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October 10, 2008 5:47 PM | Link to this

If character is the subject, then consider the hate filled rallies that McCain and Palin are having. The two of them are inciting hate and threatening words against Obama and Biden. It appears that the republican base lacks character. And both McCain and Palin are accepting of the hate filled audience. They appear to love it. McCain and Palin are showing their lack of character, lack of honor and lack of dignity. On the other hand, Obama is running an honorable and dignified campaign. You never hear Obama supporters yelling “traitor” or “kill” or any other hate filled words. That is the difference. McCain = hate. Obama = honor and dignity.

By Sowell

October 10, 2008 8:30 AM | Link to this

Barack Obama’s supporters often try to sidestep questions about his character and judgment by saying that we should stick to what they arbitrarily define as “the real issues.” But Senator Obama’s record on specific issues is as bad as his record of repeatedly allying himself over the years with people who make no attempt to hide their hatred of America. Among the so-called “real issues” are earmarks for Senators’ pet projects, like the “bridge to nowhere.” These are among the most indefensible parts of the inbred Washington political culture, which Obama has so often claimed to be against, as part of his promise of “change” to “clean up the mess in Washington.” Yet Senator Obama not only voted in favor of the bridge to nowhere, he voted against anti-earmark amendments proposed by Senator John McCain. Obama has had more than two dozen of his own earmarks in the past fiscal year, and he knows the Senate well enough to know that, if he voted against the bridge to nowhere, his own earmarks might get nowhere. Those earmarks, incidentally, included a million dollars of the taxpayers’ money for a facility where his wife works at the University of Chicago. Her salary rose by nearly $200,000 when her husband became a United States Senator— no doubt a shrewd investment by the university that paid off. When a highly publicized bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007 led Senator Tom Coburn to propose taking money from federal spending on bicycle paths and use it for maintaining and repairing bridges instead, Senator Obama voted against it. The kind of people who vote for him want bike paths. Moreover, the very idea of taking money from one thing to use for something with a higher priority— something that we all have to do in our own personal lives— is foreign to the liberal big spenders in Washington. When they want more money for some purpose, they simply raise the tax rates. They don’t cut spending somewhere else. The idea that Barack Obama is somehow different from other liberal-left politicians can only be based on his rhetoric, because his actual track record shows him to differ only in being further left than most liberals and at least as opportunistic. His talk, however, is another story. The speech that Obama gave at the 2004 Democratic convention— the speech that put him on the national map politically— was one which has been aptly described as a speech that would have been almost equally at home if it had been delivered at the Republican national convention. In the world of rhetoric— the world in which Obama is supreme— he is a moderate, reasonable man, reaching out to unite people and parties, dedicated to reform, opposed to special interests and a healer of the racial divide. It is only in the real world of action that Barack Obama is the direct opposite. He has pushed for federal subsidies for ethanol, for example, as other midwestern Senators have, since a lot of corn is grown in the midwest to be turned into ethanol. He is 100 percent behind the teachers’ unions in their fight to preserve their grip on the public schools and exempt their members from being judged by performance instead of seniority— which is to say, he is throwing the students, and especially minority students— to the wolves. Senator Obama would never call voting for ethanol subsidies a vote for “special interests,” any more than he called his total support of the teachers unions a matter of special interests, even though teachers unions are the biggest obstacle to changing the status quo in public schools that have failed American children in general and minority children in particular. Barack Obama’s track record on so-called “real issues” is no better than his track record on issues of character and judgment. The media’s track record of conveying the facts to the public is a travesty of their claims about “the public’s right to know.” If John McCain had made half as many gaffes as Barack Obama— “all 57 states,” for example— they would be picturing him as senile. Meanwhile, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran supplying its terrorist surrogates with nukes does not interest the media nearly as much as scoring “gotchas” against Sarah Palin.

By Sowell

October 10, 2008 8:29 AM | Link to this

Barack Obama’s supporters often try to sidestep questions about his character and judgment by saying that we should stick to what they arbitrarily define as “the real issues.” But Senator Obama’s record on specific issues is as bad as his record of repeatedly allying himself over the years with people who make no attempt to hide their hatred of America. Among the so-called “real issues” are earmarks for Senators’ pet projects, like the “bridge to nowhere.” These are among the most indefensible parts of the inbred Washington political culture, which Obama has so often claimed to be against, as part of his promise of “change” to “clean up the mess in Washington.” Yet Senator Obama not only voted in favor of the bridge to nowhere, he voted against anti-earmark amendments proposed by Senator John McCain. Obama has had more than two dozen of his own earmarks in the past fiscal year, and he knows the Senate well enough to know that, if he voted against the bridge to nowhere, his own earmarks might get nowhere. Those earmarks, incidentally, included a million dollars of the taxpayers’ money for a facility where his wife works at the University of Chicago. Her salary rose by nearly $200,000 when her husband became a United States Senator— no doubt a shrewd investment by the university that paid off. When a highly publicized bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007 led Senator Tom Coburn to propose taking money from federal spending on bicycle paths and use it for maintaining and repairing bridges instead, Senator Obama voted against it. The kind of people who vote for him want bike paths. Moreover, the very idea of taking money from one thing to use for something with a higher priority— something that we all have to do in our own personal lives— is foreign to the liberal big spenders in Washington. When they want more money for some purpose, they simply raise the tax rates. They don’t cut spending somewhere else. The idea that Barack Obama is somehow different from other liberal-left politicians can only be based on his rhetoric, because his actual track record shows him to differ only in being further left than most liberals and at least as opportunistic. His talk, however, is another story. The speech that Obama gave at the 2004 Democratic convention— the speech that put him on the national map politically— was one which has been aptly described as a speech that would have been almost equally at home if it had been delivered at the Republican national convention. In the world of rhetoric— the world in which Obama is supreme— he is a moderate, reasonable man, reaching out to unite people and parties, dedicated to reform, opposed to special interests and a healer of the racial divide. It is only in the real world of action that Barack Obama is the direct opposite. He has pushed for federal subsidies for ethanol, for example, as other midwestern Senators have, since a lot of corn is grown in the midwest to be turned into ethanol. He is 100 percent behind the teachers’ unions in their fight to preserve their grip on the public schools and exempt their members from being judged by performance instead of seniority— which is to say, he is throwing the students, and especially minority students— to the wolves. Senator Obama would never call voting for ethanol subsidies a vote for “special interests,” any more than he called his total support of the teachers unions a matter of special interests, even though teachers unions are the biggest obstacle to changing the status quo in public schools that have failed American children in general and minority children in particular. Barack Obama’s track record on so-called “real issues” is no better than his track record on issues of character and judgment. The media’s track record of conveying the facts to the public is a travesty of their claims about “the public’s right to know.” If John McCain had made half as many gaffes as Barack Obama— “all 57 states,” for example— they would be picturing him as senile. Meanwhile, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran supplying its terrorist surrogates with nukes does not interest the media nearly as much as scoring “gotchas” against Sarah Palin.

By Tom Sowell

October 9, 2008 10:40 PM | Link to this

What about those “real issues” that Barack Obama’s supporters in the media say we should get back to, whenever some new unsavory fact about his past comes out? Surely education is a real issue, with American school children consistently scoring below those in other countries, and children in minority communities faring worst of all. What about Senator Obama’s position on this real issue? As with other issues, he has talked one way and acted the opposite way. The education situation in Obama’s home base of Chicago is one of the worst in the nation for the children— and one of the best for the unionized teachers. Fewer than one-third of Chicago’s high-school juniors meet the statewide standards on tests. Only 6 percent of the youngsters who enter Chicago high schools become college graduates by the time they are 25 years old. The problem is not money: Chicago spends more than $10,000 per student. Chicago teachers are doing well. A beginning teacher, fresh out of college, earns more than the city’s median income and that can rise to more than $100,000 over the years. That’s for teaching 6 hours a day, 9 months of the year. Moreover, a teacher’s income is dependent on seniority and other such factors— and in no way dependent on whether their students are actually learning anything. Obama has said eloquent and lofty words about education, as he has about other things— for example, how it is “unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours” that some children “are not getting a decent shot at life” because of the failing schools. In a predominantly black suburb of Chicago, where the average teacher’s salary is $83,000 and one-fourth of the teachers make more than $100,000, Barack Obama noted that the school day ends at 1:30 PM. In his book “Dreams from My Father,” Obama said candidly that black teachers and administrators “defend the status quo with the same skill and vigor as their white counterparts of two decades before.” It is not a question of Obama’s not knowing. He has demonstrated conclusively that he knows what is going on. But, for all his eloquent words, he has voted consistently for the teachers’ unions and the status quo. “I owe those unions,” he has said frankly. “When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away. I don’t consider this corrupting in any way.” Only other politicians’ special interests are called “special interests” by Barack Obama, whose world-class ability to rationalize is his most frightening skill. Even when he verbally endorses the reform idea of merit pay for teachers, he cleverly re-defines merit so that it will be measured by teachers themselves, rather than by “arbitrary tests.” In other words, Obama placates critics of the educational status quo by being for merit pay in words, while making those words meaningless, so as not to offend the teachers’ unions. The failings of teachers are only part of the disaster of inner city public schools. Disruptive and violent students can make it impossible for even the best teachers to educate students. Administrators are reluctant to impose any serious punishment on those students who make it impossible for other students to learn. Partly this is because liberal judges can make it literally a federal case if more minority students are punished than others. In other words, if black males are punished more often than Asian American females, that can be enough to get the administrators drawn into a legal labyrinth, costing money and time, even if the punishment is eventually upheld. When a bill was introduced into the Illinois state legislature that would put more teeth into suspensions of misbehaving students, Barack Obama voted against that bill. A real reformer would want to crack down on both unruly students and unaccountable teachers. A clever politician would speak eloquently, demand “change”— and then vote for the status quo. Obama talks a great game.

By nonsense

October 9, 2008 5:25 PM | Link to this

Why did the journal remove all these comments