Posted on 08/10/2009 9:18:40 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Scary how a lot of bitter McCain backers oppose Obama at every turn Comments
BY Opening shot . . . At any given moment, 40 percent of Americans are dead wrong. Four out of 10 colonists would have happily remained under British rule -- some even fought on the side of the Redcoats. Forty percent of the country -- if not more -- were content with the Nazis overrunning Europe and would have never considered taking up arms against Hitler had not the Japanese attacked us and the Germans -- unwisely, as it turned out -- joined them in declaring war against our country.
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Neil Steinberg
Of course it takes time to form a consensus over what being "dead wrong" means. Today, for instance, some -- I don't know if it's 40 percent, but a considerable minority -- who voted for John McCain are galvanizing into, not just an opposition party in exile, but a kind of fifth column, an enemy within trying to undermine the operation of our government, opposing the president at every turn for purely ideological, if not pathological, reasons.
If Obama tries to fix the economy, then they're against fixing the economy. If Obama tries to reform health care, then the current medical mess is fine and they descend on congressional town hall meetings to shout down and intimidate. If Obama were mobilizing the nation to fight off invaders from Mars, they'd oppose that, too.
It's scary, but we must remember that -- like the Royalists and the America Firsters -- the current crop is on the wrong side of history. The Royalists fled to Britain with their Tory overlords. The isolationists forgot their initial eagerness to ignore Hitler and spent the next 50 years patting themselves on the back as the Greatest Generation. Alas, we're stuck with our present misguided 40 percent, and will have to move forward best we can, with them clinging to our ankles and trying to trip up their own nation every step of the way.
Cities make you smarter God bless Chicago. Having just driven across the country and back, I can tell you that most places are bumps in the road, and it's chilling to see the kind of undiluted reactionary opinion they marinate in. Every roadside diner's TV is tuned to Fox News, every radio station serves some right-wing nut grimly insisting on the reality of utter fantasy. It was out West that I saw a bumper sticker reading, ''Where's the birth certificate?'' referring to the mad claim that Obama was born in Kenya and thus was not eligible to be elected president.
I was sitting in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Mesquite, Nev., when I turned on the radio and heard someone -- it may have been Michael Savage -- explain how the entire birth certificate controversy was -- ready? -- fabricated by the White House in order to distract the public from the president's health care reform.
Takes your breath away, doesn't it?
It's hard to believe such people are sincere, that they ascribe so much malign, nefarious evil onto Obama that they can really believe that long ago he was planting seeds of the birth certificate controversy, working his enemies like puppets, to grease the skids of health reform after his potential election.
You have to marvel at the ingenuity, the sheer flexibility of hate. Like water, it finds a way. Let's break the code. What are the "birthers" saying? Obama is not a citizen, not a full person, but someone barred at the door, by definition. Which for 200 years would have been easily accomplished by his skin color alone. But now that the racial factor -- to their sorrow -- has been taken off the table, the birth certificate canard has been created in its place.
Welcome home "Neil, I just read your Sunday article and could not disagree with you more," writes Tony Megaro, of Chicago. "The main point that the media and the White House don't get is this: The American people do not want to pay for the health care of illegal aliens. . . . Look, if Obama and Pelosi are hell-bent on giving every person free health care, they should change a few laws. The most important should be if you are in this country illegally and have a child, that child is not automatically a U.S. citizen. These immigrants who come into this country know this loophole and have been abusing it for decades."
Three of my four grandparents were born in Eastern Europe, and came to this country to escape the rigors of their homelands.
Thus, I instinctively oppose the contempt with which some greet our current wave of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America as the cowardice and hypocrisy it is.
Occasionally, I try to bang a few pans together on this subject, to point out that we have 12 million undocumented Hispanics living in this country in near serfdom, and the only solution is to put them on the path to citizenship, as we have always done in the past.
But the bottom line is, I'm not Hispanic, I don't speak Spanish and my ability to understand and comment upon Chicago's Latino community is limited. That's why I'm especially happy that my colleague, Esther J. Cepeda, is rejoining the paper today, in the commentary section, as a regular columnist. It takes a lot of personality, curiosity, spunk and confidence to fill an empty space, and Esther has got it, big time, and is an expert in an area that is only going to grow in importance. Welcome back.
Chief, good move putting his occupation in quotes. He is no more a columnist than my 11 month old. This guy is obama shill..
Straw man essay. Not worth anyone’s time reading.
Remember, we've just got past eight years of Chimpy BushHitler. And the pathologicals opposing us at every turn.
How many hours after the airliners hit the World Trade Center was it before the pathologicals started blaming the United States? For some of them it was later the same day.
There is politics, and then there is politics, with your opponents subscribing to every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike in order to avoid engaging your argument. This describes the average Gore-Kerry-Obama voter, to be sure.
Ahhhh .... but smell the fear in these lefties.
Wow, another jew carrying water for the left. Shocker.
The Left loves Communism, I say send them all to Cuba and Venezelua, Pelosi and Reid can drive the ships...PS, bring the illegal aliens, too.
Maggot libs.
This guy is exhibit A for why this paper is in bankruptcy. How dare he compare the experience of the Jews in Eastern Europe to Mexicans and Latin Americans pouring across our southern border illegally? Last time I heard, Mexico wasn’t carrying out pograms and genocide against its own illiterate peasants. “Rigors of their own countries” indeed. What a crap-weasel way to describe what was going on in Europe.
What is scary is how the media is letting Obama get away with outright lies. He said he wants to ultimately achieve a single payer system and his plan lays the clear ground work for destroying private care as an option yet they refuse to call him on it. He said that CAP and Trade would cause coal fired plants to shut down and the cost of energy to rise and his plan will clearly do that but the press does nothing to scrutinize his plan. They are scary. They are what is wrong with this country. They who commit crimes against liberty and humanity. They would allow this man who is President to behave like a third world socialist dictator.
Scary how people who disagree with -9bama also oppose him politically. Make them stop! They’re evil!
Aren't ideological reasons the *best* reason to support or oppose something?
Another idiot liberal, unable to understand the difference bewtween LEGAL and ILLEGAL immigration.
I wonder if they would WANT criminals to come (or be sent) from Mexico to USA? If all immigrants were required to obey the law, then these people would be turned back.
but ANYONE can flaunt US law and come to USA for free health care. Have heart desease in Mexico? No problem- sneak into USA.
The contitution DOES NOT say anyone born in the USA is a citizen.
It says anyone born in the USA AND under the laws and jurisdictions of is a citizen. That underlined clause MUST HAVE SOME MEANING- and what it means is that if you are foreign citizen, especially ILLEGAL foreign national, your child is NOT UNDER THE LAWS AND JURISDICTIONS OF the USA
Chicgo Sun Times? Enough said.
“How many hours after the airliners hit the World Trade Center was it before the pathologicals started blaming the United States?”
As soon as they “found out” the towers had been rigged with explosives the night before/s
“Remember, we’ve just got past eight years of Chimpy BushHitler.”
(who “stole” the election. TWICE./s)
And the Commies have the gall to accuse US of fantasizing?!!
Neil Steinberg is an annoying, whiny drunk demagogue, who “works” for a third-rate leftist rag of a newspaper, lives in lily-white Northbrook, Illinois, and knows nothing of race or the real USA. His words are devoid of meaning or substance, he is a knee-jerk Obama slurper.
“Bitter McCain Backers”?
McCain has no backers. He is toast. And, though you don’t hear much about him these days, McCain is still there in DC reaching across the aisle, begging to shake Obama’s hand, looking for partners for the next McCain-(fill in the blank) Bill.
And Obama is busy pretending he doesn’t see McCain’s hand—which he probably doesn’t, since he is too busy watching himself in the mirror.
While the media ignore McCain most of the time and continue to bash Sarah Palin and pump Romney for the next engineered Republican loss.
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