Who Are You? 'Cause I Really Wanna Know
John McCain asked a very simple -- but very important question: Who is Barack Obama?
Everyone has an answer -- he's the Democratic nominee for president. He is currently in his fourth year of his first US Senate term. Before that, he was an Illinois State Senator, a lawyer, community organizer, president of the Harvard Law Review, child of a Kenyan father and an American mother, born in Hawaii, raised for a while in Indonesia. But just try to look beyond the official biography, and you end up with far more questions than answers. This is brought into even starker contrast when you compare what we know about Barack Obama with what we know about John McCain.
For example, we know that John McCain graduated almost at the bottom of his class at Annapolis. We have no idea how Obama did, academically, either as an undergraduate or in law school.
We know that McCain showed reporters over 1800 pages of his medical records. Obama released a single page from his doctor that said "yup, he's fine."
We know that McCain, after his release as a prisoner of war, went on to command a training squadron before retiring from the Navy and running for Congress. We don't know just what Obama did in his legal career.
As remarkable as Obama's official biography is, it's the items that are omitted that are really enlightening. One of the biggest weaknesses people cite in Obama is his lack of executive experience, but that's not entirely accurate.
Barack Obama served on the boards of two very large organizations. He spent seven years with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (the first four in charge) and eight years as a director of the Joyce Foundation. But he doesn't want to talk about those 15 years of executive experience.
Could it be because he was an abject failure at both? I dunno. Obama doesn't want to talk about it. But the circumstantial evidence is...interesting.
Obama served as a director for the Joyce Foundation from 1994 to 2002. During that time, the Foundation put a LOT of resources into redefining the 2nd Amendment as not a collective right, and trying to ban handguns entirely. A few of the tactics the group tried? They subsidized a book entitled "Every Handgun Is Aimed At You: The Case For Banning Handguns." (NOTE: You GOTTA read the reviews in Amazon.com on this masterpiece. HINT: It's written by J. Sugarman... ~GR)
More importantly, they struck upon a novel legal strategy for undermining legal support for the 2nd Amendment. They, in essence, "bought" articles in law reviews attacking the theory of the 2nd Amendment being an individual right. These articles gave judges inclined to rule against the 2nd Amendment the legal cover they needed.
This ultimately failed, as just this last term the Supreme Court ruled, in the Heller case, that the 2nd Amendment is, indeed, an individual right.
So, what does this have to do with Obama? I dunno. Obama doesn't talk about it. But the circumstantial evidence is compelling. Obama has a long record of pushing for gun control. He sponsored some of the most restrictive gun-control laws in Illinois. He once filled out a questionnaire saying he supported an outright ban on handguns. Or maybe he didn't -- a "misinformed" aide filled out the form. Or, at least, that question, as Obama filled out other parts of it. Or something.
Also, the plan involved "sponsoring" Law Reviews at various law schools to publish articles in favor of gun control. Obama had been the editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Again, all circumstantial. But interesting.
And then there's the Chicago Annenberg Foundation. This program was set up to improve Chicago's public schools. Bill Ayers, unrepentant former terrorist ("guilty as hell, free as a bird," in his own words), worked for years to start this program. And who was the founding head of the Challenge? Barack Obama.
Obama, who describes Ayers as "some guy in my neighborhood" who he met at a few meetings. Obama, a lawyer and former failed community organizer (he cited his ineffectiveness as an organizer as part of his reason for going to law school), with no real track record of doing much of anything, was put in charge of a foundation that started off with a bankroll of $50 million and ultimately spent over three times that much.
There are many unfavorable things one can call Bill Ayers. Despicable. Communist. (Sorry, "small-c communist" is the term he prefers.) Radical. Terrorist. Anti-American.
But I don't think you can fairly call him "overly trusting" or "naive" or "gullible." And those are the qualities one would ascribe to someone who puts a complete stranger (or even a very casual acquaintance) in charge of a project Ayers put that much effort into creating.
Others have noted that, despite the official statements, there is a very good chance Ayers and Obama crossed paths long before 1995. In 1988, both men were part of the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs. Could Ayers have met the young Obama through that connection, found something he liked about the guy, and remembered him a few years later, when he was again working at "improving" Chicago's schools?
According to the official story, absolutely not. The two men were barely acquainted when Ayers put Obama in charge of the CAC. Unofficially, the theory is a hell of a lot more plausible.
So, now that Obama is heading up the CAC, with a nine-figure budget to improve Chicago's schools, what does he do? Well, he oversees out the doling of money not to the schools themselves, but to "outside partners" who, in turn, work with the schools. Outside partners like Ayers' "Peace School," which pushes an internationalist, pro-UN world view on young students. Outside partners like Ayers' old crony, Maoist Mike Klonsky, who took $175,000 for his "Small Schools Project." Outside partners like the Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama's church for 20 years and headed by race-baiter and black separatist Jeremiah Wright.
Obama ran the board for four years, then stepped down to a board member for three years longer, until the Foundation shut down in 2002. In the end, they spent over $150 million on improving Chicago's schools.
And the result? A study showed virtually no difference between the schools the Challenge "helped" and those they did not. In short, Obama spent seven years and $150 million and achieved exactly nothing.
Except, of course, lining the pockets of his and Ayers' friends. With money from charities and the people of Chicago.
These are the kinds of things that Obama doesn't want talked about. These are the kinds of things that shows what Obama has done when he is placed in an executive position. These are the kinds of things that sensible people ought to keep in mind when they are deciding who they want to have as their Chief Executive of our nation.
And these are the kinds of things that the mainstream media ought to be telling us. Why aren't they?
By: Jay Tea, Wizbang.com
