Obama: Hamas and Hezbollah Have ‘Legitimate Claims’

September 29, 2008

Exclusive: Sen. Obama Says Hamas and Hezbollah Have ‘Legitimate Claims’

Nicholas Guariglia
Sen. Obama’s former top foreign affairs advisor, Robert Malley, recently had to resign his role in the Obama campaign due to holding meetings with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Mr. Malley’s favorable views of Hamas have been widely known for years. Malley had written extensively, sometimes co-writing articles with the late Yasser Arafat’s advisor Hussein Agha, blaming Israel, not Arafat, for the failure of the Camp David talks.

Had Malley’s views on (and meetings with) Hamas not been unveiled, who knows where Mr. Malley would have ended up in a potential Obama administration? Perhaps he would have been the Secretary of State. This is a sad and frightening possibility, or probability, because Sen. Obama is the least-vetted man in U.S. political history.

Nobody likes “gotcha!” politics. Both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama have made serious gaffes during the course of this election, which began earlier and has lasted longer than any other election in American history. Both men are being recorded and watched at all times, and they’re human. Missteps and goof-ups are to be expected. Just ask Joe Biden.

But this issue is different. In a New York Times article, written by David Brooks on May 16th of this year, Sen. Obama made a very revealing admission that has gone overlooked by the mainstream press. The article, entitled “Obama Admires Bush,” focused on Sen. Obama’s views regarding the Middle East. The “Bush” in question was George H.W. Bush, the senior, and throughout the interview Obama displays his affection for old-school James Baker/Brent Scowcroft foreign polic y realism.

About midway through the interview, however, the man who wants to be President of the United States gave a whopper of a quote. In Brooks’ words:

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that “looks at the root causes of problems and dangers.” Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that “they’re going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims” (emphasis mine).

Why has no one to date has asked the would-be Commander-in-Chief what he means by “legitimate claims”? Certainly there is a large distinction to be made between Palestinian and Lebanese innocents vs. the terrible Hamas and Hezbollah organizations. The former have aspirations which, if addressed, would help the United States geopolitically. But the latter? To suggest these terrorist groups have legitimate claims? Something does not sit right, there.

To be fair, Mr. Obama acknowledges that the two groups are conducting vicious violence, and previously in the article asserts that Hezbollah is “not a legitimate political party.”

Which is all well and good. So what does he mean when he says Hamas and Hezbollah, specifically, have legitimate claims? They both consider themselves at war with the West, they both want to destroy Israel, and they both want to impose a puritanical version of Islam over their people. Clearly, any grievances they might have – which to the amoral and relativist would seem “legitimate” – should be overlooked and ignored, no?

This is more than a gaffe. It occurred during an interview with a respected journalist. It is in print.

What are the implications of this statement? Is Sen. Obama implying he opposes Hezbollah and Hamas merely due to their actions and not their beliefs? Is he solely against20what these Jihadist groups do, and not what they represent? That’s like hating the gas chambers but excusing the fascism; opposing the gulags but delving into the nuances about the “legitimacy” of Stalinism.

The Third Reich complained about a raw deal at Versailles and a lack of Lebensraum, or “living space,” for the white race. The Bolsheviks harped about the excesses of the bourgeoisie. None of these “claims,” legitimate or not, were even considered by Western statesmen serious about the continuity of the Western way of life – and rightly so. Hamas and Hezbollah could stop the neck-slicing and car bombing tomorrow, and they would still be theocratic and neo-fascistic movements attempting to usurp their citizenry and democratic principalities in Palestine and Lebanon.

In fact, that is the route most Jihadist groups go: they use insurrection and terrorism to achieve governmental power and the apparatus of the state, then they morph into dictatorial regimes which no longer need to rely primarily on asymmetrical violence to brutalize their population and threaten their neighbors.

It is a disgrace that Sen. Obama has not had the chance to clarify himself, and an even further disgrace that nobody has held his feet to the fire on this issue (amongst others). Hezbollah and Hamas have combined to kill hundreds of Americans. Before 9/11, Hezbollah was the one terrorist group which had killed the most Americans throughout the world.

To put this statement by Sen. Obama into further context, consider this: Hamas and Hezbollah are both direct proxies of Iran. The same Iran which is blowing up Americans and Iraqis in Iraq.

The same Iran which Sen. Obama once promised to negotiate with without diplomatic preconditions.

The same Iran which Sen. Obama apparently believes does not, or would not, work with Sunni Jihadists (Iran being a Shi’ite country).

On top of all this, last year Sen. Obama voted against labeling Iran’s elite paramilitary unit, the Revolutionary Guards Corps, a “terrorist organization.” Sen. Obama did not want to des ignate the Revolutionary Guards – who created Hezbollah, and directly train and arm Hezbollah and Hamas to this day – a terrorist group.

The Revolutionary Guards, along with their surrogates, have been involved in some of the most egregious and destructive terrorist activities all across the world since 1979. And since 2003, they’ve killed U.S. forces in Iraq.

Again, Sen. Obama voted against calling them “terrorists” – and just several weeks ago, said Hezbollah and Hamas had “legitimate claims.”

More vetting of Sen. Obama’s views about the Middle East needs to happen before we have another foreign policy debate, let alone hold an election.

More context, still: Hamas actually endorsed Sen. Obama, to which Obama replied:

It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush.”

That’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security.

While Hamas might not be confused about Sen. Obama’s views, I am. The press is supposed to be the watchdog for the American people. It took more than a year after the rantings of Rev. Wright were reported for the pastor’s hateful sermons to break the news nationally. It took prompting from Sean Hannity for George Stephanopoulos to finally question Sen. Obama about his connections to former domestic terrorist William Ayers.

This article might be from a few months ago, but this quote is too important to overlook. In not addressing this issue, Sen. Obama ends up concealing something which might be very unpleasant if further explored. Considering the context of this statement – his pro-Hamas advisor, the endorsement by Hamas, his refusal to label the Revolutionary Guards terrorists, etc. – the American public simply must know what Sen. Obama meant when he told David Brooks that Hezbollah and Hamas, mortal terrorist adversaries and theocratic extremists, had “legitimate claims.”

Before I walk into that voting booth, I need to know that. Period. Someone in the media, or in the McCain campaign, or at his rallies, needs to ask him what he means. And they need to ask him now.

Obama's Finance Manager: Penny Pritzker

Penny Pritzker: Obama's Finance Campaign manager

Pritzker is one of the most active of celebrated Chicago patriarch Abraham N. Pritzker's 12 living grandchildren. A Harvard-trained attorney, Pritzker, 46, was chosen by her late uncle Jay to help oversee the family's vast portfolio of investments, including the Hyatt hotel chain and the Marmon Group industrial conglomerate. (Forbes Lists 2005)

One reason Barack Obama might not want to talk about the role of financially irresponsible bank board members in creating the subprime mortgage foreclossure financial disaster is that the national finance chair of Obama's campaign, Penny Pritzker, is a former board member of the failed Superior Bank S&L that engaged in irresponsible subprime mortgage lending during the 1990s.

Apparently Penny was into subprime lending before it became all the rage starting in around 2000. It continues:
Penny Prtizker's chairmanship was apparently "to concentrate on subprimelending, principally on home mortgages, but for a while in subprime auto lending, too," after the Pritzkers' bank acquired its wholesale mortgage organization division, Alliance Funding, in December 1992.

Their bank, Superior, went bust in 2001, costing the government a billion dollars. The Pritzker's came to a settlement in which they agreed to pay less than half of that to the government.

Let's Keep this Discourse Civil

Civility, not Civil War

I was wandering through blogland today to peruse some of what is being said out there, and watching some youtube videos of the various candidates.
I hate how bitter and vicious this discourse among Americans has become. I admit, I too have felt heatedly about these subjects, and I haven't always expressed my opinions in the most moderate way. You know what? I regret that. I think we should be able to disagree without wishing our opponents harm and calumny.

And so, in the name of civilized discourse, let me say the following.
Both candidates are talented men. Barack Obama is a wonderful, inspirational speaker, and I really believe he has a great deal to contribute to the world,and to America. But I don't think the job of President of the United States is the way for him to express his talents. It's a job that requires one to be steadfast. There isn't room for enormous creativity, given the wolves and jackals at America's door. As we in Israel have learned the hard way, "creative" ways of dealing with your enemies (siging peace agreements, and giving them guns) can unleash hell on earth. Remember Shimon Pere's "New Middle East"? It ushered in years of our children's blood staining our streets, and even now, years later, the first responders- policemen and medics- are still waking up at night with traumas from their experiences.

America has had its warning call in 9\11. It has managed with steadfast and boring consistency to prevent other attacks. While Barack Obama's heart might be in the right place, he is inexperienced. International politics, and the position of leader of the free world, is not for the faint-hearted creative souls of this world. It's for experienced politicians and warriors who know what it means to sacrifice all to keep your people safe.

Yes, I would have preferred a younger candidate than McCain. He is not a charismatic speaker, often mumbles and doesn't hold a candle to Obama's golden voice or his powers of persuasion. Nevertheless, given the circumstances, McCain is still the best candidate for the office of president. He won't bring huge, creative surprises. Neither will he let us down. I also believe he wants the best for his country, and really feels this is his way of serving what he loves. I'm not so sure about Obama. He spent the first term in the Illinois Senate plotting his way into the U.S. Senate. He spent his years in the U.S. Senate plotting his way to the Presidency. In the meantime, he has had many ideas, but few accomplishments, which is why his campaign is often so negative.

Sarah Palin is not a sophisticate. She didn't know what the Bush Doctrine meant. But you know what? If someone asked me, I wouldn't have known either unless you explained the term. She is pro-life, which is a good thing. But I don't think we should allow women who want abortions to be sent to back-room butchers like in the bad old days. Fortunately, she as V.P. won't be in a position to change the current laws, nor will she be able to prevent schools from preaching Darwinism. By the way, I happen to think G-d did create the world, not the big bang (they tried the big bang theory this week in a Swiss lab. Guess what? Big thud.) Senator Biden is a decent man, with a great deal of experience in foreign relations. But I think Ms. Palin is a fast learner who will be up to speed in no time. The important thing is that she cares about her country enough to have sent her son to defend it. She has succeeded in everything she's done. I believe she will make a wonderful V.P. Someone we will all be proud of. Considering the men who have held this post in the past (Dan Quayle and Richard Nixon's bribe -taking V.P. Spiro Agnew)she is a marvelous choice, who will do us all proud.

Here, you see? A whole column with no name -calling, just a reasonable expression of opinions. I just wish we could all keep our opinions civil, and stick to the real issues. I, for my part, will try.

Penetrating Analysis of Obama

Check out this really penetrating analysis of Obama, and how he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JI03Aa02.html

Who's the Pig?

I woke up this morning in Jerusalem, and absolutely couldn't believe that Barack Hussein Obama made the lipstick- on- a -pig comment. As a woman, I felt personally offended for Sarah Palin. You may not agree with her, but getting into politics doesn't mean she has to put up with this kind of crap from any man. Sarah, I'd punch him in the nose for you if I could!

But then I thought: What do we really know about this man? He admits in his book to cocaine drug abuse years ago. Maybe he's still using? That would explain the over the top comment. He's going to have to be in much more control if he wants to get away with his attempt to sell himself as a "new" kind of politician. The real Obama keeps getting loose.

On a television show, he made a Freudian slip, talking about his "Muslim faith" and had to be corrected by the interviewer. His claims about his heartfelt desire to care for the poor seem forced considering he couldn't care less that his own half-brother lives in a shack in Kenya. He met Obama once and said that there wasn't much interest there. If the guy had a dollar a day, he'd be able to manage. If Obama doesn't even care about his own family enough to send the guy a dollar a day, what does all his talk about "helping the poor and needy" really amount to?
Charity starts at home. From your own pocket, before you can pick the pocket of the nation to support all your pet "community organizer" causes.

I looked at the web to see if other women reacted as strongly to the pig comment. This is what I found as a response on one blog:

As a life long Democrat have to say that I have been totally embarrassed by our party. And today I 'opened my eyes', and thought about it.
As a Woman, I am so angry that I have wasted so many years working for this party, supporting the candidates, attending rallies, placing signs, sending checks. Our Party has proved once and for all that it is nothing but a Good Old Boy's elite club.
Please, hear me out about why I felt this way.
First, I really do not understand why we, as Democrats, would hire and pay entire groups of people to attend the Republican Convention to shout obscenity's, hold up banners containing misinformation and attempt to totally disrupt and dishonor the opposing candidates acceptance speech over, and over, and over again. What was the purpose?Sadly, I have got to say that I almost never see this occur in our Democratic acceptance speeches by attacking Republicans. In fact, I remember Mr McCain actually having a commercial that said "job well done" during our own convention. However, for years now, I have seen this disruption and dishonor by bad mannered fellow Democrats occur during the Republican speeches, and they are hired to do so. This really truly portrays our party in a very bad light.
Everything that Joe Biden spurts out is either misinformation, disinformation, or sexist anger! How dare he say a "Woman's place should be in the home", and "Palin is obviously sacrificing her family values by running for Vice President. Biden is Washington elitist through and through. Change? Now that's a joke, Biden is as far from change as it is humanly possible to get. Just another Dick Chaney.
To tell the truth, it is very embarrassing for both me, our family, and our many Democratic friends.
Obama, (a once shining star), has even changed, he talks down to everyone. Either his personality has changed, or his true nature is coming out. He's coming across as really arrogant, elitest, and snobby. He talks about being on food stamps while living in Hawaii, but the when I searched it online the Punahu school he attended is the absolute most expensive private elitist school in the State. Something about the food stamps story and the exclusive private elite school really does not make sense to me. And to tell the truth, the statements like, "I am the one the World has been waiting for"....are kind of scary.
Also, the obvious Media slant, spin, and one sided focus towards our Party, and, 'against the republican party' has become so transparent that this too, (is insulting to me), on an ethical and moral basis. ( CNN, TIME magazine). Call me crazy, but I do not feel comfortable in having to 'cheat to win'. Seriously.... Is it just me?,... or does it feel that our once very proud Democratic Party seems to be losing it's sense of honor and values?
I hate to say it, but it makes me feel 'embarrassed to be a Democrat'. I am certainly finding it increasingly difficult to have to explain to my children that although this is unacceptable behavior, it IS the Party WE support?
Who is responsible for these dishonorable attacks, all this misinformation (like the stem cell research), personal attacks on women with children working, Do they not understand that this makes our party look like we have lost our values, of not our minds.? Don't preach to me about Family Values, then lie, deceive, vilify Woman with children for having a career, slander and attack a Woman who knowingly brought a disabled child into this world, AND SAY SHE DOES NOT HAVE COMPASSION FOR OTHER MOTHERS IN THE SAME SITUATION. How dare you Joe Biden! How dare you use a disabled child as an attack weapon! You should be ashamed! Obviously, you and Senator Obama have somewhere along the line lost your compassion, empathy, moral values and ethics. I never thought that we could have a Vice President as bad as Chaney in terms of values, but Mr. Biden, with your comments in the last week, I believe you just surpassed Mr.Chaney.
I have to say that from everything I've read, heard, and researched on Palin, she is one hell of a Woman, "a real person," and not a (slick elitist spin master like yourself). For me she is like "breath of fresh air in American Politics!". And you know what? After reading what she did to the good old boy politicians in Alaska (like yourself), I can't wait to see her clean up the Washington bunch. She will go in their like a tornado and shake up the system. And I believe that John McCain, who has never bought into the good old boy Washington cocktail set, will back her 100%.
Sadly Mr Biden, to win at all costs using unethical behavior to do so, I have to ask the question: Is this really a win for the American people? I don't think so! You know, we should have seen this coming during the Monica Lewinsky situation, where she was just a sex object in the Good Old Boys club.
Am I alone, or are there other Mothers out there in America who finds this behavior of our Party disturbing? What do you tell your young kids?, ... When everyone in society condones cheating, lying, stealing, societies totally collapse....remember that was the reason of the fall of the Roman Empire.
Seeing the attacks the Democratic Party did to Hillary Clinton, and seeing the attacks the Democratic Party has done to Palin really truly opened my eyes!
And I'm sure that Women all over America and the World are witnessing the same thing with amazement! As of today, I no longer will support a party of Women haters, good old boys, and cheaters.
I instead am switching my time, money and energies to getting involved with the Republican party. Yes, it's true that we have quite a bit of differences in opinions and causes,.... but by getting involved, but I know that as a Woman, my voice will be heard, and I will work to change that party for the better.
I know that if I stay with the Democratic party I am just seen as a worthless Woman in a skirt, to be seen and not heard, who is not part of the Elite Boys Club, and their Greek columns and mass California type extravaganza of a convention (which reminded me of the 1938 Olympic spectacle that Adolf Hitler produced to wow the world with.
Women of America....you are wasting your time if your working for the Boy's Club Democratic party! OPEN YOUR EYES! Today I did!And I FEEL GOOD ABOUT THE DECISION!!
As for Sara Palin, YOU GO GIRL!
Sincerely,
S. Chambers

The "Gimme" Patriot: Ask Only What Your Country Can Do For You

The "Gimme" Patriot: Ask Only What Your Country Can Do For You

By Naomi Ragen

I started thinking the other day why this election is so important to me, and why Obama's candidacy touches me so deeply. It is not just about Israel. It is about America, the wonderful country in which I was born and educated, which is the leader, and last bastion of freedom in a world that is too confused to stand up against the forces joined against human freedom.

Yes, I firmly believe that from the very beginning of his career, Barack Obama has been supported and aligned with forces that are anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Yes, I believe that he has surrounded himself with anti-Israel advisors. If these facts have anything to do with his Muslim father and step-father, or his early education in a Muslim school in Indonesia, I don’t know, and frankly I couldn’t care less. There are plenty of anti-Semites with Jewish fathers who grew up in Israel. So his family background or ethnicity doesn’t matter to me.

If I really thought- despite this- Obama was a good choice for America, I wouldn’t hesitate to say so. Because having a strong, freedom-loving leader that is committed to American values as head of the free world , helping America to stand fast against its haters, is more important than anything else.

And no, there is no conflict of interest with my concern for Israel. Because there is no way a person like that could be against the struggling little democracy in the Middle East I live in.

What concerns me is that Senator Obama has not shown that commitment, that love, that strength. Quite the opposite.

What concerns me is that even though he and his wife have benefited from every opportunity America has to offer in their education and employment, they don’t seem grateful.

I was a little girl when John F. Kennedy ran and won the Presidency. I remember his inauguration speech well. He said: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Obama keeps asking his country: What have you done for me and mine, now or ever? He is a "gimme" patriot.

Barack Hussein Obama and his wife belonged to a church filled with Black bigots, which damned America, feeling no gratitude at all for all the progress made in civil rights, and the many, many, many white people (predominantly Jews by the way) who were at the forefront of the civil rights movement and affirmative action, all things that allowed the poor son of a twice divorced white woman to get an education at Columbia and Harvard and to rise quickly and without impediment to one of the most powerful positions in America. I have never heard him express any gratitude for that. What I hear is how the country is so terribly flawed and how he and his friends are going to fix it by taking money from rich white folks.

And even then, he won’t be grateful. His grandparents, who took him in, brought him up, and cared for him, when his divorced mother sent him there, he has called : “white folks.”

Americans have had years of brainwashing to convince them not to be proud of what America stands for. The Obamas are a product of that.

Obama and his wife with your vote would like to take over the last bastion of freedom in the world and change it into “something” they would be proud of. I don’t know what that “something” would be. But it’s the same “something” that CNN, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Guardian, would be proud of, and why they are trying so hard to get him elected. These newspapers are ashamed of Israelis who fight back against terror. They blame Israel for Palestinian atrocities. They ignore crimes against Muslim women by Muslim men in the name of multiculturalism. They claim not to understand the word “terrorist” and never use it if they can help it. They think the war in Iraq that freed the world from Saddam Hussein and his missiles was a mistake. They thought the “surge” which has brought victory was a mistake. They think that Islam is a religion of peace. They ignore- or ridicule- real freedom fighters, like Ayaan Hirsin Ali and Brigitte Gabriel. They ignore vast human rights abuses in Muslim countries, and the vast hypocrisy of the U.N. when it comes to human rights, but believe that 9/11 was brought about because America is arrogant, and not sensitive enough to Muslim “concerns.” They think the solution is to open more mosques, and more medrassas run by the Muslim Brotherhood funded by Saudi Arabia. They believe America must take in more illegal immigrants;practice reverse discrimination favoring Blacks and Muslims; and tax to the hilt anyone who works hard and builds up a nest egg in order to subsidize those who don’t work at all.

The Jewish community in America has been a major beneficiary of American values which has allowed it to flourish in freedom without discrimination. They should be more concerned than anyone that the America that has sheltered them is going to be taken over by those who don’t view that as a miraculous and wonderful accomplishment. By those who aren’t grateful. Jews, more than anyone, should be concerned about a leader who is not proud of all America has accomplished, not grateful, and who wants to pick their pockets to achieve unspecified “change.” I fully expect that the part of the American Jewish community who haven’t attended a synagogue for years, don’t know a word of any of the prayers, are all in favor of abortions and intermarriage, and gay marriage, are going to be more afraid of any candidate with ties to Jews for Jesus, than they are of a candidate with ties to Louis Farrakhan and Kadaffi. That was statistically proven in the last election. But this time, it’s not a John Kerry they’ll get. They’ll get exactly what they voted for, even if they haven’t yet figured out it’s the opposite of what they should want for themselves and their children.

Unfortunately, the results of their vote has the power to weaken the dikes guarding our little Middle-Eastern democracy as well, so there will be no place for them to run. If this sounds alarmist, it is. I am alarmed. More than I can say.

THE ELECTION BLOG

Friends,

Oh, the elections. Oh, the e-mails I'm getting. Hysterical. Angry. There is no way I can answer all of them. The mailing list you've joined at www. naomiragen.com is really devoted to what's going on in Israel. And while I am an American, and I think that the U.S. elections are the most important thing that's going on in Israel, I got some friendly advice from a listmember saying that stories about Palin and Obama isn't what he signed up for. I respect that. I also respect the fact that many of my listmembers are not Americans, and won't be able to vote.

I therefore have come to the conclusion that the best thing is not to keep my mouth shut (sorry Jews for Obama!) but to put some distance between my mailing list and my election information and editorials. Instead of clogging your inbox with voluminous information you may or may not appreciate, I'll give you the choice of coming to see it at this blog. Then it's your choice to read or not. I'll also give you the ability to react and post an opinion, something you can't do on my mailing list. And since I can't answser everyone who writes me, you can talk to each other and hash it out in the best way possible. So, here goes!


Subject: Anti-Palin allegations from Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident Date: Monday, September 8, 2008 Everyone is reading this poison pen letter. Here is the letter with some comments about the points being made. The Kilkenny is like a neighbor I used to have, very nasty, delusional about the facts, and happy to get into the limelight by tearing someone else down, especially someone smarter than her. Kilkenny's address is included. Drop her a few lines of your own if the spirit moves you.

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

1.
I am a resident of Wasilla , Alaska . I have known Sarah since 1992.
Sarah lived in Wasilla since 1964 and so for 28 years Kilkenny did NOT know her. Paliun was elected in 1992.
2.
I also am on a
first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law.
This mother-in-law was a political opponent of Palin - stood un-successfully as a pro-choice Democrat for Mayor after Palin, who opposed her.
3.
I attended more
City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the
residents of the city.
Normal behavior, or obsession or vendetta ?

4.
She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular
girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and
won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because
she is a 'babe'.
You dont make a speech like hers at the Convention, or defeat a 3-term Mayor, just by being a *babe*.
Or get re-elected both to the Council and as Mayor.
Or elected as President of the Alaskan Conference of Mayors.
Or defeat the incumbent Republican Governor in the internal Party primary, or then a Democrat in the general election who is himself a former Governor - all just by being a *babe*.

5.
It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret.
Is that not a very positive recomendation ?
Shows discretion and strength and judgment.

6.
She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just 'puts things out
there' and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.
She offers leadership but knows you also need support. And is ready to move on, if blocked.
7.
Nor has her life-style ever been anything
like that of native Alaskans.
If she is in Alaska since she was 3 months, 44 years ago, when does she become a native ?


8.
During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running
this small city was turned over to an administrator.
Her role as Mayor, as leader of the Council, was to set policy and then monitor implementation, like the Board of Directors of a Company, not do everything herself.

9.
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus
in Alaska . Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will
make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she
proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
Maybe she is not a Socialist and does not believe governent should run business - not even oil ?



10.
While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected
City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from
the library some books that Sarah wanted removed.
Were these books eg lauding Democrats, or attacking Republicans, or perhaps books some might judge as porn ?

11.
As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska 's top
cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure
and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that
an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't
fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper.
The Trooper who [a] tasered his step-son of 10 years, and [b] drove many times while drunk.
Incidentally divorced 5 times.

12.
She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help.
So does she not still have an unprecedented 80% positive poll rating as Governor ? Exactly who feels resentment ?



13.
She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party
leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them.
She exposed the corruption of the Party Chair, and tackled the Attorney-General. That alone would fully explain why the guilty, and their associates, hate her.

14.
Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.
They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness.
But a man would be admired for being tough and determined !!
Golda Meir got away with the *harmless old woman* act, but she was a Barracuda. You never get to the top without being very tough.
15.
Before she became so powerful, very ugly
stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be madepoint guard on the high school basketball team.

Not a whiff here of detail or evidence - just throw mud and hope it sticks.
16.
CLAIM VS FACT
•“Hockey mom”: true for a few years
•“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementar school, not since
But Palin was first elected to the Council in 1992, at 28, already a mother of 2, and no doubt had enough to do to handle both family and Council commitments from then on. And she never claimed to she ran the PTA all the time.
17.
“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has
residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska .
Harry Truman came from LAMAR in SW Missouri with 4,500 people.
And the duties of any Governor are similar.


Anne Kilkenny
annekilkenny@hotmail.com
August 31, 2008
____________________________________________________

From: Tom Gross
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008Subject:
How dare they be working class – and how dare she be a woman?

* The New York Times retracts one Palin story, but other smears continue, as the elitist media try and destroy her candidacy.* Personally, I don't find it funny when New York magazine runs a headline "Levi Johnston and Fat Girlfriend Arrive in St. Paul." Or when The Washington Post's online magazine, Slate, launches a "Name Bristol Palin's Baby" contest.* I don't want to even begin imagining the outcry if The Washington Post had instead compared Barack Obama to an animal.* The snobs on The New York Times editorial page will never forgive Sarah Palin for going to the University of Idaho, or for having a husband who isn't a lawyer or an investment banker, but a member of the United Steelworkers union, who doesn't have a degree, whose mother (who is part Yup'ik) is a former secretary of the Alaska Federation of Natives, and whose grandmother is a member of the Curyung tribe.* America appears to have got over its race problem, but sexism is alive and kicking.

* Taxpayer-funded Canadian TV columnist: Palin looks like a "porn actress."
[This dispatch does not concern the Middle East. A dispatch on Mideast issues will follow tomorrow.]www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000972.html---------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
1. The NY Times retracts one Palin story, but other smears continue (By Tom Gross)
2. Women's organizations celebrate the advancement of women (Two cartoons)
3. "If the Dems want real change, quit nominating lawyers" (By Victor Davis Hanson)
4. "When Barack's berserkers lost the plot" (By Nick Cohen)
5. "The liberal media gangs up on a 17-year-old" (By Tom Gross / Sam Schulman)
6. "What Sarah Palin didn't say" (By Claudia Rosett)
7. "Madam President: Hillary Clinton -v- Sarah Palin in 2012?" (By Tom Gross)
8. "Canadian TV repeats lies even after Daily Kos moves on" (By Tom Gross / Jon Kay)
9. Taxpayer-funded Canadian TV columnist: Palin is a "porn actress"
10. "ABC TV on Obama's parentage: whoops" (by Tom Gross)---------------------------------------------------------------
YOU DON'T HAVE TO SUPPORT PALIN TO BE DISTURBED BY THE SMEARS. I attach an article by myself published in America yesterday. It was also scheduled to be published in leading newspapers in Britain and Canada. However, senior editors at those papers overruled their commissioning editors, saying they would publish it but didn't want to draw their readers' attention to the fact that they too were caught out by the "Palin membership of the Alaska Independence Party" hoax. At least The New York Times, unlike other papers, have to their credit apologized to their readers for being caught out and running that hoax of their front page.I also attach various other blog items and articles of interest on the U.S. elections.-- Tom Gross ---------------------------------------------------------------FULL ARTICLESHOW DARE THEY BE WORKING CLASS - AND HOW DARE SHE BE A WOMAN?The NY Times retracts one Palin story, but other smears continueBy Tom GrossNational Review OnlineSeptember 8, 2008http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MTExYmYyYmQwMjFhNzU1YTE1MmQ3N2E1MmQ1OTI2OTI=New York Times writers are still sneering at Sarah Palin and her family on a daily basis. After all, these snobs will never forgive her for going to the University of Idaho, or for having a husband who isn't a lawyer or an investment banker, but a member of the United Steelworkers union, who doesn't have a degree, whose mother (who is part Yup'ik) is a former secretary of the Alaska Federation of Natives, and whose grandmother is a member of the Curyung tribe.But at least The New York Times has now retracted the outrageous fabrication it printed on the front-page of Tuesday's edition: that Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party for two years in the 1990s.Other papers around the world continue to print this falsehood (in London, The Guardian's front page had a banner headline which read "My fellow Alaskans") and other lies generated by left-wing smear blogs continue to be lapped up by many in the mainstream media.No, Sarah Palin didn't support Pat Buchanan in the 1999-2000 campaign; she was an official on the campaign of Republican presidential contender Steve Forbes.

No, she's not a "porn actress" as one taxpayer-funded Canadian TV columnist called her.
No, her eldest son Track (who is deploying to Iraq this week) didn't join the National Guard because he was a drug addict.No, her daughters Willow and Piper aren't named after witches on TV.No, she's not anti-Semitic. In fact, she has an Israeli flag in her office, and quietly turned up for services at a newly opened Wasilla synagogue to pay her respects.No, she didn't cut funding for unwed mothers, but increased it by 354 percent (and no, The Washington Post doesn't appear to have corrected its story about this despite being asked to do so).NO, SHE'S NOT A HORSEBut, yes, she did try to cut her own salary by $4,000 a year when she was mayor of Wasilla; and yes, she voted against the $4,000-a-year raise while on the city council.And yes, she (like John McCain) did get it right when she supported the surge in Iraq, while Barack Obama and Joe Biden got it badly wrong.And yes, she did take on the corrupt Republican Party establishment in Alaska, while hardly anyone is asking why Obama failed to ask questions about the notoriously corrupt Democratic Party machine in Chicago, or was happy to take huge donations from the now-jailed crook Tony Rezko.Whatever else happens in this too-close-to call 2008 presidential election, I think we can happily conclude that America has come a long way in getting over its race problem. Thankfully, there has been very little racism directed against Barack Obama by anybody except for people on the absolute fringes.But, as Hillary Clinton came to realize when she was given unfair treatment by the Obama-infatuated media, and as Sarah Palin has seen to a much greater extent in the period of a mere week, clearly the same cannot be said of America's sexist problem.Personally, I don't find it funny when New York magazine runs a headline "Levi Johnston and Fat Girlfriend Arrive in St. Paul." Or when The Washington Post's online magazine, Slate, launches a "Name Bristol Palin's Baby" contest.Richard Cohen, leading columnist at The Washington Post thought it was acceptable (even amusing) to compare Sarah Palin to a horse, and so, judging by many of their online comments, did his readers. I don't want to even begin imagining the outcry if The Washington Post had instead compared Barack Obama (or any other political candidate) to an animal.I'm someone who shares the left's purported views on equal rights, and essentially agrees with them on issues such as abortion, gay rights, and gun control (though firmly disagreeing with them on bigger issues such as the economy, foreign policy, and helping spread democracy abroad). But it is precisely the kind of McCarthyite-style witchhunt we have witnessed in the past week against the Palins by the left's phony feminists and snooty media establishment that makes me - and many others I know - stay well clear of the official left.(Tom Gross is a former Middle East correspondent for London's Sunday Telegraph.)---------------------------------------------------------------TWO CARTOONSWomen's organizations celebrate the advancement of women.Two Palin cartoons here:http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjI5NDE2YTBlZjg1MTI1OTRiNDY3YjllZjAwYWU0ZTg=---------------------------------------------------------------THE PROBLEM WITH LAWYERSTom Gross writes: In this article, historian Victor Davis Hanson points out that the Democratic Party keeps losing presidential elections because they keep nominating lawyers as candidates. Every Democratic presidential nominee for president and vice president in the last seven elections - except Al Gore, who dropped out of law school to run for Congress - has been a lawyer.If the Republicans win this year, it may well be because - like George Bush and Dick Cheney, and Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush - John McCain and Sarah Palin aren't members of the legal culture.As Hanson writes, "The problem is that lawyers usually do not run companies, defend the country, lead people, build things, grow food, or create capital.""If this year Democrats were looking for populist candidates from diverse backgrounds and training who talked and thought differently from those of the past, then why didn't they nominate someone who was not trained in writing legalese?"***The Dems' Legal Eagles: Want real change? Quit nominating lawyers!By Victor Davis HansonThe National ReviewSeptember 5, 2008The 2008 presidential campaign is supposed to be a referendum on "change" - who brings it and who doesn't.Real change, however, hasn't yet proven to mean new politics.The "hope and change" Barack Obama sounds like a traditional Northern liberal who always wants to raise taxes on the upper classes and businesses, expand government services, and provide more state assistance to the middle class and poor."Maverick" John McCain talks like a conventional Western or Southern conservative in favor of spending cuts, across-the-board lower taxes, and smaller government.This year the media seem to think change means race and sex - whether Barack Obama's background of mixed racial ancestry or the gender of Democratic primary candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.It's certainly true that either the next president or next vice president will not be a white male. But does that mean de facto that the country will be run any differently?There is, however, one area where we might have seen real change. The Democrats could have not nominated another lawyer. This may partly explain why former military officer John McCain and working-mom Sarah Palin are polling near even with Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, in a year that otherwise favors the Democrats.A snowmobiling, fishing, and hunting mom of five who was trained as a journalist seems like a breath of fresh air - and accentuates the nontraditional background of former naval officer John McCain. If the Republicans win, it may well be because - like George Bush and Dick Cheney, or Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush - they weren't members of the legal culture.On the Democratic side, Barack Obama got out of Harvard Law School, worked for a firm, offered his legal expertise as a community organizer, and went into politics. Joe Biden graduated from law school and almost immediately ran for office.In the Democratic primary, winner Obama, runner-up Hillary Clinton, and third-place finisher John Edwards were all lawyers. In 2004, both Democratic nominees, John Kerry and Edwards, were lawyers. Al Gore, who ran in 2000, left law school without a degree and went into politics. His running mate, Joe Lieberman, was a Yale-trained lawyer. Mike Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, was a Harvard-trained lawyer and ran with lawyer Lloyd Bentsen.In fact, every Democratic presidential nominee for president and vice president in the last seven elections - except Gore, who dropped out of law school to run for Congress - has been a lawyer.What saved Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 was the presence in the race of third-party conservative candidate Ross Perot - and the image of Clinton as a Southern moderate, which seemed to reassure voters that this particular Yale-trained lawyer was nevertheless not quite another Democratic nominee like Walter Mondale or Dukakis.Of course, there have been Republican nominees and presidents who were lawyers - Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Bob Dole - but recently far less so than the Democrats, as the administrations of Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes attest.So, what's wrong with the Democratic nominee once again being a lawyer? After all, legal minds are trained to think precisely and evaluate both sides of an issue.The problem is that lawyers usually do not run companies, defend the country, lead people, build things, grow food, or create capital.If this year Democrats were looking for populist candidates from diverse backgrounds and training who talked and thought differently from those of the past, then why didn't they nominate someone who was not trained in writing legalese and working the government legal labyrinth?Instead, they needed different sorts, candidates who might have sounded a little rougher, a little less condescending, and a little more like most voters. Most Americans have never been in - and never want to be in - a courtroom.In the past, law school has not necessarily been considered ideal presidential training. Harry Truman was audacious perhaps because he had tried and failed as a haberdasher. Dwight Eisenhower learned about leadership from his years as a general. George H. W. Bush was a businessman and Ronald Reagan an actor. Even unpopular presidents like Jimmy Carter (farmer) and George W. Bush (businessman) brought different perspectives to the job.Change for Democrats this year was not a new strain of liberal politics or a different race or gender. Instead, they needed to have run candidates who talked, thought, and acted differently from their usual run-of-the-mill sorts.And that meant someone other than the same old, same old legal eagles who appear glib - but so often manage to lose in November.---------------------------------------------------------------MY COLLEAGUES IN THE AMERICAN LIBERAL PRESS HAD LITTLE TO FEAR AT THE START OF THE WEEK...Tom Gross writes: This article was published yesterday in The Observer, which is the Sunday edition of Britain's left-liberal Guardian newspaper. Columnist Nick Cohen writes: "Journalists who believe in women's equality should not spread sexual smears about a candidate, or snigger at her teenage daughter's pregnancy, or declare that a mother with a young family cannot hold down a responsible job for the pragmatic reason that they will look like gross hypocrites if they do..."In Britain, the most snobbish attacks on Margaret Thatcher did not come from aristocrats but from the communist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who opined that Thatcherism was the 'anarchism of the lower middle classes' and the liberal Jonathan Miller, who deplored her 'odious suburban gentility.'"***When Barack's berserkers lost the plotBy Nick CohenThe Observer (UK)September 7, 2008My colleagues in the American liberal press had little to fear at the start of the week. Their charismatic candidate was ahead in virtually every poll. George W Bush was so unpopular that conservatives were scrambling around for reasons not to invite the Republican President to the Republican convention. Democrats had only to maintain their composure and the White House would be theirs. During the 1997 British general election, the late Lord Jenkins said that Tony Blair was like a man walking down a shiny corridor carrying a precious vase. He was the favourite and held his fate in his hands. If he could just reach the end of the hall without a slip, a Labour victory was assured. The same could have been said of the American Democrats last week. But instead of protecting their precious advantage, they succumbed to a spasm of hatred and threw the vase, the crockery, the cutlery and the kitchen sink at an obscure politician from Alaska.For once, the postmodern theories so many of them were taught at university are a help to the rest of us. As a Christian, conservative anti-abortionist who proved her support for the Iraq War by sending her son to fight in it, Sarah Palin was 'the other' - the threatening alien presence they defined themselves against. They might have soberly examined her reputation as an opponent of political corruption to see if she was truly the reformer she claimed to be. They might have gently mocked her idiotic creationism, while carefully avoiding all discussion of the racist conspiracy theories of Barack Obama's church.But instead of following a measured strategy, they went berserk. On the one hand, the media treated her as a sex object. The New York Times led the way in painting Palin as a glamour-puss in go-go boots you were more likely to find in an Anchorage lap-dancing club than the Alaska governor's office.On the other, liberal journalists turned her family into an object of sexual disgust: inbred rednecks who had stumbled out of Deliverance. Palin was meant to be pretending that a handicapped baby girl was her child when really it was her wanton teenage daughter's. When that turned out to be a lie, the media replaced it with prurient coverage of her teenage daughter, who was, after all, pregnant, even though her mother was not going to do a quick handover at the maternity ward and act as if the child was hers.Hatred is the most powerful emotion in politics. At present, American liberals are not fighting for an Obama presidency. I suspect that most have only the haziest idea of what it would mean for their country. The slogans that move their hearts and stir their souls are directed against their enemies: Bush, the neo-cons, the religious right.In this, American liberals are no different from the politically committed the world over. David Cameron knew that he would never be Prime Minister until he had killed the urgent hatred of the Conservative party in liberal England. A measure of his success is that hardly anyone now is caught up by the once ubiquitous feeling that no compromise is too great if it stops the Tories regaining power. Hate can sell better than hope.When a hate campaign goes wrong, however, disaster follows. And everything that could go wrong with the campaign against Palin did. American liberals forgot that the public did not know her. By the time she spoke at the Republican convention, journalists had so lowered expectations that a run-of-the-mill speech would have been enough to win the evening.As it was, her family appeared on stage without a goitre or a club foot between them, and Palin made a fighting speech that appealed over the heads of reporters to the public we claim to represent. 'I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion,' she said as she deftly detached journalists from their readers and viewers. 'I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.'English leftists made the same mistake of allowing their hatred to override their judgment after the Iraq war. If they had confined themselves to charging Tony Blair with failing to find the weapons of mass destruction he promised were in Iraq, and sending British troops into a quagmire, they might have forced him out. They were so consumed by loathing, however, they insisted that he had lied, which he clearly had not. They set the bar too low and Blair jumped it with ease. 'When a man believes that any stick will do, he at once picks up a boomerang,' said GK Chesterton, and when the politically committed go on a berserker you should listen for the sound of their own principles smacking them in the face.Journalists who believe in women's equality should not spread sexual smears about a candidate, or snigger at her teenage daughter's pregnancy, or declare that a mother with a young family cannot hold down a responsible job for the pragmatic reason that they will look like gross hypocrites if they do. Before Palin, we saw hypocrisy of the right when shock jocks who had spent years denouncing feminism came over all politically correct when Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky.In Britain, the most snobbish attacks on Margaret Thatcher did not come from aristocrats but from the communist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who opined that Thatcherism was the 'anarchism of the lower middle classes' and the liberal Jonathan Miller, who deplored her 'odious suburban gentility'. More recently, George Osborne, of the supposedly compassionate Conservative party, revealed himself to be a playground bully when he derided Gordon Brown for being 'faintly autistic'.In an age when politics is choreographed, voters watch out for the moments when the public-relations facade breaks down and venom pours through the cracks. Their judgment is rarely favourable when it does. Barack Obama knows it. All last week, he was warning American liberals to stay away from the Palin family. He understands better than his supporters that it is not a politician's enemies who lose elections, but his friends.---------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN EDWARDS HAD A BABY?
The liberal media gangs up on a 17-year-oldBy Tom GrossThe National Review (Media Blog)September 7, 2008As I noted in my article (above), the campaign by America's phony feminists and snooty media establishment against Sarah Palin and her family that began mere seconds after John McCain picked her, has produced many outstandingly nasty comments.But perhaps the most telling bias of all can be observed when one compares the coverage Palin's poor teenage daughter received with the complete pass given by the liberal media to the would-be Democratic Party presidential candidate John Edwards, whose adultery during the campaign, even as his wife lay terminally ill, they did so much to cover up.Sam Schulman makes some good points too:1. Bristol Palin's pregnancy was broadcast to the world as soon - or sooner than - it was discovered. John Edwards's mistress Rielle Hunter's pregnancy was covered up by major media sources even though it was well documented.2. Rielle Hunter received: Rent-free housing. $15,000 a month from John Edwards's campaign treasurer. The use of a private jet. Bristol Palin received: the support of her community, Wasilla, the fourth-largest city in Alaska. The support of her mother and father. The love of her baby's father. Period.3. Rielle Hunter and John Edwards received: Privacy and solicitude from The New York Times, The Washington Post, network news, cable news - everyone in the respectable world media, except Mickey Kaus.Bristol Palin received Internet rumor-mongering widely reported in the mainstream press.4. Rielle Hunter and John Edwards continued to lie about their relationship after it was revealed.Bristol Palin's family gave a simple, dignified statement of the truth of the situation after it was revealed.5. Bristol Palin and the father of her baby are 17 or 18 - and their relationship concerns themselves and their parents.The combined age of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter is close to, if not over, a century. John Edwards has a mortally ill wife and three other young children to be concerned about.6. The number of column inches and network TV coverage devoted to Bristol Palin compared to John Edwards is - immeasurable.---------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT SARAH PALIN DIDN'T SAYS
arah's speechBy Tom Gross
The National Review (Media Blog)September 3, 2008
Sarah Palin is preparing to take the stage at the Republican convention, and here is a sneak preview of what she might say (as told to writer Claudia Rosett):"There are a few more things you need to know about me."As a troubled teenager, I myself used cocaine and marijuana (yes, I inhaled), and as an adult, I attended and took my family to (and my inspiration from) a church where the preaching included hate-speech about America and assorted ethnic and religious groups."In my business career, before entering politics, I had talents that allowed me, simply by reading the newspaper, to earn a 10,000% return on a $1,000 investment in cattle futures in the space of 10 months."While holding elected office, my experience included the pursuit of assorted adulterous liaisons, including intimate activities in my landmark government office with an intern less than half my age, though as I regard it, I did not have sex with that person (depending on the meaning of "is"). When I got caught, my spouse denounced my critics as members of a vast political conspiracy."I could add a great deal more to this list (though please remember that when I got caught taking home state silverware, I eventually did send it back), but let us now turn to the mighty issue of the hour..."That scene, of course, is fantasy, as Claudia Rosett points out: "Sarah Palin won't say these words, because they do not apply to her. But they do apply to the three most prominent political figures who paraded across the stage at the Democratic convention in Denver last week, Barack Obama, and Hillary and Bill Clinton - to wild ovations from the crowd."---------------------------------------------------------------MADAM PRESIDENT
Click here to see a cartoon and note by myself welcoming the possible 2012 presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin: http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWZjOGYyNGRlY2U4MGM0OTIwZGFhYTJkZGI2YTJmZGU=---------------------------------------------------------------CANADA'S STATE-FUNDED TV, IN THE FOOTSEPS OF DAILY KOSCanada's CBC continues the lies even after Daily Kos has moved onBy Tom GrossThe National Review (Media Blog)September 4, 2008On Monday, even the Daily Kos admitted that the disgusting smear that they had helped spread - that Sarah Palin wasn't really the mother of her 4-month-old baby Trig - wasn't true.The rest of the media then moved on to bashing Palin's defenseless teenage daughter, Bristol.Yet on Tuesday, star reporter Neil McDonald of Canada's taxpayer-funded CBC reported this gutter lie as if it might be true.How, asks Jonathan Kay in the posting below, could CBC sink so low? See: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/09/03/jonathan-kay-the-cbc-s-appalling-smear-on-sarah-palin.aspx

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TAXPAYER-FUNDED CANADIAN TV COLUMNIST: PALIN IS A "PORN ACTRESS"This commentator, Heather Mallick, is a columnist at the taxpayer-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC). What she says about Sarah Palin and the people who support her is jaw-dropping.Her article begins:I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted. She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right.So why do it?It's possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she's a woman. I mean, I know men have their secret meetings at which they pledge to do manly things, like being irresponsible with their semen and postponing household repairs with glue and used matches. Guys will be guys, obviously.Palin was not a sure choice, not even for the stolidly Republican ladies branch of Citizens for a Tackier America....John Doyle, the cleverest critic in Canada, comes right out and calls Palin an Alaska hillbilly. Damn his eyes, I wish I'd had the wit to come up with it first. It's safer than "white trash" but I'll pluck safety out of the nettle danger. Or something.... Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression. Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the "pramface." Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. What normal father would want Levi "I'm a f**kin' redneck" Johnson prodding his daughter?(You can read it all, if you must, here: www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/09/05/f-vp-mallick.html)
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ABC TV ON OBAMA'S PARENTAGE"A moment for the history books." Whoops.www.youtube.com/watch?v=YooKkyikXw0

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ORGANIZER IN CHIEF
BARACK'S CONTROVERSIAL ROOTS
By STEVEN MALANGA

Obama: Cut his teeth in a group that feeds on taxpayer money.
Posted: 3:56 amSeptember 8, 2008
Barack Obama represents the first appearance in a presidential race of a rela tively new political type: the community organizer.
His past as a local activist in Chicago has provoked sneers from Republicans and questions from most voters. What the heck is a community organizer, where do these folks get their money - and why are they so controversial?
The roots of community organizing stretch back to the 1930s and the efforts of organizer Saul Alinsky, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation and author of "Rules for Radicals," to organize people in low-income areas into a political force to combat the political machine that ran Chicago.
Alinsky won many admirers on the Left, but it took President Lyndon Johnson's War On Poverty to supercharge community organizing by directing billions of federal dollars to neighborhood groups with the naive and ambiguous goal of "empowering" communities.
The federal cash, eventually supplemented by state and local tax funds, helped create a universe of government-funded groups headed by local activists running everything from job-training efforts to recreation programs to voter-registration drives - far beyond anything Alinsky could've imagined.

Thousands of groups - eventually, 3,000 in New York City alone - arose to snatch government money. One startling sign of the growth: Today, New York now has more jobs at social-service agencies, most funded with government money, than on Wall Street.
Yet those who designed Johnson's programs endowed them with vague goals such as "community empowerment" and often failed to demand specific, achievable results from those they funded. Thus, money went to inexperienced local activists to run job-training programs that failed to find people jobs. Other grants went to local groups to help businesses in poor neighborhoods get loans - with little sense of whether their clients could actually ever pay back the money.
Nothing symbolizes the failure and waste better than a federal boondoggle known as the Community Development Block Grant program. Obama calls it "an important program that provides housing and creating [sic] jobs for low- and moderate-income people and places" - yet, over the last 40 years, the CDGB has funneled some $110 billion through community groups with little sense that it has done much good.
One visible sign of failure: Buffalo, the city that's gotten the most CDGB funding (per capita), is worse off today than it was 40 years ago. An investigation by The Buffalo News several years ago found that much of the money had been wasted in grants to organizations run by politically connected activists.
New York City has seen it, too. Earlier this year, several City Council aides were indicted for sending grants to a community nonprofit they controlled. Several years ago, investigators looking into illegal loans by a well-connected Bronx nonprofit found that it was paying its top executives hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to run such programs as "homework empowerment" for teens - with no notion of what these programs achieved or how they worked.
Despite such ongoing boondoggles, the funding keeps on flowing, largely because the activists who head these groups moved into politics, wielding the power that tax dollars had bought them to build a base of neighborhood supporters.
In New York City, operators of huge social-services groups like Pedro Espada in The Bronx and Albert Vann in Brooklyn won election to state and federal posts after heading up large, powerful nonprofits. By the late '80s, nearly a fifth of City Council members were products of the tax-funded nonprofit sector - and they were among the council's most strident advocates for higher taxes and more government spending. In cities from Chicago to Cleveland to Los Angeles, the road to electoral success increasingly runs through tax-funded social services.
Meanwhile, groups like the radical ACORN have used government funding to run voter-registration drives that are supposed to be nonpartisan efforts but that have concentrated in signing up voters in heavily Democratic districts to elect politicians who advance ACORN's political goals and protect funding for community activists.
As a result, spending to these groups has boomed while the sector has staved off reform. "The nonprofit service sector has never been richer, more powerful," former welfare recipient Theresa Funiciello wrote in her book "Tyranny of Kindness." "Except to the poor, poverty is a mega-business."
Obama began his organizing life in the mid-'80s in a community group whose progress mirrored the industry's: the Developing Communities Project, formed on Chicago's South Side as a "faith-based grass-roots organization organizing and advocating for social change." Though founded with resources from a coalition of churches, over time the DCP evolved into a government contractor, with nearly 80 percent of its revenues deriving from public contracts and grants.
Obama adopted the big-government ethos that prevails among neighborhood organizers, who view attempts to reform poverty programs as attacks on the poor. Speaking in 1995 to The Chicago Reader, an alternative weekly, Obama said, "These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress."
He also derided the "old individualistic bootstrap myth" of achievement that conservatives were touting and called self-help strategies for the poor "thinly veiled excuses for cutting back on social programs."
Obama stuck by those ideas as a state senator. His supporters count among his biggest victories his work to expand subsidized health care in Illinois with social-justice groups like United Power for Action and Justice (an offshoot of Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation). Meeting last November with the leaders of ACORN, he declared: "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career," including representing the group in a court case in Illinois. ACORN's affiliated political-action committee soon endorsed Obama for president.
An Obama presidency is likely to be a huge boost to tax-funded nonprofits - because his antipoverty agenda is right out of the 1960s. His platform ranges from a commitment to boost funding for CDGB to a plan for providing "a full network of services, including early-childhood education, youth-violence prevention efforts and after-school activities . . . from birth to college" to low-income neighborhoods.
The activist community knows he's one of them. As an organ of the National Housing Institute, a social-justice group, has observed: "Barack Obama carries lessons he learned as a community organizer to the political arena. Both organizers and politicians would be wise to study them closely."
Adapted from the summer issue of City Journal, where Steven Malanga is senior editor.