The one and only Ann Coulter, on the saga of Obama and the Rev:
Whew! I'm certainly glad to hear the "snippets" from Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons "in context."
In the famous B. Hussein Obama speech that sent a tingle down Chris Matthews' leg, Obama dismissed the clips of Rev. Wright being played on TV as mere "snippets." He claimed the media were highlighting Wright's "most offensive words," complaining that they had been played endlessly, as if repetition were the problem with the statement: "GOD DAMN AMERICA!"
It's absolutely unheard of to repeat passages from famous speeches. In fact, I have a dream that we will not do that. Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask that the media stop replaying "snippets." All we have to fear is repetition itself, because we are the people we've been waiting for to tear down that wall of endless repetition.
So, like I said: Whew. At last Rev. Wright's "snippets" have been put in a healing context. In two speeches and one uxorious interview with PBS' Bill Moyers over the past few days, Rev. Wright had plenty of time to lay out the lush analytical context of his remarks.
In his speech to the National Press Club on Monday, for example, Wright described America as a country of "segregation, Jim Crow, lynching and the separate-but-equal fantasy." Then he ran outside to feed more quarters into the meter where his time machine was parked.
Wright described this as a country that supported the "racist regime of South Africa" and "the Contras, who were killing the peasants and the Miskito Indians in those two countries" -- as opposed to the Sandinistas, who were equal-opportunity murderers with a more diverse group of victims.
He said this is a country that "cuts food stamps and spends billions fighting in an unjust war in Iraq," neglecting to add that before you can cut the food stamp program, you must have a country that has a food stamp program.
He said we are a country that sent "over 4,000 American boys and girls of every race to die over a lie." And Wright said it is a country "where I can worship God on Sunday morning wearing a black clergy robe and kill others on Sunday evening wearing a white Klan robe." (Unless, like me, you do all your Klan-related murdering on "casual Fridays.")
And, to listen to Wright, those were the "U.S. of KKK A.'s" good points! (Is it just me, or does Rev. Wright sound kind of bitter these days? I sure hope he doesn't have a gun.)
He clarified his Sept. 16, 2001, sermon, in which he said that on 9/11 "America's chickens are coming home to roost" by saying: "You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you." I'm glad to get the full context on that because I had thought he was talking about chicken farming.
Actually, that's pretty much the way I took it even when presented as a "snippet."
Rev. Wright also put into context his church giving an award to fellow Obama supporter Louis Farrakhan by saying: "He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century. That's what I think about him. ... I am not going to put down Louis Farrakhan."
Why did Rev. Wright's supporters think it would be helpful to hear longer versions of the "snippets"?
Curiously, Rev. Wright complained that "everybody wants to paint me as if I'm anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago" -- especially those damn East Coast, money-grubbing Jews, he carelessly added. This from a man whose entire oeuvre is based on reveling in what happened in this country 250 years ago.
Rev. Wright clarified his statement, "GOD DAMN AMERICA!" by explaining: "God doesn't bless everything. God condemns something -- and d-e-m-n, 'demn,' is where we get the word 'damn.' God damns some practices."
Well, that changes the meaning entirely.
One begins to suspect that the Clintons, flush with those megamillions they got from selling their previous tenancy at the White House, have put the reverend on staff. I believe this used to be called "walking around money."
Obama said the Rev. Wright he heard defending himself on Monday was not the Rev. Wright he met 20 years ago. This is the political equivalent of the "It's not you, it's me" speech. He might just as well have said, "I love Rev. Wright. I'm just not in love with him anymore. Hey, can I have my CDs back?"
If it takes Obama 20 years to notice that his pastor is a traitorous, racist nut-job, it will probably take him his full term of office to realize that the U.S. has been invaded and subdued by al-Qaida. Let's just hope President Obama pays closer attention during national security briefings than he did during 20 years of the Rev. Wright's church services.
The only good news for the Obama campaign this week is that Obama admitted that his relationship with Rev. Wright is "a legitimate political issue," which at least makes him smarter than John McCain, who just last week denounced the North Carolina Republicans for an ad mentioning Obama's raving lunatic pastor.
heh..
The various Bush lied diatribes are destructive on so many levels that it is hard to measure. For starters, they are as follows: 1.) Bush may be an incompetent boob. He may even be a traitor. He probably deserves to be impeached, however, he did not lie about Iraq's WMD. He along with Congress and our Coaltion partners relied on the CIA and other intellegence agencies to reach his decision to invade Iraq. The intellegence turned out to be wrong. Clearly the WMD are not "there." At least they are not where they thought they would be. They may be in Syria or perhaps they did not exist. In any event, Bush and his advisors did not lie. They acted in good faith based on the intellegence available to them. The problem here is time and energy that has been spent bashing Bush and so called "neo conservatives" would have been better spent fixing our intellegence services so that this mistake does not happen again!! 2.)The myth that Bush lied about Iraq's WMD has done tremendous damage to America's world wide image. This could have been prevented or at least minimized had Bush and his advisors made an effort to counter this. Bush deserves much blame here. Had he come forward and defended himself then he could legitmately be accused of being incompetent. For example, why was a draft not implemented in the run up to the Iraq war? Why was a draft not implemented after the 911 attacks? Why were more troops not used for Iraq? What was in those trucks that ferried mass quantities of something into Syria in the run up to the Iraq war? So many legitmate unanswered questions that, if we admit our intellegence was flawed, would need to be answered. In short. Bush and others thought keeping their jobs was more important than American national security. Now its likely to late to undo the damage that has been done to America's image over this vicious slander that the Bush Administration lied about Iraq's WMD. 3.)It was clear by Iraq's rhetoric and actions that Saddam's regime hated the US and our most important ally, Israel. It also seemed clear that Iraq under Hussein wanted to hook up with Islamic terrorists. This was documented by a number of analyists but the intellegence may have been wrong on some of this. Had the Bush Administration and the US government concluded there were no WMDs in Iraq and there were it is highly likely the US may have been attacked and one or more US cities would have been destroyed. This leads to, 4.)A future president will be unable to respond to threats to America until after one or more American cities have been destroyed or they will be unable to respond until the country has been invaded and largely conqured. By this time it will be to late.
ReplyDeleteThe myth that Bush lied about Iraq's WMD has been devestating to American interests on a vast amount of levels. The truth is Bush acted in good faith based on the intellegence that was available. Much of the intellegence was wrong. The US can begin to correct this problem by pointing out that Bush did not lie that he and his advisors acted in good faith.
Finally, work to fix the intellegence community so these errors do not occurr in the future. The enemy we face in Iraq and Afghanistan poses a far greater danger to the US than Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan ever did or likely ever could have. Good intellegence is going to vital to defeating this enemy. Government officials need to get to it with regards to holding intellegence officials accountable and fixing our intellegence community. As long as intellegence officials can hide behind the "Bush lied" myth, the necessary work to fix America's intellegence services will likely not be undertaken.