Lately, there have been a lot of rumors circulating around about the racist, Islamo-fascist, stuck up, too black, not black enough, inexperienced terrorist Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. Oh, wait, maybe that isn't really who he is. Let's take a look:
Barack Obama isn't now and never has been a Muslim. Obama's father, who left after he and Barack's mother divorced when Barack was 2, was raised a Muslim but was not practicing. In Obama's 5 year stint in Indonesia as a child, he attended one school run by Muslims (not a madrassa), where Muslims comprised a majority of the student body and for two of those five years attended another School run by Catholics. Essentially his mother was just trying to get him into the best school possible and wasn't concerned about the religion of the students or faculty at these facilities. Barack Obama began his professional career working with Churches as a community organizer and is a Christian. Even so, I don't recall the Constitution requiring a person to pass a religious test in order to be President. I don't recall Muslims being forbidden from running for office? That being said, why doesn't anyone make a big deal about Obama's half sister being a Buddhist or John McCain's adopted daughter being from Bangladesh (Formerly Eastern Pakistan), a Muslim country.
He has no Experience: Barack Obama has spent more time in elected office than Hillary Clinton and also more time than George Bush had spent prior to him becoming President. Although, I will be the first to admit that George Bush's lack of experience is painfully obvious and has had disastrous consequences. Bush had 5 years experience as a State Governor, Hillary has served in the U.S. Senate for 6 1/2 years and Obama served in the Illinois State Senate for 8 years and has been in the US Senate for 3 1/2 years for a total of 11 1/2 years of experience.
Obama is a member of the following committees: Senate Foreign Relations Committee with 30 year Incumbent Richard Lugar of neighboring Indiana, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Hilary would contend that her time as first lady counts as "experience" but I used to date an artist and that doesn't make me a painter.
Racist: One paragraph ago you thought he was a Muslim terrorist but as we all know he attends the Trinity Church of Christ on Chicago's south side. This Church had a preacher who, like many preachers in black churches, gives sermons inspired by current events and issues. He says things like America has historically been racist, that white people have more opportunities than black people, that laws have been put in place which targets blacks and that we have stuck our noses in places where it didn't belong and some people have taken exception to that among other things, none of them false. Again, this was Obama's preacher, who isn't running for President, who said these things, not Obama himself.
Obama is half white. His mother was a white lady from Kansas. From the age of 10, he grew up with his white grandparents in Hawaii. He attended Columbia University and was president of the Harvard Law Review. He eats arugula salads; with the exception of him joining a Polka band, you can't get any whiter than that. To say he is racist against white people is simply ludicrous.
If he was forced to vote yay or nay on the Iraq War, he would have caved in and authorized the attack on Iraq: Yet another fallacy. On October 2, 2002, the day Congress authorized the use of force; Obama spoke at an anti-war rally in Chicago condemning the actions of Congress and his fellow Democrats such as Hilary Clinton who voted for the war. He was against it then and is against it now. How good was McCain's judgment and experience on that issue?
He is an elitist: Being educated and not eating 5 Big Mac's a week doesn't make you an elitist. Eating 5 Big Macs a week and not getting the connection between who is running this country and the price of gas, makes you an idiot. Getting into Yale based on your fathers legacy, dodging Vietnam with your fathers political clout makes you an elitist, declining the offers of over 600 glamorous law firms all over the country offering huge salaries but turning them down for less money to work for a firm dedicated to civil rights, voter rights and helping out the people in poor neighborhoods and registering them to vote does not make you an "elitist".
He won't recite the Pledge of Allegiance: Wrong, he does say the Pledge of Allegiance and places his hand over his heart when doing so. He doesn't put his hands over his heart when saying the national anthem but any third grader or fan in a football stadium will tell you that it isn't required. He also doesn't wear a flag pin but neither does Hillary or McCain. I fail to see how a one inch by one inch flag pin made in China proves your patriotism.
He is related to Saddam Hussein: Barack Obama isn't related to either Saddam Hussein nor the late King Hussein of Jordan, an American ally or anyone with the last name Hussein. His middle name is Hussein which is derived from the Semitic word "hasan" meaning good. "Barack" is also derived from a Semitic word meaning "blessed" which appears often in the Hebrew Bible, 62 times in Genesis for example.
Will raise your taxes: If you make over $200,000 per year, then sure, he may restore your tax rate to what it was in the 1990's, one of the most prosperous times in our history. As an Illinois Senator, Obama was responsible for providing over $100 million in tax cuts to working families while expanding early childhood education programs.
He is Liberal: As opposed to someone who thinks the poor should pay all the taxes, that diplomacy is only a last resort after war fails, that thinks the earth is more than 10,000 years old, that thinks teachers make too much, that this is a nation for the corporation by the corporation as opposed to for the people by the people, that subsidies for corporations who export jobs and avoid taxes is sound fiscal policy, that we should bomb people who don't agree with us, that rich people are having a hard time right now and need tax cuts, that the Iraq war was necessary (for Exxon to obtain record profits), that our trade deficit and weak dollar is a good thing, who thinks only people who wear flag pins are patriotic, that by torturing people you will always get the information you are looking for an it will be accurate and inspire other countries to treat our prisoners with compassion, that eight year olds should be able to buy automatic weapons, that companies who give loans to homeless people need to be baled out by the government but the people who can't pay their mortgages are deadbeats, etc. Then yes, thank Buddha, he is liberal.
Oh, and if Clinton fails to get the Democratic nomination, it's not because of sexism, it's because she didn't get as many votes. Ya, we get it, white, uneducated, rednecks in red states won't vote for a black guy but they aren't going to vote for a Democrat in the general election anyway.
