The Secret™

The media has kicked fully into spin cycle., doing their level best for their candidate, Barack Hussein Obama. The days till the election are almost gone. The pollsters are calling two and three times a day with their obviously slanted questions. And they all hope that the American People have forgotten The Secret™. What's that, you ask? Wow, you must be a journalist. I guess I'll have to tell you. No amount of pictures drawn in crayon will help you get it otherwise. The Secret™? Character and judgment matter.

"So what?" you ask. "Americans know this" is my answer. When properly informed, everyone in this country can make a smart choice. And despite the best efforts of the press in this particular election, people still have more than enough evidence of both candidates' character and judgment before them to come to the conclusion that Barack Obama sufficiently lacks both to be a reasonable choice for President.

In the article fisked below, Jonathan Alter makes the accusation that the Republican party has become "the party of cynicism." In so doing, he adopts the first part of the Democratic playbook for this election: Projection. Their chosen candidate sat in the same church with a "Hate Whitey" pastor preaching this message for twenty years, doing his part to retain victimhood and the bondage that goes with it instead of rising above it. When exposed, we got an idiotic rationalization and a trusted figure in his life for over 20 years got flung under the bus. The message: You know that associations matter, but I think you're stupid enough to believe a silly excuse and the sacrifice of someone who had been an important figure in my life for over 20 years. The real meaning: I think you're stupid enough to believe my outlandish reassurances, and I do not have the courage to openly be who I actually am in public. And the press, seeing that Obama's pastor was a problem, decided to play moral equivalence and attack prominent pastors who had endorsed John McCain. It wasn't the same, but the press has never been above implying what it could not prove, as long as the message was served.

The lack of the two necessary traits became painfully obvious again when the question of William Ayers came up. Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground, participated in a series of bombing across the country with the intent of bringing down the US government and replacing it with a marxist-hippiocracy that would stick it to "the Man", and imprison and kill those who did not conform to their "new" way of thinking about America. Ayers escaped prosecution, has admitted to his guilt, and has publicly regretted not doing more. Obama's spin on this association would be entertaining if it was not so telling. As the inconvenient facts keeps sprouting up like daisies, Obama continued to change his story on the campaign trail while brazenly lying about it in the last debate with McCain. Ayers was a guy in his neighborhood. Then, they served on a board together. But they also shared an office...for three years. They served on two boards together. Obama, his protests to the contrary in the last debate, kicked off his political career in Ayers' living room. Obama wrote a blurb for Ayers' book. We know these things. They have been proven. And yet, he refuses to own up to these things, preferring the lie, spoken reassuringly but firmly, in his ordering an arugula and lobster voice. This demonstrates bad judgment in choosing his friends, regardless of what he wants to call them, and it demonstrates an appalling lack of character to get caught in a lie, repeatedly, and only alter the lie to accommodate the finding, rather than the whole story.

But perhaps the most callous lies are those Obama has uttered with regard to his record on abortion. As an Illinois state senator, Obama did not just stake out a pro-life position, he actively advocated denying any health care to babies who survived their mothers' attempts to abort them. Think about that for a minute. He didn't just want women to be able to kill their kids as a method of birth control. He wanted make sure the ones who survived still died. This from the man who doesn't want his kids "punished with a baby if they make a mistake". These are people. These are citizens who are unable to speak for themselves, and if they somehow survive the attempt to kill them, he still wanted them dead. Is this the person you want making decisions that could influence your life? When he finally could not deny his position on the matter any longer, he elected to lie again, stating that he would not support a measure requiring that such children receive health care because "there was already a law requiring it". Except there wasn't, and even if there were, he elected to go on record as declining to vote for a law giving these children any such lifesaving treatment. No character at all.

On the campaign trail, candidates have so few opportunities to do anything that demonstrates their judgement. Perhaps the most illustrative event is when the candidate chooses their running mate. For Obama, it was a career politician with a history of saying mildly racist things and a track record of being wrong on very nearly every foreign policy matter he has offered an opinion on. A selection who had made remarks endorsing his opponent earlier in the campaign and who had referred to Obama himself as "Clean" and "articulate." A candidate who continues to say things on the trail that do not help his boss, and embarrasses anyone who is listening.

In contrast, John McCain chose a fresh young face, one with real executive experience, and a track record of conservatism, and challenging corruption,even when it was in her own party. The left and the press decided that they had to attack her on the issue of experience, despite the fact that Obama has none, other than the dubious "running for office" experience that they tried to transmute into serious credentials.

On McCain's credentials, they decided to imply that he was a disaster in the cockpit as a Navy pilot. An implication that did not find an audience. They tried to diminish his POW experience, one that left him crippled and broken to this day into a liability by saying that he aided the enemy with a bamboo confession, despite the fact that he turned down an early release, knowing others had been in captivity longer than he. They tried to turn his divorce upon his return from Vietnam into a character issue. This particular issue demonstrates they did get one thing right, but still fail to identify redemption of the same sort that they so desperately want to confer on William Ayers with their "It was 40 years ago" comments. McCain has remained married to the same woman since that time, and has expressed regret. Ayers has emphatically denied regret for his actions, instead regretting that he had not done more. As for the moral failing that the act symbolized, it was somewhat disconcerting to hear it from the same quarters defending Bill Clinton for getting blowjobs in the Oval Office from an intern while he was married. And then there is the allegation of racism. Obama himself raised this spectre himself, telling us that if we don't vote for him, the only possible explanation is racism. He is the one who trots out this straw man and makes him dance whenever anyone wants to have a discussion about facts. He can't do this with world leaders. They will not give him a pass, and they are delighted at the prospect of an America headed by someone with his bad judgement and poor character. Let's not give them the chance to roll him, and us, in the process.