Victor Davis Hanson nukes Patrick Buchanan's new book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War, as another example of revisionist history. He wrote his Townhall.com article from Europe where he is touring Allied grave sites in France, Belgium and Luxemburg.
Obama doesn't like it when we keep talking about his church, but we haven't received the new Blog Rules yet. Stanley Kurtz at the NRO hasn't either. He summarizes the many aspect of Obama's history at Trinity United in his article, No Liberation. Here are some quotables from the thorough 5-page article:
Obama rejects, “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation — which helps a few upwardly mobile blacks to ‘move up, get rich, and move out. . . . ’ ” This statement might surprise many Obama supporters, who seem to think of him as the epitome of integrationism. Yet Obama’s repudiation of integrationist upward mobility is fully consistent with his career as a community organizer, his general sympathy for leftist critics of the American “system,” and of course his membership at Trinity. Obama, we are told, “quickly learned that integration was a one-way street, with blacks expected to assimilate into a white world that never gave ground.”
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Instead of diffusing black rage by diverting it to the traditional American path of assimilation and middle-class achievement, Obama wants to capture the intensity of black anger and use it to power an effective political organization. Obama says, “he’s tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up — at the speaker’s rostrum and from the pulpit — and then allowed to dissipate because there’s no agenda, no concrete program for change.” The problem is not fiery rhetoric from the pulpit, but merely the wasted anger it so usefully stirs.
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...Obama’s religious history has everything to do with his political values and policy positions, since it confirms his affinity for leftist radicalism.
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Instead of diffusing black rage by diverting it to the traditional American path of assimilation and middle-class achievement, Obama wants to capture the intensity of black anger and use it to power an effective political organization. Obama says, “he’s tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up — at the speaker’s rostrum and from the pulpit — and then allowed to dissipate because there’s no agenda, no concrete program for change.” The problem is not fiery rhetoric from the pulpit, but merely the wasted anger it so usefully stirs.
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...Obama’s religious history has everything to do with his political values and policy positions, since it confirms his affinity for leftist radicalism.
Victor Davis Hanson blogs at NRO on the same topic:
First, he can never quite come clean about his past. Obama seems to claim that the problem with Rev. Moss and Trinity is the sudden attention given these men of faith and the difficult spotlight put upon them as a result of the Obama campaign.
But such public attention is NOT a problem for Trinity and Co.—only a problem for Obama. When the crowd rises to its feet to shout approval of a racist like Wright or Pfleger it is not because of sudden public attention, but because they wish to hear such racist scape-goating that apparently serves as some sort of collective catharsis. And Obama apparently, despite his much praised "candor" about race, cannot or will not address why his own congregation and new minister would applaud a nut like Pfleger. (Such an exegesis might really call for a landmark speech about race in a way in which Obama's past politically expedient attempt was not).
But such public attention is NOT a problem for Trinity and Co.—only a problem for Obama. When the crowd rises to its feet to shout approval of a racist like Wright or Pfleger it is not because of sudden public attention, but because they wish to hear such racist scape-goating that apparently serves as some sort of collective catharsis. And Obama apparently, despite his much praised "candor" about race, cannot or will not address why his own congregation and new minister would applaud a nut like Pfleger. (Such an exegesis might really call for a landmark speech about race in a way in which Obama's past politically expedient attempt was not).
James Taranto mentions that Obama has at least two senior staffers who are members of the Nation of Islam in his Best of the Web post from Wednesday. He also discusses Hillary's chances:
To summarize, Mrs. Clinton maximizes her chances of becoming president if she (1) does enough damage to Obama to snatch the nomination away from him, (2) failing that, does enough damage to him to bring about his defeat in November, and (3) gets herself on the ticket, whether he wins in November or not.
Some will say Mrs. Clinton is being disloyal to her party if she undermines Obama's chances of winning in November. But maybe she just practices a different kind of party loyalty. After all, if you can be a patriot while hoping your country loses a war, why can't you be a loyal Democrat while hoping your party loses an election?
Some will say Mrs. Clinton is being disloyal to her party if she undermines Obama's chances of winning in November. But maybe she just practices a different kind of party loyalty. After all, if you can be a patriot while hoping your country loses a war, why can't you be a loyal Democrat while hoping your party loses an election?