal gaffe is his moral equivalence between Russian aggression in Georgia and the U.S.'s liberation of Iraq.

22. As his own friendly biographer has pointed out, Obama is comfortable with anti-American types and seems to run with them. That may explain his objections to wearing an American flag on his lapel, his unwillingness to place his hand over his heart during "The Star-Spangled Banner," and similar suggestions of anti-Americanism. This also may explain his long-time association with unrepentant terrorist and America hater William Ayres.

23. Take all this and multiply it by 100. That's because the mainstream media, the largest media segment in America, has not vetted Sen. Obama and has acted like it is his campaign manager, not a journalistic institution. If the mainstream media had questioned and investigated Sen. Obama, based on what's come out to date, the record and views of Sen. Obama would get even more frightening.

24. When you cut through all the reasons, you come down to a candidate who is an eloquent windbag, who can deliver speeches, but who has dangerous ideas and dangerous associates, and who has demonstrated he can't accomplish anything but deliver fancy rhetoric. As the great columnist Thomas Sowell, whose work appears in The Bulletin, summarized it, "Obama of course has his usual answer: talk. Rhetoric seems to be his answer to everything." So if you want sparkling oratory containing empty words and meaningless generalities, elect Sen. Obama. With his speeches you will also get disaster on the domestic and foreign policy front, but you'll get an endless flow of pretty speeches. But they may not be worth the price of destroying America.

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 the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us

Obama, Is He Really Good for Asian Minority?

It is quite obvious that different ethnic minority groups hold the power in the outcome of the United States 2008 presidential election. Historically, ethnic minorities have tended to favor the Democratic Party mainly because the perception is that Democrats are more open to diverse ethnic groups and their needs than Republicans.

Obama is doing fairly well with different ethnic groups. His African American heritage is a great pride for African Americans with 95 percent supporting him in the democratic primaries. For the same reason, Africans from all over the world would like to see Obama win the United States presidency. Native Americans share with African Americans the history of slavery and mistreatments of the past and feel perhaps that electing Obama offers them the healing they desire. Latinos and people with Hispanic background feel that Obama will give a very favorable hearing on illegal immigration and an acceptance of the Spanish language as part of the daily American life and are leaning toward him with their votes. The Muslim minority feels the closeness for Obama due to ancestry on his father’s side.

Recent polling data indicates that Asian minority groups also support Obama’s presidency in significant numbers. As a naturalized citizen of Asian background, I understand the attraction this group feels for a minority candidate. Rising to the top after all is not an easy road for minorities in the American society and Asian minority sympathizes with this fact!

The question however is what does Obama offer to ethnic minorities from Asia and Far Eastern countries? Is he really the right choice for this group? Are we sure that the policies of Obama presidency and perhaps even today’s Democratic Party and its leaders are right for the ethnic minority of Asian background? After much thought and deliberation, I would like to bring some important issues to the attention of the Asian population and see, if upon reading them they are still in support of Obama.

1. Most immigrants from Asia and the Far East in the past and present came to the United States for graduate studies. After finishing their higher education, they found a welcoming audience of employers eager to use their talents! Having a job in America was the start of a journey to American life.

But there was something else that helped this minority group! Their home country’s education system provided them enough training and understanding of English language needed to succeed in the American academia. Most Asian countries teach English as a language in secondary schools providing the skills necessary for higher studies in the United States.

Obama’s policies on immigration and language with emphasis on making Spanish as an accepted language of business will change this advantage Asians have and will restrict access to educational opportunities. Chances are that future students from Asian countries will be expected and perhaps compelled to know the Spanish language along with English. A requirement or necessity to know Spanish to succeed in America will directly impact the Asian population’s chances to come to America, to assimilate, and be successful in achieving the American dream.

2. Asians come to the United States for better opportunities just like other minority group and from all indications, they have done very well. Asian minorities are intricately involved in all aspects of American society as engineers, doctors, scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs and everything in between. Without minimizing the shadow of employment discrimination that many Asians have faced, they have in general been successful in achieving many of their dreams.

Ironically, if Asians take a closer look at their day to day life in America they might be surprised to see that their American dreams are tied to close associations with White Americans. Let’s start with academia which is where a majority of Asian students first start their American life. Their first point of contact is White professors who make up the largest racial/ethnic group of faculty according to the Department of Education. The University staff members are also majority White and who provide the support and mentoring that helps the Asian students feel welcome to the new American life.

Outside the academia, Asians live and interact with neighbors, bosses, and friends who happen to be mostly White Americans.

It is not a stretch to say that White Americans have directly or indirectly played a major role in helping this minority group achieve the success they desire. The question arises, why then Asians are attracted by Obama’s ethnicity or his minority status as the main reason to support him? Why do they feel that somehow Obama’s presidency will change their lives for the better? What if the change is really NOT in their favor? Then what?

3. Obama has mentioned on many occasions that he will re-evaluate the free trade economic model that has been responsible for the outsourcing of good -paying manufacturing industries and jobs in America. A majority of Americans agree that the United States need to look at the negative impact of free trade policies and let’s hope that both parties will do something to bring some sanity and balance into this unequal trade partnership!

However, the Asian minority should also consider the fact that Obama’s extreme positions of limiting free trade might be very detrimental for the Asian economies. It is the manufacturing in China and IT industries in India that has brought about economic prosperities that fills Asian communities with pride for their native countries. Supporting Obama’s presidency puts that progress in harm ways and Asian communities must consider this before voting for him.

4. According to the Small Business Administration, Asians lead other minorities in starting and growing Small Businesses. The tax proposals put forth by the two parties’ will have great impact upon the survival and success of any Small Business. It would seem that the Republican Party’s philosophy of low taxes should be very attractive policy issue that the Asian minority should take into consideration as they choose their preferred party.

5. Most Asian countries’ economic and political structures are based in a socialist world view. Asian immigrants have firsthand seen the results of big government, high tax structure, and rigid regulations practiced in their countries resulting in high employment, lower productivity, slow progress, corruption, and death to the dreams of hardworking individuals. In fact, the progress that China and India boasts about is due to embracing open and capitalistic economic models. Why then does it make any sense to support Mr. Obama, whose worldview is very much based in a social agenda involving big government, entitlement programs, and higher taxes? Why the Asian community even questions the capitalistic system that has given them so much success in a foreign country over Obama’s socialist philosophy which kept their native countries economy in check to the detriment of its citizen?

6. Asian countries have seen a fair share of devastation that terrorism brings in their home countries. Some Asian countries have lived with terrorism on a daily basis for many decades. The citizenry of those countries know that policies of talking to terrorists practiced by their native countries have never been successful. In fact, they have always wondered if their governments have the will and desire to stand up against terroristic threats and activities that people of those countries have suffered year after year.

The United States has been courageous enough to take a stand against terrorism and has shown leadership that no other country in the world has attempted time and time again. It would seem that the Asian minority would, instead of calling their adopted country’s tough talk of that an aggressor, instead throw their support behind a political party that takes a tougher stand against terrorism.

7. That brings up the question of Iraq war! Polling data suggests that a majority of Asian community like the rest of America thinks that it was an unnecessary war and once started should have been managed better. From a practical point of view, for the United States loosing so many great men and women fighting in Iraq as well as billions of dollars at some point was good enough reason to get out of Iraq. But consider this scenario and its political impact:

The United States started a war, saw that it had lost control of the war and quickly withdrew leaving a third world country to the mercy of terrorists. But in the eyes of the world, this would have compounded the first mistake which was starting a wrong war. To leave a country shattered in the middle of an unfinished war would have given the world a bigger excuse to say that for America, American lives are worth more than Iraqi lives; that a rich country always treats a poor country badly.

If as some in Democratic Party argue that America has lost its standing in the world by starting the Iraq war, imagine the reaction of the world community, the liberal media and democratic pundits would have said had America gotten out of the war leaving the chaos and Iraqi people to fend for themselves.

It is the greatness of the United States to spend its own blood and wealth to make what was a wrong a right; to show leadership in a tough situations. Is this not what we Asians admired about America from far away?

8. The Bush government has been very good to Asian countries and their economies. India has the nuclear treaty that it thought was not possible! China, Vietnam, Thailand and many other countries have received a personal visit by this Republican president. It is time that the Asian community living in the United States looks at the issues in an open and honest way rather than to just accept the conventional argument that only a Democratic party and a Democratic president will look after their interests and the interests of their native countries.

9. On a personal note, if films are any reflection of a country’s culture, Asians like to cheer for a movie hero who shows extraordinary courage and strength and who’s ready to die for his country. John McCain’s life story is like a hero of an Asian film that we loved and cried over long after the movie ended.

Indianyogi.

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