primerib
Well-Known Member
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/37572/print
The concern is not that Obama will invite domestic terrorists to the White House for signing ceremonies or private lunches; rather, it is that we know enough about Obama to say that his enormous personal ambition has clouded his judgment over the years. He looks to be a man who will do disquieting things in order to climb the ladder of political success; when he was in Hyde Park, the rungs on that ladder included Mr. Ayers and the Reverend Wright. This kind of trait — soaring ambition trumping sound judgment — can manifest itself in very problematic ways, especially when you occupy the most powerful office in the world.
For those who say that these associations don’t matter, that they’re “distractions” from the more urgent problems of our time and an example of “Swift-boating,” consider this: if John McCain had sat in the pew of a pastor who was a white supremacist and launched his political career at the home of, and developed a working relationship with, a man who bombed abortion clinics or black churches and, for good measure, was unrepentant about it, McCain’s political career would be (rightly) over, and he would be (rightly) ostracized.
A political reference point may be helpful here. Senator Trent Lott was hounded out of his post as Majority Leader because of a few inappropriate comments — made in bad taste but in jest — at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Much of the media and the political class were outraged. Yet we have a case in which Obama has had close, intimate relations with some really unsavory folks, and we’re told it doesn’t matter one bit.
It’s true enough that the McCain campaign has never explained in a sustained, adequate way why these radical associations matter; that McCain, for reasons that are hard to fathom, has declared the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is off limits; and that the MSM is so deeply wed to Obama’s victory that they have done all they can to turn the issue of Obama’s radical associations into a problem for John McCain rather than Barack Obama. And so it’s quite possible that raising Obama’s radical associations in the last 20 days won’t be politically effective and may even be politically counterproductive, given the economic crisis we’re facing and the ham-handed way it’s been handled so far. Many Americans certainly seems to be of the mind that Obama’s associations with Ayers and Wright and all the rest don’t matter.
The concern is not that Obama will invite domestic terrorists to the White House for signing ceremonies or private lunches; rather, it is that we know enough about Obama to say that his enormous personal ambition has clouded his judgment over the years. He looks to be a man who will do disquieting things in order to climb the ladder of political success; when he was in Hyde Park, the rungs on that ladder included Mr. Ayers and the Reverend Wright. This kind of trait — soaring ambition trumping sound judgment — can manifest itself in very problematic ways, especially when you occupy the most powerful office in the world.
For those who say that these associations don’t matter, that they’re “distractions” from the more urgent problems of our time and an example of “Swift-boating,” consider this: if John McCain had sat in the pew of a pastor who was a white supremacist and launched his political career at the home of, and developed a working relationship with, a man who bombed abortion clinics or black churches and, for good measure, was unrepentant about it, McCain’s political career would be (rightly) over, and he would be (rightly) ostracized.
A political reference point may be helpful here. Senator Trent Lott was hounded out of his post as Majority Leader because of a few inappropriate comments — made in bad taste but in jest — at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Much of the media and the political class were outraged. Yet we have a case in which Obama has had close, intimate relations with some really unsavory folks, and we’re told it doesn’t matter one bit.
It’s true enough that the McCain campaign has never explained in a sustained, adequate way why these radical associations matter; that McCain, for reasons that are hard to fathom, has declared the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is off limits; and that the MSM is so deeply wed to Obama’s victory that they have done all they can to turn the issue of Obama’s radical associations into a problem for John McCain rather than Barack Obama. And so it’s quite possible that raising Obama’s radical associations in the last 20 days won’t be politically effective and may even be politically counterproductive, given the economic crisis we’re facing and the ham-handed way it’s been handled so far. Many Americans certainly seems to be of the mind that Obama’s associations with Ayers and Wright and all the rest don’t matter.
