The Ties That Bind
By Pamela Hamilton • Mar 20th, 2008 • Category: Politwix BlogsSenator Barack Obama has been welcomed by America’s mainstream media with open arms, due in part to a sincere desire in the hearts of a majority of Americans to get beyond race and move this country into a new era of understanding. Sadly, I believe they have anointed the wrong person to take us there.
Whatever conciliatory words were spoken in Obama’s recent speech to bring us together, there is a lingering unease that somehow we are being hoodwinked. Bamboozled. You know, the old okie-doke.
Hillary Clinton has been warning us for months that Obama’s flowery platitudes were “just words”. Finally people are seeing it for themselves.
People are beginning to look beyond Obama’s words to his associations, and then put those words, as Obama loves to say, “into context”, by examining those associations. This is where things begin to unravel.
The sermons by Obama’s friend, spiritual advisor and pastor of twenty-years are so disturbing because the memory of what happened on September 11th was one of the most emotionally shocking events most Americans had ever witnessed.
To think that just five days after that devastating event Wright was preaching “God Damn America!” to his congregation is enraging. Americans watching clips of those sermons may have realized on a visceral level that Wright himself looked much like a terrorist — so much hatred and venom inside.
Obama’s speech did little if anything to address how he feels personally about this incident to calm queasiness that he might also share these views.
Accused political “fixer” Tony Rezko currently sits in a Chicago prison for using his influence to rob the people of Illinois of millions by using his fundraising abilities in exchange for place of cronies on powerful state and private boards.
It is a fact that Tony Rezko has been directly responsible for bringing at least $250,000 to Barack Obama since he made his first run for public office. Rezko has been a fundraiser for Obama from the start, and in light of the federal investigations going on into corruption and political fixing, Obama cannot easily shirk this association.
Which brings us to another tie. Nahdmi Auchi, an Iraqi-born billionaire who has been said to have provided weapons to Saddam Hussein and is possibly involved in the Oil-For-Food fraud. According to the London paper The Times Online, may have sent money in 2005 to Rezko through a Panamanian company related to Auchi’s wife. At the time, Rezko was running from creditors and supposedly had no money. Three weeks after that wire was received by Rezko, Rezko’s wife entered in to a real estate deal for a piece of land next to that of Barack Obama –enabling Obama to buy a home that he could not afford to purchase. The seller of the home wanted to sell it with an adjacent lot, and did not want to sell one without the other. The sellers entered into two separate transactions that closed on the same day, with Obama buying the house and Rezko’s wife purchasing the land. This transaction has raised eyebrows among those that believe Rezko was trying to do Obama a favor to gain a political “chit” that he could later ”cash in”.
Obama is not currently been accused of any wrongdoing, but more questions will definitely come up in Rezko’s trial about this relationship with Rezko.
The New York Times interviewed a former homegrown terrorist, William Ayers, on September 11th, 2001.
”I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. ”I feel we didn’t do enough.”
Mr. Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, a radical group that claimed responsibility for attacks New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972. Ayers and others in the group became fugitives until the five-year statute of limitations on Federal crimes expired.
When Obama was starting his first state senate campaign, it is said that Ayers held a “house party” for Obama, introducing him to like-minded individuals that could help him in this quest. Ayers also served on the board of The Woods Fund with Obama, a group that donated money to various causes, including some Palestinian groups known to be hostile to Israel.
It is not known how deep Obama’s connection goes to Mr. Ayers, but again, we know so little about Obama that his associations become one of the few methods available to examine this man.
Obama’s thin record as senator, lack of specifics regarding implementation of policy positions, and the tendency to talk around issues rather than address them leaves us little choice but to do so.
Pamela Hamilton is a freelance writer, corporate culture evacuee and vocational gypsy. She attended the school of hard knocks and graduated with a degree in satire.
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I think as more comes out on this Rezko thing people are going to realize how unelectable Obama is.
Obama appeared at a rally in Medford, OR this morning. The Oregon primary isn’t until May 20th. Is he a little worried about something?
I watched the live coverage on local TV. Before he spoke he said he was going to do something he didn’t usually do. He had retired general Tony Mc Peak, a Southern Oregon, native speak.
McPeak said Obama had him on a “short string” so he was only allowed to read his prepared statement. He went ahead and read a comment made recently by President Bill Clinton the “”two people who love this country” comment and McPeak proceed to take it totally out of context and spin it as being an affront to Obama’s patriotism.
Here are Clintons words: “I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country,” said the former president. “And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”
Obama stood by McPeak’s side, his head hung down and almost looked embarrassed at the twisting and spinning job going on. The point is he had his surrogate McPeak do his dirty work. It’s old style politics as usual. The very kind of politics that Obama espouses he transcends. What a “positive and hopeful” note to preface his uninspiring stump speech.
Obama’s henchmen (Axel-Rod et. al.,) have come out swinging since the media finally broke the Wright and Rezko stories. They are in full tilt damage control.
Right after Obama’s “race” speech his campaign released a photo showing President Bill Clinton with Wright. Wright was one of many attendees, in a receiving line at a White House function.
Obama’s playing “old school” politics again, trying to equate the Wright photo-op with Clinton, to his 20 year apprenticeship with “God Damn America” Wright.
American voters are watching, listening, and reading between the media’s pro-Obama sound bites. Obama calls for transparency and people are seeing through the hype and they aren’t buying the “bamboozle.”