Hate comes out of the closet

[sauronsfinger]

But I read your declaration as stating that the vote rendered the allegations untrue- by which standard, of course, Nixon was not a crook.

Solicitr... here is what I said

these allegations about associates have already been aired... they have been judged... they have been decided by the American people who are the final judges on these matters.

I would point out to the the timeline on Richard Nixon - at the time of the 1972 election, very little of the activities of Nixon were known at the time when he was re-elected in a landslide. Over the next 20 months, it all came out, the public turned against him, and he resigned having placed his own neck on the chopping block.

To compare Obama and Nixon, the Nixon Watergate/cover-up crimes would have had to come out before the 1972 election which they did not. We have heard all this about Ayers and company. Senator McCain had ample opportunity to make his case heard on countless TV commericals, interviews, speeches, debates and other forums.

People heard. People decided. Its done and over and finished.

[solicitr]

SF, Tricky Dick was alleged to be crooked all the way back to his VP days. Remember the Checkers speech?

And I would remind you that there are elections every two years. If Obama does start advocating leftist policies, I suspect a lot of voters are going to think, "hmm, maybe we were to quick to slough off his commie friends....."

[sauronsfinger]

Solicitr - do you remember the issue of the Checkers speech? Because I most certainly do having studied it in college. $15,000 dollars worth of clothes and gifts given to the Nixon family. One motivation was so they could look better on the campagn trail. Thus we got the humble line about "Pats respectable Republican cloth coat". Imagine that. Does that sound familiar?

I think people thought Nixon as shifty or "tricky" as he was called but the criminal activities of Watergate did NOT come out until well after the election. The decision of the people was NOT rendered on Nixons Watergate crimes in 1972 because no allegations were then made.

For you to compare the verdict of the American people in 2008 on Obama for things that got plenty of airtime with Nixon in 72 is not at all the same thing.

I would be more than happy to exchange email adresses with you and make a wager about the raising of such issues in 2010. The Marx that most people know today is Groucho - not Karl. And sadly, too few even remember Groucho.

[Ellienor]

Soli, if you want to play the association game, how about you recognize that if one wanted to play guilt-by-association with McCain, it would be very productive. McCain had associations with Khalidi, with ACORN, and with numerous other shady characters (Keating, anyone?). Nobody seriously dug around looking for nasty associations for McCain because it just didn't matter, because there was no question that he was a patriotic American.

Now I'm not suggesting that Obama has the same American "cred" as McCain, clearly Obama did not spend many years of his life in the military or in the Senate, and did not come from nearly the same pedigree.

But the "close personal friends" stuff just doesn't hold water. Yes, there was a willingness to work with or rub shoulders with a few people who an aspiring pol might have reconsidered, but c'mon. If there really was such a close relationship with any of these people (excepting Rev. Wright), I'm sure it would have come to light. People for the most part shrugged their shoulders because serving on a Board with Ayers for crying out loud with many other upstanding and mainstream citizens served is just not the same as throwing bombs with him 40 years ago, not because it was covered up. And if there were smoking guns, you betcha that Fox News would have been all over it.

To me I find it admirable and part of his general approach, which is far more inclusive and is much less focused on finding out who shouldn't be in the club and then shunning them (much as Bush has done).

[Primula Baggins]

Maybe Obama and Pfleger have met; I guess they both live in Chicago, and Pfleger did give a sermon at Obama's old church, once. Show me proof that this makes him deeply influential over Obama's thoughts and policy, and I'll capitulate.

There is, as I've said, no crime in holding unpopular political opinions, however icky. Or in meeting someone who holds them. Nor is is there any sign that those opinions have become Obama's, or that any of these affiliations you listed were anything other than tenuous or formal, where they existed at all. So I will continue to be unworried.

You're welcome to offer links to actual evidence, though I can't include in that category still another alarmist recap founded on all the other alarmist recaps. (And I thought left-wing bloggers read each other's stuff too much. . . .)

[solicitr]

Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend, and somebody I interact with closely.

--Barack Obama, interview with Chicago Sun-Times, 2004

Friends and advisers, such as the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church in the Auburn- Gresham community on the South Side, who has known Obama for the better part of 20 years, help him keep that compass set, he says.

--Chicago Sun-times, companion article

[solicitr]

To me I find it admirable and part of his general approach, which is far more inclusive and is much less focused on finding out who shouldn't be in the club and then shunning them (much as Bush has done).

Well, Ellie, would you then consider it to Bush's credit and a tribute to his openmindedness if he hung out with Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists?

[Ellienor]

What's so terrible about Pfleger?

I don't think that Obama's work with leaders who were pushing somewhat "activist" agendas for black empowerment, given the history of this country and black people's powerlessness and discrimination, problematic. Obama is black, after all. Many of those "uppity" blacks like Rosa Parks, MLK, paved the way.

I go to women in law events. I have heard speakers say things like "men have all the power! Do you think they're just going to give it to you? No! You must demand it. Don't stand for it. Don't be the good submissive girl friday." And other such rhetoric. Just today I had lunch with a woman who is a doctoral student in divinity and her dissertation is on the role of women in pastoral matters. And it's pathetic. She's pretty activist. Quite the rabble-rouser. You want discimination against women? Try examining mainstream Western religions. But somehow women's rhetoric is less threatening to white men than black rhetoric.

edit: yes, Soli, it's different for me when a white politician hangs out with Klansmen and the like. Klansmen had a history of keeping blacks in their place. Slavery happened. What did the Black race ever do to the White one??? Black empowerment is about coming back from their historic deficit. Hyperbole in the process happens. But I don't see any evidence, from Obama's past, his books, or in his Cabinet appointments, that he's bringing in all brothers/Palestinian activists/domestic terrorists to take over our government.

[solicitr]

What's so terrible about Pfleger?

I'm speechless.

But as for the rest of the paragraph- don't you dare imply that I'm racist for condemning vicious hatemongers like Michel Pfleger: H. Rap Brown without the Kalashnikov. If that wasn't your intent, then I apologize in advance. But I will not accept that label from anyone.

Edit: So you really think that Communists are OK?

[Ellienor]

I meant it as a serious question. I don't recall Pfleger ever being discussed during the election, I must have missed it, and I do consume non-left wing media. I meant no insult.

[Primula Baggins]

I'll give you Pfleger, then. But as Ellie says: what difference does it make?

[solicitr]

Again- 'never saw it in the media.' Of course not. The media never touched anything that might interfere with their chosen candidate.

[Ellienor]

Soli, as it so happens, I regularly checked Fox news online, and my husband even made us watch it on occasion (when he thought I was spending too much time with Rachel Maddow).

Did it come up during the primaries? Because I wasn't paying as close attention then.

edit: did the MSM talk about Palin's "witch doctor", her Pastor's Jews for Jesus connection, and her husband's and her association with the Alaska separatist party (whose founder said he hates America worse than anything)? I saw this stuff on HuffPo but not anywhere else.

MSM tends to try to keep its nose out of tabloid and fringe stories like guilt by association witch hunts. On both sides.

[sauronsfinger]

I do not know what MEDIA you get Solicitr but on the radio and TV I get I saw it plenty. In fact, I know of several rather popular media outlets which made it their cause celebre for much of the campaign.

Perhaps your dispute is more with Senator McCain and his campaign staff? Obviously he had the time, the money, the commercials, the crowds, the speeches, etc. to get any message out that he wanted to get out. He was not silenced. He was not edited. He was not prevented from saying anythign he wanted to say.

I would suggest this to you: only a very foolish salesman would come back to the same door to sell the exact same product when that door has been slammed in his face dozens of times by the current home owner.
McCain tried to sell the same product that you are still attempting to sell here to us even though the store has closed and will not reopen until 2012. He saw there were not enough customers for that particular product so he went on to the new message of the week.

What is the point of this? The election is over. You cannot change the results. The American people have spoken.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend, and somebody I interact with closely.

--Barack Obama, interview with Chicago Sun-Times, 2004

Friends and advisers, such as the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church in the Auburn- Gresham community on the South Side, who has known Obama for the better part of 20 years, help him keep that compass set, he says.

--Chicago Sun-times, companion article

soli, I don't know how many times I need to ask you to do this: please include links to sources when you assert facts or quote material.

[vison]

But it is rather frustrating to deal with Creationists who numbingly chant 'no evidence in the fossil record, no evidence in the fossil record', no matter how extensive the evidence you bring to their attention. This is of the same savour.

No, it isn't. It's the exact opposite. The "evidence" you present is like the "evidence" of the ID faction. "This has to be true because I want it to be true!" is "of the same savour". "You can't prove it isn't true, so it must be true!"

The plural of anecdote is not data. The plural of innuendo is not truth.

At any rate, the election is over and Mr. Obama will soon be judged on his actual actions, not gossip, quotes from dodgy websites, and fabrications by even dodgier people.

[Alatar]

This is from a few pages back but I wanted to address it.

"Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves." And the old warrior's dissent sounded "harsh as an old raven's after the music of the voice."

"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence."

Even though I know Soli is not suggesting that LotR was a time shifted Allegory of the US Election, I still think its farcical to compare Obama and McCain to Saruman and Théoden.

[truehobbit]

I don't know. I think that as a description of the effect charisma has on people, the quote from Tolkien is extremely perceptive and insightful.
And Obama does have charisma.
Note, please, that I'm not saying Obama's evil like Saruman.
But I do think that when people listen to him what happens is very often that "mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable...".

[Inanna]

Hobby! crashtacklehug

ok, carry on now, all of you.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I agree that there is an aspect of the analogy that is accurate.