The Obama Con Job

[jamwadmag]

The Obama Con Job

Thomas Sowell
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Someone once said that a con man’s job is not to convince skeptics but to enable people to continue to believe what they already want to believe.

Accordingly, Obama’s Philadelphia speech — a theatrical masterpiece — will probably reassure most Democrats and some other Obama supporters. They will undoubtedly say that we should now “move on,” even though many Democrats have still not yet moved on from George W. Bush’s 2000 election victory.

Like the Soviet show trials during their 1930s purges, Obama’s speech was not supposed to convince critics but to reassure supporters and fellow-travelers, in order to keep the “useful idiots” useful.

Best-selling author Shelby Steele’s recent book on Barack Obama (A Bound Man) has valuable insights into both the man and the circumstances facing many other blacks — especially those who were never part of the black ghetto culture but who feel a need to identify with it for either personal, political or financial reasons.

Like religious converts who become more Catholic than the pope, such people often become blacker-than-thou. For whatever reason, Barack Obama chose a black extremist church decades ago — even though there was no shortage of very different churches, both black and white — in Chicago.

Some say that he was trying to earn credibility on the ghetto streets, to facilitate his work as a community activist or for his political career. We may never know why.

But now that Barack Obama is running for a presidential nomination, he is doing so on a radically different basis, as a post-racial candidate uniquely prepared to bring us all together.

Yet the past continues to follow him, despite his attempts to bury it and the mainstream media’s attempts to ignore it or apologize for it.

Shelby Steele depicts Barack Obama as a man without real convictions, “an iconic figure who neglected to become himself.”

Senator Obama has been at his best as an icon, able with his command of words to meet other people’s psychic needs, including a need to dispel white guilt by supporting his candidacy.

But president of the United States, in a time of national danger, under a looming threat of nuclear terrorism? No.

I have met a few racists, but they were never close enough with me to disown. That is the difference with Wright and Obama, and comparisons to his grandmother can't disguise that fact. I have never associated myself with a group of racist the way Obama has with his church that cheers and approves of Wright's demagoguery. What Obama has become is Bill Clinton whose core belief is his own electability and whatever it takes to achieve that.

[jamwadmag]

From Wiki:

Stepin Fetchit was the stage name of American comedian and film actor Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (May 30, 1902–November 19, 1985). His typical film persona and stage name have long been synonymous with the stereotype of the servile, shiftless, simple-minded black man in early 20th Century American film. There has been a more recent revisionist view that sees his film persona as ultimately subversive of the status quo. Perry parlayed the Fetchit persona into a successful film career, eventually becoming a millionaire, the first black actor in history to do so.

If the Fetchit persona derives, too, from a common manipulation technique used by blacks to mitigate their status by pretending to be unintelligent and fulfilling the low expectations of whites, Perry himself was not afraid to use it off screen. Auditioning for a role in a remake of In Old Kentucky, Perry stayed in character before and after the audition, often feigning low intelligence or skipping or mumbling lines he did not like.

[Sounds like Barack has 'his' variation of 'manipulating' and 'feigning' to please whites!!!]

[WiseOne]

Obama is "cheap talk,' fluff, and a 'today' yippie con-man!!

This has become true to me over the past few weeks. God help this country...oops nevermind, God ain't allowed in America...I forgot, sorry.

[Herb Schaffler]

"God help this country...oops nevermind, God ain't allowed in America...I forgot, sorry."

Nobody is trying to take God out of this country, they're just saying that God believers don't have the right to push it on others through the use of the State.

[nohil-billy]

Who is "pushing" religion on anybody Herb? I never understood where atheists are coming from when they say the government is pushing religion.

I think it's so hypocritcal when atheists raise hell about the government using a couple hundred bucks of tax payer money to erect a cross on public land back in the forties, yet they're willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to take it down. Hundreds of thousands if you count court cost. You people need to get over yourselves.

[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link.

[nohil-billy]

Obama con job is right. Here's another point of view about Obama being out of touch. Larry Elder makes a good point that Obama clung to his church for 20 years. Was he bitter?

[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link.

[nohil-billy]

I thought I was just being cynical when I doubted Obama's sincerity when he denounced his pastor, but according to Rasmussen, most Americans feel the same way.


[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This No Hillary For President Forum Link.

[Herb Schaffler]

But McCain never does anything out of political convenience, does he?

[nohil-billy]

He probably does Herb, but I'm talking about Obama. The MSM made his denouncement of Jeremiah Wright seem like a bold and courageous move while it was merely political expedience. Face it, the MSM wouldn't be that forgiving with McCain.

[Herb Schaffler]

"Face it, the MSM wouldn't be that forgiving with McCain."

You're not aware of the love affair that the MSM has with McCain? McCain has courted them, unlike the media in Arizona who don't have a very high opinion of him. He has not courted them, I guess, because he's felt they were beneath him. McCain has a tendency to just hang out with the big guys and fat cats. And they call Obama an elitist even though he was brought up in a humble background. It's McCain and Hillary who are the elitists. Hillary once remarked to somebody after receiving some Razorback earrings, "See the s*** I have to put up with?"