Link to original article: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/TonyBlankley/2008/06/11/who_is_obama_where_is_the_press
Tony Blankley
June 11, 2008
How would one sneak a left-wing radical into the Oval Office in broad
daylight? Perhaps the same way that President George W. Bush got two
strong conservatives on the Supreme Court: Find a candidate without a
paper trail on the most controversial issues. For those of us who
suspect but cannot yet prove that Barack Obama is a genuine radical
leftist, his lack of much of a voting record is going to make it
difficult to prove what his real values, policies and motives are to be
president.
This is particularly the case because the media is so obviously going
to give Obama cover not only for his current revelatory gaffes but also
for embarrassing bits from his past.
For example, back on June 2, National Review Online ran an
extraordinary article by Stanley Kurtz that closely assessed a 1995
article about Obama by Hank De Zutter titled "What Makes Obama Run?"
The essence of his thesis is the following:
"De Zutter's article shows us that the full story of Obama's ties to
Pfleger and Wright is both more disturbing and more politically
relevant than we've realized up to now. On Obama's own account, the
rhetoric and vision of Chicago's most politically radical black
churches are exactly what he wants to see more of. True, when
discussing Louis Farrakhan with De Zutter, Obama makes a point of
repudiating anti-white, anti-Semitic, and anti-Asian sermons. Yet
having laid down that proviso, Obama seems to relish the radicalism of
preachers like Pfleger and Wright. In 1995, Obama didn't want Trinity's
political show to stop. His plan was to spread it to other black
churches, and harness its power to an alliance of leftist groups and
sympathetic elected officials.
"So Obama's political interest in Trinity went far beyond merely
gaining a respectable public Christian identity. On his own account,
Obama hoped to use the untapped power of the black church to
supercharge hard-left politics in Chicago, creating a personal and
institutional political base that would be free to part with
conventional Democratic politics. By his own testimony, Obama would
seem to have allied himself with Wright and Pfleger, not in spite of,
but precisely because of their radical left-wing politics. It follows
that Obama's ties to Trinity reflect on far more than his judgment and
character (although they certainly implicate that). Contrary to common
wisdom, then, Obama's religious history has everything to do with his
political values and policy positions, since it confirms his affinity
for leftist radicalism."
Now, given how much the media has covered both the Pfleger and Wright
matters, when a respectable journal, such as National Review, runs an
article by a journalist of established credibility, such as Stanley
Kurtz, that suggests a different and far more disturbing interpretation
of Obama's relationships with Wright and Pfleger, a responsible
mainstream media would seek out Obama and, at the minimum, ask him
whether the things the 1995 De Sutter article quotes him as saying are,
in fact, things he said. They might even ask him to explain himself.
Because if the 1995 article is an accurate reflection of what Obama
said, then most of what he has said in the past few months about the
Wright affair and Trinity United Church of Christ could not continue to
be viewed as believable.
A much more recent example of the media not even going through the
motions of being responsible is their almost complete avoidance of a
recent statement Obama made:
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes
on 72 degrees at all times and then just expect that other countries
are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to
happen." Is there absolutely no curiosity at The Washington Post, The
Associated Press or even The New York Times about the assertion by the
man who is considered likely to be president of the United States come
noon Jan. 20, 2009, that letting Americans eat as much as they want is
"not going to happen"? Doesn't that shockingly dictatorial assertion
deserve comment and inquiry? Yes, it is true that Obama was saying
explicitly that what wasn't going to happen was "other countries
(saying) OK" to Americans eating as much as we want. But a fair reading
of the whole passage suggests that Obama agrees with those other
countries. And as president, what exactly would he try to do regarding
Americans who want to eat as much as they want (or drive SUVs or set
their own thermostats)?
Dictator or democrat? Radical or liberal? Who in the world is this man?
Where in the world is the responsible media? What's going on?
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