In 2008, Obama’s supporters and campaign flacks assured us that his association with a grab bag of radical leftists (e.g. Bill Ayers), a racist and anti-Semitic preacher (Rev. Wright), and a PLO spokesman (Rashid Khalidi), and a Senate voting record that rated him more liberal than Ted Kennedy were irrelevant to his candidacy. It turns out that all that was more revealing of his values and political inclinations than his campaign platitudes. If it weren’t for Obama, Rep. Joe Sestak’s associations (CAIR, J Street) and voting record (97.8 percent agreement with Nancy Pelosi) might not be of concern to Pennsylvania voters. But frankly, they and voters around the country now should sense what is truly enlightening and what is not about a candidate’s associations and allies.
Sestak has made much of his service in the U.S. Navy, which certainly is worthy of respect (although he’s refused to release records that would shed light on the reasons for his resignation). But that service should not obscure his very radical foreign policy associates. Much has already been written about his views on the Middle East and Israel, but practically unnoticed is his association with a group that goes by the name Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS), until recently known by the Orwellian name “the World Federalist Association.” Who are they, and why have they endorsed Sestak and raised $5,700 for him this year and $4,000 in previous years? (The numbers are not extraordinarily large, but Sestak is far and away the top beneficiaries of the group’s largess.)
CGS has some very radical ideas, which make Obama seem like a raging nationalist. Its history as a champion of world government, multinational institutions and treaties (which subsume the laws of nation-states), and devotion to the international redistribution of wealth is no secret:
Seeking to create a world in which nations work together to abolish war, protect our rights and freedoms, and solve the problems facing humanity that no nation can solve alone, Citizens for Global Solutions has a long, proud tradition of activism. Tracing its earliest roots back to the years prior to World War II, United World Federalists (later the World Federalist Association) was created in 1947 as a partnership between a number of like-minded organizations that united to achieve their commons goals.
CGS and its predecessor group, the World Federalist Association (WFA), haven’t been shy about their views. They have decried the “myth” of national sovereignty, supported expansion of international entities like the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court, and even a standing UN army, all to be funded by the U.S. and new global taxes. (“The United States would benefit from an increased involvement in United Nations peacekeeping missions,” the group explains.) In 1999 in the Washington Times, the issues director for the WFA wrote in an op-ed: “This could bring into favor a global e-commerce tax that could be redistributed back to local, state, and national governments.” He explained the organization’s focus:
The crisis-filled future we face is primarily a result of policy-makers holding onto the myth of independence or national sovereignty and a reliance primarily on unilateral action for dealing with global problems. If Congress continues cutting foreign aid and undermining the vital work of the United Nations, we will have to give up either our personal freedoms or our security.
Under its new name (World Federalist Association probably creeped out too many people), CGS has kept up the internationalist drumbeat and the preference for a slew of agreements that diminish U.S. sovereignty, from the Law of the Seas Treaty to global warming accords to the enhancement of the UN authority. The group thinks the UN Human Rights Council is swell:
Currently, the HRC is the primary global intergovernmental body able to address human rights issues and this is the first time the U.S. has been an active participant. Membership will help generate goodwill toward the U.S. and prove the United States’ commitment to multilateral diplomacy. The HRC is direct, resultant, and demands accountability in human rights from its members and the world. Through HRC actions, a strong basis in international action is created so countries can collectively come to the aid of any human rights crisis.
(Of course, it should also get an A+ in Israel-bashing.) Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the only instance in which CGS has demonstrated a marked anti-Israel bias. Its deputy director of government relations, Drew Asson, went after Israel in the Lebanon war, bellowing from his website: “When will this senseless onslaught by Israeli hawks end? When will the UN Security Council step up to the plate and condemn this vicious obviously disproportionate response by Israel?”
You get the picture. This isn’t the first time a politician’s association with CGS has landed him in hot water. In his 2006 Senate run (the same year CGS started giving Sestak money), Bob Casey was pressured to return campaign donations from the group.
Sestak’s relationship with CGS is indicative of a pattern — he solicits support and receives backing from groups whose agenda is at the far left of the political spectrum. (As such, his supporters and donors have a decidedly anti-Israel cast.) So there is reason for the voters to ask what he sees in these groups’ agendas and, more important, what do they see in him?
The answer may lie in his answers on the CGS questionnaire. It’s an eye-opener, to be discussed in Part Two.
Barack Obama keeps telling us he is from “outside Washington” and come to fix and reform things. Well, so is Sarah Palin but let’s get beyond that.
The Obama Team and its supporters keep bringing up race directly or indirectly as Kristoff is doing. Why? I think they are really confused why Barack Obama is not 15 points ahead and just assume it must be racism.
They can’t accept it might be policy-ism.
The contrast between Obama and Colin Powell proves the main post.
Mistake or Media Bias. From the FRONT PAGE of today’s TAMPA TRIBUNE, “Obama’s weekend tour of Florida culminated Saturday with appearances in Daytona Beach and Jacksonville. Following up on McCain’s Florida tour last week, Sarah Palin held a rally in The Villages on Saturday, after a day playing tourist and raising money in Orlando.
In addition to the disparging comments about Palin “playing tourist and raising money,” the greatest error in the report is that the rally is this afternoon! Thus, the article falsely implies the rally took place and was covered. Whether intentional or not, this paragraph obviously could dissuade people from attending. It won’t stop me and my Ivy League diploma from going. I absolutely love Sarah Palin!!!
#2 Exactly. Both are immigrants’ sons – yet Obama’s life has been one of trying to be other than himself, above his own white upbringing. He is “alter” because that is what he chose to be. Alterity is his very essence, which is why he is permanently on a mission of personal discovery (and willing to put America through this journey).
I honestly don’t know when the MSM is going to wake up and realize that the more they talk about race when race isn’t even on the radar of Amercans’ minds in this election, the more they themselves perpetuate a backlash that wasn’t even out there. I wish they would take a trip to middle America and really ask us why we don’t like Obama without the pre-conceived notions that it has to be because of race. Just keep on insulting us is what I say.
What is really ironic is that Obama could have helped himself tremendously if, when the first stirrings of race in the media appeared, he had said “you know what? American people are smarter than that..let’s not insult them”. But no. This is his MO…his secret weapon…and it’s being used exactly as he planned it.
Spot on!
And let’s bring out a little more the implication of the “bittergate” remark Jennifer cites. It works both ways. It not only shows Obama as someone apart from those of his fellow Americans he was talking about so condescendingly, it also portrays those Americans as “other” from the point of view of the standard of where “normal” is Obama and those who think like him. Take the appalling attacks on Gov. Palin as a concrete example. Haven’t Obama and his supporters portrayed her as about as “other” as someone could possibly be who is not actually from another planet? And there has not been anything subtle about how they have done that. It hasn’t involve the use of highly coded words or sly implications or even wink-wink-nudge-nudge. It has been a campaign of overt, heavy-handed insult and denigration, with the aim of making her look as alien, other, and different as possible from “normal” people.
The Left and, as night follows day, much of the media suffer from a form of Racial Torette’s Syndrome. They simply CANNOT refrain from accusing Americans of racism anymore than a doctrinaire Marxist can refrain from bringing up “exploitation of the workers” in any context. The predictable response of raising the leg when the patella is tapped with a rubber hammer, aka the knee jerk, is sober and deliberate voluntarism by comparison.
There has been a redefinition of bigotry. It used to be prejudice of any kind against a group; now racism is the only category. Anti-Christian, anti-rural, anti-Southern, anti-American prejudice is OK.
The Democrats already tried a white candidate with Obama’s basic world view. That was Kerry, who lost soundly last time—so soundly that the democrats didn’t bother mobilizing their army of belligerent lawyers. If Americans still view the world as they did four years ago, Obama would lose strictly for non-racial reasons.
All of politics is based on preferences. Preferences are how we as people discriminate for and against policies we think are right or wrong. Problem is what I think is right may not be what you think is wrong, and no matter how well you argue I may cling to my view as if it were my religion or my gun. Hence you, the erudite, have no alternative except to think me a bigot.
Funny how in politics this basic discrimination has been at work since people began debating issues, but only this year has it been branded as bad. Is it possible to say that Barack Obama cannot possibly be right on every issue and not be accused of bigotry?
Yes, it’s Obama’s fault that chain emails portray him as a sinister Manchurian Muslim.
Jennifer Rubin: still a mendacious idiot!
Re that funny name:
Barack Obama has been complaining since forever that Republicans and other evil people are trying to paint him as an alien creature by pointing to his funny name, doesn’t look like the folks on the currency, and by the way did you notice he’s black.
But who dubbed him “Barack”? Throughout his youth he called himself “Barry”. It was only in college when he began to put on a black identity that he began to want to be called “Barack”.
This is the exact opposite of what most of our politicians have been doing for the past several decades.
It’s “Bill” Clinton, “Jimmy” Carter, “Dick” Armey, “Newt” Gingrich, “Phil” Gramm, “Chuck” Schumer, etc. (Throw in “Teddy” Roosevelt and “Ike” for good measure. The only exception: John Kennedy who, if I recall, made it clear that he did not want to be called “Jack.” “Dick” Nixon was apparently ambivalent.)
That is: modern politicians typically try to reduce the distance between themselves and the hoi polloi by asking to be called by their informal, regular-guy nicknames.
Not Mr. Obama. He began to insist on his exotic moniker in order to emphasize his exoticism and difference – to be “in your face” with it, and daring you to “have a problem” with it.
Love this…
Jennifer you really are pathetically one-sided. Obama is indeed not your average American. Part of his upbringing has been, part certainly has not. It is shame you wrap your bias, well racism I guess in so much twaddle, with just a sneak-peak, of ‘oh-my-god-he’s-got-an-education.’
McCain, as we are aware, does not have much of an education, though one might think to be Pres it might be useful.
Your slight at Obama’s foreignness, at him being liked by foreigners is interesting. After all I’m sure you’ll be happy for the world to continue hating American and its foreign policy – it is after all, them and us, isn’t it?
Then McCain, our average American with his 7 houses and his 13 cars and his fundamental lack of understanding of the so-so sound economy. He is our man on the block isn’t he. That must be why he chose Palin. Because if McCain is the man on the block she brings her wealth of, wealth of, oh yes, of foreign policy experience to the ticket.
Ho-hum…
JGK, I think you’re missing the points:
(1) Obama shouldn’t be complaining about that which he emphasizes, i.e., his otherness.
(2) Republicans haven’t been emphasizing this at all, except on policy matters.
You’re right about the weird “Barack is a Muslim” attack; I’ve actually met someone who believed that, and very much disabused them of it.
BTW, there’s no doubt that race, one form of “otherness” (to use the weird but popular construction of post-modern thought), will be a negative factor in some voters’ minds, which is sad and, I think, shameful. However, Obama’s race will also be a positive factor in many voters’ minds, and if I had to guess, it will be _much_ more a positive than a negative for him, overall. (A white male Obama named “John Smith” wouldn’t have made it to the primaries, let alone win them. ) Obama is, amongst other things, a politically correct voter’s dream candidate: black, intelligent, radically progressive in background, but moderate in manner, with an exceptionally smooth voice applied to speeches that appeal greatly to many across the political spectrum (particularly if they don’t know his political/ideological background).
Somehow, I’m not waiting for the media to pursue this angle. (Their question: Who, what, where, when, why will this story help Obama?
[Actually, I did see a CNN anchor get kind of angry will Willie Brown when he penned an article saying Palin was a formidable phenom, frustratedly asking him something like "What are you trying to accomplish in writing this stuff?" Mr. Brown bemusedly slowly explained to her that he thought it was his duty qua columnist to tell the truth as he sees it. Highly amusing--if it the trend it illustrated weren't so damaging to the Republic [not, alas, just the Republicans.] )
JGK says…”Then McCain, our average American with his 7 houses and his 13 cars…….”
This is exactly the kind of person I want handling the economy. I own just one house and 3 cars. John Mc must know more about the economy than the average American.
Jeez! Why are you leftists afraid of success? Why, why, why?
BTW, one could also saying that attacking his somewhat cult-like celebrity is an attack on his otherness, I suppose; but this is a sort of otherness that O has very much cultivated, even as he’s also on occasion lightly mocked it himself. Of course, neither celebrity not anti-celebrity are rational arguments, so ideally neither would affect the voters. But in reality, both do.
It cuts both ways. If Obama were white & named “Jim Smith”, he’d have never been nominated with an identical political resume. Period.
Yeah, those racists in Ohio who voted against JFKerry will certainly rear their ugly heads again.
Come to think of it, we’ve already had a “black” president Clinton, who, by the way, is a racist in this season. Go figure.
Gore lost because of those stupid Democratic voters couldn’t figure out butterfly ballots. Kerry lost because he was “swiftboated”. Obama lost because of racism. Nothing to do with their “better-than-thou”, we know better how to use your money attitude.
I vote for whoever promises a tax cut. What politicians want are money and power, their priority is to enrich self and family, friends and cronies. They may talk a good talk about what they’ll do for you and me around election time. But it’s entirely your fault if you are stupid enough to believe their campaign promises.
The reason Obama won the nomination was those who showed up for caucuses were afraid of being branded racist, so sided with Obama. When voters voted behind close doors, they voted Hillary. All these talks about racism is to intimidate us to vote Obama, regardless of his non-existent abilities. He even made a mess out of his community organizing job. His summer European tour was another try to intimidate us to vote for him, otherwise we, Americans, will be looked down by the Europeans. The funny thing is all those millions spent for the European photo-ops were flushed down the drain by McCain’s Paris Hilton celebrity ad. McCain should invite Paris to his inauguration ball.
The DemLib attacks on Contentions daily grow more frequent in number and more juvenile, intemperate, and angry. Surely this is a good omen. When the opposition continues to craft excuses for a defeat six weeks in advance of the election, my spirits are buoyed.They continue to lead in the polls yet they grow wobbly. Pathetic.
Mr.Mr. Obama, to me, shows nothing of the common man. While I dislike his policies, even as he moves toward the center evermore so each week, I really and truly dislike his lack of follow through. When I hear his promises, I remember that two years ago he promised to help his step-grandmother in Kenya, who lives in poverty without running water and electricity, and the village. Nothing has been done according to a story in a British paper (certainly not in an American one). He has yet to help his destitute half brother either. For a man with a family income of over 4 million dollars and one who gave, if I remember correctly, $26,000 to his church lead by the anti-American, racist pastor, his lack of honor is disgraceful.