2008

Tell a Lie Loud Enough and Often Enough….

Calvin Freiburger 2008, Democrats, dishonesty, lying, McCain, media, New York Times, Obama, propaganda, race, racism
The New York Times has a celebrated history of shame, up to and including disclosing government secrets, and their latest editorial is another disgusting affront to journalism:
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We know that operatives in modern-day presidential campaigns are supposed to say things that everyone knows are ridiculous — and to do it with a straight face.
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Still, there was something surreal, and offensive, about today’s soundbite from the campaign of Senator John McCain.
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The presumptive Republican nominee has embarked on a bare-knuckled barrage of negative advertising aimed at belittling Mr. Obama. The most recent ad compares the presumptive Democratic nominee for president to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton — suggesting to voters that he’s nothing more than a bubble-headed, publicity-seeking celebrity.
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The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.
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Mr. Obama called Mr. McCain on the ploy, saying, quite rightly, that the Republicans are trying to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills.’’
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But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’
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The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.
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It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjurs [sic] up another loaded racial image.
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The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”
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It’s ugly stuff. How about we leave Britney, Paris, and O.J. out of this — and have a presidential campaign?
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There’s no secret racist message in McCain’s ad, implicit or otherwise. The intent was to call Obama vapid and his hype overblown, nothing more. If you’re looking for vapid, overrated celebrities, you’d be hard-pressed to find more worthy examples of any skin color. Is there really any doubt that if the campaign had used images of, say, Halle Berry instead, that would have been called a clue to the Right’s deep-seated yearning for segregation?
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And the supposed OJ allusion? To say it was deliberate is wishful speculation at best, and “dealing the race card from the bottom of the deck” seems to accurately describe both situations: a minority figure invoking race victimhood to divert attention from the real issue.
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The Times has no evidence for their thesis other than that Barack said so (speaking of which, if that was Obama “call[ing] Mr. McCain on the ploy,” why did he initially try to deny it? And if his comments were in response to McCain, why did he say them back in June, too?). There’s no lie the Left, and their propagandists in the media and blogosphere, won’t tell or spread in the pursuit of power.

Another Flip-Flop? Not So Fast

Calvin Freiburger 2008, Democrats, federalism, gay marriage, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, liberalism, Obama
Barack Obama’s getting flack for announcing his opposition to a proposed ban on same-sex marriage in California. It’s being called yet another Obama flip-flop since he previously said the decision to recognize same-sex marriage should be left to each state. However, I don’t think conservatives should add this one to the list. Stating an opinion on which government level should have the authority to make this decision doesn’t presuppose an indifference to what decision they ultimately make. Unless Obama advocates overturning state decisions on the matter via federal power, which he hasn’t, it’s not a flip-flop.

So This Is What He Meant By "Change"

Calvin Freiburger 2008, Democrats, dishonesty, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, liberalism, Obama
Right-wingers aren’t the only ones beginning to notice the slimy residue Barack Obama leaves everywhere he goes:
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From the beginning, Barack Obama’s special appeal was his vow to remain an idealistic outsider, courageous and optimistic, and never to shift his positions for political expediency, or become captive of the Inside-the-Beltway intelligentsia, or kiss up to special interests and big money donors.
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In recent weeks, though, Obama has done all those things.
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He abandoned public campaign financing after years of championing it. Backed a compromise on wiretap legislation that gives telecom companies retroactive immunity for helping the government conduct spying without warrants. Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own grandmother.
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He said he wouldn’t wear the U.S. flag pin because it had become a substitute for true patriotism, then started wearing it. Ramped up his courtship of unions. Shifted from a pledge to protect working-class families from tax increases to a far more expensive promise not to raise taxes on families that earn up to $250,000 a year. Turned to longtime D.C. Democratic wise men to run his vice-presidential search and staff his foreign-policy brain trust.
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On the subject of Obama flip-flops, we can add the DC gun ban to the list, too.

The Content of Obama’s Character; UPDATE: Now with Kos Feedback!

Calvin Freiburger 2008, abortion, cowardice, Democrats, evil, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Iran, Islamofascism, Jeremiah Wright, letters, Obama, reporter, stupidity
My latest letter to the editor:
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A recent letter asked, “Why does everybody have such a problem with a member of a minority achieving a position of either prominence or power in our society?” as if racism is why voters really oppose Barack Obama. That’s completely false, and this voter opposes Obama because of his utter lack of competence, courage, and character.
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Competence: Iran and North Korea’s nuclear pursuits, and the desire of Islamic jihadists for nuclear weapons, make today’s world very dangerous, yet Obama pledges to cut investments in missile defense. He also voted against the recent bill preserving our intelligence-gathering capabilities, which received broad bipartisan support, passing 68-29.
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Courage: On June 4, Obama said Jerusalem should remain Israel’s undivided capital. But after a single day of Palestinian complaints, he backpedaled, now saying the Jews and Palestinians will have to negotiate it for themselves. Such cowardice leaves little doubt that Obama would fold like a house of cards in his no-precondition, direct talks with Iran’s Ahmadinejad.
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Character: No responsible father who values honesty could possibly expose his children to the foul lies of Jeremiah Wright. And nobody with a shred of decency or compassion could reach Obama’s extremes on abortion. In Illinois he fought against legal protection for fully-born babies who survived their abortions. Even after being separated from their mothers and gaining full physical independence, Obama thinks these children should be starved to death. Delivery-ward nurse Jill Stanek testified twice before Obama for born-alive infant protection, offering her firsthand experiences and pictures of premature births. She says her efforts “didn’t faze him at all.”
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Conservatives are judging Obama not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. Unfortunately for him, that’s a contest in which he doesn’t stand a chance.
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UPDATE: It seems I’ve made a new friend on the Daily Kos! Unfortunately, Pan Zareta’s refutation is so devoid of substance it’s laughable. If you’re out there, Pan, I’d be happy to clear up any confusion you might have; comment away!

Your Brain on Drugs: Obama as Pro-Life Standard Bearer

Calvin Freiburger 2008, abortion, Catholicism, Democrats, dishonesty, evil, liberalism, Obama, stupidity
Linked approvingly by the ever-outraged Andrew Sullivan, this has got to be one of the most odious excuses for political thought I’ve read in a good long while: an article by Doug Kmiec, a so-called pro-lifer, as to why he’s supporting Barack Obama.
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In the last few weeks, I have been repeatedly asked if my endorsement of Senator Obama stands.
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To some of my fellow Catholics, Senator Obama’s answers on abortion make him categorically unacceptable. I understand that view, respect it, but find it prudentially the second-best answer in 2008.
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Not because Senator Obama’s position on abortion is mine; it is not. Not because I don’t believe Senator Obama could improve the articulation of his position; he could, but because I believe that my faith calls upon me at this time to focus on new efforts and untried paths to reduce abortion practice in America.
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Senator Obama’s emphasis on personal responsibility, rather than legal bickering over potential Supreme Court nominations in my judgment, best moves this issue forward.
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First, I’d like Mr. Kmiec to show us where Obama’s “emphasis on personal responsibility,” to the extent that it even exists, has ever taken the form of clearly calling abortion the wrong choice to make. Second, it doesn’t change the fact that Obama explicitly supports the “right” to abortion on principle, and boasts of his 100% pro-choice ratings from Planned Parenthood and NARAL.
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The Republican Party has had a better claim to be pro-life because of words in its platform supporting the overruling of Roe v. Wade. Roe is bad constitutional law, because it’s not based on the Constitution or any tradition or custom implicit within its terms.
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No, that’s not all to the GOP’s claim by a long shot. The platform also says “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions. We oppose using public revenues for abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it.”
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Yet overturning the decision does little other than return the issue to the states. Conservative justice and fellow Catholic Antonin Scalia has pointed out that following Roe’s hypothetical demise, if the states want abortion thereafter all they have to do is pass a law in favor of it.
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Uh, yeah…that’s why there’s more to the platform than judges. Maybe you should read it sometime.
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As a matter of constitutional legal theory, I believe Justice Scalia is entirely wrong and that Roe is flawed not just for its displacement of state authority, but more fundamentally, for its disregard of the natural law presuppositions in the Declaration of Independence. As I see it, the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration have interpretative significance for the meaning of “life” and “person” in the constitutional text—and that meaning makes life unalienable, which means each life from conception is unique and worthy of constitutional protection.
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Obviously, I agree that Roe is bad law. I also agree that the Declaration’s invocation of an inalienable, God-given right to life applies from conception on. But even though an abortion-prohibiting interpretation of the Constitution would be far tamer than many of the Supreme Court’s greatest hits, it’s still fairly muddy ground. The Fourteenth Amendment says a US citizen entitled to the full slate of American privileges and immunities is someone “born or naturalized in the United States,” meaning the preborn don’t qualify as citizens. On the other hand, it prohibits states from “deprive[ing] any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; [or denying] to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” [emphases added]. The question isn’t whether or not the preborn are people; they are. The question is, do the terms “person” and “person within its jurisdiction” in the Constitution simply mean anybody lawfully within the nation’s borders, or do they specifically apply to US citizens?
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I don’t presume to have the answer, but this legal ambiguity is one of the reasons why I support ratifying a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. One wonders why Kmiec is glossing over the HLA, especially since he claims to want to go farther than overturning Roe.
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Were Senator McCain to be of the same mind, he would be pro-life. As it is, he and the GOP are pro-federalism, which is not a bad thing, but frankly, at this late date, insufficient.
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Waitasec—it’s because the alternative is insufficiently pro-life that pro-lifers should support a pro-choice extremist?! Does not compute…
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Thus, as I see it, it is a choice between two less than sufficient courses:
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(a) the continuation of an effort to appoint men and women to the Court who are thought willing to overturn Roe through divisive confirmation proceedings that undermine respect for law and understate the significance of non-abortion issues in a judicial candidate’s evaluation; or
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News flash, pal: anything worth fighting for is going to be “divisive,” and how does fighting for judicial originalists “undermine respect for law”? As for understating other issues’ importance, I’d say somebody’s view of Roe v. Wade is a pretty good window into his legal credentials. His complaint implies there’s been a confirmation battle where a judge’s anti-Roe stance has distracted from his flaws in other areas—and begs the question, what else Kmiec looks for in a judge.
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(b) working with a new president who honestly concedes the abortion decision poses serious moral issues which he argues can only be fully and successfully resolved by the mother facing it with the primary obligation of the community seeing to it that she is as well informed as possible in the making of it.
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We’re supposed to be impressed by the fact that Obama admits there’s a good-faith reason for people to oppose abortion? Geez, it’s like anyone to the right of Peter Singer is pro-life enough for Doug Kmiec. In the next breath, Kmiec cites Obama’s belief that only the mother can decide on killing her child. To be frank, how the hell does he expect to advance his self-professed belief in the preborn’s inalienable rights with this as his candidate’s philosophical starting point?
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Oh, I see: because Obama will work toward making mothers as “well informed as possible.” But where’s the support for this claim? Can we take it to mean Obama would support, for instance, the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act or the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act? Somehow, I doubt it.
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It is a prudential judgment which course is more protective of life. Had three Republican presidents over 20 years in office not tried course (a), it might be a close question. As it is, we know that following course (a) has met with little success, and again, even if fully successful will do little more than bolster the possibility that some number of states will make abortion legally less available.
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All it takes is one challenge to Roe, or to the partial-birth abortion ban, or a case about parental notification/consent, to make it not just to the Supreme Court, but to any of the lower courts to which presidents appoint judges, and those “divisive confirmation proceedings” become plenty important, and again, the pro-life movement doesn’t end with Roe’s fall. Furthermore, where does Kmiec get off framing this as an either-or decision? Since when does supporting originalist judges or overturning Roe presuppose an opposition to cultivating individual responsibility or educating people about sexual consequences and about the unborn? This is utterly nonsensical.
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I do not understand Senator Obama to be pro-abortion…
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Then you haven’t been paying attention, Doug. See above and educate yourself. Not only is he pro-abortion, he’s an extremist about it. His US Senate voting record is bad enough—he supports embryonic stem cell research, opposes parental consent and notification, and federal funding for abortion. Partial-birth abortion is just dandy. Most despicably, Obama has a history of opposing the most basic protection and compassion for babies who survive abortion. Yet Kmiec thinks this man “best moves this issue forward.” For NARAL, maybe; for babies in the womb…not so much.
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…though if we had an extended conversation on this topic, I would ask him to more carefully parse the topic. Asked at the recent faith forum at Messiah College whether he believed life began at conception, Obama said he has not “come to a firm resolution” on the question. That’s a mistake that any geneticist could clear up for him. Openly, he posited that he thought it is “very hard to know . . . when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don’t presume to know the answer to that question.”
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Assuming Obama’s uncertainty is sincere (a generous assumption), it begs two questions: first, he wants to be leader of the free world, yet he hasn’t taken the time or effort to find a “firm resolution” to when life begins? To seek out “any geneticist?” Second, if Obama concedes the slightest possibility that his votes could lead to extinguishing innocent lives, then how the hell can he possibly justify taking that chance? Of course, none of this should surprise us coming from the Left. We should, however, ask why it didn’t raise any of these red flags for a supposed pro-lifer like Kmiec.
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There’s some humility in this answer, but it also mixes science and theology and tangles up life and personhood to boot. In fairness, however, it typifies the larger public confusion. Most importantly, it is an answer free of guile or political calculation. “What I [do] know,” said the Senator, “is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that has a moral weight to it . . . .” Indeed, it does, and he accompanied his candid observation with a critique of himself and his party. It is a “mistake,” Obama said “to try to tamp down the moral dimension to abortion,” for do to so understates that it is “a wrenching choice for anybody to think about.” On Meet the Press some time ago, he stressed the importance of involving the clergy in the counsel of a mother.
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Au contraire: his answer is entirely political calculation. All Democrats try to create an air of ambiguity about when life begins. They all pay lip service to the ideas that abortion shouldn’t be considered a casual choice, that it would be a good thing if the number of abortions would go down. It’s nothing more than rhetorical cover for how deeply heinous their actual position is. These cut-&-paste answers have been in the playbook for years; does Kmiec even pay attention to American politics?
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Obama briefly mentioned adoption as a means of reducing abortions at the faith forum, and I encourage him to speak more at length about that sound, practical affirmation of life. But where he looks for the greatest agreement and greatest opportunity to reduce the number of abortions “is on the idea of reducing unwanted pregnancies because, he reasons, “if we can reduce unwanted pregnancies, then it’s much less likely that people resort to abortion. The way to do that is to encourage young people and older people, people of child-bearing years, to act responsibly. Part of acting responsibly – I’ve got two daughters,” Obama proudly points out – “part of my job as a parent is to communicate to them that sex isn’t casual and that it’s something that “should be treated with reverence.”
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I’ll grant that these are good things to say, but they’re also easy things to say. Talk is cheap, and Obama’s record tells a different story.
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As a Catholic my instruction to my daughters will likely be different than my Jewish or Protestant or Islamic or non-believing friends. Like Senator Obama, “I’m all for education for our young people, encouraging abstinence until marriage.” Unlike Senator Obama, as a matter of faith, artificial contraception is off my list, and I have carefully discussed with my daughters why a contraceptive practice that the larger culture accepts subtly undermines that which ought not be divided; namely, the unitive and procreative aspects of human love within marriage.
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The Catholic Church seems pretty clear on whether or not a Catholic can support pro-abortion politicians. I guess Doug Kmiec knows better than his church.
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Senator Obama supports a wider range of age-appropriate contraceptive information to prevent unmarried, teen pregnancies, and since he would be proposing legislation for the entire community and not merely my household or people of my faith, certainly one can understand that perspective even if one might argue with it or insist upon appropriate religious exemption in a public school setting.
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“One can understand” any number of perspectives. That’s not a case for voting for somebody who holds said perspective.
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The so-called “95-10” legislative proposal (proposing to reduce abortion by 95% over 10 years largely by educative means) seems well-suited to the Senator’s perspective, and I have encouraged him to embrace it in principle. I hope he does, but it’s not an endorsement breaker so long as he is true to himself and encouraging of personal responsibility, rather than the codification of the abortion mentality which some in the extreme wing of his party advocate.
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As described here, the 95-10 proposal sounds flat-out delusional (meaning it really is well-suited to Obama!). Again we see how low Kmiec’s standards are. News flash, Doug: Obama is “the extreme wing of his party.”
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This much I know: If it’s a choice between giving a boost to the work of my fellow parishioners who week after week in thinly-funded, crisis pregnancy centers, open their minds and their hearts and often their homes to pregnant women (and Obama has spoken approvingly of faith-based efforts) and a Supreme Court Justice to be named later who may or may not toss the issue back to the states, I think I know which course is more effectively choosing life.
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Again, what’s with this either-or fantasy?
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As anyone who’s ever had a conversation with a pregnant woman thinking about abortion knows, good, evenhanded information and genuine empathy and love save more children than hypothetical legal limits – which, as best as I can tell, have saved: well, zero.
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Of course “hypothetical legal limits” don’t save any children. Actual legal limits, on the other hand…
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Of course, there are many more reasons to affirm my original endorsement of the Senator, including his willingness to:
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•Transcend the politics of division – so well illustrated on any given day by the unfortunately base tactics of the Clinton or McCain campaigns (see the recent GOP ad in North Carolina once again dredging up Reverend Wright)
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•Commit us toward a course of environmental stewardship that will not be dependent upon fossil fuel
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•Focus tax and health policy reform in favor of the average working family and the poor
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•Reaffirm an American foreign policy respectful of international standard
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•And end an unjust, preemptive war – another obvious life issue — that deprives families of some of our most self-sacrificing yet often least advantaged young men and women and drains our economy in a 3 trillion dollar fashion, crippling our practical ability to be the force for human good that Americans want their country to be.
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Aha! Now it all makes sense: Doug Kmiec is a cookie-cutter lefty who wants a liberal president. He also wants to look like he isn’t throwing life under the bus, so he churned out this sorry rationalization. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
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For more on the matter, Partial Birth Obama is doing a great job of chronicling Obama’s pro-death record.

Whiners-in-Chief

Calvin Freiburger 2008, Democrats, Edwards, Fred Thompson, GOP, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, stupidity
Fred Thompson and John Edwards recently gave twin speeches that consisted pretty much of whining that it’s too haaard to run for president. What a surprise.
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UPDATE: Dear Lord, there’s another website elevating this loser to mythical status? Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate their stated intentions, but the cult stuff, even after their hero endorsed McCain, is getting to be too much. Also note: it’s a little vague as to whom exactly these people are, but you can still donate! Lovely. (Hat tip: Try 2 Focus)

The Obama Future: Haven’t We Been Here Before?

Calvin Freiburger 2008, Democrats, dishonesty, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, hypocrisy, Jeremiah Wright, liberalism, lying, moonbats, Obama, racism, religion, scandal, spin
No matter how you try to parse it, there’s no way to make Barack Obama’s history with Reverend Jeremiah Wright look good. On March 14, Obama told Fox News’ Major Garrett, “none of these statements were ones that I had heard myself personally in the pews” (which becomes “I knew about one or two statements” later in the interview). To buy Wright Spin 1.0, you’d have to believe that the sound bites we’ve heard were all isolated incidents outside of which Wright’s message was totally different, and that Obama never caught wind of any of it, either in person or from fellow congregants, even though this was the kind of thing the church made available on video, and his wife sure as heck was paying attention. So the best case scenario is that Obama is Jacques Clouseau. Now there’s presidential material!
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As unflattering as “inattentive buffoon” is, Obama could have settled for it. But no, in his “A More Perfect Union” speech, he said “Did I ever know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.” Make no mistake: this is an admission that Barack Obama, the new-style politician of hope who is going to restore our ability to believe in the process, lied to the American people just days earlier.
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But that’s not all Messiah has to offer. He continues to maintain that, deep down, Reverend Jeremiah—who’s like an uncle to him—isn’t so terrible: even though he made “mistakes” (you mean the CIA didn’t invent AIDS? Whoops, my bad), there was enough talk of love and Christ and helping the poor amongst the lies, demagoguery and insanity to justify regularly exposing his kids to this man and his message. I don’t buy it—especially not after Wright’s flattering appearance on Hannity & Colmes last year. (By the way, this would happen to be the same Barack Obama who called for Don Imus to be fired and for Trent Lott to resign, each for considerably less. What a fraud.)
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Then there are the cheap shots towards Geraldine Ferraro, who “some have dismissed…as harboring some deep-seated racial bias” (not Barack, of course; he just, y’know, thought you might be curious about what people are saying), “politicians [who] routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends,” and “talk show hosts and conservative commentators [who] built entire careers unmasking bogus cases of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality.” Nice. And let’s not forget Obama’s charming reminiscence about Grandma. As Ann Coulter writes this week:
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Discrimination has become so openly accepted that—in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist—Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist “old uncle,” Rev. Wright.
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First of all, Wright is not Obama’s uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don’t choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with the idea that you can’t be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives. But Wright is not a relative of Obama’s at all. Yet Obama cravenly compared Wright’s racist invective to his actual grandmother, who “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”
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Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama’s grandmother—who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school—has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has. Unlike his “old uncle”—who is not his uncle—Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama’s grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn’t get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she’s white. Denounce the racist!
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And finally, the heart of his message is fundamentally contradictory. Sure, he throws in the obligatory scolding of Wright’s “profoundly distorted view of this country,” and admits that “all too often [anger] distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change.” But in the same breath, Obama perpetuates the distraction by saying he could no more sever ties with Wright than with the black community, thereby identifying the two as one and the same. Give to bigotry no sanction…unless the bigot in question talks about nice stuff, too. I don’t think so, Barack.

Fran Roeseler: "Really" in the Tank for Obama

Calvin Freiburger 2008, Democrats, fondy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, letters, Michelle Obama, Mom, Obama, patritoism, reporter, stupidity
In response to Mom’s criticism of Michelle Obama, local Messiah shill Fran Roeseler makes a shoddy attempt at damage control:
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For you people out there (and some TV media too) who feel the need to lash out at Michelle Obama for her comment, use some common sense (if that’s possible). Quit reading more into what she said just so you can “nitpick.” There’s ridiculous and then there’s “really ridiculous” and you people are being “really” ridiculous.
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Common sense tells (should tell) you that one can be proud of one’s country and then when having a more personal reason (or reasons) one can be “really” proud. It doesn’t mean one isn’t already proud. Do you “get it” now?
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I “get” that you “like” to “use” quotation marks “excessively”…
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Michelle Obama has a husband who is running for president. Yes, I’d certainly say she could now be “really” proud. And if you’d listen, you’d know she already was proud of her country before now. Start to “really” listen.
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America has a “good man” with an honest desire who is running for the nomination, a “good man” who wants “positive change” for this country. I’m not referring to John McCain. America wants, America needs change.
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A “good man” who thinks babies that survive late-term abortions should be left to die. A “good man” whose new politics seem an awful lot like business as usual. A “good man” who’s still left some questions about Tony Rezko unanswered. I don’t know what “good man” means to you, but as far as I’m concerned, this ain’t it.
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For the recent writer who was critical of Michelle Obama’s comment, when you wrote your letter you neglected to add the word “really.” I’ve noticed some TV media neglecting to add the word “really” too. Keep in mind that Michelle is “really” proud of her country now. Get it?
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First, Lady O has said this more than once, and the other time it was she who “neglected to add the word ‘really.’” Second, I could just as easily say you’re nitpicking—how do you know she was proud of her country before, just less so? How do you know she didn’t simply throw in “really” for emphasis? Third, and most important, this line is just the tip of the iceberg—there’s more evidence that Mrs. Obama is extremely bitter and ungrateful towards her country. Oh, plus the fact that her husband just suggested that we can’t currently say we’re “proud to be American.”
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Oh and by the way, Senator and Mrs. Barack Obama would be a “really” welcome change in the White House after “the What” currently there. A “really, really” welcome change!
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Better luck next time, Fran!