Squirmy

Playing Political Hardball

Hank Roth

"Sometime back in the 1990s, when the culture wars were the only ones we thought we had going, a cartoon showed three coworkers viewing each other with narrowed and questioning eyes. "Those whites don't know how to deal with a competent black man," the black man is thinking. "Those guys don't know how to deal with a powerful woman," the woman is thinking. And what could the only white male have been thinking? "They don't like me. They know that I'm gay." " (Noemie Emery - The Weekly Standard - Jan 28, 2008)

This is not going away and will surely become a major campaign issue in any national or general election. The Republicans will not hesitate to use any information, which, to use a metaphor, peels the onion - as they should. Obama and many liberal Democrats are already uncomfortable playing political hardball. It seems it is all right when Obama slings half truths and lies but anything coming his way is too politically unpalatable and squirmy for the political correctness and politeness expected by Democrats for each other. The Dems criticize each other when not tough with Republicans but hands off when it comes to other Dems, especially the Black guy. That would not be cool. If Obama can't take the heat now he should drop out of the fray before the start of the main event. Bill Clinton toughness wins but it is still a discomfort for the sensitivities of wussy Democrats.

Obama is going to get further "blackened" (pun intended) by the mud slinging in Chicago when the scandal reaches the national stage with the intensity it seems to be acquiring in Chicago.

Here is what Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun-Times says about Barach Obama's
playing fast and easy with the facts:

Time for Obama to come clean

To dismiss Rezko as 'somebody who I knew'
just isn't going to cut it

Mark Brown
Chicago Sun-Times
(January 24, 2008):

Barack Obama just keeps bobbling the Tony Rezko hot potato, and if he doesn't get a handle on it soon, his campaign for the presidency is going to be badly burned.

On Wednesday, the Illinois senator fumbled again as he continued to try to minimize his relationship with Rezko while making the rounds of the morning news shows.

"My relationship is he was somebody who I knew and had been a supporter for many years," Obama said on CBS in response to Hillary Clinton's "slumlord" attack from earlier this week. "He was somebody who had supported a wide range of candidates all throughout Illinois. Nobody had an inkling that he was involved in any problems."

Somebody who I knew?

Wow.

That's such an understatement that it borders on a falsehood.

Proving, though, that this was one of Obama's preprogrammed talking points, not just a slip of the tongue, he also told ABC: "This is somebody who was active in Illinois politics who I knew. Nobody had any indications that he was engaging in wrongdoing."

Obama certainly did know Rezko. He knew him quite well, although perhaps not as well as he should have.

This was not some guy he used to hang with in high school.

This is somebody who spotted Obama's raw talent and offered him a job while he was still in law school, somebody who gave him one of his very first campaign donations for his first political race. This is somebody for whom Obama and his law firm performed legal work, not a great deal of it by Obama personally perhaps, but enough to know how the man made his money and that he was one of the major developers of low-income housing in his state legislative district.

Somebody who was a big fund-raiser

This is somebody who was one of the key fund-raisers for Obama's U.S. Senate campaign, somebody who came through with big money at a crucial juncture in a difficult primary contest.

And let's not forget this is somebody who bought the piece of real estate adjoining Obama's home, then sold the senator part of it, in a strange transaction about which key details have never been disclosed -- owing in part to the curious refusal of the real estate agents and prior owners to discuss it.

Beyond that, Obama and Rezko had a personal friendship that was still going strong two years ago, the extent of which has been difficult to explore with Rezko under indictment and Obama trying to run from him as far and fast as he can.

It's way past time for Obama to come completely and entirely clean about his Rezko dealings (preferably, of course, in an interview with this newspaper.)

Remember, this is a relationship to which Rezko could soon be testifying in federal court if he chooses.

But one way or another, it's all going to come out before Obama can reach the finish line in November. He needs to prove he can deal with this forthrightly now before the Republicans make him explain it.

I write this as somebody who has always expected to be voting for Obama this year.

This isn't going to go away.

And while the Rezko business has definitely taken the bloom off the rose, I still haven't seen anything so far that should disqualify Obama from being president, certainly not in a matchup with Hillary Clinton, who has her own fund-raising con man albatross in Norman Hsu to complement the earlier trail of tears from Whitewater to Monica Lewinsky.

Most troubling to me is how Obama keeps handling this, a continuing lapse in judgment that leaves me wondering if there's more here than meets the eye instead of less.

Just last weekend, the Obama campaign donated to charity another $40,000 in past campaign donations linked to Rezko. Why hadn't they taken care of that months ago instead of waiting for the latest Sun-Times' story?

From the start, Obama's approach to the Rezko situation has been to minimize and avoid, as if it would eventually just go away. It won't.

As far as nobody having an inkling that Rezko could be a problem, that's just not true either.

Many people recognized Rezko as a guy on the make who was busily ingratiating himself to Chicago politicians with an eye toward a future payback. As I've written before, from the moment he showed up as John Stroger's biggest campaign donor, the questions were always: What does he want? What's his angle?

The details of his indictment show just how far Rezko would allegedly go to take advantage of his ties to an Illinois governor. Imagine what he had in mind if his other buddy became president.

http://www.suntimes.com/

Liberal Democrats want to prove they are not racists; so much so that they would vote against their interests, something they always do, and vote for the inexperienced Black guy. I say that with deep respect for people with more melanin than myself - though that is certainly not a sign of one's content of character. I grew up with people as pale as me to those who like Obama have a greater genetic advantage against UV radiation than I do and that is where the inherent physical difference between us ends. - There are no racial differences, only cultural and philosophical differences. Sensitivity for feelings aside, the Democrats only have to prove they are more just and honest.

Bill Clinton plays political hardball. He lit into Obama with that now famous remark about his anti-war "purity" calling it "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen." For that he was labeled a mean ex who went over the line. Over the line of what? Obama is not the progressive everyone thinks he is, nor is he an anti-war liberal. He is more conservative than Bill Clinton and certainly more so than Hillary. He has not stopped slinging false statements since he got into the campaign. And he is also less than pure when it comes to taking money and favors from unsavory characters - besides being a very strange and mysterious character himself. Even if you read his book; even then, you would have to admit this is some strange stuff. What do you mean he went to school in Indonesia in a Madrassa and what do you mean he had two Muslim fathers and his middle name is Hussein and he can tell you none of that means anything. Well that is just a bit much to swallow.

Sure, I can admit that perhaps it is just as he says it is, but give me a break. This is Life 101 and not some padded room in an asylum. You don't pick Reagan as an example for being "trans-formative" as-if it was something you would want to emulate; you pick a Democrat. Why not Bill Clinton who got us out of dept and was the first to balance the budget. Now that is trans-formative? If I was Bill I'd be insulted too. But that doesn't count. Don't pick on the Black guy - you know, the one who went to a madrassa (Islamic religious school) for his early, growing up, education - before he got to Harvard. You know the one that teaches the real meaning of Jihad. - There has been an attempt at spin control and the story has been labelled a smear, even though he was in fact registered as a Muslim and he did attend an Islamic religious school in Jakarta so you be the judge. I don't think the story is going to go away.

Donna Brazile, the long-time (black) Democratic political operative, who helped manage the Gore campaign in 2000. "I find his words and tone to be very depressing," she said. Other black politicians called the comment "a mistake," "unfortunate," and an act of ingratitude, as blacks had been the ex-president's most reliable defenders in his scandal-wracked hour of need.

TV commentator and former campaign manager for Al Gore, Brazile, finds Bill Clinton's tone, his language, "very depressing." Some are calling it a "mistake" and "unfortunate." With that attitude we will never really know the truth about Obama - not from the Democrats. It will take Republicans to figure it out. Maybe we should have been a bit more circumspect about George Bush. Actually, some of us were, for all the good it did - because most of the Democrats didn't want to be too mean spirited just like Pelosi and Reed have kept impeachment "off the table." WHY? Because we all have to get along. Somebody tell that to the opposition - You know the ones who want to send your kids to war and kill more foreigners so we can have their oil.

Remember how quickly Don Imus was skewered and burned at the stake for his "unfortunate" remarks - and how quickly Hillary was sharply attacked for suggesting President Lyndon B. Johnson may have had something to do with civil rights; like without him there would be no Civil Rights Act of 1964. I was around then and very much involved with civil rights. I had personally been asked to leave the counter in a drug store because they didn't want to provide service to my Black friend who came into the drug store with me (in Miami Beach). I had been asked to leave a hotel and refused to use of a cabana because my name was Roth and the hotel was "restricted"

There was no slight against MLK intended. Lyndon did usher in a new era and so did the protest marches led by Martin Luther King. The blame game is unwarranted. Do I have to remind everyone that it was MLK who said to "judge not by the color of one's skin but by the content of one's character."

I judge and credit Hillary for being there and working to bring about Public Law 94, which made it possible for my son, who has cerebral palsy to attend a regular public school. I judge and credit Bill Clinton for 8 great years in the economy - in spite of some other things he did which I did not like. BUT like everyone else the times were the best they have been and we're likely not to see that kind of prosperity again unless we return Bill and Hillary to the White House. Hell, it seems like a bargain to me to get two for the price of one.

No wonder neocons are yesterday's socialist left. They were mugged by reality and disgusted with self-defeatist America hating liberals. They understood that not everything that is wrong with the world is the fault of Western culture and America. Senator Clinton wanted the voters in Florida and Michigan to count. She favored a revote. Obama rejected the plan. He would rather disenfranchise millions of voters in order to win. He knows Florida and Michigan would favor Hillary. It was that more than anything else and the degree of anti-Americanism and disdain for the military by liberal, so-called "progressive" Democrats which makes it very easy for me to decide that if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee, as an Eisenhower Democrat, I will then vote against Obama by casting my "precious" vote for my brother, a moderate-conservative Republican, genuine war hero (swift-boated by the right and the left), ex-POW Senator John McCain.

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Today is Friday July 04, 2008