[L]ess than two weeks earlier, on May 24, 2007, the United States Senate had in fact voted 80-14 to waive the Stafford Act requirement for New Orleans, as it had waived that requirement for New York and Florida. More federal money was spent rebuilding New Orleans than was spent in New York after 9/11 and in Florida after hurricane Andrew, combined.
Truth is not a job requirement for a community organizer. Nor can Barack Obama claim that he wasn't present the day of that Senate vote, as he claimed he wasn't there when Jeremiah Wright unleashed his obscene attacks on America from the pulpit of the church that Obama attended for 20 years.
Unlike Jeremiah Wright's church, the U.S. Senate keeps a record of who was there on a given day. The Congressional Record for May 24, 2007 shows Senator Barack Obama present that day and voting on the bill that waived the Stafford Act requirement. Moreover, he was one of just 14 Senators who voted against -- repeat, AGAINST -- the legislation which included the waiver.
October 9, 2012
"Barack Obama in his old community organizer role," doing "what community organizers do... rub people's emotions raw to hype their resentments."
Thomas Sowell writes the pithiest thing that I've seen about the speech Obama gave on June 5, 2007. Remember, Obama told the predominantly black audience that the federal government — motivated by racial prejudice — would not waive the Stafford Act requirement that a city chip in 10% of the amount it would receive in federal disaster aid.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 244 of 244can a liberal tell me what I'd have to do in order to gain their respect?
First, you must cede their unquestioned moral superiority. After that everything falls into place.
By George, Krumhorn "gets" me!! :)
Inga said...
"Sheesh Tim, didn't call him a slut."
Other than the disease vector issue, being a slut, or being called a slut (especially if one is, in fact a slut), is significantly less insulting than calling a politician with no discernible traits for demagoguery "Elmer Gantry."
That is, if you truly understand the character.
I suspect you might not.
Tim, just because I think Obama is a liar and snake oil salesman, doesn't mean I don't think Romney isn't one too. They both fit the Gantry role, one could be the other's understudy.
--But outside the lizard brain demographic there is no 'there' there. And Sowell wouldn't feel the need to lie about it to get his point across.--
They just can't help themselves.
Inga said...
"Tim, just because I think Obama is a liar and snake oil salesman, doesn't mean I don't think Romney isn't one too. They both fit the Gantry role, one could be the other's understudy."
I think, based upon previous experiences, the label applies to Obama more so than Romney; even at that, I'd not make the accusation of Obama.
Grifter, yes.
Affirmative action hire, yes.
Failed president, yes.
I'm sure I've written others, but I don't recall them now.
Regardless, the character of "Elmer Gantry" is pretty despicable, more so than Obama. I don't blame Obama as much as I blame his voters. Obama's act was pretty transparent, if only one was willing to look.
It's like the HR department overlooking all the obvious flaws in a rush to hire the inexplicably favorite candidate.
MOTUS, who I highly respect, links this blog on her blogroll.
I wish I knew why. It can't be the blogger. Must be the commenters.
Ann, I'm a sixty-ish (more -ish than sixty) woman who escaped the Dem plantation four years ago. You can do it, too. Wake up, open your eyes and dump the glass of kool-aid.
Conservatives need to learn how to talk to moderates and liberals, and they especially need to learn how to not feel repulsive and toxic to us.
Sure, conservatives can do better. However, Althouse misses that much of the history of the conservative movement since Goldwarter or even FDR has been exactly that.
Meanwhile, there has never been a corresponding efforts from liberals, other than attempts to "frame" debate so that stupid, evil conservatives are tricked into cooperation.
Furthermore, Althouse exemplifies the classic liberal position of talking down to conservatives in an Obama-fashion "teachable moment."
It does get tiresome.
deborah said...
Okay. I recalled a memory the other day.
Your memory brought back one of mine. It was 1972. I was eighteen, on acid, and at a party. Richard Nixon was addressing the nation on a TV that had a slightly distorted picture. I don't remember what he was talking about, but I was tripping and thinking along the lines, THIS MAN IS A MONSTER.
The Crack Emcee said...
Thomas Sowell was my choice for president.
If you can get him to run I'll vote for him.
Tim, just because I think Obama is a liar and snake oil salesman, doesn't mean I don't think Romney isn't one too.
Inga: As usual, I'd be surprised if you could support this claim beyond, "Well, that's the way I feel about it."
All politicians lie and sell. That doesn't make them all equivalent.
My comment at the time was that Obama was selling himself to the white community as a racial healer at the same time that he was inflamiing black grievances....I suppose we all tailor our conversation to suit the needs of whomever we're talking to, but this blatant a falsehood should be unacceptable......I think Althouse compounds her offense again. She blames the Daily Caller for not reporting this story in its proper context. Hardly. The real sin lies with the mainstream media for not reporting the story at all. They claim it's old news, but it's not. Obama told a lie to a black audience and was not called on it by the press who were in attendance that day.....If Romney told a Mormon congregation that he was going to push for the reinstatement of polygamy, you can bet that the press would not report that Romney gave a speech saying how he was going to strengthen the institution of marriage. But that's the way that they reported Obama's speech.
The partisan spirit never misses a chance to be rude. But to win friends, the giving of complements of the positive traits and skills of the other wins their attention to what you have to say.
If you never want a person's friendship again, then by all means be rude and crude towards them. It always works.
My wife says that no one wants to hear your opinion until they know that you love them.
I agree with her to the extent that a continuous Ultimate Fighting style of aggressive confrontation is just boring to adults. And we all want to be interesting...in fact it is a quasi rule here.
Trad Guy meadiates...
Conservatives need to learn how to talk to moderates and liberals, and they especially need to learn how to not feel repulsive and toxic to us.
Alhouse: Just a thought: maybe you need to learn to not feel so intolerant towards conservatives. Conservatives and others tolerate a lot of "offensive" speech from liberals all the time. Why are moderates and liberals so precious? You claim to have invented the phrase "civility bullshit". What happened to that woman?
You give the impression that you believe that conservatives as a group are more racist, sexist, and homophobe than other groups. I call bullshit on that. Dems have just as many racists, sexists and homophobes in their midst as any other group. They prove it whenever a Rep. woman, minority or gay person runs for office.
I'm trying to help conservatives with their communications problems, and the pushback I received confirmed my opinion that they have a problem.
You smeared conservatives and Romney supporters as racist and ugly. Do you really not expect pushback from people you attack? Maybe you need to practice what you preach and consider how your speech affects the feelings of your readers.
If your claim that you are beneficently trying to help the poor benighted conservatives by advising them to talk pretty to other groups, is meant to be some sort of edgy attempt at humor, it's falling flat.
I continue in that belief. It's even enhanced by my experience with Sowell's near-perfect presentation of what matters here.
If your standard for conservative speech is someone as brilliant as Sowell, then the average conservative commenter is doomed in your eyes. Most people cannot write to that standard. You may want to ask yourself why you continually hold conservatives to a higher standard than liberals.
J.L.
Althouse's draw to me and I suspect others is that she is straight-forward and dealing with facts.
This is simply crap that it's how it was delivered:
Like last week’s playing and replaying of the Obamaphone lady’s ravings, it repels me from Republicans.: Ann Althouse
All you needed to do was look at the video to know what Obama was doing, as I said:
a) Obama mischaracterized facts.
b) Obama cemented stereotypes into a group of black people using the misrepresented facts as a springboard.
That's pretty ugly on Obama's part. . . .Showing Obama stirring up racial resentment through misrepresentation, not OK.
That came from WATCHING THE VIDEO, and in the same post where she takes to task conservatives for displaying the video:
AM I THE ONLY ONE OF THE INSTAPUNDIT BLOGGERS AND GUEST-BLOGGERS who loathes the Daily Caller’s exploitation of the 2007 video of Barack Obama stirring up the black churchfolk?
There you have it. Either she couldn't synthesize the video herself, or more likely she was on her personal crusade about the Mighty Middle.
Looking back at the posts, nearly everyone of them is not understanding Ann's position. There are points in the comments echoing the same things that Sowell says.
Perhaps this is some subtle note. Look, you can say whatever facts you want, but until Sowell (who happens to be black) says them, I'm not going to climb down from my high ground middle of the road mighty horse.
Childish.
ALTHOUSE: "Conservatives need to learn how to talk to moderates and liberals, and they especially need to learn how to not feel repulsive and toxic to us."
How about LIBERALS and MODERATES need to learn to listen and not automatically reflex against conservatives as they've been programmed to by the media.
Next time we should use flash cards so libs/mods get it. Geesh.
Lyssa,
"In TN, we actually have a constitutional provision that says that bills have to be about one subject and one subject only. How much better would the federal government be if we had that rule? "
Maybe better, maybe not. We have a similar provision in WA, and in recent years at least it's been used to some fairly ill effect, most notably in overturning some citizen initiatives.
Just imagine how much conflict there can be over what constitutes "one subject"?
Conservatives need to learn how to talk to moderates and liberals, and they especially need to learn how to not feel repulsive and toxic to us.
Cripes, what is the subject of the verb to feel in that sentence?
The conservatives? Because Ann identifies them as the ones who need to learn to feel correctly?
Or the moderates and liberals? Because they're the ones who feel the repulsiveness and toxicity, deep in their core?
Or are the conservatives in charge-- in complete and total control-- of the feelings of the moderates and liberals? Why would she admit to that? And why don't conservatives exploit that power more successfully?
Nobody told me I could control how you feel! How come I'm always the last one to find out about this stuff?!
Conservatives need to learn how to talk to moderates and liberals, and they especially need to learn how to not feel repulsive and toxic to us.
Hmmmmmm............nope. I don't.
Cripes, what is the subject of the verb to feel in that sentence?
To [not] feel is an infinitive; it's not functioning as a verb in that sentence, so it doesn't have a subject.
The rest of your post makes a good point.
Althouse's draw to me and I suspect others is that she is straight-forward and dealing with facts.
That; and I admire her for candidly telling us how she feels, and subjecting herself to criticism for that candor.
It's not fair to expect anyone to be right 100% of the time. We all have our biases and sensitivities, which will at times cloud our judgement. RE: the Obama video- Althouse had a knee-jerk response to what she perceived as a racist ploy on the part of the GOP, that prevented her from getting a message that people w/o her racial sensitivity were able to see right away. She has owned up to it, which is commendable.
Now if she would just go back to being the woman who coined the term "civility bullshit", instead of chiding the conservatives who got angry at her when she pulled the race card on them, I'd shut up. I didn't read the pushback commentary to her race posts, so I can only guess that some of it must've been unpleasant. But it's not surprising. Race is a touchy subject, and pulling the race card on people who've had it thrown at them daily for the past four years is bound to elicit some ugly responses.
If it were a story it would be a story and you can bet Romney would already be pushing it. But outside the lizard brain demographic there is no 'there' there. And Sowell wouldn't feel the need to lie about it to get his point across.
Denial is fun to watch from a distance, especially when it includes projection.
I think Sowell's first paragraph applies here:
"When President Barack Obama and others on the left are not busy admonishing the rest of us to be "civil" in our discussions of political issues, they are busy letting loose insults, accusations and smears against those who dare to disagree with them."
Getting smeared by the likes of Chris Matthews is no big deal, but it really hurts when coming from someone I respected.
- I think that's a reason why there has been such a reaction to Ann's "ugly" comment.
Inga said...
Jay, "fat Allie"? I'm fat at 135 pounds and 5'6"?
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
Tyrone Slothrop said...
The Crack Emcee said...
Thomas Sowell was my choice for president.
He wouldn't run. He's too nice, honest, respectable.
J.L.:
It's not fair to expect anyone to be right 100% of the time. We all have our biases and sensitivities, which will at times cloud our judgement.
Did I ever tell you how I hate reasonable people? (Yes, a lot of irony in there, because I accept your basic point, and see the reflection in my own "biases".)
I wonder, though, whether there is a resistance on Ann's part to give up on her race view of the world. My problem with the Obama video isn't so much what he personally did, as Crack pointed out, it's pretty much to be expected from a person of his Background. And from his relationship with Rev. Wright, and even his own wife ("first time I'm proud of my country"), is to be expected.
However, how much longer must we kowtow to these racial concerns? And I would ask Ann, what makes you think the current practices are anything but destructive to the very people they are purported to help?
In my view, that's the discussion we ought to be having. And it means leaving a lot of the failed leftist thought process behind, in my view.
JL said...
She has owned up to it, which is commendable.
I must have missed this. The last I read she was blaming conservatives for her error, an odd stance from someone routinely condescending to others who complain about not being spoonfed.
In my view, that's the discussion we ought to be having. And it means leaving a lot of the failed leftist thought process behind, in my view.
It may mean leaving behind a good chunk of baby boomer mentality; it may be a job for an entirely different generation of people.
bit slow on discovering this vote, aren't you?
I wrote this under the Conor Friedersdorf post:
" Jane said...
This tape bothers me because it shows a man who ought to know better, LYING.
By January 2007, six months before Obama’s Hampton speech, the federal government had sent at least $110 billion to areas damaged by Katrina. This was more than five times the money that the Bush administration pledged to New York City after 9/11.
The federal government did at times waive the Stafford Act during its New Orleans reconstruction efforts. On May 25, 2007, just weeks before Obama’s speech, the Bush administration sent an additional $6.9 billion to Katrina-affected areas with no strings attached.
10/3/12 9:09 AM"
hope the glass has been shattered for you, Professor. time to become a decided voter.
The Daily Caller did a lousy job of its revelation. The fact Sowell highlights -- so clear and so devastating -- completely transforms the story for me.
I can't remember a more intellectually lazy statement than this.
It is not the Daily Caller's job to do your thinking for you. Through out all of this, your loyal commenters have done overtime work to communicate with you. And through it all you have called them ... wait for it ... ugly.
Ugly. Right.
Within 8 hours all of us had access to the fact that Obama had voted against the New Orleans bill. 8 hours. You on the other hand persisted in your weasel way to insult those who would hold Obama accountable to the same standard of decency to which everyone else is held accountable.
It's beyond pathetic. It is in fact without a shred of common human decency.
You want to see Ugly, Althouse?
Look in the freakin' mirror.
For a change.
I must have missed this. The last I read she was blaming conservatives for her error,
Well, yes, there is that. It was lazy writing on my part. I commend her specifically for recognizing that there is a point to airing the video, other than "ugly" pandering to racists, as she initially suggested. I agree that blaming the communication skills of conservatives for her initial negative response is not a convincing argument.
Milt Freidman and Thomas Sowell are both very good a talking to people who disagree with them. It's a extraordinarily difficult thing to do consistently. Most folks find people who disagree them maddening, especially since their opponents almost never change their minds.
Yours,
Tom
Did I ever tell you how I hate reasonable people?
Heh- no one likes reasonable people when they are pissed. Honestly, I don't either. ;)
C'mon Garage, what Obama did was indefensible.
Romney would be an idiot to raise the issue.
While I don't think there's a "liberal conspiracy" in the press, there is no doubt that on some issue, especially race, that there is a liberal view that dominates among the reporters. They're simply not going to report on this.
This tells us something about Obama the man, doesn't it? He's a pretty cynical person. Yeah, they're all cynical but sometimes it goes too far.
This is an example of it.
Althouse, I agree with the advice to learn how to speak to liberals and moderates. But therein lies the problem.
Most people really don't know what is going on in other peoples' heads. It's like speaking to an entirely different culture. That's why so many assumptions are made about you hereabouts. They can't track with your reasoning or your assumptions or your influences, so how could most people know what would actually be helpful?
Someone like Sowell, however, is in your world. He's an academic and he was, it seems, quite a liberal in his earlier years. He's a conservative now but really gets the mindset--so can really zero in on the key issues that someone like you would find convincing, because they're the issues he finds convincing.
Ann
You weren't listening, or else you didn't watch on Hannity. Tucker Carlson stated this fact on air. (But Hannity went off in his own direction as usual--I rarely watch him anymore.)
Many of your commenters mentioned it as well. I even called Obama's behavior a form of oppression.
Didn't Obama bring up his faith in Christ in this same "sermon" at Hampton U? With the same mouth he praises his God and utters blasphemies.
Funny...the Media Matters piece certain of the Obama-apologists are pointing to actually make the guy look worse than Sowell's straight reading.
Obama's Senate votes threw the people of New Orleans under the bus to score political points against Bush's Iraq surge.
So, Obama the us-vs.-them racist was okay. But Obama the lying politician wasn't?
As always, I'm mystified at trying to understand the principles of you squishy moderates...
"Conservatives need to learn how to talk to moderates and liberals, and they especially need to learn how to not feel repulsive and toxic to us."
Perhaps you should re-examine your underlying premise, namely that someone other than you is responsible for how you "feel".
Advocating for a more effective or civil tone in communication is one thing... blaming others for your own emotional processing of speech is another thing entirely.
Assuming the thrust of your statement was more closely aligned with the desire for more civil speech: shouldn't that standard apply symmetrically? Do you believe that you apply it in that manner?
It's like the adult version of the playground - "you better talk nice to me or else".
Shame on you Althouse, shame!
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