PrestoPundit SHOCKER! OBAMA CLAIMS TO BE A READER OF HAYEK AND FRIEDMAN! Now he tells us! He did a good job keeping that one a secret. (Here's a suggestion for Obama -- blame the editors!)With Obama I've learned not to believe what he claims to be true until his claims are verified by some sort of independent source. I can confidently say I've yet to come across any sort of independent evidence that Obama has ever read a single word written by Hayek or Friedman. Obama can claim till the cows come home that he's a reader of Hayek and Friedman, but you count me as someone who simply does not believe him. It is possible at some point in his life Obama has read something written about Hayek or Friedman, perhaps by his left wing pal Cass Sunstein, but I have serious doubts that Obama has ever read more than a single sentence or two written by Hayek or Friedman. Simply put, what possibly could Obama have read by Hayek or Friedman, and in what context would he have read it? Hayek and Friedman are simply not mainstream figures in mainstream left-learning academia, certainly not at Occidental or Columbia. I can tell you I attended college in roughly the same time frame as Obama, both as and undergraduate and as a post graduate, and the ideas and works of Hayek and Friedman were simply not known or studied by anyone outside of the economics department, and even within an economics department it was purely random to find anyone who really understood and had studied the work of these two thinkers. As for me, I discovered Hayek and Friedman on my own, outside of class. And I didn't go to institutions even nearly as left leaning as Obama.I'm guessing at Occidental, which Obama attended first, there was nobody who knew or had studied the work of Hayek, and likely no one even in the economics department who was well schooled in the ideas of Friedman. At Columbia, where Obama transfered, I'm fairly certain there was no one who knew anything about the work of Hayek, and only a handful of elite macroeconomists who knew the work of Friedman. And there is no evidence that Obama studied upper division macroeconomics with any of these professors. Harvard Law School? Are you kidding me? Hayek is one of the great legal philosophers of all time, but this work in this area is utterly unknown to the Harvard faculty as far as I'm aware. If there are exceptions, these are noteworthy for being utter outliers, not at all reflective of the temper and concerns of the faculty of the law school.If Obama ever did come across some tiny bit of Hayek or Friedman in college, I can assure you it was within a hostile environment, taught by a teacher who neither understood nor had any sympathy for the profoundly alien ideas of these two thinkers. I can't tell you how many dozens of deeply shallow, utterly mistaken, and fundamentally fatuous "research" articles I've read by leftist who simply don't know what they are dealing with, but are ever eager to take down "the ideas of Hayek". It gives me a headache to this day just thinking about reading all that academic tripe. And I have every confidence that this -- at best -- is the sort of exposure Obama might have had with the profound and world changing ideas of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.The rest of what Obama says below is clearly disingenuous. What Obama would have us believe is that at the same time he was attending socialist conferences, seeking out Marxist professors, studying neocolonialism, and pursuing the ideas of radical writers like Franz Fanon, W. E. B. Du Bois, Saul Alinsky, Malcolm X, and Edward Said, he was also burning the midnight oil reading Hayek and Friedman. Right. And I was born yesterday, and just jumped off the turnip truck. But enough. Let's go to transcript, where we find Obama BSing two TIME magazine reporters on the topic of his supposed non-radical and deeply balance educational background.TIME: Do you agree that [you] were more exposed to left ideas than the average guy who ends up running for President? Hard to picture most of them reading Frantz Fanon or saying, 'Stokely Carmichael is in town, I'm going to go hear him.'OBAMA: I'm not sure that what I was exposed to was all that different from what Bill Clinton was exposed to. He's squarely a baby boomer. I'm sure that what I was exposed to was different from what John McCain was exposed to, because there's a much bigger gap of years there. But you know, the truth is that my education was a pretty standard, liberal arts education. So I was exposed to thinkers on the left. At the same time, I was reading Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, and I was growing up when Ronald Reagan was ascendant. So the political culture of my formative years was much more conservative.It partly explains why, if you look at not just my politics, but also I think who I am as a person--in some ways, I'm pretty culturally conservative. I was always suspicious of dogma, and the excesses of the left and the right. One of my greatest criticisms of the Republican Party over the last 20 years is that it's not particularly conservative. I can read conservatives from an earlier era -- a George Will or a Peggy Noonan -- and recognize wisdom, because it has much more to do with respect for tradition and the past and I think skepticism about being able to just take apart a society and put it back together. Because I do think that communities and nations and families aren't subject to that kind of mechanical approach to change. But when I look at Tom DeLay or some of the commentators on Fox these days, there's nothing particularly conservative about them.Note well that TIME magazine spelled Hayek with an "a" instead of an "e'", that is, they called him "Friedrich Hayak". Heh. Wonder if the TIMEs sharpies even knew who Obama was talking about. (What would these ridiculous magazines look like without their five levels of editors?)And did you catch how Obama sought to cement his argument by invoking Tom DeLay and Fox News, a person and an organization which the left and the MSM have successfully smeared, to the point that both are beyond redemption in the eyes of many Americans? His use of hate objects of this sort as standard "conversation closers" when he's making an argument is one of more contemptable tropes in Obama's conversational arsenal. Recall what Obama did with Clarence Thomas in answering a question on the Supreme Court this past weekend. The whole trashing of Thomas depended upon and could only work given the prior relentless smearing of Thomas's reputation by the left and the mainstream media. For many Americans the very name "Clarence Thomas" is a place holder for "stupid" or "over his head incompetent." Completely manufactured by the left and the media, but there it is, and Obama knew it, and used it. As he does here with "Tom DeLay" and "Fox News". By Greg Ransom on August 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE. It looks like John McCain wants to be President. WOW is right. By Greg Ransom on August 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) RUDY GIULIANI WILL KEYNOTE AT THE GOP CONVENTION. A great pick. Giuliani was terrific at the last GOP convention.And I'm looking forward to this -- Sarah Palin of Alaska has also been tapped to address the convention. By Greg Ransom on August 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) THE BABY DOES LOOK LIKE JOHN EDWARDS. By Greg Ransom on August 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) OBAMA LIKES TO QUOTE MATTHEW on privately aiding "the least of my brothers." But that's politics. That's rhetoric. A job for someone else. A job for The State. In real life. Not so much.The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found GeorgeHussein Onyango Obama living in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma onthe outskirts of Nairobi.Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of thepresidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time abouthis life, which could not be more different than that of the Democraticcontender."No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month."Accordingto Italy's Vanity Fair his two metre by three metre shack is decoratedwith football posters of the Italian football giants AC Milan andInter, as well as a calendar showing exotic beaches of the world ..He has only met his famous older brother twice - once when he wasjust five and the last time in 2006 when Senator Obama was on a tour ofEast Africa and visited Nairobi .. Of theirsecond meeting, George Obama said: "It was very brief, we spoke forjust a few minutes. It was like meeting a complete stranger."Ronald Reagan was famous for privately giving aid and charity to individuals who needed help. Obama, of course, is famous for giving very little to charity out of his enormous income, and the "charities" he gave to most where organizations that benefited Obama personally and politically -- to his political church and to the Congressional Black Caucus.UPDATE: More on Obama and charity. By Greg Ransom on August 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) HOW TO TURN RECESSION INTO A DEPRESSION IN 5 EASY STEPS. Bush and the Congress are going to have to work harder if they intend to turn the unavoidable crash of Greenspan's artificial boom into a full scale economic disaster. But they're moving in the right direction. By Greg Ransom on August 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) OBAMA SUPPORTED THE CORRUPT DALEY MACHINE, PLAYED DIRTY, OLD-SCHOOL CHICAGO POLITICS, AND THEN LIED ABOUT IT. So what hasn't he lied about?UPDATE: One more thing Obama has lied about -- why he opposed the war in Iraq. By Greg Ransom on August 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) A BBC CHILDREN'S CHARITY BANKROLLED ISLAMIC KILLERS in London, as part of a multicultural education program. Talk about Suicide of the West. James Burnham had no idea. I think we can say this marks the point where the idiocy of the West moved past parody and into the realm of the horrific. By Greg Ransom on August 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) THE AP, HOT ON THE TRAIL OF THE AYERS/OBAMA COVERUP. Well, sort of. Money quote:why the cover-up? .. Obama, the manwith limited executive experience, might not want to highlight hisexecutive belly-flop here, undertaken in partnership with a hard leftunrepentant domestic terrorist. But that is just a guess. By Greg Ransom on August 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) IBD: BARACK SR. & BARACK JR. -- LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON. As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. advised thepro-Western Kenyan government there to "redistribute" income throughhigher taxes. He also demonized corporations and called for massivegovernment "investment" in social programs.Writing in a 1965 scholarly paper, Obama's late father slammed theadministration of then-President Jomo Kenyatta for moving the ThirdWorld country away from socialism toward capitalism. He chafed at theidea of relying on private investors -- who earn "dividends" on theirventure capital -- to develop the country's fledgling economy."What is more important is to find means by which we canredistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all," said the seniorObama, a Harvard-educated economist. "This is the government'sobligation." The "means" he had in mind were confiscatory taxes on ascale that redefines the term "progressive taxation.""Theoretically," he wrote, "there is nothing that can stop thegovernment from taxing 100% of income so long as the people getbenefits from the government commensurate with their income which istaxed."Therefore, he added, "I do not see why the government cannot taxthose who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savingswhich can be utilized in investment for future development."As Obama's father saw it, taxes couldn't be high enough, so long asthe collective benefited. "Certainly there is no limit to taxation ifthe benefits derived from public services by society measure up to thecost in taxation which they have to pay," he said. "It is a fallacy tosay that there is this limit, and it is a fallacy to rely mainly onindividual free enterprise to get the savings."His son is also pushing massive taxes and "investments" in socialprograms -- at the expense of free enterprise. Sen. Obama wants to raisethe top marginal income-tax rate to at least 39%, while increasingSocial Security taxes on those with higher incomes by completelyremoving the payroll cap. That means many entrepreneurs would be paying12.4% (6.2% on employer and 6.2% on employee) on Social Securitypayroll taxes alone, plus the 2.9% on Medicare taxes, for a totalfederal tax rate of 54%.In addition, Obama wants to jack up the capital-gains tax rate and reinstate the death tax.Echoing his father, he argues that the government should impose "taxlaws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation'swealth."And likewise, he asserts that the nation's wealth ought to berechanneled by government into "investments" in the economy and welfareprograms that create "a new American social compact.""We can only compete if our government makes the investments thatgive us a fighting chance" in the global economy, the Democratpresidential hopeful said in his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope.""And if we know that our families have some net beneath which theycannot fall.""Training must be expanded," his father proposed as one of hisgovernment "investments." Likewise, Sen. Obama wants to "invest"billions more in federal jobs retraining.His father's critique of Kenya's economic policy was published inthe East Africa Journal under the title "Problems Facing OurSocialism." One discovers -- after reading just a few pages into hiseight-page tract, where he waxes quixotic about "communal ownership ofmajor means of production" -- that he wasn't criticizing the governmentfor being too socialistic, but not socialistic enough.Obama Sr. described his own economic plan, his counterproposal, asit were, as "scientific socialism -- inter alia -- communism." Yes,Obama's father was a communist who wanted to put socialist theory intoaction -- by "force."He trusted the collective over the individual, a theme hesuccessfully instilled in his son, also Harvard-educated, with whom hevisited once for a full month in Hawaii, even speaking to his prepschool class. He kept up correspondence with his son through hiscollege years.(Media accounts portray Obama's father as being completely out ofhis life after leaving his mother and him at age 2. But Obama's firstbook, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that he remained an influentialforce in his life. Obama's first autobiography was devoted to "myfather.")Listen to what "the Old Man," as Obama and his siblings called him,wrote in proposing government-run farms: "If left to the individual,consolidation will take a long time to come. We have to look atpriorities in terms of what is good for society, and on this basis wemay find it necessary to force people to do things they would not dootherwise."He explained that "the government should restrict the size of farms that can be owned by one individual throughout the country."More evil than individuals, Obama's father believed, are heads ofcorporations. More evil still are the bankers and investors, whoconspire to control the world through their evil capitalist system."One who has read Marx cannot fail to see that corporations are notonly what Marx referred to as the advanced stage of capitalism," hewrote. "But Marx even called it finance capitalism by which a few wouldcontrol the finances of so many, and through this, have not onlyeconomic power but political power as well."It's clear from Sen. Obama's own writings and speeches that he toois no fan of business or our system of "chaotic and unforgivingcapitalism," as he wrote in "Audacity." He's fond of bashing WallStreet "greed" and the post-Reagan rise of individual investing overgovernment investing. He wants to roll back the "Ownership Society." Heresents the profit motive and individuals "on the make.""Rather than vilify the rich," he laments, "we hold them up as rolemodels, and our mythology is steeped in stories of men on the make."This is no small point. The man who wants to be the nation's CEOactually believes we're living in a feudal society where the richplunder the poor. And he thinks they should not only be vilified butpunished."The problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and theunemployed are rooted in the desire among those at the top of thesocial ladder to maintain their wealth and status whatever the cost,"he wrote. "Solving these problems will require changes in governmentpolicy."That is, massive taxation, among other things (or "inter alia," as his "brilliant" father would say).Obama wrote in "Dreams From My Father" that he was trying to impresshis father by taking a low-paying job organizing and agitating in theChicago ghetto right out of college. "I did feel that there wassomething to prove to my father," he said.Most of this should be familiar stuff to PrestoPundit readers. By Greg Ransom on August 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) ANOTHER OBAMA COVERUP. Perhaps if Obama hadn't spent most of his adult life working with hate-America radicals, his left wing friends in big institutions wouldn't feel the need to do this. By Greg Ransom on August 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) THE PRESS -- MISLED BY OBAMA or willingly misled by Obama? Tom Maguire puts the screws on the press to correct the factually incorrect stories they've been publishing on the Obama / Bill Ayers relationship. Will the journalists correct their stories, or are they really not journalist at all? It's pretty clear so far what the weight of the evidence suggests. By Greg Ransom on August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) THIS IS WHAT JOURNALISM USED TO BE. Notice the contrast at the end with the approach of ABC News. By Greg Ransom on August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) WHY DID RICK WARREN GO OPRAH ON OBAMA? Well, most all of us trim our sails with our friends, and in an interview Warren makes it clear he's not about playing hardball with a friend. If Obama did dozens of interviews, and McCain and Obama did dozens of shared forums it would be one thing. But it is quite another when Obama goes for months in a virtual cone of silence, allowing almost zero press interviews, and when Obama has refused to go about the country doing town hall meetings with McCain.In all the time since Obama began running for the Presidency, I can only remember a handful of times Obama has allowed himself to sit down for an extended interview -- and its been months since I can remember him doing that. And when Obama does agree to do an interview, it turns out to be with a man who Obama knows considers himself Obama's friend and man who wants to remain his friend, and who has a professional interest as a preacher in continuing that friendship.The most central facts that the American people need to know about Obama are facts that anyone would consider big league hardball if they were asked of him -- facts about lies, facts about complicity in corrupt Chicago politics, facts about Obama's hateful friends, facts about Obama's long history of deeply partisan, extremely far left politics. And to pin Obama down would take a deeply informed and talented political interviewer, who knows how follow up, and knows where the dodges are going. And an Obama friend and get along with everybody preacher like Rick Warren in not going to be the man to help American's now who Barack Obama really is. He's not.It was all great and good to hear at least something unscripted from this man with such great ambition for high office. But a Rick Warren powder puff interview is no substitute for a real interview or debate in the hard ball leagues, any more than would an interview with smoozer Larry King or Obama friend Oprah Winfrey. By Greg Ransom on August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) AUDACIOUS RESUME PADDING. [via Sweetness & Light] By Greg Ransom on August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) THREE DEMOCRATS WILL MODERATE THE THREE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES. Lord help us. By Greg Ransom on August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) AN AP PHOTO OF BARACK OBAMA'S INDONESIAN STUDENT REGISTRATION CARD establishes that Obama was registered as a Muslim on the document, contrary to what the Obama campaign has claimed, and supporting the reports published in Jerome Corsi's Obama Nation. The registration also establishes that Obama carried the name "Barry Soetoro" during his years in Indonesia. Moreover, Obama's citizenship is listed as "Indonesian" on the document. Identity documents were serious business in the police state of Indonesia, and it would have been no simple matter for someone to get away with including fraudulent citizenship and identity information on his school registration form. This is just one more instance where the record has established that the Obama campaign has had the facts wrong and Jerome Corsi has had the facts right. And note well that the Obama campaign was manifestly spreading misinformation about the content of Corsi's book on this matter, even prior to the unearthing on this Indonesian government document confirming the story reported in Corsi's book. By Greg Ransom on August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) I DON'T REMEMBER THIS HAPPENING BEFORE. The pro-Obama reporting from the Democrats at NBC has become so outrageous that the McCain campaign has been provoked to officially protest the unprincipled, hand on the scales journalism coming from the news organization. By Greg Ransom on August 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) THE OBAMA / McCAIN / RICK WARREN TRANSCRIPT can be found here.UPDATE: Here's the transcript made by CNN. By Greg Ransom on August 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) DOCUMENTING OBAMA'S LIES TO RICK WARREN and the Saddleback Church -- Hugh Hewitt has the in-and-out details of two of those lies. Quotable.Obama lacked the courage to acknowledge his position on [California's] Proposition 8[the gay marriage proposition] and its centrality to the campaign for same sex marriage not just inCalifornia but across the United States.Obama's casualdeceptions are rarely commented on by MSM as its various arms workovertime to facilitate Obama's role as the reforming, non-partisancentrist. In fact, he's from the way left wing of theDemocratic party and has never worked across the aisle on any majorinitiative, and he regularly refuses to honestly explain his long heldpositions.UPDATE: Nice Deb catches another Obama lie at the Rick Warren forum, and Powerline explains why Obama's Clarence Thomas answer was also fundamentally a lie.Plus, Obama's born-alive / abortion lie: the gory details. By Greg Ransom on August 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) #1 AND #5 ON THE NY TIMES BESTSELLER LIST -- according to the Times, two books which report the story of "an extreme leftist" running for President or (you be the judge) "a calculating extreme leftist" running for President. Evidently, in Corsi's book Obama doesn't go much for calculating, but makes up for it in the Freddoso book. Got to admire the descriptive precision of those sophisticated Timesmen! By Greg Ransom on August 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) CLARENCE THOMAS -- too dumb to be a Supreme Court justice? That's what Barack Obama suggested last night.This is one of the most degrading and most unjustified smears against an accomplished black man I've seen in my life time.Will he get away with it? Yes he can!!Not because of Obama's own color, but because of his leftist politics. And Obama knows it. The MSM has got his back, and so do the professors. If Obama wants to play the "lacks intelligence" card against Thomas, the press and the professors are there to help.And make no mistake, the Big Lie against Thomas is long standing on the left, and it's penetrated the popular culture, where people who know little or nothing of the Supreme Court have been left believing that Thomas is an empty suit and a dim bulb, when in fact he's one of the great justices of the our time, a better writer and more penetrating thinker than dozens of other justices in our history. By Greg Ransom on August 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) OBAMA -- EVIL EXISTS [IN PART] BECAUSE AMERICA CREATES IT. Gateway Pundit has the video and the text:Does evil exist, and if so, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it, or do we defeat it?Obama: "A lot of evil has been perpetrated in the claim that we were trying to confront evil." He's not talking about another country there. He's talking about the US.Well I guess so much for Obama being the post-Vietnam conflict candidate. In his answer here he's taken sides with the anti-war left of the 60s, and those of us of even Obama's own generation who despise that "America is a source of evil" impulse aren't going to like it any better when it comes out of the silky smooth mouth of Barack Obama, rather than from Tom Hayden, John Kerry, or a member of the Weather Underground.And make no mistake. What Obama is invoking here is the classic blame American Imperialism interpretation of history that was very much Obama's cup of tea when he sought out Marxist and neocolonialist professors in college, and its exactly the sort of stuff that would have been a shared "conversation stopper" at the dinner table with Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, or any of the other radicals who shared their social and political life with the Obamas. This is why Obama's biography and who he is as a person are so vital to understanding how Obama thinks and what makes Obama tick.Obama is the kind of guy who thinks of American and American foreign policy not too much differently than left wing historian Howard Zinn in his mega seller A People's History of the United States. He's the kind of guy who likes the left wing agitprop history of E.L. Doctorow. This is who Obama is, and people should say so.If the McCain people were both fast and smart, they'd have an ad up tomorrow with Obama blaming America for all of the evil America has "perpetrated" on the world. A couple of shots of America's remarkable young soldiers in the spot, and I don't see how Obama could survive it. By Greg Ransom on August 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) RICK WARREN PLAYS LARRY KING FOR OBAMA ON CNN, throwing softballs with no intelligent follow up, and allowing himself to get BS'ed on a number of significant issues. Warren asked mostly good questions, but repeatedly softened and personalized them for Obama -- never challenged any answer -- and ended up letting Obama snow the audience. Here's a telling example. On gay marriage, Warren threw a standard hardball at McCain, asking his position on the California proposition restricting the right of marriage to one man marrying one woman. With Obama, Warren asked a soft Oprah type question about his personal beliefs on what "marriage" meant, didn't ask Obama about his position on the California proposition, and then allowed Obama to lie about his political position on the issue, which happens to be that he supports a vote on the California proposition that would make it law that marriage includes man and men, and women and women, exactly the opposite of what Obama told Warren. Warren had no follow up to Obama's misrepresentation of his position. Similarly on Obama's definition of who is "rich", for purposes of incomes taxes and social security taxes, Obama simply lied to Warren on this matter. Warren had no follow up. Is Warren simply ignorant of these matters, or is he doing the political preacher thing, attempting to sidle up to power the way some other very famous preachers have done? It's hard to say. Kathryn Lopes choses answer #2, "Rick Warren seems more interested in being palswith whomever winds up president than getting real answers or he mighthave followed up ... ".On the up side, Warren somehow exposed the funny McCain that people actually like -- as well as the McCain with real character and real substance. I'm guessing people will respond powerfully if this is the McCain they run into as the campaign unfolds in the fall.McCain has never appeared so likable and Presidential in more than a year of campaigning. Obama was effective in an Oprah / Larry King type way, for those who don't don't know the news and don't know Obama's stated positions.But for those who are serious about how we are governed, and who actually are attracted to grown ups who've done something, Obama paled in comparison to McCain. We can only hope the grow up vote can overcome the Larry King / Oprah vote this fall.And the question everyone is asking: is the new gray hair on Obama's head real or was it put there by the Obama campaign?Live blogging the debate: Ann Althouse and Gateway Pundit.More Obama lies:Obama lied about whether or not he'd nominate John Roberts to the Supreme Court, in fact Obama was one of the few to actively work to defeat the Roberts nomination, and one of a small minority to vote against him. And you guessed it. No Warren follow up on this one either.Yet more Obama lies here.UPDATE: Sister Toldjah has a spot on take of the debate / "forum":I'm watching some of McCain's answers to Warren's questions. He'sdoing well, and looks more human and real than at any other time sincethe start of his campaign. Obama seemed very uncomfortable with how toanswer some of the questions. McCain looks like he's right at home -and Warren is asking him the same questions he did Obama.and here's another something on the same lines.Mark Levin's assessment:I certainly do disagree with John McCain on some big issues, buttonight he was outstanding in ways Barack Obama is not and cannot be.McCain was substantive, clear, concise, and relaxed. Obama seemed a bitnervous, some of his answers seemed contrived, and most of all it wasclear that he is simply out of McCain's league when it comes tosubstance and experience. Score it a big McCain night.UPDATE II: Something I didn't know: Rick Warren is an anti-evolution creationist. Also, Rick Warren on the Mormons and Christianity. If we go by Warren's definition of Christianity, John Adams and many other American founders were not Christians. Nor were a number of U.S. Presidents. Neither were Obama's Kansas grandparents. I'm surprised Warren didn't ask Obama and McCain if they believed in the Trinity. Now that would have been an interesting question.Rich Lowry has a good summary of the Obama / McCain event here. By Greg Ransom on August 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) "OBAMA NATION", THE MARY MATLIN EDITED BOOK ABOUT OBAMA, has a handful of factual errors which any good editor would have excised. All these little errors are being use by the left to attack the reputation of Jerome Corsi and his book. What it should damage instead is Mary Matlin's reputation as a editor. I have the book, and I'm impressed with the enormous amount of factual detail, all footnoted, and most all of it as accurate as available public documents allow. Right wingers who haven't read the book but who are trashing it based on misleading information they've gotten via the Obama campaign need to take a step back and read the book. They'll learn much more about Obama reading the book than they've ever learned about Obama combing through the NY Times and Washington Post for the last two years. Really. Much, much more. The only thing that would have come close for content on the life of Obama is to have been a regular reader of PrestoPundit. And if you're a PrestoPundit reader, you'll know that Corsi is routinely and overwhelmingly on track, and only rarely fumbles. A very good record when your subject is the life of someone as secretive and dishonest as Barack Obama. One reason Corsi's account of Obama seems so relatively complete to me -- beyond his own extensive reporting -- is perhaps because Corsi has been familiar PrestoPundit and my Obama postings, and he's clearly combed through this and many other blogs for links and information about Obama. Corsi is conversant with what the smartest bloggers have discovered in the Chicago papers and from international sources -- as well as in Obama's own memoir. I know because I pointed Corsi to some of those bloggers. You see, not only does Corsi read PrestoPundit, I spoke with Corsi during the writing of his book about my published research on Barack Obama, Sr. and this paper "Problems Facing Our Socialism", and I faxed him a copy of the paper at a time when the paper was not available on the web. I can report that Corsi accurately cites my research -- as he promised to do -- and accurately reports the content of Obama, Sr.'s paper. And note well that these central facts about the man who inspired Obama's dreams have never appeared anywhere in the NY Times, the Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, or any other "mainstream" publication, despite their wide circulation on the internet, both across the blogs and through the popular political site "Politico".I'd suggest that there are more false "facts" and more unfair partisan insinuations in the average copy of the NY Times or the Washington Post than there are in all of Corsi's Obama Nation. To single out the sins of Corsi and Obama Nation for condemnation is to have twisted priorities when you compare these obscure fouls to the fact that we literally soak in an ocean of false "facts" and unfair partisan insinuations dumped on us daily by the biggest press outlets in the nation. Let's not get lost in minutia people. Jerome Corsi only wants to write a book. Barack Obama wants to be President. A quick quiz. Who was a member of a racist church for 20 years? It wasn't Jerome Corsi. Who has sought to conceal who he is and what he believes for the last 2 years? It isn't Jerome Corsi. Who has described himself as being attracted to many of the worst and most deadly political fantasies of the last 200 years? It's not Jerome Corsi.You can order your own copy of Obama Nation here.Listen to Mark Levin take my side on this here. By Greg Ransom on August 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) BARACK OBAMA'S FIRST GRADE TEACHER remembers "Barry Soetoro", a natural born leader:Israella Darmawan is every inch a teacher, from her shiny cap of black hair to her sensible shoes. In an office at the Fransiskus Assisi School, she shows me an old register with an entry for Barry Soetoro, as Barack Obama was know then. Bu Is taught Obama in the first grade. She admits she doesn't remember all her students well, but Barry ... well, he stood out. "He really was different from the others. He was tall and heavy, black skin, curly hair."Obama struggled with Indonesian, she says, but he was clearly a bright kid, especially at math. He had natural leadership qualities, she adds; other kids followed him around during playtime. "Barack ran somewhere, they went. He ran somewhere else, they followed."And his childhood friends remember a boy with a head of iron:Yunaldi was telling the truth; he did have family obligations. He's hanging out with his brothers, just like he did when he was a kid. They all remember Obama. Soon I'm sitting on the floor with them, listening to stories of childhood adventures.Jl. Haji Ramli really has changed. Back then it was just a dirt road. The neighborhood kids played soccer and staged swordfights with bamboo in the middle of the street. They also staged fistfights, pitting boys of similar size against each other. Johnny Askiar's voice is still filled with wonder as he recalls the feeling of hitting Obama's skull. "Barry's head was really hard," he says. "My hand would hurt when I hit it. It was like iron, that head." A useful quality in a president, perhaps?The Askiars speak about Obama with what feels like genuine fondness, but as kids they weren't above taking advantage of his status as an outsider. "Sometimes we'd say, 'Barry, do you want a chocolate?' And we'd give him a chocolate. The next day we'd give him a chocolate again. The third time we'd give him terasi (fermented shrimp paste) wrapped up like chocolate," remembers Harmon Askiar.Obama didn't get mad, they say. He would laugh it off. By Greg Ransom on August 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) REV. RICK WARREN HOPS IN BED WITH THE RELIGIOUS LEFT. By Greg Ransom on August 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) WHAT KIND OF POLITICIAN IS BARACK OBAMA? David Freddoso, author of The Case Against Barack Obama , says Obama is a cautious, cynical, politics-as-usual, special interest hack in an American Spectator interview: Senator Obama votes for bills like the farm bill. He votes for a bridge to nowhere, and ethanol. He votes for and supports, generally, all the special-interest, corrupt systemic arrangements, where corporations are taking the taxpayer for a ride. Senator Obama is an avid supporter for all of these kinds of things, which is something I document in the book. He voted for ethanol twice, then went back and did his land deal with Tony Rezko on the same day: June 15, 2005.All of these things form a broad pattern. It's not as if he does these things on occasion -- when he endorses the Cook County machine politician in the election it's not an isolated incident; it's something he's done consistently. He attached himself in Springfield at the hip with Emil Jones, the state senate majority leader, who represents precisely this kind of politics.What made you think anything else? His slick PR campaign? His Harvard and Columbia education? His far left background? His slick speaking style? Suckered in by all of it, eh? By Greg Ransom on August 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) MARK LEVIN WEIGHS IN ON CORSI, OBAMA AND OUR PARTISAN, UNPROFESSIONAL, FAR LEFT PRESS CORP:It's too bad the same media that are so concerned about Corsi'sbackground have been so reticent to do their own homework on Obama.After all, Corsi wrote a book, Obama seeks the presidency. The liberalmedia were slow to acknowledge the existence of Jeremiah Wright andBill Ayers, and did so only after talk radio and bloggers would not letObama escape his close relationship with both. The Chicago media didmost of the heavy lifting respecting Obama's relationship with TonyRezko. And there are many other miscreants and radicals who have playedlarge roles in Obama's personal and professional life. But the liberalmedia are not interested in looking into most of it, have begrudginglyand superficially addressed it usually after the new media pressed it,and then downplayed it as "guilt by association" -- with few exceptions.Not so with their reporting on Corsi. They want to know about anythinghe has ever said or written and his associations. In his case, they aredeterminative. And if he got a date wrong here and there in his book,or was otherwise mistaken in some minor way, the entirety of his bookis discredited. We are "learning" more about Corsi than we learnedabout Obama prior to the all important Super Tuesday primaries. By Greg Ransom on August 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) WHATEVER ELSE YOU WANT TO SAY ABOUT JOHN McCAIN the man is a proven leader. And Obama? Well, he's a proven leftist, a proven member of a racist church, and a proven enemy of tough on crime legislation. Proven leader? Not so much. By Greg Ransom on August 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) SARAH PALIN -- I'M NOT BEING VETTED FOR THE VP SLOT.Also, more than you ever wanted to know about the Palin mini-scandal. Money quote:Palin says she never asked Bailey to make thecall, which she called "just wrong." But she argued Thursday that itdoesn't mean her administration pressured Monegan."If that's pressure, then (after) years in law enforcement, how do they do their job if that's perceived as pressure?" she said.UPDATE: Palin leads the InstaPundit VP pick poll. By Greg Ransom on August 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) WELL, THIS MAKES MORE SENSE. Obama visits the woman who raised his for more than just a half hour. Still haven't heard that his great grandma has gotten to see the kids. By Greg Ransom on August 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) ROGUE OFFICIAL RESPONSIBLE FOR GOV. PALIN'S MINI-SCANDAL IN ALASKA. By Greg Ransom on August 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) WHEN DID OBAMA STOP GETTING HIGH ON COCAINE, ALCOHOL AND MARIJUANA? We know that Obama used and abused marijuana, cocaine and alcohol, and at one time saw himself as on the way to having a serious drug and alcohol problem -- he tells us so in his memoir. In an interview Obama has said, "When I was a kid I inhaled frequently." Obama came of age at the very point in time when pot, cocaine, and alcohol usage by teens hit is peak in America (the late 70s and early 80s), so his own usage is not that surprising. Obama tells us he smoked pot, drank too much, and used cocaine now and then during his high school years in Hawaii and during his freshman and sophomore years at Occidental in Los Angeles. But everything seems to have changed when Obama transfered to Columbia via an Occidental exchange program. Obama's cocaine-using Pakistani roommate from that time seems to confirm Obama's own story that Obama's abuse of drugs and alcohol came to an end when he took up studies in New York. In fact, Obama seems to have gone through some sort of fundamental transformation, going cold turkey on the use of drugs (the standard technique former drug and alcohol abusers), and radically changing his diet, becoming a vegetarian and fasting every Sunday. Obama describes himself as turning into a "hermit" at this time. Obama's roommate, Sohale Siddiqi, bears witness to Obama's transformation:When Obama arrived in New York, he already knew [Sohale] Siddiqi - a friendof Chandoo's and Hamid's from Karachi who had visited Los Angeles.Looking back, Siddiqi acknowledges that he and Obama were an oddcouple. Siddiqi would mock Obama's idealism - he just wanted to make alot of money and buy things, while Obama wanted to help the poor."At that age, I thought he was a saint and a square, and he tookhimself too seriously," Siddiqi said. "I would ask him why he was soserious. He was genuinely concerned with the plight of the poor. He'dgive me lectures, which I found very boring. He must have found me veryirritating."Siddiqi offered the most expansive account of Obama as a young man."We were both very lost. We were both alienated, although he mightnot put it that way. He arrived disheveled and without a place tostay," said Siddiqi, who at the time worked as a waiter and as asalesman at a boutique.The Obama campaign declined to discuss Obama's time at Columbia andhis friendships in general. It won't, for example, release histranscript or name his friends. It did, however, list five locationswhere Obama lived during his four years here: three on Manhattan'sUpper West Side and two in Brooklyn - one in Park Slope, the other inBrooklyn Heights. His memoir mentions two others on Manhattan's UpperEast Side.In about 1982, Siddiqi and Obama got an apartment at a sixth-floorwalkup on East 94th Street. Siddiqi managed to get the apartment thanksto subterfuge."We didn't have a chance in hell of getting this apartment unless we fabricated the lease application," Siddiqi said.Siddiqi fudged his credentials, saying he had a high-paying job at acatering company, but Obama "wanted no part of it. He put down thetruth."The apartment was "a slum of a place" in a drug-ridden neighborhoodfilled with gunshots, he said. "It wasn't a comfortable existence. Wewere slumming it." What little furniture they had was found on thestreet, and guests would have to hold their dinner plates in their laps.While Obama has acknowledged using marijuana and cocaine during highschool in Hawaii, he writes in the memoir that he stopped using soonafter his arrival in New York. His roommate had no such scruples.But Siddiqi says that during their time together here, Obama always refused his offers of drugs.In his memoir and in interviews, Obama has said he got serious andbuckled down in New York. "I didn't socialize that much. I was like amonk," he said in a 2005 Columbia alumni magazine interview. He toldbiographer David Mendell: "For about two years there, I was justpainfully alone and really not focused on anything, except maybethinking a lot."In his memoir, Obama recalls fasting on Sunday; Siddiqi says Obamawas a follower of comedian-activist Dick Gregory's vegetarian diet. "Ithink self-deprivation was his schtick, denying himself pleasure, goodfood and all of that."But it wasn't exactly an ascetic life. There was plenty of time forreading (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, V.S. Naipaul) and listening to music(Van Morrison, the Ohio Players, Bob Dylan). The two, along withothers, went out for nights on the town. "He wasn't entirely a hermit,"Siddiqi said.Siddiqi said his female friends thought Obama was "a hunk.""We were always competing," he said. "You know how it is. You go toa bar and you try hitting on the girls. He had a lot more success. Iwouldn't out-compete him in picking up girls, that's for sure."So Obama still went to bars, but his interest at this time had shifted from drugs and alcohol to women and books. And he was on the Dick Gregory diet. One of the things that Dick Gregory did after he started fasting as a method of war protest, is that he stopped drinking alcohol. My own guess is that Obama stopped drinking alcohol also at this time. And we have little reason to believe that Obama continued using marijuana and cocaine after leaving Los Angeles. Unless some really credible evidence surfaces indicating otherwise, I think we can put a fork in the idea that Obama continued using drugs and abusing alcohol after his freshman and sophomore years at Occidental. By Greg Ransom on August 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) PREEMPTIVE STRIKE. THE NEW YORK TIMES ISN'T TAKING CHANCES this election cycle, instead of seeking to undermine Jerome Corsi by ignoring him as it did in 2004, this time the Times has come out fighting like a momma bear protecting its little cub. In what has become typical NY Times style, a blizzard of verbal assaults against Corsi's investigative reporting on Barack Obama -- e.g. "unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate" -- are backed up by, well, not much of anything, other than two wet spitball nitpicks borrowed from the crazed partisan fanatic -- and admitted liar -- David Brock. [UPDATE: I resolve the issue of when it was that Obama stopped abusing marijuana, cocaine and alcohol here.]And I await Tom Maguire's reply to the "hand on the scales" victory the NY Times has awarded the Main Steam Media over Corsi and his 2004 book "Unfit for Command". The Times insinuates that Corsi's earlier book could be dismissed as something like trash, with the sneering claim that Corsis book, "included various accusations that were ultimately undermined by news reports pointing out the contradictions." Well, only the sheltered readers of the NY Times could be so stupid, gullible, and ill informed as to think so. The rest of us, well, not only did we read the book, and we read Maguire. And it was the authority, the credibility and reputation of John Kerry and the Main Stream Media which was left in shreds after these encounters. [Tom Maguire replies to the NY Times here.]By the way, Corsi's The Obama Nation is #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list, and #8 in books at Amazon.You can read the Preface of The Obama Nation here and Chapter 1 of the book here. From the Preface:.. let me clearly state that this book has been written solely on myinitiative. There has been no attempt made, nor will there be anyattempt made, to communicate the shape or contents of this book withanyone in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the ConstitutionParty, or in any third party with a candidate running for thepresidency.In contrast to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama has not beenvetted, not even by Democrats. Even today he is largely an unknown toall but a small handful of dogged political professionals and aconcentrated core of political junkies who inhabit Internet blogs.Thus, in this book I have pursued Obama's extensive connections withIslam and with radical racial politics, including those articulated bysuch extremists as Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, in order to bringthese issues from the shadows where Obama has tried to keep themhidden. For this same reason, I have pursued Obama's extensive andcontinuing connections with Kenya, the homeland of his father, whereObama has continued to involve himself personally in advancing thegoals of Raila Odinga, the radical socialist presidential contender whocomes from Obama's home tribe. Even for Obama, his past is prelude, ina political world where voters legitimately see character as animportant predictor of policy.Hence, I also document Obama's emergence in Chicago politicsthrough the Saul Alinsky school of radical community organizing.Alinsky used the battle cry of "Change" as a code word for a socialistredistribution of wealth. I have also examined Obama's involvement inthe slum landlord empire of Chicago political fixer Tony Rezko. Ireported questions about Rezko's use of a loan from Nadhmi Auchi, aMiddle Eastern financial intermediary, to help Obama finance thepurchase of his dream-home property in Chicago .. UPDATE: Don't miss Althouse's take down of the Times. Roger Kimball also takes a whack.UPDATE II: Tom Maguire weighs in.UPDATE III: Now it's the Washington Post running cover for Obama.Instead of playing protective momma bear for Obama, why don't these papers do some reporting of their own, telling us who this guy is? But the, someone might want to actually subscribe to these papers, and they wouldn't want that, would they? By Greg Ransom on August 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) Archives Syndication RSS Feed ATOM Feed PrestoPundit Archive The Obama File Greg's Guide toDreams from My Father Part 1: Obama's Socialist Father News & Opinion Real Clear PoliticsmemeorandumLucianne.comDrudge ReportBreitbartTownhallFrontPage MagWSJ OpinionTech Central StationReasonNational ReviewNew York TimesLos Angeles Times Blog Favorites Econ RoundtableEconLogMises EconomicsOpen Market Marginal RevAce of SpadesHugh HewittInstaPunditJust One MinuteSweetness & LightLGFMichelle MalkinParapunditPattericoGateway PunditBlogometerNewsBustersNice Deb2blowhards the corner Podcasts Favorites Econ TalkMark LevinCato Events Search Technorati Technorati search this blog all blogs » Blogs that link here Recent Comments Nick commented on SHOCKER! OBAMA CLAIMS TO BE A READER OF HAYEK AND FRIEDMAN!: I suppose LAURA commented on AN AP PHOTO OF BARACK OBAMA'S INDONESIAN STUDENT REGISTRATION CARD: Gee, wonde Ari commented on AN AP PHOTO OF BARACK OBAMA'S INDONESIAN STUDENT REGISTRATION CARD: Speaking a Brian commented on CLARENCE THOMAS --: A more pen Neo commented on RICK WARREN PLAYS LARRY KING FOR OBAMA: Obama on a mike commented on WHATEVER ELSE YOU WANT TO SAY ABOUT JOHN McCAIN: Mccain/Lie pot commented on THE RISK OF BEING A BULLSHITTER: Very good Buy Gold - Scrap Gold Prices - Legitimate Part-Time Business - Make Money FAST commented on THE ELITE REPUBLICANS: About 15 m Scrapiron commented on WHEN DID OBAMA STOP GETTING HIGH ON COCAINE, ALCOHOL AND MARIJUANA?: To believe ridgeliner7.wordpress.com commented on HINTS YOU WON'T BE VOTING FOR OBAMA.: I like it, Monthly Archives August 2008 (57) July 2008 (124) June 2008 (114) May 2008 (101) April 2008 (39) March 2008 (66) February 2008 (78) January 2008 (55) Categories B*llsh*t (6) Bernanke (3) Bush (19) California (2) Capitalism (1) Clinton (6) Conservatism (2) Economics (39) Inflation (1) Economists (1) Phelps, Edmund Friedman (1) Gerson (1) Giuliani (4) Hayek (5) Huckabee (6) Internet (1) John Maynard Keynes (1) Keynes Keynes (1) Krugman (2) Leftist Media (4) Leftists (5) Main Stream Media (2) McCain (34) Music (1) Obama (217) Obama-corrupt (1) Personal (3) Racism (1) Reagan (2) Religion (1) Romney (19) Roosevelt (1) Saddam (1) Schwarzenegger (2) illegal immigration (1) ABOUT THE AUTHOR Greg Ransom has a degree in Political Scienceand an advanced degree in Philosophy, with a specialtyin the philosophy of sciencewith a special focus on thescience of economics.Ransom is well know amongscholars writing on the ideas of Friedrich Hayek. Ransom studied withphilosophers of scienceAlex Rosenberg andLarry Wright. Powered by Movable Type Open Source |
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