Can you believe that about the school changing its name to Barack Obama Elementary?? Sadly, it is true. Here is the article: New York School Changes Name to Barack Obama Elementary,

Some public figures wait a lifetime — or longer — to see their names affixed to airports, bridges and public schools.

Not so Barack Obama.

In what appears to be a national first, the school board in Hempstead, N.Y., has voted unanimously to change the name of its 460-student Ludlum Elementary School to Barack Obama Elementary School.

Officials hope to hold a name-changing ceremony shortly after the new year begins. Such quick action could put the 47-year-old president-elect’s name on a public institution even before his inauguration Jan. 20. “I think we were still caught up in the moment,” principal Jean Bligen said.

Like many across Long Island, Hempstead students followed the campaign closely. Students at the former Ludlum School held a mock debate, and a straw ballot there in grades 3-5 produced 257 votes for Obama, 28 for opponent Sen. John McCain.

The school’s enrollment is 62 percent Hispanic and 36 percent African-American. Several students come from Africa, and many more come from El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Puerto Rico.

“For me, we made history,” said Teonte Jackson, 11, a fifth-grader who played Obama in the debate. “I feel really proud to have an African-American president. I don’t think it’s a racial thing. I think he will bring everybody together.”

Here’s the thing. If they indeed did follow this election closely, did it not ever bother any of these TEACHERS that Obama refused to provide his transcripts? ANY of his transcripts from any three of the institutions of higher learning he attended? It didn’t bother ANY of them that he treated women so poorly? It didn’t bother them at all that he PLAGIARIZED his speeches and policies?? All because he is half black, he gets a school named after him?? He has done VERY little on his own, as I have been saying for months, and as the video above details.

Oh, but you know there is more:

Clear Stream Avenue School in Valley Stream will also consider a renaming resolution next month, The Associated Press reported.

Eileen Garbe, who teaches fifth grade at the former Ludlum School, said the election provided a “monumental” opportunity to bring history alive for students. She plans to retire in about a year and a half after 20 years of teaching. “Isn’t this a wonderful way to go out?” she said.

A photo of Obama already hangs in the school’s office. Coincidentally, since September the school has been sending hundreds of books to an orphanage in Kenya, the home of Obama’s late father, even before the idea of a name change took hold.

The idea began to jell after another fifth-grade teacher asked students Jalani Johnson and Samantha Alburez, both 10, to write essays on why their school should be named for Obama.

Interim Superintendent Joseph Laria praised both students and adults for urging the name change at the Thursday school board meeting. The board’s vote was 5-0.

As he voted, board president Charles Renfroe thought of his own fifth-grade teacher, Artiebelle Lowe, who worked in a segregated, two-room schoolhouse in rural Alabama.

Renfroe still recalls her joy at the news in 1955 that a Montgomery, Ala., seamstress named Rosa Parks had defied Jim Crow laws by refusing to move to the rear of a bus. “I just wish she could be around today to see how far we’ve come,” Renfroe said of his former teacher.

“I think this will unite us,” said another board member, Betty Cross, who has differed with the board on other issues.

Hempstead Village Mayor Wayne Hall said naming the school after Obama is appropriate. “The fact that he was elected on Nov. 4 as the first African American is the achievement,” Hall said. “He doesn’t have to do anything else. The fact that he was elected is the ultimate achievement for all Americans.”

A Web search finds no mention of other schools or public facilities in the United States named for Obama, though such moves are being advocated in Calumet City, Ill., and Portland, Ore.

Geezy pete. JUST because he is half African and half American is sufficient. Wow. That seems like a mighty low threshold to me, but hey - maybe I expect too much. Again, it just shocks and appalls me that these teachers are completely ignoring the reality of how Obama got to where he is - the lying, cheating, stealing, misogyny, homophobia, and deception (to name a few). If they were truly following this election closely, they would have to know on SOME level that what they are doing is all about color of the skin, and NOT character. What the hell kind of message is THAT to be sending to our young people??? No wonder so many of our youth are cheating, lying, and plagiarizing - they see that success comes to those who cheat their way to the top, with no recrimination whatsoever. Wow.

And on a final note of disgust, this was the very end of the article:

In Antigua, the prime minister has said he’s taking measures to have the island’s highest peak renamed Mount Obama, according to the AP.

A school in Kogelo, Kenya, birthplace of Obama’s father, was named for the president-elect after he was elected senator.

ANTIGUA??? What the hell does Obama have to do with ANTIGUA??? Kenya maybe, but holy cow, these people have drunk way too much kool aide…

He is also half white.

Unless the one-drop rule still applies, our president-elect is not black.

We call him that — he calls himself that — because we use dated language and logic. After more than 300 years and much difficult history, we hew to the old racist rule: Part-black is all black. Fifty percent equals a hundred. There’s no in-between.

That was my reaction when I read these words on the front page of this newspaper the day after the election: “Obama Makes History: U.S. Decisively Elects First Black President.”

The phrase was repeated in much the same form by one media organization after another. It’s as if we have one foot in the future and another still mired in the Old South. We are racially sophisticated enough to elect a non-white president, and we are so racially backward that we insist on calling him black. Progress has outpaced vocabulary.

To me, as to increasing numbers of mixed-race people, Barack Obama is not our first black president. He is our first biracial, bicultural president. He is more than the personification of African American achievement. He is a bridge between races, a living symbol of tolerance, a signal that strict racial categories must go.

Well, this was originally what Barack Obama was supposed to be – a post-racial candidate. Ms. Arana indicates there is much racial mixing in our society and others so as to render old labeling out of date and useless. However, as fascinating as this article is, as she details her own rich cultural heritage among others, and it is certainly worth a read in its entirety, she seems to be placing the blame on the media and the American people for the labeling of Barack Obama as black.

While she is right that the media did push this narrative for all it was worth, Ms. Arano neglects to mention that a great deal of the responsibility for that label belongs with President-elect Obama himself. He did nothing to disabuse the media of this notion which he could have done at any time by continuing to trumpet his own mixed heritage.

Even Obama himself seems to have bought into the nomenclature. In his memoir “Dreams from My Father,” he writes, “I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America, and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant.” You can almost feel the youth struggling with his identity, reaching for the right words to describe it and finally accepting the label that others impose.

It was a label he imposed. In his run for the presidency, his first campaign narrative was that he was the post-racial candidate. How nice if he would have stuck with that. Instead, he very clearly brought race to the forefront of his campaign by playing the race card with impunity almost every day since January.

He was very clear to define himself as bi-racial, for instance, when he was campaigning in New Hampshire, very early in this years’ primary season. However, at the next primary, in South Carolina, he suddenly became “black” and there was absolutely no mention of his white Kansan mother. It was as if she did not exist. Is this not disrespectful to an equally important part of his heritage? It is easy to understand why he did this in a state with so large an African American population. I am sure I remember several articles before Super Duper Tuesday indicating that certain AA voters were not relating to him as being ‘AA enough.’ Was this a reason for his assuming an affectation once he got out on the campaign trail in these states?

Subsequently, his white grandmother who raised him and put him through private school only got a rather negative mention in his ‘monumentally important’ speech on race, and he soon after referred to her in a very insulting, limiting and quite frankly, inaccurate fashion as ‘a typical white person.’ So much for post-racial. His speech on race was a very well orchestrated diversion, since his candidacy was in much hot water after his close 20-year relationship with the racially divisive Reverend Wright was revealed just a few days earlier. Again, he played the race card rather than answering the question of what he was doing in that church in the first place, deflecting blame onto the ‘racial divide’ in this country rather than taking responsibility for his actions.

He claimed this ‘narrative’ of the black candidate for himself, as opposed to a bi-racial one, because he needed to pull the African American vote away from Hillary Clinton and aim a wrecking ball at the popularity the Clintons always enjoyed within the African American community. Professor Sean Wilentz’ brilliant article in The New Republic, “Race Man,” has often been referenced here, and details just how the Obama campaign played the race card to their advantage to accomplish this very mission.

Ms. Arana further states:

The explosion of “minorities” in the United States in the past half-century has guaranteed that ever more interracial mingling is inevitable. According to the 2000 Census, there were 1.5 million Hispanic-white marriages in the United States, half a million Asian-white marriages, and more than a quarter-million black-white marriages. The reality is probably closer to double or triple that number. And growing.

The evidence is everywhere. If not in our neighborhoods, in our culture. We see it in Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, Ben Kingsley, Nancy Kwan, Ne-Yo, Mariah Carey. Yet we insist on calling these hybrids by a reductive name: Berry is black. Kingsley is white. Kwan is yellow. Even they label themselves by the apparent color of their skin. With language like that, how can we claim to live in a post-racial society?

Interracial mingling is a very positive thing – showing that we are breaking down all sorts of barriers and just taking each person as we find them, without regard to labels or skin color.

Few who see Barack Obama, it seems, understand that he’s 50 percent white Kansan. Even fewer understand what it means to be second-generation Kenyan. It reminds me of something sociologist Troy Duster and bioethicist Pilar Ossorio once observed: Skin color is seldom what it seems. People who look white can have a significant majority of African ancestors. People who look black can have a majority of ancestors who are European.

In other words, the color of a president-elect’s skin doesn’t tell you much. It’s an unreliable marker, a deceptive form of packaging. Isn’t it time we stopped using labels that validate the separation of races? Isn’t it time for the language to move on?

How much more honest would Obama’s campaign have been if he had moved on from labels as well, being that he promised to do so. It is exhausting that those who choose to write articles about this subject turn a blind eye to his part in its current cause. Our ‘language’ isn’t the only thing that needs to move on.

The ‘unreliable marker’ of which Ms. Arano speaks is indeed a deceptive form of packaging. Contrary to what he would have you believe as being a detriment in his campaign, President elect Obama’s skin color was something he used to his advantage. He enjoyed a solid 90-95% voting bloc within the African American community, while doing basically nothing to earn their votes, apart from using his appearance as a victory in itself for those voters.

While many may understandably take his election as a great triumph and a huge leap beyond our painful past, he has set race relations back in this country with the insulting ‘labels’ he and his surrogates suggested in order to corner those who did not believe in him into voting for him. Politics is a bloody business, and obviously, President-elect Obama, his campaign manager, David Axelrod, and their surrogates used every trick to get to victory.

Earlier, Ms. Arano mentioned that “progress had outpaced vocabulary,” but it was the Obama campaign that pretended we had made less progress on racial issues than we actually have. When voters who chose not to embrace Obama’s candidacy were routinely referred to as racists, Archie Bunkers, and low information voters, so as to deny the fact that there were myriad excellent reasons for people not to support him, how can we as a society possibly have a real discussion about the issues Ms. Arana poses?

Clearly, since Obama received more “white” votes than any candidate since Carter, the ‘racist’ narrative he imposed is not an applicable one. He is a bi-racial President-elect. Why can’t this be celebrated as a way to move us forward just as much as him being the first black President?

It will be interesting to see if he now tries to mend the fences of the pain he caused. Somehow, I tend to doubt it will be addressed at all.

Oh, yes:

In his first television interview since the election, Mr Obama told CBS he would pull troops out of Iraq, shore up Afghanistan, and close Guantanamo Bay.

“I’m going to make sure that we don’t torture,” he said of the prison camp.

Well, good. No one should torture. That concept has been fully established, so that isn’t exactly groundbreaking. McCain would have done the same thing with Gitmo, by the way. But to spy on your own citizenry through FISA is A-Okay, even though it violates the US Constitution. Clearly, he has no problems with THAT since he VOTED for it.

Anywho, I’m no authority on morality - oh, wait a minute - yes I am! Yep, majoring in Ethics (Philosophy) as well as five years of graduate work in Ethics and theology, an internship, a residency to become a minister, and actual work as a minister as well as an honest-to-goodness moral upbringing really comes in handy sometimes! This would be just such a time, I think.

So, for Obama to make this claim to restore our “moral stature” is just laughable. I mean, really - to claim one wants to “rebuild the country’s moral stature” implies one has a MORAL base from which to do that work. I have seen blessed little evidence of that from Obama in the past two years. Heck, even longer than that, if you include how he got into the IL Senate - by screwing over the very woman (Alice Palmer) who got him into politics in the FIRST place. Well, that just goes to prove the point - he has had a “morality” problem for a while, it would seem.

There is no way I can touch on everything he has done during this entire election season, but one has to begin somewhere:

Tainting President Bill and Senator Hillary Clinton as racists. I am pretty sure that’s a violation of one of the BIG TEN: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” And that is just the beginning of the the lies Obama spread against Hillary Clinton over the past two years, though that is not just career damaging, but psychologically damaging. No matter HOW much one might know a smear is false, something of that magnitude has an effect, especially when one has spent one’s entire adult life fighting against that very cause? Yes, it is laughable, but it also tarnished them both tremendously. Yeah, what a stand-up guy. That is just ONE of the areas in which he went far beyond standard election campaigning. This false, yet lingering, attack on both of their CHARACTERS, using such a profound issue in this country, was so, so far beyond the pale of decency. Yet, not only did he use it, but he used it time and time again, then extending it to ALL Americans who did not support him. That is not the least bit “moral.”

Nor is it MORAL to demean and belittle women. To treat them as less than, as less worthy, as not on the same level, is not exactly reflective of good character. And to diminish a woman’s accomplishments all the while stealing her work and claiming it for one’s own is not ethical in any way, shape, or form.

Then there is the vast amount of caucus fraud perpetrated by Obama’s minions from Washington State to Texas. Texas alone with its 2,000+ documented complaints of caucus fraud - from intimidation, bullying, and threats, to physically being blocked out of the process. There is absolutely no way that the level of caucus fraud seen this year was a fluke, that it was not organized by the Obama campaign itself (does the term, “Obama Youth Camp” mean anything to you?). The caucus fraud that occurred was the ONLY reason Obama was even close to Hillary Clinton, who won all of the big states besides Obama’s own.

Which leads me to this the whole delegate issue. Even with Obama’s cheating at the caucuses, he and Clinton would have been only four votes apart except for one thing: taking lawfully cast, certified votes from Clinton and giving them to Obama, which he seemed to think was “fair.”

Now, I realize knowing the law does not a lawful, ethical, or moral person make. But honestly, wouldn’t one HOPE that the president-elect had any ONE of those characteristics? Is that really too much to ask? Evidently…

Ahem. And then there is ACORN. Oh, holy cow - where to even START on ACORN? Their voter registration fraud was OFF THE CHARTS this year. It couldn’t POSSIBLY have had anything to do with Obama paying them over $800,000, could it? Or that Obama actually WORKED for ACORN? Suffice it to say, ACORN was a boon to Obama, especially if voter fraud didn’t cross his moral barometer. Clearly, since he did not speak out against them, it did not seem to prick his conscience at all. Not even ACORN being investigated in sixteen states stirred him to say something against his unofficial election arm.

And how about Obama’s lack of oversight on Afghanistan? Ho can anyone claim a moral high ground when he has held NOT ONE MEETING of the Committee that oversees Afghanistan, Europe, and NATO? Do you know that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the entire world? That families in Afghanistan are selling their CHILDREN, both boys and girls (though the girls are often “sold” as BRIDES to pay off a debt) to be able to survive?? Where has Obama been? How he can he make ANY claims to “moral stature” when he has lifted NOT ONE FINGER for Afghanistan? Not one. In fact, he USED Afghanistan as a campaign issue, which makes his inaction even worse in terms of his own character. He used them, and did absolutely nothing FOR them. Not one damn thing.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Threatening, bullying, cheating, and lying have been the hallmarks of Obama’s campaign this year, and HE is going to be the one to restore our moral stature in the world? Uh, yeah, no. He does not have the moral fortitude himself to pull that off. Not even close. Looks like four more years of Bush after all (like I’ve been sayin’…).

Step aside, LD! We have the genius now:

The Geneva Convention, as I understand it, is a contract among signatories that, among other things, obligates them to the humane treatment of prisoners of war, military and civilian. Most importantly, the treatment is a guarantee that these nations do unto us as we do unto them.

Feminists, and so-called feminists, and even those who don’t call themselves feminists but who claim to treat women with respect, need to study this concept of reciprocity.

I’m thinking particularly of the fauxgressives: those from Huff-Chuck, the Daily Voldomort, the more feminist-than-thou feminists, the maenads who in the Bacchic euphoria of their messiah, rip other women into shreds.

ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE SO-CALLED LIBERALS, DEMOCRATS AND PROGRESSIVES: Once you engage in the free-for-all of sexism and misogyny, everyone is fair game, even those hurling venom themselves. Once sexism and misogyny are qualified as weapons, anyone and everyone will use them.

Those self-righteous hypocrites who sit in judgment of Sarah Palin, reveling in their foul-mouthed insults of her intelligence, her family and her politics, etc, will squeal like bullies when someone insults them. Going after Hillary, going after Geraldine Ferraro, going after Harriet Christen, going after any woman who had the courage to speak out in public about Barack Obama’s PROFOUND LACK OF EXPERIENCE; HIS ASSOCIATION WITH RACISTS, WITH TERRORISTS, AND WITH CROOKS; HIS CONSTANT ACCUSATIONS OF RACISM; AND STATING THE OBVIOUS FACT THAT OBAMA GOT WHERE HE IS BY MANIPULATING, LYING, AND RACE BAITING.

So what do the schoolyard bullies do? They name call and insult. But like all bullies, they direct their worst attacks on those with innate characteristics. Just as schoolyard bullies love picking on the little guys with glasses, or the kid with the funny teeth or who’s overweight, these election bullies have gone after women. The fact that they are women is seen as a weakness to exploit.

What is most galling is that the so-called liberals, the ones smoking the Hopium, feel justified in doing it.

Driving a wedge between women of diverse political positions, races, and religions has a long and shameful history. This wedge disappears in the shared female experiences of child birth and nurturing, caring for the sick and aging, rape and domestic abuse, and attending the dying and mourning the dead.

Historically, women and children have been collateral damage during wars. The image above “Widows and Ophans” is by the German Expressionist, Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945). Kollwitz’s son died in WWI and her grandson in WWII. Her painting below, “The Survivors” was used in a 1922 conference at The Hague.

Women have suffered far too much and for too long while putting the needs of men first. Although male supremacy was the prevailing narrative of this campaign, many women and men are horrified that so-called progressives would subject women — specifically Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin — to such vile and violent language. Bitch is the “N” word, but the so-called progressives may have awoken a sleeping giant, namely 52% of population. And she’s pissed.

Other excellent No Quarter posts on the sexism in the 2008 campaign:

Palin In The Aftermath by Texas Hill Country

“He had me until he picked the dummy” by NewHampster

Knock It Off Already by Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy

The image above was posted on Post Secret on November 8, 2008. I have no doubt that the dominate narrative of this campaign — the forceful suppression of women — is responsible for the author’s “secret.” In the Obama-realm, feminism isn’t just bad, it’ll ruin your life. One only need to look to Hillary and Sarah Palin as examples.

Dr. Violet Socks writes:

A few days ago I was asking you all to think about why there is still so much deeply-felt resistance to women’s equality. This is the lesson of radical feminism: that the gender revolution requires just that — a revolution.

Why does there need to be a revolution for equality? Because this year misogyny was used a political tool. As many of us witnessed, this election was so poisoned with hate speech against women that it’s not an exaggeration to say that the FBI would have been investigating the perpetrators if it had been against any other oppressed group.

Let’s be clear: Hillary Clinton was the choice of most Democrats this year. The Democratic establishment, consisting of Donna Brazile, Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and many others, worked furiously to keep Hillary Clinton from receiving the Democratic nomination. Their left-wing allies and the media worked to sabotage her campaign at every turn.

It’s not entirely clear why there was such intense animous towards Hillary by such a large and diverse group. We do know, however, that the most vile tactics were used to suppress Hillary’s campaign; caucus fraud, race-baiting, and outright misogyny comes to mind. As examples, the Obama campaign initiated a not-so-secret whisper campaign that President Clinton was a racist when Clinton called Obama’s Iraq War position a “fairy tale,” Hillary was accused of waiting for the unthinkable to happen to Obama when she mentioned the length of the 1968 campaign and Bobby Kennedy and, from January on, there was a constant drumbeat that she must leave the race.

Running below the murky currents of this campaign, however, was a sexism so deep and so pervasive that it can be said that sexism defined this campaign. Indeed, I believe the subtext and central narrative of Obama’s campaign was sexism. Because two women were the biggest political threat to his campaign, Obama needed to unleash sexism.

Dr. Socks continues:

Narratives: think about narratives. Anthropologists of gender, like Peggy Reeves Sandy, talk about “scripts”: the stories that a society tells itself to explain the world. How men are. How women are. How they should be.

The Obama campaign, with the help of the media and “progressives” blogs, pushed a narrative against Hillary and later Sarah Palin, that invalidated them as public servants because on their gender. Misogyny, wrapped in the protective shell of race-baiting, was the central narrative of the Obama campaign.

I subscribe to the bumper sticker view that “feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” My wife and I are expecting a girl in January. I want this girl to live the full and free life our son enjoys, without gender being an obstacle in her path. I don’t want my daughter to be called a “bitch,” or for someone to wear a t-shirt calling her a “cunt.” Put in those terms, the Obama movement unleashed something very ugly into the culture. The Obama campaign, in its subterranean narrative, encouraged the hatred of women. It is little wonder then that the author of the Post Secret card blames feminism for her unhappiness; she’s witnessed that women who expect equal treatment will be beat down.

1)The computer systems of both the Obama and McCain campaigns were victims of a sophisticated cyberattack by an unknown “foreign entity,” prompting a federal investigation, NEWSWEEK reports today.

At the Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they initially thought was a computer virus—a case of “phishing,” a form of hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: “You have a problem way bigger than what you understand,” an agent told Obama’s team. “You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system.” The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: “You have a real problem … and you have to deal with it.”
—————
Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps’ policy positions—information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese.) A security firm retained by the Obama campaign took steps to secure its computer system and end the intrusion. White House and FBI officials had no comment earlier this week.

Read the rest ->

Nothing like being a victim to alert a person to the danger. I wonder if any technology-related policies will benefit from Obama’s victimization.

2)Meanwhile, in Russia, things are heating up. Foxnews has a piece about Russian President Medvedev “sending a signal” to the US.

Russia will deploy missiles near NATO member Poland in response to U.S. missile defense plans, President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday in his first state of the nation speech.

Medvedev also singled out the United States for criticism, casting Russia’s war with Georgia in August and the global financial turmoil as consequences of aggressive, selfish U.S. policies.

————————-

Speaking just hours after Obama was declared the victor in the U.S. presidential election, Medvedev said he hoped the incoming administration will take steps to improve badly damaged U.S. ties with Russia. He suggested it is up to the U.S. — not the Kremlin — to seek to improve relations.

“I stress that we have no problem with the American people, no inborn anti-Americanism. And we hope that our partners, the U.S. administration, will make a choice in favor of full-fledged relations with Russia,” Medvedev said.

Well, here we go. A Russian demand for a new American President to kiss some butt. Hmmmmm.

3)In the most thoughtful piece I’ve seen on the racial aspect of a President Obama, Shelby Steele talks a bit about what Obama implicitly promised and what he may not be able to deliver. From LAT.

[Obama's] talent was to project an idealized vision of a post-racial America — and then to have that vision define political decency. Thus, a failure to support Obama politically implied a failure of decency.

Obama’s special charisma — since his famous 2004 convention speech — always came much more from the racial idealism he embodied than from his political ideas. In fact, this was his only true political originality. On the level of public policy, he was quite unremarkable. His economics were the redistributive axioms of old-fashioned Keynesianism; his social thought was recycled Great Society. But all this policy boilerplate was freshened up — given an air of “change” — by the dreamy post-racial and post-ideological kitsch he dressed it in.

This worked politically for Obama because it tapped into a deep longing in American life — the longing on the part of whites to escape the stigma of racism. In running for the presidency — and presenting himself to a majority white nation — Obama knew intuitively that he was dealing with a stigmatized people. He knew whites were stigmatized as being prejudiced, and that they hated this situation and literally longed for ways to disprove the stigma.
——————–

Of course, it is true that white America has made great progress in curbing racism over the last 40 years.
——————–
It is exactly because America has made such dramatic racial progress that whites today chafe so under the racist stigma. So I don’t think whites really want change from Obama as much as they want documentation of change that has already occurred. They want him in the White House first of all as evidence, certification and recognition.

But there is an inherent contradiction in all this. When whites — especially today’s younger generation — proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer’s ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.

On the nose. Particularly that last part. Although many people would not feel the same, I can say that this election has pretty much cured me of any need to seek “racial innocence.” While many blacks have often said they felt constrained not to make whites feel “threatened” by their presence, I think whites could respond that they often felt constrained to project “I’m not racist” at every opportunity.

However, I’m not doing it anymore. I’ll be polite to people, not wishing to give offense and just hoping to get along - same as ever. But I’m not going to worry if someone perceives me as a racist because I looked at them too long or noticed what was in their grocery cart or any of a thousand things you do when you interact others. I’m done with that.

But what about how Obama will transform our culture? What does Steele say?

There is nothing to suggest that Obama will lead America into true post-racialism. His campaign style revealed a tweaker of the status quo, not a revolutionary. Culturally and racially, he is likely to leave America pretty much where he found her.
——————
Presidents follow the culture; they don’t lead it. I hope for a competent president.

Yeah. I completely agree. All I ever wanted was competence.

4)The Orlando-Sentinel had an interesting and yet ridiculous piece today. Obama won because of black athletes. Seriously.

If you’re searching for tangible reasons why it became possible for Barack Obama to make his historic run at the presidency of the United States, then look no further than the golf course, basketball court or football field.

Obama may have emerged from the partisan political arena, but it was the nonpartisan athletic arena that opened white America’s eyes and minds to the amazing potential and personalities of black America.

OK, you can make a case for any barrier-breaker, no doubt about that. But to suggest that black athletes who excel in the ruthless meritocracy that is sports today somehow are the forerunners of a man elected despite a lack of experience is not a very good argument, IMO. Seeing Michael Jordan play basketball or Lynn Swan play football is to see a truly expert individual. Simply put, you don’t play if you don’t have the chops.

But to suggest a presidential campaign reflects meritocracy is absurd. It reflects many things, but not necessarily merit. These athletes will be out on their butts as soon as they can’t perform. Anyone honestly think THAT will happen to BO? Has it yet?

5)Who should get Obama’s Senate seat? An AA of course. I’m seriously doubting any white people need apply, but let’s look at the contenders. From Newser is a Time piece on who could fill that seat.

As confidence grew in recent weeks that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States, a battle intensified among various Illinois politicos to fill his Senate seat. Although a number of local leaders have publicly expressed interest in the position, the decision on who will complete the roughly two years remaining in Obama’s Senate term ultimately rests with Illinois’ governor, Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat and former congressman. . .
—————

Identity politics may play a major part in Blagojevich’s decision. Observers believe the governor may feel compelled to appease two of his core constituencies — women, and blacks, particularly from his native Chicago area — that could prove crucial to his prospects should he seek reelection in 2010. He may feel extra pressure to replace the Senate’s only black member with another African-American. One of the names most frequently mentioned here is Jesse Jackson Jr., a veteran Congressman who represents parts of Chicago’s South Side, and a national co-chair of Obama’s presidential campaign.

In an interview Monday, Jackson told TIME: “I’d be honored and humbled to succeed Sen. Obama in the U.S. Senate. I’m confident the governor will make a decision in the best interest of the state, and country.” But Blagojevich could also opt for a sort of placeholder figure to complete Obama’s term and allow Democrats to find a long-term candidate for 2010. Among the prominent black politicians the governor would turn to in that scenario, are Illinois’ secretary of state, Jesse White, or Emil Jones Jr., the recently retired president of Illinois’ senate, and one of Blagojevich’s few General Assembly allies.

The author mentions some other contenders, but I think Jackson is the most likely choice and he’s clearly indicated he wants it. And as national co-chair of Obama’s campaign, I’m betting it’s his. As for the idea that a woman might get the seat? Only if Obama tells Jesse Jr. to pipe down.

A better question is this: what might Blagojevich need more than the goodwill of the President?

6)Newser also has a story from the AP about Iraq.

Iraqi officials said Wednesday they don’t expect Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops hastily from Iraq because he told them last summer that he wouldn’t make a decision without consulting them and U.S. commanders on the ground.

With violence down and the economy No. 1 on American voters’ minds, the Iraqis said they believe the new president will take his time before fulfilling his promise to end the war in Iraq, which costs U.S. taxpayers $12 billion a month at a time of financial crisis back home.
——————

“Obama has to deal with Iraq’s issues in a positive way and have a sense of responsibility to correct the situation in Iraq, as well the situation inside America,” said Salim Abdullah, spokesman of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament.

“We are not concerned that he will take a unilateral decision to remove troops quickly from Iraq since he needs to discuss this issue with the Iraqi government first,” Abdullah said.
——————–

This year, U.S. and Iraqi negotiators hammered out an agreement that would remove U.S. soldiers from Iraq’s cities by June 30, with the last American troops leaving the country by 2012. The accord still must be approved by parliament by year’s end when the U.N. mandate expires.

The draft agreement has drawn strong opposition inside Iraq, but government officials are hopeful that parliament can approve the pact in time for the deadline.

That would largely satisfy both Obama’s pledge _ and the Iraqi goal _ of an orderly end to the U.S. mission.

Don’t forget that part. Despite an agreement in place, Obama will take credit for any forward movement in Iraq. Having said that, I don’t think Bush deserves any credit at all. But perhaps some of his people might. They won’t get any.

7) Lastly, I looked in vain for MSM or even sorta MSM discussions of this election in terms of misogyny or in terms of women’s issues. Crickets. Except for a wonderful post here on NQ by Bud White, there is very little out there. We should push BO on this issue at every opportunity and carefully monitor his administration. While everyone talked about race being the “unspoken issue” of the campaign, it got thoroughly aired. What was never spoken of was hate against women.

So far, only bloggers are addressing the issue, but here’s another one:

Grail Guardian is pointed:

There will never be a female President of the United States. There. I said it. Ladies, go home and grab your burkas and start cooking dinner for your man and popping out babies. You will never have equal pay for equal work, you will never be considered competent or capable at anything you ever do, and you stand no chance of ever getting anywhere unless it’s to a soccer or hockey game to cheer your (male) children on. Of course the laws will be wide open to allow you to abort female children so you don’t have to sully the landscape with them at all anymore.

How do I know? Because before even half the nation’s votes were tallied tonight, not only were all the major networks calling the race for Barack Obama, but the pundits are already discussing how Sarah Palin was John McCain’s downfall. Pundits attempting to defend her popularity with statistics were shot down on Fox News. That’s it – it’s over. You will not see another female Presidential candidate taken seriously in this country in our lifetimes. We’ll be lucky if we continue to see women continue to hold seats in the Senate and House after tonight. Female Governors? Forget about it. Palin won’t be re-elected there, because in spite of the fact that Alaska loved her (90% approval rating) just 4 months ago, she has been trashed and is now persona non grata in her own state courtesy of the Chosen One.

Time to saddle up. We need to demand BO own this issue since he’s knowingly benefitted from misogyny. At the very least, he should be required to choose some women for his administration. But we already know what his people said to just that request before: “you can’t have that.”

Lynette Long talked with a BO staffer and heard just that.

Think the Congressional Black Caucus might be willing to push for women? BO MIGHT listen to them.

Jonathan Martin of Politico reports that the Pennsylvania GOP is running the following
ad in the Key Stone state. Martin writes:

McCain has refused to invoke Wright or allow his campaign to use the pastor in ads. A senior campaign aide said they knew nothing about the Pennsylvania party’s ad in advance. Officials with the state party didn’t respond to an e-mail.

Martin, however, wants to blame McCain for the ad:

McCain’s campaign is taking a hands-off approach, not disavowing the ad.

Says campaign spokesman Peter Feldman.

“John McCain’s position with regard to Reverend Wright is clear. He is not the referee of every political ad in this election.”

Of course, McCain is the leader of the leader the GOP, and could urge a state party to not air such an ad.

Of course Martin is upset because this ad is accurate. This ad is fundamentally about judgment. Obama chose a racist pastor and stayed with him for 20 years; that’s bad judgment. Obama infers that Pennsylvanians are racists. These facts about Obama and his devotion to Wright along with the insults directed at the good people of Pennsylvania will swing many Independents to McCain.

Obama’s arrogance is repulsive; his judgment is worse.

::::::::::::

UPDATE from Bronwyn Obamanot: As our regular readers know from reading our stories on Friday and Saturday — including “GOPTrust.com Kicks A–! (Great ads in all the battleground states!)” — another 527, GOPTrust.com, is also running a searing ad about Obama’s long relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Many of you contributed to the 527’s fund, and I want to be sure to let you know that your donations are paying off!

On Sunday night, one of our writers noticed that GOPTrust paid to run the ad during the highly-rated CBS primetime Sunday reality TV show, The Amazing Race.

Now that is hot ad placement! The Amazing Race has won 11 Primetime Emmy awards.

The prime-time Nielsen ranking and rating for the October 21st airing is:

18. “Amazing Race 13,” CBS, 10.29 million viewers.

Imagine that. Your contributions enabled GOPTrust.com to reach over 10 million people tonight during a show that is ranked 18th out of all prime-time primary network programming — and that’s just on the one ad spot that we are aware of. True to its word, GOPTrust.com has placed its ads in as many spots as possible, both nationally and in the key battleground states.

Tell Bill Ayers that that is true “power to the people.” Tell the anti-free speech Obamabots that all the viewers of tonight’s Amazing Race saw this ad:

Obama and Wright: He Never Complained Once

Read Text of Ad — Click Here

Donate Now to Have This Ad Air in Swing States — Click Here

Note: We don’t know if it’s still helpful to donate to GOPTrust.com. Visit their site to be sure using the link immediately above.

Prejudiced? Well of course I’m prejudiced. Everybody’s prejudiced. The only difference is that my prejudices are the correct ones and everybody else’s are the wrong ones.

Now don’t tell me it’s bad to have prejudices. My God, if you don’t have prejudices, it means you don’t have values and standards. And if you don’t have values and standards, you’re good for nothing as far as I’m concerned and you’re just using up valuable space on this planet.

Anyone who has values and standards about what’s good or bad, right or wrong, automatically has prejudices. If you do not like anything that lives up to your standards and values, that’s prejudice.

Among my prejudices are people who use expressions like “yeah, right” and call people “dude”. People whose favorite term of abuse is “douchebag”. People who use the “f” word indiscriminately. People who use bad language. All of these, of course, are characteristics common among the Obama supporters who spam Youtube with their silly, prejudiced messages. Just have a look at their comments and see for yourself.

Some people might think that I’m prejudiced against Obama because of the color of his skin. That’ is simply not true. I don’t mind the color of anyone’s skin provided they share the same cultural and spiritual values as me. But anyone who hangs around with Bill Ayres, Louis Farrakhan, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or Khalid al Mansour does not share my cultural and spiritual values.

I am also prejudiced against Obama because he has lied about his associations with these people, just as he has lied about what he can do for this country. Of course, he is not exactly the first politician to lie. And he won’t be the last. There are a lot of them about. Barney Frank, for example.
While I am not prejudiced against religions in general, I am prejudiced against religions that want to kill anyone who doesn’t believe as they do. I guess my taste in religion is prejudiced towards the gentler religions like traditional Christianity, Buddhism and Sufism.

What about my other prejudices? Well, I don’t necessarily mind people who are arrogant. Some people call me arrogant, which just shows how the term can be misused. I also don’t mind people who are ignorant and stupid. Oops, do I mean intellectually challenged? No I don’t. Come to think of it, that’s another prejudice of mine: political correctness. I think it’s carried too far. Or is it just because I am “culturally challenged”? Anyway, while I don’t mind people who are ignorant, stupid or arrogant, I am prejudiced against people who combine ignorance and stupidity with arrogance.

Like a lot of Obama supporters.
Of course, like any sane person I am prejudiced against Keith Olbermann. How could anyone not be prejudiced against such a bigoted blowhard?

And what person in their right mind could not be prejudiced against the Great Political Whore of Babylon, otherwise known as Arianna Huffington, or the Beast With No Name, whose name, as you might have gathered, is never mentioned on my channel?
As you might have noticed from one of my other videos, I am prejudiced against people who use third world orphans as fashion accessories. The same goes for people who use dogs for the same purpose, whether poodles or pit bull terriers.
You might also have noticed from my anti-rap rap video, I am prejudiced against people who wear their baseball caps sideways or back to front. For one thing it’s such a dreary cliche. Secondly, it’s an offense to the eye to see so many clones walking the streets. It’s a blot on the landscape.
If God wanted you to wear your cap sideways, he would have created a baseball cap with a logo on the side. If he wanted you to wear your cap backwards, he would have put the logo on the back.

Except that then of course it would be the front.

Anyway, the logo is always above the bill, so that’s the part that is supposed to be worn at the front.
To tell the truth I’m not all that keen on baseball caps anyway.

In my next video I will have more to say about prejudice. In the meantime I will leave you with this conclusion: There is nothing wrong with prejudice, as long as it is MY prejudice.

Anyone who is against me because of my prejudices is being intolerably intolerant and displaying the worst kind of prejudice imaginable.

…..

Speak your piece

and vent your likes and dislikes while you may

and act in a prescribed way

(from the lexicon of the wise sayings of OldGrumpyGuy)

If you need a recap, suffice it to say I will not vote for the most arrogant, condescending, homophobic, lying, bullying, cheating (with help from the DNC), unqualified, inexperienced, race baiting, Authoritarian Socialistic misogynist ever. I mean, NEVER. Apparently, neither will Charles Krauthammer, a commentator who is growing on me (H/T to SusanUnPC for this article!).

Recently, in this article, McCain for President, Dr.Krauthammer
endorsed McCain. Dr. Krauthammer laid it all out there, saying what a lot of us out here think, too:

Contrarian that I am, I’m voting for John McCain. I’m not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it’s over before it’s over. I’m talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they’re left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.

I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe — neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) — yelling “Stop!” I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I’d rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

Well, good for him.

Scott McClellan apparently couldn’t sign up fast enough, the man who served as Bush’s mouthpiece for the war is now an Obama supporter. Funny, I haven’t heard any disdain coming out from the Obamabots about him. Or “If We Don’t Invade Iraq We Will Be Awash In White Powder” Powell. I guess it’s okay that the man who SOLD the war so many of us oppose, and one of the MAIN reasons Obamabots claim they support Obama, now endorses an Obama presidency is somehow a great achievement to these people. Logic is not their strong suit, apparently.

Krauthammer continues:

First, I’ll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The “erratic” temperament issue, for example. As if McCain’s risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.

McCain the “erratic” is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

Here is what is so, so, so sad about this whole election campaign. An amazingly qualified candidate had her decades’ worth of experience minimized and belittled by her opponent, her party, members of her party, and the media, largely because she is a woman. Had anyone else had that breadth and depth of experience, they would be glorified. And now they have started on McCain, but taking a different tact. Now it is that McCain is so old his experience doesn’t matter - it’s old school, and we’re the new kids on the block. Get out the way, Gramps - the cool kids are coming through now, and they’re gonna show you how it’s REALLY done. Never mind that these wet-behind-the-ears pups haven’t the FOGGIEST into what they are getting themselves. They have proclaimed The One to be the cat’s meow, and he can do no wrong. Especially since they haven’t bothered to listen to what he actually SAYS he is going to do or how he is going to do it. I reckon they think they’ll just be getting a check from him if he’s elected, and that’s all they need. Either way, experience is BAD - inexperience is GOOD!!! Sheesh.

Krauthammer won’t put up with all of the Obama Camp nonsense, though, thank heavens:

Nor will I countenance the “dirty campaign” pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports “cutting Social Security benefits in half.” And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.

McCain’s critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What’s astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.

Halle-damn-lujah - Someone is saying what we have been saying. How is it that Obama has continued this relationship with this man, this “educator” trying to radicalize the youth of Chicago, who bombed the Pentagon and our Capitol Building? How can that possibly be? I think we all know the answer to that question, and the recently revealed video tapes in which Obama expresses his true ideology are confirmed. Though Barbara West, she of the interview with Biden that actually tried to get answers, said that Obama said himself, in his book, that he was intrigued by Marxism, and sought out friends with a Marxist bent. I’ll provide that video for you at the end of this post. The point is that we should ALL have been offended by Obama’s relationship to Ayers, not excusing it.

The good doctor continues his explanation for his choice, including the race-baiting of the Obama camp:

Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama’s most egregious association — with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who’s been cramming on these issues for the past year, who’s never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of “a world that stands as one”), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as “the tragedy of 9/11,” a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

Is this a trick question? Well, I agree with Krauthammer when he writes:

There’s just no comparison. Obama’s own running mate warned this week that Obama’s youth and inexperience will invite a crisis — indeed a crisis “generated” precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?

And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he’s been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.

The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.

Today’s economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I’m for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb. letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Do the Obama people just want to pretend all of McCain’s qualifications don’t exist because of his age, or because he is Republican, or because if they do acknowledge it, they will negate their own campain? In any event, so far, they have been allowed to get away with it, courtesy of the Fourth Estate. Most of the MSM never acknowledge McCain’s stand on the economy, all the way back to 2005, and Obama’s bounty from the very people who got us into this economic mess. No, rather they lump McCain into the pool of people they claim are responsible for the misfortune facing so many, TOO may, people in this country now. Apparently, creating news has become more important than reporting news, at least when it comes to Obama and McCain. And while I was opposed to the surge, thinking it was a bad idea, I have to admit that it does seem to be working now. Rather than give McCain the credit he deserves for knowing that from the beginning, media prefers to rationalize away Obama’s stand, or they seem to steer away from any discussion of what is happening in Iraq at all these days. That seems to be how they deal with everything - ignore, obfuscate, justify, manipulate, lie.

Yep, that Dr. Krauthammer is one smart man, I have to say. While I do not agree with him on everything in general, I agree with him on this: McCain is far more qualified, both in terms of experience and in terms of character, to lead this country.

As promised, here is the Barbara West piece in which she explains where she got her questions to ask Joe Biden about Obama’s socialistic tendencies. Obama himself, of course: