Why Barack Obama is Overrated

jan 19th, 2007

interesting comments on obama from a black writer and a woman.

i guess i am not the only person who feels a little uneasy about how this person has appeared in the limelight so suddenly and singularly without any particular power basis or old money or contacts to support him. isn't this a little odd, that a person who was a complete non-entity two years ago is now a serious contender?

not that i am saying that obama is not genuine, but i am reminded of the film 'the manchurian candidate'. which would be quite appropriate, because it could well be the sino-mohammedan axis that's pushing obama forward. mohammedan money and chinese cunning. note that it is the most lunatic-fringe-leftist types in the democratic party who are getting all excited over obama. that is, those most susceptible to chinese and mohammedan blandishments.

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http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/10/25/why-barack-obama-is-overrated/

Why Barack Obama is Overrated

I usually avoid blogging about black "golden boy" Democratic politicians like U.S. Senator Barack Obama because I know I'll be accused of "player hating," but I can't let the hype parade pass without comment.

Barack Obama, the "He speaks so well!" up and coming U.S. senator, no doubt has a bright future ahead of him. But why, I'm trying to figure out, are we reading about his presidential aspirations a mere two years into his first term as senator?

I have a few ideas. First, Obama is "articulate." No big deal, right? Well, for a black person, it seems to be. At least that's how I perceive it. Back in 2004 when I was still working a day job at a heavily Democrat-voting organization, the word "articulate" was uttered frequently as white co-workers described Obama's big speech at the Democratic convention. It wasn't so much what he said, as I discovered when I read the text of his speech, but how he said it.

In "Barack Obama Goes To Boston," I gave you my impressions of his speech. He's a liberal who doesn't like to be called a liberal. His speech contained nothing breathtaking, groundbreaking, or worth the hyperventilating hype that resulted from it.

As far as I could tell, Obama was just another infanticide-supporting liberal who white journalists — not black people, mind you — declared the "great black hope."

Second, Obama now has a book to sell. With a fawning and easily infatuated leftist media, liberal authors don't need to waste money paying publicists. Every major newspaper and magazine is a publicity machine, cranking out the kind of copy that would cost the author an arm and a leg if he/she had to pay someone to write it. I should be so lucky!

The man owns the current issue of TIME magazine. I mean, come on! He hasn't done anything in the Senate to distinguish himself. He's just…black.

Nobody's sent me a review copy of Obama's semi-autobiographical tome, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, but I know what's in it. For instance, he's the product of a white mother and a black father, and he grew up fatherless — like so many American blacks — after his father abandoned him and his mother. He's done some things he's ashamed of, like using cocaine. He cleaned up his life, obtained a law degree, went into politics, and — voilà! —he's currently the only black U.S. senator.

Curiously, Obama speaks praisefully of his absent black father, but I haven't read or heard much about the white mother who raised him. [Note: His first book was about his Kenyan father. Is a book about his Kansas-born mother forthcoming?]

Anyway, I don't know if his presidential aspirations are real or whether the media or his publicist invented it to sell his new book, but there's no way a first-time senator two years into his term would get this much press if he were white.

Just my assessment, folks, based in part on life in general and personal experience. For instance, I've been called articulate, a word seldom used to describe white bloggers. And as loathe as I am to admit this, my blog's success is owed in part to my race. I believe and write things most people wouldn't expect me to believe and write.

If you didn't know me and saw me walking down the street, you'd guess that I was a typical, Democrat-voting D.C. resident. But when I open my mouth, all previously conceived notions and expectations are thrown out the proverbial window. Being outspoken and atypical is a novelty that draws people in. Being a decent writer who expresses ideas in a way that defies stereotype keeps 'em coming back.

So I'm not "hating" on Obama. Just as there are plenty of young white politicians more worthy of praise than he is, there are white bloggers more worthy of praise than I am. I try to keep things in perspective, blog from the heart, and provide a much-needed alternative to the liberal hype. If I can do that and still look at myself in the mirror without shame, it's OK with me.

Update: A commenter writes: "The excerpt from his book in Time is all about his mother. She was a huge influence in his life and he was very close to her. There was basically nothing about his father in the excerpt or article. I also saw him in Oprah last week and I believe he talked about his mother there, but I did not hear anything about his father."

********************************************************************************************************************************* http://bsimmons.wordpress.com/2006/12/19/debbie-schlussel-barack-hussein-obama-once-a-muslim-always-a-muslim/

Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim - By Debbie Schlussel

Many months ago, readers began asking me whether Barack Obama is Muslim. Since he identifies as a Christian, I said, "no," and responded that he was not raised by his Kenyan father.

But, then, I decided to look further into Obama's background. His full name–as by now you have probably heard–is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali's son–Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim.

And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.

Then, there are the other items in his background. As best-selling author Scott Turow wrote in Salon, Obama went to a Muslim school for two years in Indonesia. His mother, Anna, married an Indonesian man (likely another Muslim, as Indonesia is Muslim-dominated and has the largest Islamic population in the world).

And Obama has a "born-again" affinity for the nation of his Muslim father, Kenya, and his Kenyan sister. (Although Kenya is largely Christian, it has a fast-growing Muslim population that has engaged in a good deal of religious violence and riots against Christians. And Kenyan courts will apply Sharia law, when the participants are Muslim.) Wrote Turow:

Obama's father died in a traffic accident in Nairobi in 1982, but while Obama was working in Chicago, he met his Kenyan sister, Auma, a linguist educated in Germany who was visiting the United States. When she returned to Kenya in 1986 to teach for a year at the University of Nairobi, Obama finally made the trip to his father's homeland he had long promised himself. There, he managed to fully embrace a heritage and a family he'd never fully known and come to terms with his father, whom he'd long regarded as an august foreign prince, but now realized was a human being burdened by his own illusions and vulnerabilities.

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

Is that even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the President, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)?

NO WAY, JOSE . . . Or, is that, HUSSEIN?