Letters to the Editor
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In defence of epistemology
Just to quibble...
What's so out there about a section in a bookstore devoted to 'Epistemology'? It's a venerable branch of philosophy starting with Plato and continuing to the present day. It's a bit esoteric, perhaps, but that hardly earns it a flippant dismissal!
(and besides, I spent several years of my younger life trying to figure out what the hell it was all about :-)
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Hold it a second
"Khalidi is a proponent of a Palestinian state, and has represented Palestine at international conferences, but he also recognizes Israel's right to exist."
So can someone explain to me why this is controversial -- I mean, it is even Bush administration policy, known as the two state solution. I though the EU, US and broad swathes of the world backed this. Why is Kalidi a problem for backing a policy that even the most pro-Israel administration in decades promotes as its solution?
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Geez, this guy has hated Obama since 2000
http://www.chicagoreader.com/obama/000317/
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And another shill for Clinton
So I really don't see what's this passive-aggressive writeup about BO at the U of C is meant to accomplish. I mean dragging Khalidi into that??? Boohoo. Barack had coffee with a known Palestinian scholar (now a Prof. at Columbia)? Is that it? Is that all you've got? And do we REALLY want to get into this game of rating past and present associates and acquaintances of the candidates? Do we REALLY want to get into Bill's international man of mystery act? How's facilitating a Uranium deal with Kazakhstan's dictator (of Borat fame), for a 100 Millions donation to the Clinton foundation?
Salon is turning into the a hysterical Murdoch outlet (much like Hillary's campaign). Go straight to Rupert next time you need a check to cover your staggering losses.
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Obama Excused Wright Comments Before Saying He Never Heard of Them.
It's fascinating to watch the cable news talking heads try to digest this one.
After virtually equating Geraldine Ferraro's clumsy points on race with hate crimes, they are now stumbling to excuse Pastor Wright and Obama, terming them innocuous.
The "comments are taken out of context" I heard CNN's Jeffrey Toobin say this afternoon. Exactly what context makes, "The government created the HIV virus to kill blacks," and "America's bombing of Hiroshima" excuses the 9/11 terrorsit attacks, acceptable? And did the CNN talking head mean that his own network took them out of context? If only Toobin were so candid.
I haven't heard such hate-filed, deluded racist diatribes since Lester Maddox. Even Malcolm X came to abandon this style of rhetoric.
The most frightening part of the video (particularly the longer versions on YouTube, v.s. the excerpted ones on ABC and Fox) is to see the GenY types chanting and screaming in affirmation of Wright's hate speech. Don't dismiss this as the harmless rantings of an old eccentric. His pulpit reaches 8,000 parishoners.
As for Obama, he made up excuses for Wright's racist rants, before he said he had never heard about the comments. Backwards, much?
Continuing to believe in Obama now includes believing that he went to that church for about 25 years without ever witnessing or even hearing that Wright was making these comments.
If you buy that, I've got some Bear Stearns stock to sell you.
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His Iraq War stand was hardly only to his Hyde Park constituency
"When Obama spoke against the Iraq war in 2002, it was hardly a gutsy stand. (He didn't have to take a stand at all, since the Illinois General Assembly can't declare war on foreign countries.)"
I believe if you bothered to check, that Barack spoke out against the war during his US senate campaign. I think if you check, his potential constituency at that time was the entire state of Illinois. That cheap, false shot doesn't speak well for your credibility.
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Smear Season
Forget Obama's minister. Just like the Men In Black joke come to life — that supermarket tabloids are reliable tip sheets — it looks as if we’re about to be hit with "news" of a Democratic sex scandal.
As far as the corporate media are concerned, is there another kind? Larry Craig: still in office. David Vitter: still in office. And Strom Thurmond — the segregationist who fathered a daughter on his black maid — look how long he lasted!
Self-righteous Republicans (is there another kind?) who fool around in private always have a good laugh at how Democrats let the media tie them up in knots. Gary Condit's reputation was destroyed by media speculation that he had something to do with the death of Chandra Levy. But when Lori Klausutis was found dead in Joe Scarborough’s Florida office, nobody dared to ask a question. Both men, no doubt, were innocent of wrong-doing, but how differently they were treated. Today, Scarborough has his own show on MSNBC.
The Washington-New York elite media who have been promoting Obama in order to bring down Hillary are now trying to tar her with Elliott Spitzer’s sexual shenanigans. But what will the Hillary haters say when the next big scandal breaks? It's percolating on The Internets and after being plastered all over the "tip sheets" looks as if the authors are getting ready to dump it on the open market.
Those stirring the pot for Obama should realize that the sauce they prepare for the goose may end up basting the gander. It won’t matter whether the charges are prima-facie absurd. The damage to the Democrats will have been done. Again.
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Cheap shots at Obama about his being against the war in Iraq...
...aren't anything compared to the real shots flying around the heads of all the American soldiers she dispatched to Iraq to seize Iraq's imaginary weapons of mass destruction. Hell, Hillary is a one woman weapon of mass destruction. Her disservice to this country has proved it pretty well.
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Getting to know you
The big picture here is that the electorate doesn't know Obama's real influences. It doesn't matter what label one puts on a particular part of Chicago -- what matters is whose backs Obama stepped on to get where he is. We already know whose Hillary Clinton used.
Politics is leap frog, and what particular frogs Obama chose in the past matter now and in the future because history teaches us that the same frogs will continue to be fed in a subsequent presidency. Even if he wouldn't seek to fulfill the agendas of his previous helpers, or if he outright tries to squash them, as KateTex suggests, the nature of the bridged backs gives us a better estimate of who Obama will contend with in the future than his nebulous hopeful speeches do. For example, are there Republican law makers that he owes favors to? He tells us he'll reach across the aisle, but Pres. Bush said the same thing. There is no reason for Obama to follow through with such a promise; he asks us to take it on faith.
Obama's speeches have been Rorschah tests for many -- something they can pin all their dreams on without "Clintonian cynicism" (which is, by the way, what many others think is called for in this Republicaned economy). Some even believe that Obama will deliver their wishes like a genie, even if each supporter has a contradictory wish. I have talked with real people who would lose their jobs if the plans outlined on Obama's Web site were enacted, and they have told me that because Obama "is a smart guy," they (individual supporters) will be able to get him to change his mind later!
To believe that a politician does not act in his own self-interest is to be deluded. We need to at last confront the path that Obama's self-interest has taken in the past so we have a better idea of where it will take him in the future, with or without all the rest of us. We can't change the mind of someone whose motivation is truly unknown.