February 23, 2008

by Bill Levinson

A growing number of bloggers such as Richard Cohen, Brigitte Gabriel, Sharon Hughes, Charles Krauthammer, Kenneth Blackwell, Naomi Ragen, Debbie Schlussel, Ed Lasky, and William Levinson are pointing out Barack Obama’s numerous connections to unsavory individuals and organizations that espouse and promote hatred of Jews, Catholics, white people, Israel, and/or the United States.

On February 8, Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council allowed himself to make the following noises about this rapidly widening campaign to expose Obama for his choice of friends i.e., Jew-haters, racists, Israel-bashers, anti-Catholic bigots, and America-haters.

It is time all of us— organizations and individuals— take the responsibility for outing and yes, even shaming, the purveyors of sinat chinam in our community — to protect our values and to protect our community’s genuine political interests. —Ira N. Forman is executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

That is what Ira Forman said, but the following picture is what he means.

I identified myself to NJDC as one of the leaders of efforts to expose Barack Obama for cavorting openly with vicious anti-Semites, racists, and/or hate organizations like Al Sharpton, the National Action Network, Jeremiah Wright, and MoveOn.org, and I am still waiting for NJDC to even try to “out and shame” me.

As stated by James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans,

“Your tongue is loud in the village, but in battle it is still. None of my young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war-post–none of them so lightly on the Yengeese. The enemy know the shape of your back, but they have never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called on you to come, and as often did you forget to answer.”

The National “Jewish” Democratic Council is not going to out or shame anybody for speaking truths that need to be spoken. Imagine a political version of Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or Falstaff from King Henry IV, Part I. I will not, however, compare NJDC with George MadDonald Frazier’s incarnation of Harry Flashman, the bully from Tom Brown’s School Days, because Flashman would actually fight when backed into a corner.

I have called NJDC at least three times to back up its threat to out and shame me, and as often, it forget or failed to do so. NJDC is now going to take my assessment because it fears a face-to-face confrontation in front of cameras, microphones, or other media. An organization with such a long record of misrepresenting (e.g. about the “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” computer game), whitewashing anti-Semitism, and promoting hatred of Christians for political gain knows its statements are indefensible.

Having dismissed it for what it is, I will now go into the specifics against Barack Obama.

Bill Levinson:
We do not, to the best of our knowledge, know of any racist or anti-Semitic statements that Obama has made himself. He either does not understand or just doesn’t care, however, that his promotion and solicitation of bigots empowers and enables their bigotry against Jews, white people in general, and/or Catholics.

(1) Obama belongs to a church whose pastor said that “white America” got its “wake up call” after 9/11, and that Israel occupies Palestinian land illegally. Jeremiah Wright also compared the United States to Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

The same church has a “non-negotiable commitment to Africa.” Don’t most Christian churches have non-negotiable commitments to the teachings of Jesus, along with the equality of all human beings regardless of race or ethnicity? Obama’s church also gave an award to the vicious anti-Semite and racist Louis Farrakhan, although it must be said that Obama distanced himself from Farrakhan.

(2) Obama endorsed Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, both of which have a long track record of promoting hatred of white people and especially Jews.

(3) Obama solicited and accepted the support of MoveOn.org. MoveOn’s now-disgraced Action Forum served as a platform for hate speech against Jews, Catholics, Israel, and Evangelical Christians, along with 9/11 conspiracy theories that blamed Jews and/or the U.S. Government for the terrorists’ actions. Many Action Forum entries added that Israel has no right to exist. An official MoveOn.org bulletin blamed Israel for Palestinian violence while citing references like the Electronic Intifada.

Naomi Ragen
Naomi Ragen dismisses the “smear” and makes frontal attack on Obama

The Jews who are considering voting for Obama (or Clinton) should be doing a lot more research. Even if they don’t care if Israel is wiped off the map, do you really want a man whose Church gives out awards to people like Louis Farrakhan? Do you want a man whose volunteers sit under Che Guevara posters (according to the picture shown on KRIV-TV iin Texas)?

How many times can a voter turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?

If I’ve made a mistake, please debunk me. Until then, I guess I’ll have to believe what I see. Just a reminder: I am a U.S. citizen who pays taxes and I have every right to express my opinion on candidates running in an election in which I plan to vote.I don’t mind telling you: It won’t be for Barack Obama.

Don’t worry, Naomi, NJDC has burrowed so deeply into the hole that it just pulled in after it that it won’t come out until Groundhog Day in 2009, much less by Election Day in 2008, to say a word against you. As for the Che Guevara picture, here is a screenshot.

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs
Obama’s Pastor is a Total Hater

Obama’s Pastor sounds more like a hate spewing imam. I am shocked this hasn’t gotten real media play (oh yeah, it’s Obama.) The more you peel back the layers of the Obama onion, the more rotten it is at its core.

[Per Tucker Carlson, quoting Jeremiah Wright]: Nine-eleven, he [Wright] says: “White America got their wake-up call after 9-11. White America and the Western world came to realize people of color had not gone away, faded in the woodwork, or just disappeared as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” So 9-11 was payback for white racism. I mean, it goes on, and I will read more.

Right, Jeremiah, “white America got its wake-up call on 9/11.” Maybe your Caucasian counterparts (as in KKK) think the Negroes in New Orleans got their wake-up call during Hurricane Katrina, although “Negroes” isn’t exactly the word they use. Actually, it was some cheap televangelist (i.e. one of Barack Obama’s “religious” counterparts) who said New Orleans got want it “deserved” for welcoming a gay pride event. We do not find the gay lifestyle particularly attractive, but what consenting adults do in private is none of our business or society’s business, and only Islamic supremacists think people deserve to die because of their sexual orientation. Anyone who agrees with those Islamic supremacists, or is glad that people of a particular skin color were murdered by terrorists, is more than welcome to get out of our country.

Richard Cohen
Obama’s Farrakhan Test

Barack Obama is a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama’s spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright’s daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said “truly epitomized greatness.” That man is Louis Farrakhan.

Maybe for Wright and some others, Farrakhan “epitomized greatness.” For most Americans, though, Farrakhan epitomizes racism, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism. Over the years, he has compiled an awesome record of offensive statements, even denigrating the Holocaust by falsely attributing it to Jewish cooperation with Hitler — “They helped him get the Third Reich on the road.” His history is a rancid stew of lies.

Sharon Hughes
Barack Obama’s Very Controversial Pastor

[Jeremiah] Wright, who performed Obama’s marriage and baptized his daughters, is also his close spiritual advisor. Barack’s 2004 keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention was based on a sermon by Wright called “Audacity to Hope,” which also inspired Barack’s book, “The Audacity of Hope.”

In the November-December 2007 issue of Trumpet, their church’s publication, Rev. Wright praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has described whites as “blue-eyed devils” and Jews as “bloodsuckers.” In the magazine Wright wrote, “He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest…and will be remembered as one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African-American religious experience. His integrity and honesty have secured him a place in history as one of the nation’s most powerful critics…and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose.”

…Recently Obama distanced himself from Farrakhan, but not from his pastor or his praise for Farrakhan. Why not?

For the record, it was Farrakhan who said:

“They call (Hezbollah) terrorists, I call them freedom fighters. No one asks why they would do such a thing. Why would they do such a thing? What has driven them to this point? That’s what the UN, the U.S. and Europe doesn’t want to deal with because the Zionists have control in England, in Europe, in the United States and around the world.”

“The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years.”

“Hitler was a very great man. He wasn’t great for me as a Black man but he was a great German and he rose Germany up from the ashes of her defeat by the united force of all of Europe and America after the first World War.”

“Now, that nation of Israel, never has had any peace in forty years and she will never have any peace because there can never be any peace structured on injustice, thievery, lying and deceit and using the name of God to shield your dirty religion [Judaism] under His holy and righteous name.”

“Do you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET?… Everything that we built, they have. The mind of Satan now is running the record industry, movie industry and television. And they make us look like we’re the murderers; we look like we’re the gangsters, but we’re punk stuff.”

“This Koran says that the Jews have altered the word of God out of its place. They did not want the masters of the people to know what Jesus really said, what Moses really said, because then you wouldn’t have a yardstick to measure their deviations.”

Charles Krauthammer
Obama is Burt Lancaster in a remake of “The Rainmaker” or “Elmer Gantry”

Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He’s going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can’t possibly redeem. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Promises to transcend the conundrums of entitlement reform that require real and painful trade-offs and that have eluded solution for a generation. Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war – with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.

Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude.

We think this is what Mr. Krauthammer means, and we agree.

Brigitte Gabriel
Speaker at federation event slammed for calling Obama an ‘anti-Semite’

“Barack Obama is an anti-Semite,” said Gabriel, who founded the nonprofit organization American Congress for Truth following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “No Jews should support him. Jews should vote for Hillary Clinton.”

I don’t agree with the latter statement because Clinton also promoted Al Sharpton while backing MoveOn.org’s insult to General David Petraeus, and I will vote for McCain in November. However, Aesop was right about birds of a feather flocking together. Obama surrounds himself with so many anti-Semites, racists, and other bigots that it is difficult not to take him for one himself.

Ed Lasky, the editor of The American Thinker
Barack Obama and Israel

The ascent of Barack Obama from state senator in Illinois to a leading contender for the Presidential nomination in the span of just a few years is remarkable. Especially in light of a noticeably unremarkable record — a near-blank slate of few accomplishments and numerous missed votes.

However, in one area of foreign policy that concerns millions of Americans, he does have a record and it is a particularly troubling one. For all supporters of the America-Israel relationship there is enough information beyond the glare of the klieg lights to give one pause. In contrast to his canned speeches filled with “poetry” and uplifting aphorisms and delivered in a commanding way, behind the campaign façade lies a disquieting pattern of behavior.

One seemingly consistent theme running throughout Barack Obama’s career is his comfort with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates.

Kenneth Blackwell, NY Sun
Beyond Obama’s Beauty

Start with national security, since the president’s most important duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong Il, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists — something no president has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk.

…How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.

Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, “All praise and glory to God!” but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have “hijacked” — hijacked — Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois, he refused to vote against a statewide ban — ban — on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood, and San Francisco values, not Middle America values.

Obama is not merely pro-partial birth abortion, he is pro-live birth abortion as shown by his central role in derailing Illinois’ Born Alive Infants Protection Act–and even NARAL Pro-Choice America did not oppose the Federal version. We suspect both from context and Obama’s record that “he refused to vote against a statewide ban — ban — on all handguns in the state” is a misstatement, and that Obama supported the handgun ban.

Debbie Schlussel
Obama’s Nation of Islam Staffers, Edward Said & “Inflexible Jews” Causing Mid-East Conflict: An Obama Insider Reveals the Real Barack

But a former Obama insider says that Obama’s sudden aversion to NOI and Farrakhan is belied by the fact that Obama employed and continues to employ several Farrakhan acolytes in high positions on his Illinois and U.S. Senate campaign and office staffs. I have verified that this person–who agreed to talk on the condition of anonymity–held a key position in the Obama campaign. The insider was so close to Senator Obama that they frequently personally discussed and exchanged direct e-mail messages on campaign and policy matters. This person is not connected with the Clintons and is not a disgruntled employee.

Schlussel cited this picture as follows: “Barack Hussein & Michelle Obama with Palestinian Activist, PLO/Arafat Advisor Edward Said @ Arab Fundraiser
(Photos From Electronic Intifada)”

Common sense says that, if a public figure appears with a prominent Klansman while praising the Klan, he is promoting and empowering racism even if the N word never leaves his own mouth. While Barack Obama has not personally said anything against Jews, Catholics, white people in general, Israel, or the United States, his open association with and promotion of individuals and entities that do these things enables and empowers their unsavory agendas. The fact that he either does not understand this or does not care is why he should not be President. All decent people must stand up on the Internet and in letters to the editor to expose the loathsome “Obamanation” behind the phony smile on top of the empty suit. We will gladly lead this effort and, if the National “Jewish” Democratic Council wishes to try to “out and shame” us, we have three words for them: “Bring it on.”

I will shortly prepare a set of viral E-mails and letters to the editor for people to use to discredit Obama. All will be placed in the public domain.