How did Barack Obama end up running against Alan Keyes--who did not even reside in Illinois--for the U.S. Senate?
It was one of those left wing smears/distractions (you know--the kind that Barack Obama says should not distract us from the "real issues"). Instead of reporting on the more significant hate speech of Jeremiah Wright, the left wing (in the distant past it used to be known as a "conservative" newspaper, before journalists ALL became leftists) Chicago Triubune, along with leftist Democrats supporting Barack Obama, set out to DESTROY the candidacy of the Republican candidate: Jeri Ryan's husband.
No, I don't remember his name, and I would rather make this point than look it up. Must it not be HELL to go through life being remembered as Jeri Ryan's husband (Jeri Ryan was/is the Star Trek Voyager hottie), partially because of Jeri Ryan herself. I digress.
As I said, leftist media and leftists--acting for Barack Obama without him having to lift a finger--sought sought information about the divorce/family law litigation beween Jeri Ryan and her husband. My memory is that they went to court to get documents from the court proceedings for the obvious purpose of SMEARING Mr. Ryan.
What did they find? They found that Jeri Ryan had alleged, apparently for purposes of gaining an advantage in the family law proceedings (I THINK especially dealing with child custody matters, allthough I don't have the details firmly in my mind), that her husband had taken her to a "sex club", and asked her to have public sex. Note that, by the standards of Governor Patterson and Eliot Spitzer, Mr. Ryan was like Mother Theresa. He wanted to have public sex, ALLEGEDLY, but WITH HIS OWN WIFE.
The Chicago Tribune (which name will forever live in the journalistic Hall of Shame, right with the Associated Press) made a big deal out of these documents, as did the rest of the leftist media (and leftists) in Illinois. The Republican Party cracked under the pressure. In another act that will live in infamy, the Republican Party of Illinois pressured Mr. Ryan to withdraw from the race, and invited a totally unprepared (sort of like Obama himself, in this Presidential race) Alan Keyes to come in and run against Barack Obama. Alan Keyes proceeded to ruin his formerly good reputation among conservatives by ageeing to this farce, and then running a truly terrible campaign.
What should happen to BOTH the Chicago Tribune and the Republican Party of Illinois? Remember what the Romans did to Carthage? Right. They completely destroyed the place, and SALTED THE EARTH. That is exactly what should happen to the Chicago Tribune (which, remember, was ignoring the story of Barack Obama and Jermiah Wright--Wright had already made his post-9/11 hate America speech). We need to destroy them both, root and branch, and SALT THE EARTH. To Republicans in Illinois: Form a new conservative party--I have NO sympathy for you and was GLAD when Dennis Hastert lost in Illinois. I assure you. I am not being too harsh in this. This was the beginning of the end of my identification with myself as a Republican (okay, George Bush 41 might claim that honor, but this was what really started me well down the road to truly despising most of the Republican Party).
What does this have to do with Governor Patterson of New York (another African-American)? Well, you will be surprised to learn--unless you read this blog regularly--that I agree with Barack Obama that we have been too consumed with destroying opposition political candidates with irrelevant distractions. Barack Obama, of course, has never shown any concern with this in the past, and benefitted from this very kind of thing as he watched his allies destroy Mr. Ryan with a totally irrelevant distraction. My difference with Obama, aside fromt he hypocrisy, is that I don't regard one's pastor of 20 years as being a promoter of hate speech as an irrelevant thing on the level of Mr. Ryan's "sins", or Governor Patterson's "sins".
Yes, there is a certain irony in Governor Patterson having to confess the sordid details because of Eliot Spitzer's qlalitatively different behavior. But I would rather that Governor Patterson have NOT felt the need to share this sordid stuff with me. I don't care, and I do think it is irrelevant. I am perfectly aware of WHY Governor Patterson felt the need to "bare his soul" to the public (none of their business). He could not afford for the "news" to come out as if he were hiding it--not after Spitzer.
It has been, and remains, one of my crusades that we have to get past this idea of trying to destroy political candidates with personal "sins and smears--something which is virtually the only way the leftist media--and leftists in general--know how to conduct an election. I remain convinced that the leftist medi is the primary agency of the "politics of personal destruction" in this country. Look at poor Mr. Ryan. And wimpy Republicans have been willing to refuse to stand up for themselves.
What is happening to me? Well, if I did not know beter, and I am not sure I do, I would think that DEMOCRATS are out to specifically discredit me. I was willing to give Governor Spitzer the benefit of the doubt on mere sexual sins with a prostitute in the past. But he totally pushed the envelope, to the point that the envelope burst.
You just CAN'T, as a SERVING GOVERNOR, become a client of a CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE (prostitution ring) that you are obligated to prosecute (and which he had prosecuted as Attorney General). Spitzer was obligated to REPORT these people. He was familiar with the evils of this type of organized crime operation ("organized" in and of itself, and often connected with bigger organized crime operations). I WANTED to stand up for Spitzer. He just made it impossible.
Then came Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. I did defend Barack Obama on this one as long as I could. I do NOT think that it is appropriate to parse the sermons and actions of every candidate's PASTOR in this country to try to find an isolated, questionable statement or two. I was a little disturbed by the "black value system", and obvious "black liberation theology" of Obama's church--reflected in the church's endorsement of Lewis Farrakhan. But I still thought the downside of going into the details of a candidate's CHURCH, like the leftist media tried to deisgracefully do with the Mormon Church--remember the Associated Press, as to which the earth should not only be salted, but the very name be made taboo for all eternity, and that story about Mitt Romney's GREAT GRANDFATHER being a polygamist--I still thought the downside of this kind of stuff outweighed the disturbing aspects of the "black value system" of Obama's church. I STILL think that Sean Hannity has a cable TV mind, and that Obama's friendship with Weather Underground bomber William Ayers does NOT say much about Obama's qualifications to be President. This "guilt by vague association" stuff, and by revelations of person "sins", has to STOP.
Jeremiah Wright and Obama undermined me yet again, right after Eliot Spitzer undermined me. This is QUALITATIVELY different. This is not like Jeremiah Wright throwing in an expletive or two, or saying "white oppressors" a time or two. The man SPEWED HATE--FALSE HATE. For me the allegations tthat white people invented the HIV viruse for black genocide, and imported and pushed narcotics such as crack cocaine to destory blacks were just too much. I can see no distinction between this and a white pastor talking about black men being out to "despoil" white women (pick your own Ku Klux Klan outrage). I could not respect a white politician who stayed in a church like that for 20 years. I would not regard such a poliltician as fit to be President. I do not regard Barack Obama as fit to be President.
But this has hurt me. It has hurt me because I know that the left is going to regard this a signal to be even more vicious in the "politics of personal destruction". The left is going to use this as an excuse to take out after conservatives and Republicans with a viciousness beyond what even they have shown in the past.
Note that Obama's speech could be regarded as a veiled threat on this point. He said that IF people kept harping on his relationship with an anti-American, racist church, that elections would--in the future--be all about such "distractions" (as if the left were not alreadly trying to make that so, rather than "fairly" debate actual issues).
Why do I call this a "veiled threat" (maybe not so "veiled"). Don't I think people like Sean Hannity, and a lot of others, are perfectly willing to HYPE pretty irrelevant SMEARS against DEmocrats? Sure I do.
The difference is that leftists control most of the media. That is why President Bush's National Guard service was a "legitimate" issue, while John Kerry's Vietnam service was not (even though there was no fundamental difference between the smears). That is why the New York Times put that vague eitght year old innuendo about McCani and a female lobbyist on the FRONT PAGE. That is why all a Democratic Congressman has to do to hype an "investigation" is alert the press (I STiLL want to see Obama asked whether these constant "investigations" are "bringing us together"). The media is willing to tak ethe leftist/Democratic ball and run with it. They tried to BURY the Jeremiah Wright story, but the tapes were too much. Republicans cannot get away with true smears--however hard they try (the John Kerry/Swift Boat smear is overrated as a factor, and Kerry pretty much invited it by trying to make his Vietnam service the main reason you should vote for him as a non-leftist).
I am willing to put it bluntly: The mainstream media is ANXIOUS to SMEAR Republicans. They don't even see the very same things as smears and "guilt by association" that they label such when urged against them. In fact, the mainstream media can't even see real issues, like the Jeremiah Wright tapes, until they are FORCED to addressu such issues. Even them, the mainstream media only addresses the "damage control", and not the original story. They are almost NEVER going to break the original story in the first place. Consider the Chicago Tribune, which made a major story out of the totallyirrelevant Jeri Ryan matter, but never thougfht Jeremiah WRight was worth a story.
Nope. Repubicans can expect the mainstream media to become even more virulent in the "poltics of personal destruction" against Republicans than they already are. The mainstream media can be expected to be even more willing to carry the water for leftist smear merchants (including those screaming "racism"), so that Democrat politicians do not have to (they juist have to call up their friendly, neighborhood journalist).
Is my "crusade" against the "politics of personal destruction" dead before it even got anywhere? Maybe. Too bad. I blame it on Democrats--specifically Eliot Spitzer and Jeremiah Wright. They have given "distractive" smears a good name by crossing a qualitiative line.
Governor Patterson is an early "victim" of this mentality.
Free advice to ALL politicians (or prospective politicians), and their wives: Be as above reproach as Caesar's wife, even if you consider yourself Caesar (certainly applied to Spitzer).
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