The Roots of the Financial Crisis

Power Line: The Roots of the Financial Crisis

In the New York Post,
Stanley Kurtz looks for the origins of the current financial crisis and
finds them in the activities of ACORN, and Barack Obama, dating back to
the mid-1990s:

FOR years, ACORN had combined manipulation of the CRA with
intimidation-protest tactics to force banks to lower credit standards.
Its crusade, with help from Democrats in Congress, to push these
high-risk "subprime" loans on banks is at the root of today's economic
meltdown. ...

As ACORN ran its campaigns against local banks, it quickly hit a
roadblock. Banks would tell ACORN they could afford to reduce their
credit standards by only a little - since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
the federal mortgage giants, refused to buy up those risky loans for
sale on the "secondary market."

That is, the CRA wasn't enough. Unless Fannie and Freddie were
willing to relax their credit standards as well, local banks would
never make home loans to customers with bad credit histories or with
too little money for a downpayment.

So ACORN's Democratic friends in Congress moved to force Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac to dispense with normal credit standards. Throughout
the early '90s, they imposed ever-increasing subprime-lending quotas on
Fannie and Freddie.

But then the Republicans won control of Congress - and Rep. Roukema
scheduled her hearing. ACORN went into action to protect its golden
goose. ...

ACORN's intimidation tactics, and its alliance with Democrats in
Congress, triumphed. Despite their 1994 takeover of Congress,
Republicans' attempts to pare back the CRA were stymied.

Instead, Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Reps.
Kennedy and Waters allied with the Clinton administration to broaden
the acceptability of risky subprime loans throughout the financial
system, thus precipitating our current crisis. ...

WHEN the ACORN-Democrat alliance finally succeeded in blocking
Republicans from restoring fiscal sanity in 1995, the way was open to
virtually unlimited lending quotas - and to a whole new way of thinking
about credit standards.

Urged on by ACORN, congressional Democrats and the Clinton
administration helped push tolerance for high-risk loans through every
sector of the banking system - far beyond the sort of banks originally
subject to the CRA.

So it was the efforts of ACORN and its Democratic allies that first
spread the subprime virus from the CRA to Fannie and Freddie and thence
to the entire financial system.

Soon, Democratic politicians and regulators actually began to take
pride in lowered credit standards as a sign of "fairness" - and the
contagion spread.

And when financial institutions across the board saw that they could
make money by trading what would once have been considered junk loans,
the profit motive kicked in. But the bad seed that started it all was
ACORN.

HOW does Barack Obama fit into all of this? Obama has been a key
ally of Chicago ACORN going back to his days as a community organizer.

Read it all. One of the common themes of modern American history is
that liberals will create a problem by ill-advised government action,
then benefit from it politically by proposing ever more intrusive
government action to solve it. That appears to be happening again in
connection with today's credit crisis.

'Obama Is My Jesus'

Smith College Editor: 'Obama Is My Jesus' | NewsBusters.org

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Economists Statement on Barack Obama's Risky Economic Proposals

100 Economists Warn That With Current Weak Financial Conditions Barack
Obama's Proposals Run A High Risk Of Throwing The US Into A Deep
Recession

ARLINGTON,
VA -- Today, McCain-Palin 2008 released the following statement signed
by 100 distinguished and experienced economists at major American
universities and research organizations, including five Nobel Prize
winners Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott,
and Vernon Smith. The economists explain why Barack Obama's proposals,
including "misguided tax hikes," would "decrease the number of jobs in
America." The prospects of such tax rate increases under Barack Obama
are already harming the economy. The economists conclude that "Barack
Obama's economic proposals are wrong for the American economy." The
proposals "defy both economic reason and economic experience."

The full economists' statement on Barack Obama's economic proposals and a complete list of economists who support it follows:

Barack
Obama argues that his proposals to raise tax rates and halt
international trade agreements would benefit the American economy. They
would do nothing of the sort. Economic analysis and historical
experience show that they would do the opposite. They would reduce
economic growth and decrease the number of jobs in America. Moreover, with
the credit crunch, the housing slump, and high energy prices weakening
the U.S. economy, his proposals run a high risk of throwing the economy
into a deep recession. It was exactly such misguided tax hikes and
protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early
1930s, that greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression.

We
are very concerned with Barack Obama's opposition to trade agreements
such as the pending one with Colombia, the new one with Central
America, or the established one with Canada and Mexico. Exports from
the United States to other countries create jobs for Americans. Imports
make goods available to Americans at lower prices and are a particular
benefit to families and individuals with low incomes. International
trade is also a powerful source of strength in a weak economy. In the
second quarter of this year, for example, increased international trade
did far more to stimulate the U.S. economy than the federal
government's "stimulus" package.

Ironically,
rather than supporting international trade, Barack Obama is now
proposing yet another so-called stimulus package, which would do very
little to grow the economy. And his proposal to finance the package
with higher taxes on oil would raise oil prices directly and by
reducing exploration and production.

We
are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor
income and investment. His dividend and capital gains tax increases
would reduce investment and cut into the savings of millions of
Americans. His proposals to increase income and payroll tax rates would
discourage the formation and expansion of small businesses and reduce
employment and take-home pay, as would his mandates on firms to provide
expensive health insurance.

After
hearing such economic criticism of his proposals, Barack Obama has
apparently suggested to some people that he might postpone his tax
increases, perhaps to 2010. But it is a mistake to think that
postponing such tax increases would prevent their harmful effect on the
economy today. The prospect of such tax rate increases in 2010 is
already a drag on the economy. Businesses considering whether to hire
workers today and expand their operations have time horizons longer
than a year or two, so the prospect of higher taxes starting in 2009 or
2010 reduces hiring and investment in 2008.

In
sum, Barack Obama's economic proposals are wrong for the American
economy. They defy both economic reason and economic experience.

Robert Barro, Harvard University

Gary Becker, University of Chicago

Sanjai Bhagat, University of Colorado

Michael Block, University of Arizona

Brock Blomberg, Claremont-McKenna University

Michael Bordo, Rutgers University

Michael Boskin, Stanford University

Ike Brannon, McCain-Palin 2008

James Buchanan, George Mason University

Todd Buchholtz, Two Oceans Fund

Charles Calomiris, Columbia University

Jim Carter, Vienna VA

Barry Chiswick, University of Illinois at Chicago

John Cogan, Hoover Institution

Kathleen Cooper, Southern Methodist University

Ted Covey, McLean VA

Dan Crippen, former CBO Director

Mario Crucini, Vanderbilt

Steve Davis, University of Chicago

Christopher DeMuth, American Enterprise Institute

William Dewald, Ohio State University

Frank Diebold, University of Pennsylvania

Isaac Ehrlich, State University of New York at Buffalo

Paul Evans, Ohio State University

Dan Feenberg, NBER

Martin Feldstein, Harvard University

Eric Fisher, California Polytechnic State University

Kristin Forbes, MIT

Timothy Fuerst, Bowling Green State University

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Hudson Institute

Paul Gregory, University of Houston

Earl Grinols, Baylor University

Rik Hafer, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Gary Hansen, UCLA

Eric Hanushek, Hoover Institutions

Kevin Hassett, American Enterprise Institute

Arlene Holen, Technology Policy Institute

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain-Palin 2008

Glenn Hubbard, Columbia University

Owen Irvine, Michigan State University

Mike Jensen, Harvard University

Steven Kaplan, University of Chicago

Robert King, Boston University

Meir Kohn, Dartmouth

Marvin Kosters, American Enterprise Institute

Anne Krueger, Johns Hopkins University

Phil Levy, American Enterprise Institute

Larry Lindsey, The Lindsey Group

Paul W. MacAvoy. Yale University

John Makin, American Enterprise Institute

Burton Malkiel, Princeton University

Bennett McCallum, Carnegie-Mellon University

Paul McCracken, University of Michigan

Will Melick, Kenyon College

Allan Meltzer, Carnegie-Mellon University

Enrique Mendoza, University of Maryland

Jim Miller, George Mason University

Michael Moore, George Washington University

Robert Mundell, Columbia University

Tim Muris, George Mason University

Kevin Murphy, University of Chicago

Richard Muth, Emory University

Charles Nelson, University of Washington

Bill Niskanen, Cato Institute

June O'Neill, Baruch College, CUNY

Lydia Ortega, San Jose State University

Steve Parente, University of Minnesota

William Poole, University of Delaware

Michael Porter, Harvard University

Barry Poulson, University of Colorado, Boulder

Edward Prescott, Arizona State University

Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University

Richard Roll, UCLA

Harvey Rosen, Princeton University

Robert Rossana, Wayne State University

Mark Rush, University of Florida

Tom Saving, Texas A&M University

Anna Schwartz, NBER

George Shultz, Stanford University

Chester Spatt, Carnegie-Mellon University

David Spencer, Brigham Young University

Beryl Sprinkle, Former Chair Council of Economic Advisers

Houston Stokes, University of Illinois in Chicago

Robert Tamura, Clemson University

Jack Tatum, Indiana State University

John Taylor, Stanford University

Richard Vedder, Ohio University

William B. Walstad, University of Nebraska

Murray Weidenbaum, Washington University in St. Louis

Arnold Zellner, University of Chicago

Getting started with ScribeFire - ScribeFire: Fire up your blogging

Obama Hired ACORN For GOTV

by Amanda Carpenter

http://am1280thepatriot.townhall.com/columnists/AmandaCarpenter/2008/10/09/obama_hired_acorn_for_gotv

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is the first national
candidate ever to hire ACORN, a controversial non-profit accused of
voter fraud across the country, for get out the vote activities.

Obama’s campaign paid $800,000 to a subsidiary of the
liberally-leaning non-profit Association of Community Organizers for
Reform called Citizens Services Incorporated campaign to increase voter
turnout.

This information, however, was not properly disclosed to the
Federal Election Commission. The Obama campaign said it hired CSI to do
“polling, advance work and staging events” according to reports
submitted to the FEC during the Democratic primary.

The FEC said the Obama campaign needed to disclose ACORN was
engaging in get out the vote activities last August. At the time the
Obama campaign called the mistake a “clerical error.”

To date, ACORN has been accused of voter fraud in 15 states this election cycle.

Obama has close ties to the organization. Before becoming a
member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama represented ACORN in a
lawsuit to help push for “Motor Voter” laws to make it easier for
low-income persons to vote.

Later, as director of the Woods Fund and Chairman of the Board
of Chicago Annenberg Challenge Obama helped steer funds to ACORN
through various grants.

Obama sought ACORN’s endorsement in the Democratic primary
telling ACORN members, “Even before I was an elected official, when I
ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack
dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”

“Project Vote” is the name ACORN’s voter registration drives
are called. Obama worked for Project Vote for a period of roughly seven
months in 1992.

ACORN endorsed Obama for president in February 2008.

Obama is Hiding a Radical Past!

By Matthew Weaver closeAuthor: Matthew Weaver Name: Matthew Weaver
Email: matthew@theindependentview.com
Site: http://www.theindependentview.com
About: See Authors Posts (43) on October 7, 2008 at 11:11 PM in Barack Obama, Current Affairs

(bumped by SusanUnPC at 11:11 p.m. ET)

Edited and updated at 8:50 p.m. ET.

Did you know that Barack Obama was affiliated with a leading national socialist party? Barack Obama didn’t include in his 2008 resume that he entered politics in the mid-1990s endorsed by Chicago’s leading socialists. This just keeps getting better and better. Barack Obama was an active participant in the 1990s, and a direct political beneficiary, of the Chicago New Party and, importantly, the Chicago DSA, a group of socialists affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.

1. Barack Obama attended and participated in meetings of the Chicago New Party and the Chicago DSA, the local affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America.
2. Barack Obama sought the endorsement of the Chicago DSA which required rigorous scrutiny by the party’s Political Committee as well as Mr. Obama’s signature on a contract promising “a visible and active relationship with the NP.”
3. Barack Obama actively used the endorsement from the Chicago DSA.
4. Barack Obama won his DSA-endorsed and -backed campaign to secure his seat in the Illinois State Senate.
5. Barack Obama continued his involvement with the Chicago DSA — including directly asking the group to join “his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration” — and received their endorsements in subsequent campaigns.

Obama’s participation in and endorsement from the Chicago New Party and Chicago DSA, the local affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America (which is the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International) is quite clear:

1. According to the write-up on the July 1995 meeting of Chicago DSA and New Party membership, Barack Obama was one of about 50 people attending out of their then-300 member local group. Other documents below will demonstrate Barack Obama attended and participated in subsequent meetings.
2. The New Party rigorously evaluated its candidate endorsements and claimed “a winning ratio of 77 of 110 elections.” This was no passive endorsement.

Candidates must be approved via a NP political committee. Once approved, candidates must sign a contract with the NP. The contract mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with the NP.—New Ground

3. Candidate Barack Obama participated as a panelist at the DSA-sponsored Town Meeting on February 25, 1996, entitled “Employment and Survival in Urban America”. As reported in New Ground,

Barack Obama observed that Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in the 1960s wasn’t simply about civil rights but demanded jobs as well. Now the issue is again coming to the front, but he wished the issue was on the Democratic agenda not just on Buchanan’s.

One of the themes that has emerged in Barack Obama’s campaign is “what does it take to create productive communities”, not just consumptive communities. It is an issue that joins some of the best instincts of the conservatives with the better instincts of the left. He felt the state government has three constructive roles to play.

The first is “human capital development”. By this he meant public education, welfare reform, and a “workforce preparation strategy”. Public education requires equality in funding. It’s not that money is the only solution to public education’s problems but it’s a start toward a solution. The current proposals for welfare reform are intended to eliminate welfare but it’s also true that the status quo is not tenable. A true welfare system would provide for medical care, child care and job training. While Barack Obama did not use this term, it sounded very much like the “social wage” approach used by many social democratic labor parties. By “workforce preparation strategy”, Barack Obama simply meant a coordinated, purposeful program of job training instead of the ad hoc, fragmented approach used by the State of Illinois today.

The state government can also play a role in redistribution, the allocation of wages and jobs. As Barack Obama noted, when someone gets paid $10 million to eliminate 4,000 jobs, the voters in his district know this is an issue of power not economics. The government can use as tools labor law reform, public works and contracts.

4. Obama subsequently secured his endorsement from the Chicago DSA
   The local Democratic Socialists of America affiliate issued their Chicago DSA Endorsements in the March 19th Primary Election:

Barack Obama is running to gain the Democratic ballot line for Illinois Senate 13th District. The 13th District is Alice Palmer’s old district, encompassing parts of Hyde Park and South Shore.

Mr. Obama graduated from Columbia University and promptly went into community organizing for the Developing Communities Project in Roseland and Altgeld Gardens on the far south side of Chicago. He went on to Harvard University, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated with a law degree. In 1992, he was Director of Illinois Project Vote, a voter registration campaign that made Carol Moseley Braun’s election to the U.S. Senate much easier than it would have been. At present, he practices law in Judson Miner’s law firm and is President of the board of the Annenberg Challenge Grant which is distributing some $50 million in grants to public school reform efforts.

What best characterizes Barack Obama is a quote from an article in Illinois Issues, a retrospective look at his experience as a community organizer while he was completing his degree at Harvard:

“… community organizations and organizers are hampered by their own dogmas about the style and substance of organizing. Most practice … a ‘consumer advocacy’ approach, with a focus on wrestling services and resources from outside powers that be. Few are thinking of harnessing the internal productive capacities, both in terms of money and people, that already exist in communities.” (Illinois issues, September, 1988)

Luckily, Mr. Obama does not have any opposition in the primary. His opponents have all dropped out or were ruled off the ballot.

5. Barack Obama Continued Attending Membership Meetings of the Chicago DSA New Party
   Obama attended membership meeting on April 11, 1996 where he expressed his gratitude for their support. The report shared that “Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NPers to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration.”
6. Obama won his election with the help of the Chicago DSA’s New Party.
7. Chicago DSA notes in 1998 that Barack Obama eulogized Saul Mendelson, co-founder of the Debs Dinner.
8. In the fall of 1998, Chicago DSA’s New Ground’s editor offered nomination of Barack Obama for reelection.
9. When Barack Obama challenged Bobby Rush for the 1st Congressional District in 2000, the Chicago DSA opted to recommend both:

For Congressman of the 1st Congressional District, the Executive Committee was faced with two very good candidates. As we are not making endorsements but merely recommendations, we felt no conflict in recommending both Bobby Rush and Barack Obama.

Bobby Rush was the incumbent Congressman. He was also a candidate for Mayor of Chicago in the last municipal elections, endorsed by Chicago DSA. While he hasn’t always been the ideal Congressman from a left perspective (being a cosponsor of the “NAFTA for Africa” bill, for example), he’s generally been quite good. To volunteer, call 773 264 7874. Contributions may be made to Citizens for Rush, 514 E. 95th St., Chicago, IL 60619.

Barak Obama is serving only his second term in the Illinois State Senate so he might be fairly charged with ambition, but the same might have be said of Bobby Rush when he ran against Congressman Charles Hayes. Obama also has put in time at the grass roots, working for five years as a community organizer in Harlem and in Chicago. When Obama participated in a 1996 UofC YDS Townhall Meeting on Economic Insecurity, much of what he had to say was well within the mainstream of European social democracy.

Conclusion
Barack Obama has a long-term and sustained relationship with the Chicago DSA, an affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America, and with the Chicago New Party. He participated in multiple membership meetings and in DSA-sponsored events, repeatedly sought their endorsement. This does not answer all questions about Barack Obama’s past relationships with multiple socialist groups. What the media need to find out is this: Has Barack Obama broken his ties with them> If so, when and why?

Is Obama Intelligent Enough to Be President?

Is Obama Intelligent Enough to Be President?
Dr. Clifton Chadwick

One of Barack Obama’s major selling points is that he is intelligent. This is what has been said.

* Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review.
* Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
* He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Neither Palin (Bachelor in Journalism) nor John McCain (graduate from the U.S Naval Academy, near bottom of class) can top such educational merits. He is thoughtful and, as his own VP candidate says, articulate.

Sounds good.

Intelligence is a term to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. It includes breadth of storage capacity and speed of response. Good solutions to problems, a wide range of general and specific knowledge and quick reactions are typical signs of high intelligence. Let us concentrate on reasoning, thinking abstractly, problem solving, and quick thinking and good use of language

Quick thinking and use of language
First, when Rick Warren of Saddleback Church asked Obama if life begins at conception, Obama's non-response ran was as follows:

"From a theological perspective or scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."

Many have pointed out that the response was glib, flippant and inadequate. Presidents should not consider moral issues above their pay grade. This was not a positive example of quick thinking.

Second, many people gave Obama the benefit of doubt on the Bacongate thing. Several said that Obama couldn't possibly be so dumb and mean enough to call Palin a pig. But if he is so intelligent why did he not see that putting a pig and lipstick in the same sentence was going to be so interpreted? Personally I think it might have been a slip, but when the audience reacted as it did, he should have known he was in trouble and later should have explained himself better. Not explaining suggests that he knew what he was doing. He did not make the intelligent move.

Third, the latest of these gaffes came just a few days ago. Asked about his advert saying McCain could not send an email, he was told
“It paints him as an old man. You say he can’t use a computer, he’s never sent an e-mail. What does that all mean?” Cuomo asked.
“What it means is that we’ve got a 21st century economy. And John McCain does not have a vision for how to move that forward,” Obama replied.

Obama rejected suggestions that his campaign ad was a low blow.
“If we’re going to ask questions about, you know, who has been promulgating negative ads that are completely unrelated to the issues at hand, I think I win that contest pretty handily,” Obama said.

Yes, he does seem to be winning negativity quite handily.

Fourth, several commentators have said the Barack is good as long as he is reading from a teleprompter, but looks bad when he speaks extemporaneously. For example,

"Democrats know something, and desperation is setting in. They have a novice campaigner who wanders off message." (Jim Wooten , September 12, 2008, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

"Barack Obama is a lot like Sean Penn or George Clooney. If you give him a script, he can deliver it pretty well. But if he tries to talk without a script that has been written for him by others, he quickly reveals that he is poorly-informed if not downright ignorant. Today he delivered another classic, by claiming that if only we would all properly inflate our tires, we could save as much gasoline as "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling."(powerlineblog)

"Barack Obama without a teleprompter is an accident waiting to happen. Sometimes he reveals his ignorance of history, sometimes he stumbles incoherently, and sometimes he blurts out what he really believes. That's what happened today when Obama tried to talk about Georgia, a topic that has embarrassed him more than once already, beginning when, in the first hours after the invasion, he parroted the Russian line. "

About his verbal swiftness, Democratic lobbyist Lawrence F. Obrien, III said: "People like to say he is a black Jack Kennedy. Fine, up to a point. Kennedy was smart, elegant, very well spoken, slim, handsome -- but, he also was Irish. Sharp, quick and abundant sense of humor, able to make contact with people."

Extemporaneous speaking is a hallmark of intelligence. I hope you see what I mean about quick verbal facility, repartee, the kind of thing Kennedy and Johnson both had, but Obama does not have.

Reasoning and thinking abstractly
There are so many examples of problems here that I have just had to choose some of the more egregious and flagrant ones.

First, remarkably, Barack Obama has decided to take on John McCain on the subject of earmarks. This is somewhat like Al Capone taking on Eliot Ness on the subject of bootlegging. The McCain campaign released this response:

While Senator McCain has never requested a single earmark, Senator Obama has requested nearly a billion dollars worth during his short time in office. Though Senator Biden has been in the Senate for 36 years, he has only disclosed his earmarks for one year.

Senator Obama increased his earmark requests during each of his first three years in office. Governor Palin has cut requests for earmarks for Alaska by $150 million since entering office, and she has cut those requests every single year. She has also vetoed a half billion dollars in wasteful spending at the state level.

One might ask, what makes Obama think he can get away with this nonsense, when the facts are the precise opposite of his claims? But you know the answer to that question.

Second, for a guy with a reputation for being smooth, Barack Obama stumbled badly when he was pressed, only mildly, by a reporter in a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania recently:

It is striking how naive Obama sounds when he talks about foreign policy. He proposes keeping a "strike force" either in Iraq or somewhere nearby--presumably closer than Okinawa--to "deal with potential problems that might take place in the region." But that isn't a policy, it's a fantasy.

Third, Barack Obama gave a speech on patriotism recently in Missouri. As always when Obama waxes "eloquent," the media swooned. And, as always, the speech raised interesting questions if you actually read it. The implicit premise of the speech was that Obama's patriotism is being widely questioned. As far as I've seen, that isn't true. What has happened is that Obama's judgment and political ideology have been questioned because he has chosen to associate himself closely with people who manifestly are not patriotic, like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

In one speech Obama said that America "is the greatest country on Earth." I'm happy to assume he means it, although whether Obama ever means what he says is an open question. But how, then, did Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright become Obama's spiritual guardian for twenty years? And how do we reconcile Obama's "greatest country on earth" rhetoric with the cynical comment by his political sponsor Bill Ayers on Ayers' own acquittal: "Guilty as sin, free as a bird. What a great country!" Obama failed to acknowledge, let alone answer, the questions that are raised by these associations.

Next blunder: plagarism! Just like his companion, Joe Biden!!

Campaigning in Terre Haute, Ind. on Saturday, Barack Obama, mocking claims by John McCain and Sarah Palin that they will challenge their Republican Party if elected, got off a pretty good line. "Maybe what they're saying is, 'Watch out George Bush,'" Obama said with sarcasm. "Except for economic policies, and tax policies, and energy policies, and health care policies, and education policies, and Karl Rove-style politics -- except for all that, we're really going to bring change to Washington! We’re really going to shake things up!"

It wasn't Obama's line, though. It came from Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles, whose cartoon Friday featured these words along with a drawing of McCain and Sarah Palin in front of the White House: "Watch out, Mr. Bush! With the exception of economic policy and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments and Rove-style politics, we're coming in there to shake things up!" (See the cartoon here.)

Asked about the borrowing, Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Obama used Toles's lines unwittingly, after being alerted to them by a friend who didn't mention the source.

Problem solving

Proposed policies and programs can give an idea of a candidate’s ability to think abstractly and solve problems. Some of Obama’s proposals are pretty bad.

For example, he wants to renegotiate the NAFTA! “I will make sure that we renegotiate. … I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced.” —Democratic primary debate in Cleveland, Feb. 26, 2008 (If you want to know why these Ideas are bad)

He opposes the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. “And I’ll also oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement if President Bush insists on sending it to Congress because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.” —Speech to Philadelphia AFL-CIO, April 2, 2008

In both of these cases he is wrong and he is pandering to the trade unions, instead of thinking about reasonable policies. Old-fashioned politics as usual.

Someone said that Barack Obama is a foreign policy realist with a strong, confident understanding of the world and America’s role in it. His philosophy is in the mold of T.R. Obama will speak softly and, always, because we are America, carry a big stick. Best of all, he will not continue the hysterical, fear-inspired, foreign policy failures of the Bush-McCain-Lieberman axis. But He has Talked Openly About Bombing Pakistan. Is that speaking softly? Does that show high quality abstract thinking?

“If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” —Speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Washington, D.C., Aug. 1, 2007

As Dr. Phil would say, “What were you thinking?” In this case he was not thinking, he was rhetoricking. As none other than Joe Biden pointed out last August, “It’s not something you talk about. … The last thing you want to do is telegraph to the folks in Pakistan that we are about to violate their sovereignty.”

Asked if he’d be “willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea,” Obama replied: “I would.” —Democratic primary debate, Charleston, S.C., July 23, 2007. Then, in the debate with McCain he got hammered for that remark, tried to use Kissiner as an example, and Kissinger said he was wrong!

“I’ll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we’ll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills.” —Speech in Raleigh, N.C., June 9, 2008

Another attempt at pandering! Really NOT intelligent!
Oil companies are not the problem: supply and demand is.

Dubious double-dealing on Iraq

The well known Iranian commentator, Amir Taheri, says that Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders to postpone troop withdrawals until after the November Presidential elections


WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."
"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says.

Though Obama claims the US presence is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate. While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined.

McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann commented on this story:

"At this point, it is not yet clear what official American negotiations Senator Obama tried to undermine with Iraqi leaders, but the possibility of such actions is unprecedented. It should be concerning to all that he reportedly urged that the democratically-elected Iraqi government listen to him rather than the US administration in power. If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. Senator Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's Foreign Minister during their closed door meeting. The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Senator Obama's judgment and it demands an explanation."

Puffing Up His Past and Future
After Republicans made fun of Obama's touting his experience as a "community organizer," MSNBC noted that Obama complained, "They haven't talked about the fact that I taught constitutional law."

There would seem to be an especially conspicuous absence of witnesses to the years after graduated from Columbia and before he moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer. Well, it turns out that one of his co-workers, Dan Armstrong, has in fact written about Mr. Obama during those days. And while he is an admitted fan of Obama’s, he claims that he has inflated his resume considerably. Others who worked with Obama at Business International have subsequently chimed in.

We know, too, that, according to Obama, we can look back on June 3, 2008–the date he wrested the Democratic nomination away from Hillary Clinton–as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

In Conclusion
Extemporaneous speaking is a hallmark of intelligence. He does not have it. He rambles, and gets lost if he does not have his teleprompter. His reasoning and ability to think abstractly have definitely been put in doubt. He is not very good at problem solving. He has been accused of double dealing over Iraq. He plagiarizes and puffs up both his past and the future. He lies quite often and is not smart enough to cover up his stories. Enough said?
Clifton Chadwick posted: September 30, 2008 10:37 am