Barack spins for survival

Obama on the campaign trail isn't practicing what he preached (pun intended) in last week's widely praised speech where he sought a more open, honest dialogue about race in America. Barack Obama was in North Carolina yesterday, giving a new version of his stump speech. The senator has apparently found the Lord, and wants to share with his audiences just how pure and mainstream a religious man he is. He's on a new strategy to downplay his 20+ year association with Reverend Wright of the Trinity United Church in Chicago. The four-part spin goes something like this:

(1) Minimize it: In comments to one crowd, Obama called this whole issue of Wright an unnecessary "distraction" from the real problems people face in this country. "We can't lose sight of America's real issues -- like the War in Iraq -- every time someone says something stupid".

Now, calling Wright's sermons simply "stupid" is, in my view, a significant back-track from the major speech he gave last week on the issue of race, when he rejected Wright's views and condemned them.

Obama also stressed that Wright has given three sermons a week for 30 years and that those opposed to his candidacy had found "five or six of his most offensive statements" and "boiled" them down to play over and over. "I hope people don't get distracted by that."

Why should people get distracted by the fact that the spiritual adviser to the presumptive Democrat candidate for President of the United States should blame white America for 9/11, the Palestinian problem and all the problems of blacks in this country?

(2) Mainstream it: Yesterday, Obama spoke of the Trinity United Church as if it were the most tolerant, open congregation in the country. "Everybody is welcome to come to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street. It is a wonderful, welcoming church," he said. "If you were there on any given Sunday, folks would be doing the same things in church at Trinity as they do everywhere else. They're praising Jesus. They've got a choir singing. It's a very good choir. And the pastor is trying to teach a lesson to connect scripture to our everyday lives."

Unfortunately, Obama stopped short of citing the specific scriptures that tells us that the U.S. government created AIDS to destroy the black community, or that introduced drugs into black neighborhoods.

(3) Backtrack from it: Though in his widely reviewed speech on Race last week Obama admitted to having attended some of the Wright sermons that were universally found offensive, yesterday he backtracked, saying that Wright had said some "very objectionable things when I wasn't in church on those particular days."

I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word "in" is...if it means "in church" as actually sitting in the pews, or if it means "in church" as in standing in the parking lot where he couldn't really hear the sermon going on inside. Bill Clinton would be proud of such practiced dissembling.

(4) If You Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em: In Greensboro, Obama's campaign staff has found the Lord as well, now using prayer before his events, something that began since the controversy over Wright and his remarks. "Thank you for this time of excitement and enthusiasm," a local reverend prayed. "I pray a special blessing, oh God, a special blessing, on Barack Obama." The audience was then led in the Pledge of Allegiance. And if there was any question that Obama is a religious and patriotic American, he ended his speech with a "God bless America."

So, the candidate who wouldn't wear an American flag on his lapel pin is now cloaking himself in both the bible and the flag at his campaign events. Does this not strike you as a cold and calculating way of actually avoiding that real discussion of race that he says he so desperately wants in America?

This strikes me as disingenuous, and I hope most of America will not buy what Obama is selling now: a "slick Willie" style attempt to triangulate his position and his beliefs, with an obvious hope that the public will eventually be so confused by the ever-changing position that they will simply remember the last thing that the candidate says.

We've had enough dissembling in the White House. It is time for some straight talk!

"Eat an environmentalist"

So goes the joke: If you're freezing and starving in the dark because the green movement made energy and food ever more expensive, eat an environmentalist. But the thing about the left is, you can't lampoon them because their actual behavior is ludicrous in itself. The latest example is "Earth Hour" at 8pm this Saturday, when the World Wildlife Fund wants everyone's lights off to signal alarm about global warming -- and Mayor John Hickenlooper is of course genuflecting to the "Go dark" ritual on Denver's behalf.

If you thought technology, progress, and the advance of civilization were leading to a brighter future for all of us, rich and poor alike -- especially the poor, ahem, Mr. Mayor -- the joke's on you. A darker, chillier, hungrier future is in store if the gloomy greenies get their way, which they seem to be doing.

"Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it," Dickens tells us. The same Hick who tried to steal Christmas off the facade of city hall a couple of Decembers ago is now leading the lights-out brigade for the Mile High City, just in time for April Fool's. No shining city on a hill for him.

Here's how the World Wildlife Fund explains the Earth Hour stunt: "Cities around the world will join together in literally turning off the lights for one hour to offer leadership and symbolize their commitment to finding climate change solutions. Lights will be turned off at iconic buildings and national landmarks from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Local businesses and restaurants will also be asked to turn off their lights. People at home can take advantage of the hour by replacing their standard light bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs."

Doing the latter by candlelight, we presume; no flashlights allowed either.

Cross-posted on the Gang of Four blog at PoliticsWest.com

Obie didn't make the sale

Obama failed to explain how a church can harmonize Wright's "God damn America" with Christ's "blessed are the peacemakers." My own limited experience worshiping in a black inner-city church has been diametrically different. Rather than Wright's hateful condemnation of white people, the message at this church contained not a tinge of racial exclusivity. [Editor: That's from Mark Hillman's latest Capitol Review column. Here's the column in full.]

Obama not so different rationalizing race, Wright

"If you really believe black people are 'fellow Americans,' then treat them as such." - John McWhorter, "Losing The Race"

If Barack Obama truly wants to transcend race, he would do well to apply the words of John McWhorter to his "explanation" of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama is supposed to be different: a messenger of hope and change, not just another beltway politician; an agent of reconciliation not grievances and reparations; a unifier who transcends partisan and racial divides.

That's why many gave him the benefit of the doubt when he explained that he didn't wear a U.S. flag lapel pin because he viewed it as a "substitute for ... true patriotism."

That's why some gave Michelle Obama a mulligan when she said, "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country."

That's why Obama's rating as the most liberal senator in 2007 by the respected National Journal never seemed to resonate beyond conservative circles.

However, in addressing his 20-year relationship with Wright, whom he calls his spiritual mentor, Obama sounded like every other scripted politician snared by a public relations debacle. Obama's devotion to Wright peeled back the veneer in a way that voters of every stripe could not ignore.

If he was prescient enough, according to fellow travelers, to have foreseen the perils of war in Iraq, how can he imagine that Jeremiah Wright never talked "about any ethnic group in derogatory terms" in private conversations?

If he really possesses "judgment to lead," why wasn't his judgment as keen as that of Oprah Winfrey who left Trinity United Church of Christ several years ago?

If his oratorical skills are so remarkable, why didn't he explain how sermons referring to the "US of KKKA" or "a world ... where white folks' greed runs a world in need" can conceivably coincide with aims for racial harmony?

The insurmountable obstacle for people who previously extended to Obama the benefit of the doubt is that the aforementioned can no longer be easily dismissed as aberrations or gaffes. Instead, they fit more easily into a profile of someone who doesn't afford that same benefit to others.

If U.S. flag lapel pins are symbols of superficial jingoism, were we to ignore that Obama surrounded himself with at least a half-dozen full-size flags for his speech explaining his relationship with Rev. Wright? Equally conspicuous was the absence of trademark signs sloganeering for Hope, Change, Judgment and Leadership.

Absent, too, was evidence of the courage so often assigned to Obama. Few people who take their faith seriously would continue to attend - much less donate $20,000 to - a church where the pastor regularly punctuates his sermons with rants like those Obama described as "not only wrong but divisive."

The very public rift between the Catholic church and parishioners who disagree with church doctrine on abortion and gay marriage is a marked contrast to Obama's supposed silent disapproval of Wright's message.

Moreover, Obama's assertion that Wright's church contains "the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America" should be insulting to black congregations that, regardless of their political ideology, recognize that the universal message of Jesus Christ compels Christians to preach the truth in love and to embrace forgiveness.

Obama failed to explain how a church can harmonize Wright's "God damn America" with Christ's "blessed are the peacemakers." My own limited experience worshiping in a black innercity church has been diametrically different.

Rather than Wright's hateful general condemnation of white people, the message at this church whose congregants were almost certainly aligned to the political left was vibrant, both spiritually and personally challenging, and although socially candid, contained not a tinge of racial exclusivity.

Accepting Obama's contention that Wright's public pronouncements do not square with his private persona requires, to quote Hillary Clinton, "a suspension of disbelief."

Obama's white grandmother, he says, confessed a fear of black men and uttered racial stereotypes. But she did so privately. People are generally more coarse and unguarded on any subject in their private utterances than in their public pronouncements. Obama would have us believe that Wright said things from the pulpit that he would never say privately.

The candidate who would unify us by transcending race has, unfortunately, resorted to the same race-based rationalizations that perpetuate division and thwart hopes for a post-racial society.

"A person you excuse from any genuine challenge is a person you do not truly respect," McWhorter writes. Obama's desire to be elected appears to have surpassed his desire to be respected.

Where's the leadership, Gov. Ritter?

Weak, indecisive, ineffective, directionless, no clout, poorly staffed -- those are some of the descriptions of Bill Ritter that this former Senate President has heard recently from legislators in both parties and on both sides of the aisle as Colorado's freshman governor nears the end of his second legislative session. "Afraid to lead," "out of his depth," and "doesn't get it" are several more unflattering appraisals directed at the Democratic chief executive and his first floor (staff and cabinet) operation by second-floor State Capitol players in the legislative branch.

"This isn't good for Colorado, this ship of state adrift," a leading Republican told me -- even as he admitted it plays to his party's advantage in the 2008 campaign. Transportation, health care, education, and other big issues need a strong hand in the governor's chair, he said, and when that's missing as it has been during Ritter's lackluster 15 months in office, adverse consequences hit the state as a whole, partisanship aside.

Seasoned veterans in the business community and journalism seem to be reaching the same unhappy conclusion about the former prosecutor and professed (but now tarnished) pro-business, pro-life Democrat who swept in on a 2006 landslide. Little of his "Colorado Promise" agenda was realized in 2007, and action points were few in his State of the State message for this year.

Especially since his spectacular misjudgment on handing unions the key to state government last November, Gov. Ritter is said to have little influence with majority Democrats in the state House and Senate, or they with him. "He's almost like a third-party governor, in terms of that disconnect with legislative leaders," one observer said.

On the other hand, it's still only March, and much can still happen in the final six weeks of this year's legislative session. Ballot issues in the fall could prove to be another equalizer for the governor's sagging fortunes -- and there's always the Democratic Convention coming to town this summer, fraught with both upside and downside possibilities for Ritter.

We can't forget that politics is like football: the ball has pointy ends and seldom bounces straight. The Stumbling Bill of today could be sprinting again by election time. But there is no evidence as yet that his shortcomings noted in my January column, "Ritter's Bad Year," are on the way to being remedied.

Moloney's World: Dems now all lean left, forsaking JFK

(Nantucket, Mar. 22) Aside from being an incomparable setting to wrestle the demons of writer’s block, the wild bleak beauty of this wintry island 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts embodies those special charms that have long attracted me to the misty isles of the northern latitudes (think Aran, Shetland, Orkney). Presuming a taste for solitude, there are few better circumstances in which to contemplate man’s place in the universe than walking three or four miles along magnificent windswept beaches without encountering a single human being, yet always in the presence of the awesome power of Nature in the form of the huge winter surf that relentlessly pounds and reshapes these shores. First settled in 1659 --not long after the Pilgrim’s landed at nearby Plymouth Rock -- Nantucket is best known as the leader of New England’s historic whaling industry which ended in the late nineteenth century. Silent reminders of that time are in the many “Widow’s Walks” perched atop stately period homes -- architectural accommodations for the lonely women who scanned the far horizon for the sight of a sail that might herald the return after two or three years in the most distant places of those tiny wooden whaling vessels and their sturdy men who “went down to the sea in ships”.

As I walk along the cobble-stoned Main Street to the only place you can get a daily newspaper (unless of course the tiny airport is shrouded in fog), I reflect that Herman Melville once trod upon these very same rough paving stones in the days when he constructed the apotheosis of American literature, Moby Dick . (I was determined to get “apotheosis” in here somewhere as a small tribute to that late and great Renaissance man Bill Buckley, a renowned sailor who often made landfall in the nearby harbor).

My experience over forty years suggests that Nantucket’s greatly expanded summer population is politically increasingly dominated by upscale liberals (John Kerry’s “little cottage” is not far from here). Republicans, however, still own the winter.

Before I followed Ronald Reagan into that long line of Democrats who saw the light, I was a Democrat who was a minor but enthusiastic participant in the campaigns of my fellow Massachusetts Irish Catholics the Kennedys (never discount the enduring power of tribalism in politics). I yet remain in touch with a few fellow warriors from those long ago campaigns -- one retired to this island -- and as “older men” do we occasionally get together to reminisce about life’s springtime and try to make sense of all that has happened since.

Hard as it may be to believe, once there were more conservatives than liberals in the Democratic Party. In fact John Kennedy emerged from the party’s conservative wing. Eleanor Roosevelt -- always “ madly for Adlai” (Stevenson) –- absolutely despised the Kennedys and viewed them as paragons of illiberality. Recall that Bobby was a devoted employee of Senator Joe McCarthy and Jack won the White House as a more “hawkish” Cold Warrior than Richard Nixon.

My, how times and Kennedys have changed! I would suggest it is impossible to understand what happened to America in the last half century without a full appreciation of what happened to the Democratic Party.

If you ever saw a bird flying overhead with just one wing you would know that you were witnessing a wholly unnatural act. Today the Democratic Party is an un-natural bird with just one wing -- a left wing. For proof one need only observe the strange combat of Obama vs. Clinton and note the absolute absence of any genuine debate or contrast on issues. They argue whether surrender in Iraq will take nine months or maybe twelve. Hillary wants to impose government health care on 100 % of the population immediately; Obama is willing to start with 85 %. Absent any difference on issues that leaves nothing but personal attacks -- Hillary is a “monster," Barack is a plagiarist, etc.

This is the party of Jefferson?

It is Saturday night and we are gathered at a vintage island establishment interestingly called the “Brotherhood of Thieves”. A cold wet wind howls outside -- but within, both fireside and friendship warm two ex-Democrats as we speculate on how it will all turn out: not just this watershed Presidential campaign, but where history is leading the country we both love.

Bill Moloney was Colorado Education Commissioner, 1997-2007. His columns have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, and Pacific News Service.