BARACK OBAMA ARCHIVES

LETTER TO A REPUBLICAN WHO'S SCARED OF OBAMA
You say you're scared of Obama, and I understand why.  The Republican Party and it’s spokespersons at Fox and talk radio are masters at scare tactics.  They've been scaring people for years, and they are really good at it.

Obama has been portrayed as un-American, un-patriotic, a pal of terrorists, a socialist, a communist, but they have not told you one single major thing that John McCain will do differently from the disastrous policies of George W. Bush.  I don’t have time to deal with each of the smears, but just one.  Obama’s number one economic advisor is Warren Buffet.  Do you think Buffet is a socialist or a communist?

In Georgia, Saxby Chambliss, the current Republican Senator, got to be Senator by portraying Max Cleland, the previous incumbent Senator, who had lost both legs and both arms in Viet Nam, as unpatriotic.  And Chambliss has never served in the military!   And in  the current campaign, he is running ads that claim his opponent killed children because a death occurred in a large state program when he was a state government official.  

In NC, Republican Senator Dole is running an ad that portrays her opponent—who is a devout church member and Sunday School teacher—as saying, with an actor’s voice that sounds like her opponent’s, “There is no God!”  

On and on it goes, guided by the philosophy of Karl Rove.  The majority of Americans, including me, are sick to death of it. 

But these scare tactics work with a lot of people.  As Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all of the time.

It is really bad for this country.  Democrats are just as patriotic as Republicans, liberals are just as patriotic as conservatives.  But one would never know this by listening to Hannity or O’Reilly or Rush or Palin or the other hatemongers. 

When I was in college years ago there were several attacks on single working women by a mysterious stalker.  Soon afterwards a company came to town selling portable alarms that women could carry in their purses.  Big full-page ads were run in the newspaper!  The company did a brisk business until the police discovered that the company had hired a low-life criminal to stalk the women in order to scare people—and sell their product. 

Scare tactics sell product, until the scaremongers are caught.
--Will C. Justice

HOW TO ANSWER THE CHARGE THAT OBAMA HAS ASSOCIATED WITH BAD PEOPLE. 

One favorite tactic of amateur debaters is to try to destroy an opponent by using the logical fallacy of guilt by association.  (It never works against a skillful debater.)

The argument is familiar.  An opponent is a bad person because the opponent associates with individuals who are bad. 

This argument does not even have face validity.  We all have friends who hold beliefs that we don't hold.  Many of us have friends or relatives who do bad things, but we remain friends with them because we love them.  And some of us are members of churches or temples whose leaders hold beliefs that we do not accept, but we continue to attend because we like the people who attend. 

The critical question to ask whenever "associations" are brought into the argument is NOT  Did Obama ever associate with terrorists?  but Has Obama ever been a terrorist himself?

John McCain should never try to use this tactic, because he has had some bad associations, too.   After all, John McCain was a friend of Charles H. Keating, Jr. who contributed to McCain's campaigns.  Keating eventually served jail time for his part in a Savings & Loan scandal that defrauded 23,000 investors, and McCain was officially reprimanded for his unwise association with Keating. --Will C. Justice

"FAIR AND BALANCED" COMPARISONS
  * If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents,

 you're "exotic, different."

 * Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers,  a quintessential

 American story.

 * If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic

 Muslim.

 * Name your kids Willow, Trig, Track: you're a maverick.

***Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

 * Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, and

 you're well grounded.

 * If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer,

 become the first black President of the Harvard Law

 Review, create a voter registration drive that registers

 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law

 professor at the University of Chicago,  spend 8 years as

 a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000

 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and

 Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United

 States Senate representing a state of  13 million people

 while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign

 Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's

 Affairs committees: you don't have any real leadership

 experience.

 * If your total resume is: local weather girl,  4 years on

 the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with

 less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a

 state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to

 become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years

 while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant

 churches, you're not a real Christian.

 * If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress,

 and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the

 next month, you're a Christian.

 * If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education,

 including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding

 the fiber of society.

 * If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence

 only, with no other option in sex education in your

 state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends

 up pregnant, you're very responsible.

 * If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a

position in a prestigious law firm to work for the

 betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up

 to raise a family, your family's values don't represent

 America's.

 * If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with

 at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who

 didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member

 of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the

 USA, your family is extremely admirable.

THE TRUTH ABOUT BARACK OBAMA
There are many things people do not know about BARACK OBAMA.  It is ever American's duty to read this message and pass it along to all of their friends and loved ones.

Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times.   Even in the shower.

Barack Obama says the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE every time he sees an American flag.  He also ends every sentence by saying "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL" 

Every weekend, Barack and Michelle take their daughters HUNTING.

Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN.   He has one HAND over his HEART at all times.  He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It's upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.

There's only one artist on Barack Obama's iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.

Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

Barack Obama's new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.

Barack Obama's skin is the color of AMERICAN SOIL.

Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.

Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.

"Sen. Barack Obama recently expressed bewilderment at the failure of Sen. John McCain to be present in the Senate and cast a vote on the new GI bill (S22), strongly backed by major military veterans organizations but opposed by McCain and the Bush administration. 
Although S22 passed by an overwhelming majority, McCain decided to blast Obama for questioning McCain's 'affection, respect and devotion to veterans' and instead highlighted that Obama did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country "in uniform."
While pointing out that fact, McCain failed to note that 71 percent of the present Senate members and 77 percent of the present House of Representatives members have not served our country 'in uniform.' 
Even more amazing is that, of the current slate of candidates for McCain's vice president (former governors Huckabee and Romney, current governors Crist, Pawlenty and Jindal, plus Secretary of State Rice), none has served a day of active-duty military service "in uniform."  Yet another case of 'don't-do-as-I do, do-as-I-say-do' McCain 'straight talk' in action."
--Wade J. Williams

IRVING KRISTOL ON BARACK OBAMA
In case you don't recognize the name, Irving Kristol is a fierce neoconservative, an advocate of the Iraq war who now beats the drums for a military strike against Iran.  In other, words, a warmonger. 
He writes occasional articles for the New York Times.
In a recent piece, Kristol attacked Obama's commencement speech at Wesleyan University because of "what Obama left out."   We quote:  "At an elite Northeastern college campus, Obama obviously felt no need to...remind students of a different kind of public service--one that entails more risks than community organizing." 
Kristol faults Obama for omitting military service from his list of public service careers.
That is because Obama described the kind of public service that he himself had done, and now does as an elected representative of the people.  Had Obama mentioned military service, he would have been slimed as a hypocrite, as someone who advocates doing what he himself has not done.

Here is a quote from the Irving Kristol: "Ever since I can remember, I've been a neo-something: a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neo-liberal, a neo-conservative; in religion a neo-orthodox even while I was a neo-Trotskyist and a neo-Marxist. I'm going to end up a neo- that's all, neo dash nothing."
Talkback: It would seem that Kristol can't make up his mind what he is. 
Also, notice how Kristol found a way to work in code words from the Republican playbook to smear Obama: "elite" and "military service."