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2009.09.26 23.05
Ben Stein lies about Obama
I should not engage in pig wrestling. Both the pig and I get dirty,
but the pig likes it.
I enjoy much of Ben Steins non-political output, but I do
think he speaks less from facts and more from emotion when it
comes to economics and politics. Take his American Spectator
"We've
Figured Him Out". It's full of half-truths, insinuations
and F.U.D. Normally, I wouldn't bother much with this kind of nonsense,
but there is an increasingly angry, right-wing fringe that just needs
some honest book larnin'. If you don't like Obama's policies, that's
a matter of political taste. If you need to invent insane conspiracy stories
to support your opinions, you're mental.
So, armed with wikipedia and the Google,
I will point out the more obvious points of departure from reality Stein
(and Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck and Fox news) makes.
The red pullquotes are from Stein's article. The blue are quotes
from Obama. The gray are from wikipedia
Item 1: Obama hates Whitey
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books.
They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical
anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
Obama is anti-white? I suppose this is a matter of interpretion, but
let's review some indisputable biographical data:
- Obama was born to a white mother (Stanley Ann Dunham of Kansas) and
a black father (Barack Obama, Sr. of Kenya)
- From the age of 9, Obama was raised by his mother's parents, who were
pretty durn white
-
- When his grandmother died, Obama was grieved
Obama held his grandmother in high esteem, as quoted in the Huffington Post
article:
[My grandmother] is one of those quiet heroes we have all across America,
who are not famous, their names are not in the newspapers, but each and
every day they work hard. They look after their families. They sacrifice for
their children, and their grandchildren. They aren't seeking the limelight.
All they try to do is do the right thing. And in this crowd, there are a lot
of quiet heroes like that, people like that, mothers and fathers and
grandparents who have worked hard and sacrificed all their lives and the
satisfaction that they get is in seeing their children or maybe their
grandchildren or their great-grandchildren live a better life than they did.
That is what America is about. That is what we are fighting for.
That doesn't sounds like Huey Lewis or Malcolm X to me. It sounds like
John Kennedy or even Ronald Reagan.
As for whatever Reverend Wright is about, I'm more disappointed that
Obama belongs to a church at all. All preachers are a little wacko in my
book. They all claim to either talk to or know the will of an invisible man
who lives in the sky. People with that kind of behavior who live under
bridges are called "hobos."
Item 2: Ultra-left wing
They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer,"...
This claim is pretty funny to me. You'd think that Obama was Che Guevara
or Huhgo Chavez. So far, Obama has cowed more to Wall Street and
the tiny, balling Republican minority in Congress than I can believe.
But that's just my opinion.
Clearly what's more sinister to some is Obama's
"community organizer" record. I know the G.O.P. doesn't like Government,
except on paydays when they get their checks from it. I've been told
that they are the "Law and Order" party, so you'd sort of think that they
might actually want to see more non-governmental, private citizen making
positive changes in their communities. But apparently, that's not the case.
What was Obama organizing anyway?
According to Wikipedia: (Emphasis added by me.)
After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was
hired as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a
church-based community organization originally comprising
eight Catholic parishes ... on Chicago's far South Side.
So he and the Catholic church were working together in this "community."
I think the last person to accuse the Catholic church of ultra liberalism was
Oliver Cromwell.
During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one
to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000. He helped
set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and
a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.
Obama led an organization to help people get off welfare, go to college
and get jobs. That's pretty Republican of him. You don't think the problem
Stein has with Obama's record is the tenant rights group, do you? I mean,
you'd have to be a total slum-lord D-bag to want to see poor renters get
hosed even more badly than they already do.
But, OK. Stein can look at Obama's record in Chicago and call it liberal.
That's an opinion. Surely, he wouldn't make a bald-face assertion that's easily
dismissed?
Item 3: Obama has no academic achievements
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record
as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when
he was being touted as a scholar.
Obama's academic record, or a portion of it, is cited on the linked to
wikipedia pages. But here's a taste:
- Selected as editor of Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year
- Became president of the journal the following year
- Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law
That's not the record of an academic slouch. That's the record of a
superstar. Stein was Valedictorian for his class at Yale. Perhaps Stein's
problems with Obama stem from the well-known Harvard-Yale rivalry. Stein's
own academic record makes me jealous, but Obama's record is in all ways
objectively superior.
Item 4: Obama hates America
Barack Obama is ... not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy
with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naivete,
all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies
and our future.
Why is it that Republicans, who lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction
and Saddam Hussein's linked to Al Queda to get us into a costly and futile war,
ceaselessly accuse all Democrats of hating America and wanting to destroy it?
I guess that's what psychologists call "projection."
Not only is there no evidence that Obama "is not a fan of this country,"
substantial evidence has been presented in this essay to the contrary. If you
still believe Obama hates this country and likes terrorists, you're literally
delusional.
Does Obama want to talk with Iran? Yes. That's called diplomacy
and it's something that countries run by mentally stable adults engage in
frequently. Does Obama's willingness to talk to America's competitors mean
that he seeks to harm the U.S.? No. On the contrary, you can often learn
things from talking to competitors that benefit you and help you anticipate
their future actions. That's a good thing.
Item 5: The Stimulus Bill was a failure
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the
stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense
bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help
all Americans.
Whether any awaken has been done by any American ever is a matter of
debate, but that the stimulus bill has not helped America is untrue.
Cast your mind back to the fall of 2008. The biggest financial institutions
were either collapsing or about to collapse under the weight of toxic assets
and crippling credit default swaps. A
bailout of Wall Street bankers was conceived called the Trouble Asset Relief
Program of 2008 that was initiated and passed under the Bush administration.
It gave Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson complete and auditless power to
distribute $750 billion to whichever institution he deemed worthy. Now for
bonus points, which interest groups do you think T.A.R.P. served and which
party receives the most money from them? And was that party in power when
T.A.R.P. was passed? Do you see a pattern?
But, in fairness, Stein specifically mentions the Stimulus bill, referring
to the one passed in Feburary, 2009 under the Obama administration. I am not
qualified to say whether the stimulus was efficacious or not, but the
economists I listen to (*cough* Krugman *cough*) say that it is too early to
feel the full effects of it. It does appear to have blunted the free-fall of
the U.S. and world economies. At least technically, the Fed believes that the
Great Recession is over. So all Americans actually have benefited from the
stimulus package already and are likely to benefit from it more in the
future.
Was the stimulus a bribe? Certainly, it did benefit a lot of traditional
Democratic interests groups. However, I recall the G.O.P. being a bunch of cry
babies about the process and not participating in it. I heard them whine about
Pelosi shutting them out of the process, but then again, they were the minority
party. In American politics, to the victor goes the spoils. Certainly,
I learned that in 2000 and 2004.
Item 6: Health Reform is Bad
Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare
basically means that every time you are sick or injured,
you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles
telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
Apparently, Stein doesn't have health problems or he'd be talking with a
clerk from his health insurance company who would tell his doctor what to do.
Honestly, the critics of health care reform have some weird-assed plan
that I've never had. Health care is a bureaucratic apocalypse right now. It
needs to be cheaper and more efficient. Why would an honest Republican not
want that? Here's a bit of Obama on the "efficiency" of our current system:
More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that
their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick,
or won't pay the full cost of care.
That sure sounds like invasive bureaucracy to me. However, the bureaucrat
isn't working for the government, so I guess that's better in Stein's book.
Finally, I'd like to note that Stein was on Fox news in 2007
happily yapping about
the health of the financial market. He thought Merrill Lynch was an
"astonishing well-run" company. 13 months later, Bank of America bought
Merrill, which was fatally weakened by CDS liabilities, in a shotgun wedding forced by the Paulson. Even more interesting,
Thane, head of Merrill, argued at literally the last minute for millions of dollars of
compensation for Merrill's top brass. So, Ben's not so good on predicting the
future or frankly observing the present. Oh yeah,
he hates atheists too.
Still, I'd drink scotch with him anytime he
wants and talk about what an ass Jimmy Kimble is.
Mood: angry
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