The Obama double standard
Apparently, Barack Obama has had no trouble accepting support from terrorists and members of the radical Left in his relatively recent past:
In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement.
They disappeared in 1970, after a bomb — designed to kill army officers in New Jersey — accidentally destroyed a Greenwich Village townhouse, and turned themselves into authorities in 1980. They were never prosecuted for their involvement with the 25 bombings the Weather Underground claimed; charges were dropped because of improper FBI surveillance.
“I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough,” Ayers told the New York Times in 2001.
Imagine if this were a conservative Republican candidate in a serious two-person fight for for the GOP nomination that were still far from being decided heading into a couple of big large-state primaries, and the conservative had developed a huge popular following in Red States based on a message of right-wing populism and social conservatism. What if it were then discovered that the conservative candidate had meetings when he or she was first entering public life with some of the most radical fringe groups on the Right in search of their tacit or active support? Suppose the conservative had a meeting with Willis Carto or David Duke and was aided or given contributions by friends of Carto or Duke-the press would never let it rest.
All that would be discussed in the major news media for weeks on end would be the "radical associations" in the past of the conservative candidate. It would be asked if the conservative were racist or anti-Semetic, and the conservative would be forced to spend much valuable time defending themselves against charges of associating with hate groups or even those who advocate violence. The press would constantly harp the candidate over whether he or she held any of the extreme beliefs espoused by these supporters from the "old days."
If such questions about political associations are relevant for conservatives and they ought to be made to answer for them, extreme associations on the other side of the political spectrum are equally fair game. Yet the press isn't asking these questions about Barack Obama and his associates, because being liberal apparently qualifies you for getting a pass for associating with extremists or terrorists-especially if those people are Leftists.
Labels: Democrats, Presidential Election
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 5:40 AM
6 Comments:
Ah...the old "if they can do it, we should do it too" line! How wonderfully childish and un-Christian!
Is there no room for the moral high ground here? Are Republicans (I refuse to lump anything here with conservatism) supposed to do everything that liberals do?
It just amazes me as to the lengths that people will go to excuse their own poor choices and behavior.
Mud slinging and character assassination...such wonderful things to share with liberals. Everyone should be so proud.
Matt,
This S**T is all David has.
It doesn't matter who slings mud first, the last, the most, the least, the left, the right ...
This isn't mud. It's S**T. Ask him, go ahead, ask him; "David, what'cha got?"
All he has is S**T
SteveMule
Steve,
Yep. You're right. The right will try to destroy Obama and Hillary in the most vile and reprehensible ways possible, and operatives on the left will try to do the same with McCain.
My point here wasn't to dispute David's claim that the left will try to destroy McCain -- I just happen to think that it's an incredibly lousy reason to do the same thing to Obama or Clinton.
If I want to see sh*t slung, I'll go to the monkey cages at the zoo. I really don't need it done when I'm trying to decide who will make the best President.
Matt,
Yes, you're right. There's plenty of differences in their approach ot all the issues facing this country to discuss debate and decide who's best.
But that's too hard, and it doesn't make for good TV (or blogging either it seem).
SteveMule
Steve,
You know, I can at least try to understand if it's a for-profit outlet like a newspaper, TV station, or radio station. It still doesn't make the practice "right", but in those cases, it's the consumer who drives the product. If the consumer doesn't want to read, see, or hear that kind of sh*t, then they'll tune it out. I can also make the same argument for web sites with substantial readership that profit off of paid advertising.
But blogs like this one? There's just no excuse for it. NONE. These blogs, even if they do make a small amount of money, aren't consumer-driven. Their content is truly driven by person running the site. The readership levels simply aren't large enough to justify saying "if I don't sling sh*t, I'll lose readers".
I have significant classroom and field experience in the area of journalism. I've also been working on the web and in the blogosphere for over 10 years now (significantly longer than our own Mr. Oatney, I might add). That level of experience has taught me many things...
Chief among them is that the values of journalism, such as integrity, accuracy and objectivity, are becoming increasingly less known to younger journalists, bloggers, and others who participate in this sort of field. Some have simply abandoned these values in the name of accomplishing their own personal or political goals.
If I say that I weep for my country's future, it's because of what I just wrote. It doesn't matter who we elect as our leaders, and it doesn't matter what Washington does. The first way our country is going to rot from within is based on how poorly our information-givers (be they journalists, bloggers, or whatever) perform.
And as we see here and elsewhere, their performance is worsening at an ever increasing rate.
Matt,
What drives me nuts is that with all the issues and substantive differences between how to address those issues we (everybody whether they want ot or not) can't get beyond all this S**T.
So Obama knows a old radical hippie couple? So what? When I was stationed in Germany I met and became friends with an old Waffen SS officer. Did/does that make me a NAZI??? No!
It seems as if American politics is more about destruction than evaluation. And that's sad and will if anything destroy us before any foriegn enemy (or even old hippies) will.
SteveMule
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