OPINION & EDITORIAL
Obama to learn lesson in losing
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Also by Gerald Cox:
- Iraqis to UW for free? Bring 'em on (March 3, 2008)
- Ties to state key for UW's future (February 25, 2008)
- Finding America's new voice (February 17, 2008)
- Duke's sex worker show provokes controversy, but without merit (February 11, 2008)
- Taking 'green' to new heights (February 3, 2008)
Related Stories:
- Obama's charisma essential to victory (January 29, 2007)
- Barack Obama: Political St. Nick (October 15, 2007)
- Obama: Visionary, not fraudulent (September 19, 2007)
- Dems field diverse candidates (February 7, 2007)
- Clinton an apparition of progress (February 21, 2008)
by Gerald Cox
Monday, March 10, 2008
Following Wisconsin, a tired truism began to circulate in Democratic circles: Sen. Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee, and Sen. Hillary Clinton should bow out for the good of the party. A string of confident and impressive electoral victories had vaulted Mr. Obama to frontrunner status. Wisconsin seemed an apt bellwether; his victory here, amid an electorate that heavily favored Ms. Clinton, seemed to indicate his ability to cut into Ms. Clinton’s base and appeal to independents and Republicans.
As a once outspoken critic of Mr. Obama’s, I was treated via Facebook, text messaging and e-mail to myriad reminders of my previous columns insisting upon his inexperience and hinting at his unelectability. Students were excited, pundits were convinced: Barack Obama was about to seal the deal in Texas, and maybe even in Ohio.
Yet the calls for Ms. Clinton to pull out were premature. She outperformed the polls in Ohio and Texas, and Republicans and independents indicated a surprising penchant for Ms. Clinton. Contrary to what the pundits told us, Mr. Obama didn’t need to shoot himself in the foot, or make the big mistake that would reverse the trends in polls. No, Mr. Obama didn’t have to do much of anything to derail the momentum his campaign had built up.
So what did he have to do? Start losing like Hillary? Well, at least make mistakes like her.
For every screwy moment the Clinton campaign had, the Obama campaign seems now to have one of their own. How did Mr. Obama’s NAFTA-centric message fail him so miserably in Ohio? Chalk that one up to a chatty economic advisor. Austan Goolsbee, University of Chicago economics professor and chief Obama economic advisor, took it upon himself to — allegedly — reassure our Canadian neighbors that Mr. Obama’s determination to renegotiate NAFTA to better protect the American worker was only for “political positioning.” Disavowals and accusations of misrepresentation ensued.
A chatty surrogate sticking his foot in his mouth? Sounds like the over-the-topic rhetoric that characterized Ms. Clinton’s surrogates in this year’s earlier contests.
And what of Barack’s rock, his fiercely intelligent wife, Michelle Obama? A fairly effective campaigner, Ms. Obama herself became a liability as a nascent conservative distrust of Mr. Obama came into full bloom as she uttered the fateful words, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” The media had a field day with her statement, much like they did when another candidate’s spouse, former president Bill Clinton, compared Mr. Obama to the Rev. Jesse Jackson following Mr. Obama’s victory in South Carolina.
And what of the candidate himself? In the debates after Wisconsin, Mr. Obama successfully painted himself as the wittier of the two. And there was Hillary, effectively shooting herself in the foot with petty swipes at the media, but at the same time reminding voters of her ability to enunciate policy far better than Mr. Obama could. And while Ms. Clinton’s boo-eliciting “change you can Xerox” comment in the Texas debate almost pushed her beyond the edge of irrelevancy, Mr. Obama’s non-plagiarism of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick cast doubt upon the authenticity of his rhetoric, especially when coupled with the alleged statements to the Canadian government by his campaign.
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign hurled the kitchen sink, garbage disposal and toilet at Mr. Obama, parrying calls for Ms. Clinton’s tax records with calls for information on the ties between corrupt political fundraiser Tony Rezko.
Links to seedy political types? I thought that was the Clintons.
Despite the portents of doom, Obama supporters still insisted that their candidate would easily win in Texas, and might even eke out a victory in Ohio. After all, Mr. Obama always outperforms polls, right? But what those supporters forgot was that many of Mr. Obama’s most impressive victories came in the primaries and caucuses following Super Tuesday, where a cash-strapped and ill-prepared Clinton campaign left Mr. Obama to run almost unopposed in a number of states.
Mr. Obama is now facing a resurgent Hillary Clinton, and a media that is no longer interested in maintaining his aura of closest-thing-to-perfection-in-politics. His massive campaign is starting to have headaches elicited from garrulous though well-intentioned surrogates, much like the Clinton campaign. And he’s now the frontrunner, much like Clinton was. As this campaign season has taught us, it’s no longer advantageous to be the frontrunner. Just ask Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Mr. Obama’s current opponent, Hillary Clinton.
As the frontrunner spotlight continues to highlight the rough edges of Mr. Obama and his campaign, we are, for the first time, beginning to see his campaign in the same light we were shown Ms. Clinton’s. But the good news — for those of us who still believe he should be our president — is that if he can weather this storm through Pennsylvania and beyond, he’s about as vetted as can be before the Republicans get a hold of him.
And if you think pictures of Mr. Obama wearing Somali dress is a low blow, wait until Karl Rove and the gang get a hold of our candidate.
Gerald Cox (gcox@badgerherald.com) is a senior
majoring in economics.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 7:57am):
"Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon."
This excerpt from William Ayers' memoir appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001 -- the day al-Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ayers, once a leader in the Weather Underground -- the group that declared "war" on the U.S. government in 1970 -- told the Times, "I don't regret setting bombs," and, "I feel we didn't do enough."
Ayers recently reappeared in the news because Politico.com reported Friday that Barack Obama has loose ties to him. Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is apparently a left-wing institution in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, and Obama visited Ayers' home as a rite of passage when launching his political career in the mid-1990s. The two also served on the board of the charitable Woods Fund of Chicago, which gave money to Northwestern University Law School's Children and Family Justice Center, where Ayers' wife (and former Weather Underground compatriot who glorified violence) Bernardine Dohrn is the director.
I don't think Obama supports domestic terrorism, and I'm sure he can offer eloquent explanations for why he shouldn't suffer any guilt by association. The Hillary Clinton campaign, however, did try to score a few political points, meekly linking to the Politico story on the campaign website's blog. The campaign probably couldn't be more aggressive without calling attention to how Bill Clinton pardoned Puerto Rican separatist terrorists -- perceived to be a way to gain support for Hillary's Senate bid from left-wing Puerto Ricans in New York.
What fascinates me is how light the baggage is when one travels from violent radicalism to liberalism.
I don't think such associations should necessarily cost people their careers or place in polite society, particularly if some sort of contrition is involved. But shouldn't this baggage cost something?
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 7:59am):
Obama worked with terrorist
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57231
JERUSALEM The board of a nonprofit organization on which Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe" and supports intense immigration reform, including providing drivers licenses and education to illegal aliens.
The co-founder of the Arab group in question, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, also has held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.
In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.
Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund's website. According to tax filings, Obama received compensation of $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2000.
Obama served on the Wood's Fund board alongside William C. Ayers, a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.
Ayers, who still serves on the Woods Fund board, contributed $200 to Obama's senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at numerous public speaking engagements. Ayers admitted to involvement in the bombings of U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The $40,000 grant from Obama's Woods Fund to the AAAN constituted about a fifth of the Arab group's reported grants for 2001, according to tax filings obtained by WND. The $35,000 Woods Fund grant in 2002 also constituted about one-fifth of AAAN's reported grants for that year.
The AAAN, headquartered in the heart of Chicago's Palestinian immigrant community, describes itself as working to "empower Chicago-area Arab immigrants and Arab Americans through the combined strategies of community organizing, advocacy, education and social services, leadership development, and forging productive relationships with other communities."
It reportedly has worked on projects with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which supports open boarders and education for illegal aliens.
The AAAN in 2005 sent a letter to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in which it called a billboard opposing a North Carolina-New Mexico joint initiative to deny driver's licenses to illegal aliens a "bigoted attack on Arabs and Muslims."
Speakers at AAAN dinners and events routinely have taken an anti-Israel line.
The group co-sponsored a Palestinian art exhibit, titled, "The Subject of Palestine," that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the "Nakba" or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.
According to the widely discredited Nakba narrative, Jews in 1948 forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands - some Palestinians claim over one million - Arabs from their homes and then took over the territory.
Historically, about 600,000 Arabs fled Israel after surrounding Arab countries warned they would destroy the Jewish state in 1948. Some Arabs also were driven out by Jewish forces while they were trying to push back invading Arab armies. At the same time, over 800,000 Jews were expelled or left Arab countries under threat after Israel was founded.
The theme of AAAN's Nakba art exhibit, held at DePaul University in 2005, was "the compelling and continuing tragedy of Palestinian life ... under [Israeli] occupation ... home demolition ... statelessness ... bereavement ... martyrdom, and ... the heroic struggle for life, for safety, and for freedom."
Another AAAN initiative, titled, "Al Nakba 1948 as experienced by Chicago Palestinians," seeks documents related to the "catastrophe" of Israel's founding.
A post on the AAAN site asked users: "Do you have photos, letters or other memories you could share about Al-Nakba-1948?"
That posting was recently removed. The AAAN website currently states the entire site is under construction.
Pro-PLO advocate held Obama fundraiser, describes Obama as 'sympathetic'
AAAN co-founder Rashid Khalidi was reportedly a director of the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut from 1976 to 1982, while the PLO committed scores of anti-Western attacks and was labeled by the U.S. as a terror group. Khalidi's wife, AAAN President Mona Khalidi, was reportedly WAFA's English translator during that period.
Rashid Khalidi at times has denied working directly for the PLO but Palestinian diplomatic sources in Ramallah told WND he indeed directed WAFA. Khalidi also advised the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference in 1991.
During documented speeches and public events, Khalidi has called Israel an "apartheid system in creation" and a destructive "racist" state.
He has multiple times expressed support for Palestinian terror, calling suicide bombings response to "Israeli aggression." He dedicated his 1986 book, "Under Siege," to "those who gave their lives ... in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon." Critics assailed the book as excusing Palestinian terrorism.
While the Woods Fund's contribution to Khalidi's AAAN might be perceived as a one-time run in with Obama, the presidential hopeful and Khalidi evidence a deeper relationship.
According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003 while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.
Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi.
Speaking in a joint interview with WND and the John Batchelor Show of New York's WABC Radio and Los Angeles' KFI Radio, Khalidi was asked about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama.
"I was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician," Khalidi stated.
Khalidi said he supports Obama for president "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause."
Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can't talk with the Iranians."
Asked about Obama's role funding the AAAN, Khalidi claimed he had "never heard of the Woods Fund until it popped up on a bunch of blogs a few months ago."
He terminated the call when petitioned further about his links with Obama.
Contacted by phone, Mona Khalidi refused to answer WND's questions about the AAAN's involvement with Obama.
Obama's campaign headquarters did not reply to a list of WND questions sent by e-mail to the senator's press office.
Obama, American terrorist in same circles
Obama served on the board with Ayers, who was a Weathermen leader and has written about his involvement with the group's bombings of the New York City Police headquarters in 1970, the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.
"I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough," Ayers told the New York Times in an interview released on Sept. 11, 2001
"Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon," Ayers wrote in his memoirs, titled "Fugitive Days." He continued with a disclaimer that he didn't personally set the bombs, but his group set the explosives and planned the attack.
A $200 campaign contribution is listed on April 2, 2001 by the "Friends of Barack Obama" campaign fund. The two taught appeared speaking together at several public events, including a 1997 University of Chicago panel entitled, "Should a child ever be called a 'super predator?'" and another panel for the University of Illinois in April 2002, entitled, "Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?"
The charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance.
Ayers is married to another notorious Weathermen terrorist, Bernadine Dohrn, who has also served on panels with Obama. Dohrn was once on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the "most dangerous woman in America." Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left 4 people dead.
Obama advisor wants talks with terrorists
The revelations about Obama's relationship with Khalidi follows a recent WND article quoting Israeli security officials who expressed "concern" about Robert Malley, an adviser to Obama who has advocated negotiations with Hamas and providing international assistance to the terrorist group.
Malley, a principal Obama foreign policy adviser, has penned numerous opinion articles, many of them co-written with a former adviser to the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, petitioning for dialogue with Hamas and blasting Israel for numerous policies he says harm the Palestinian cause.
Malley also previously penned a well-circulated New York Review of Books piece largely blaming Israel for the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at Camp David in 2000 when Arafat turned down a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and eastern sections of Jerusalem and instead returned to the Middle East to launch an intifada, or terrorist campaign, against the Jewish state.
Malley's contentions have been strongly refuted by key participants at Camp David, including President Bill Clinton, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and primary U.S. envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross, all of whom squarely blamed Arafat's refusal to make peace for the talks' failure.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 8:53am):
"And if you think pictures of Mr. Obama wearing Somali dress is a low blow, wait until Karl Rove and the gang get a hold of our candidate."
Gerald, are you serious? What the hell is your problem?
Karl Rove has EIGHT YEARS OF BLOW JOBS, WHITEWATER, TRAVELGATE, CHINESE FUNDRAISING, and so on to burn Hillary OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN with.
Besides, has Karl Rove even been hired by John W. McBush yet?
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 10:00am):
Newsflash: Obama won Texas. Read the news.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 11:43am):
Obama should give up. Please.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 11:53am):
Moderator, why do you allow people to submit entire articles?
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 12:09pm):
7:57, 7:59... likely the same annoying soul, are you going to vote for the Manchurian Candidate instead?
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 12:28pm):
"John W. McBush"
Bush Derangement Syndrome knows no bounds!
BTW, isn't it Bushitler?
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 12:57pm):
I agree with 11:53, 7:59 took an entire article from the disgusting website World Net Daily. People should leave their own comments or leave links to other sources, but copying and pasting entire articles for the sake of propaganda and swift-boating doesn't seem to help this discussion. Free speech, yes, unless its defamation.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 1:25pm):
LET's FORGET WHAT MOMMY TAUGHT US AT AGE 3!!!
JUDGE OBAMA's BOOK BY IT's COVER NOW!!!!
does this man have ANY good associations?
his ancestors are arab slave traders, not black.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ELECTION NOW!
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 2:26pm):
It would be rank stupidity to place the full capabilities and potential of the most powerful nation on earth in the hands of a populist politcal freshman. It would be the equivalence of putting a 1st semester freshman education major in charge of the entire University of Wisconsin educational system. They are called Freshman because they lack the training and experience necessary for Senior level assignments yet!
Barack Hussein Obama lacks credible experience. A partial term as a freshman US senator, largely devoted to organizing his 'grass roots' run for the presidency, does not qualify. Some of his most ardent supporters can not name ONE significant action in congress that Mr. Obama even influenced during his paltry participation period. That isn't defamation. It is FACT. He does not have experience in foreign affairs, diplomacy, military, congressional, state governor, dog catcher, et.al. to develop the experience-based wisdom essential for a US President.
Consider his wife. Mrs. Obama can only think of ONE thing that makes here proud to be a US citizen! Was it Thanks to her country for providing money and access to the best universities in the land for her education? Was it Thanks to her country for giving her opportunities to rise to the privileged levels she and her husband have achieved? Was it Thanks for any of the multitude of blessings garnered from this country that make her and her husbands star crossed lives possible? No....and No... and Nooooo. What a self-centered ingrate! What a poor reflection on Mr. Obama's judgement...
To those of the opinion that "It's time for a Black President", consider Martin Luther Kings' perspective. To paraphrase Dr. King, "I have a dream that (Presidential candidates) will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character..."
As a candidate Barack Hussein Obama is a character, but he lacks content. Fact.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 3:08pm):
The only thing folks will remember about sHillary Rotten-Cankles in November is how her New York Governor ran more hookers through her campaign than Cleatus on Spring Break.
Spitzer's scandal has officially carbequed Hillary's campaign bus.
Watch Hillary Clinton endorse Spitzer
[5-14-07]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1LDGj7H7Sk
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 3:21pm):
swift-boating = "telling inconvenient truth about Demorats"
also:
swift-boating = "exposing the lies, deceit and fraud of self-glorifying public officials or candidates for office who exaggerate their military service by lying about their feats of heroism and combat wounds"
see also:
Swiftboating has become a hate term
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/01/tyrrell.swiftboating/index.html
PS. Still waiting for Kerry to release his military records to the public, as he promised to do years ago.
Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 3:33pm):
Wah wah what does Bill Ayers have to do with anything? People change over time... lest we forget that David Horowitz was tight with the Black Panthers and wrote books in Marxist theory.
Anonymous (March 11, 2008 @ 7:52am):
Marxist whined: "what does Bill Ayers have to do with anything? People change over time..."
... while recrudescent Leftist-terrorists NEVER change, at all.
What part of Ayers' Marxist-terrorist gloating did you not understand? "I don't regret setting bombs," and, "I feel we didn't do enough."
Obama had no problem worked alongside a known convicted terrorist... own it.
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