Obama is Yellow

While we know Obama to be a committed socialist, he has pretended to move toward the center politically upon winning the Democrat nomination and then still further on winning the national election. He will work to promote much of his socialist plan surreptitiously. This is much more to his liking than a head-to-head battle of ideas.

Obama has often claimed that he is strong because he rose in the rough and tumble of Chicago and Illinois politics. Of course, we know that that rough and tumble nature does not mean that they play basketball with little attention to fouls or that they play tackle football without pads. It means that they are as corrupt as politics can be anywhere in the United States. Only Louisiana is commonly mentioned as a rival in corruption. It is amid such squalor of morals that Obama chose to pursue a political career and to align himself with politicians and backers such as Blagojevich, Rezko, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and the Illinois senate president Emil Jones. These are not good men. Far from it, they are extremely flawed men and Obama is at home with them.

Obama clearly found it hard to condemn the corruption of Gov. Blagojevich. He and his incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel worked closely with Blagojevich six years ago to plot out his successful campaign for the Illinois governorship. Though there were many reports of corruption and violations of the law in the first Blagojevich term, Obama supported him for re-election. He won, but it was not long before the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives called for his impeachment. The kingpin of Obama's successful race for the U.S. Senate, Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, opposed the impeachment of a sitting Democrat governor on the grounds that he was a Democrat. Obama remained silent.

Now that Blagojevich has been arrested, Obama first tried to remain silent. Only after a public hew and cry arose did he finally call for Blagojevich to resign. This reminds one of the process when public indignation grew to Rev. Wright's recorded "God Damn America" speech. At first Obama was unwilling to reprimand his 20-year long spiritual father, but managed to do so when the public indignation reached a sufficiently high level. Obama is consistently a man good at playing the part of being self-assured in the way he presents himself when not under much public pressure, but who reveals his constant vacuity of self when the going gets rough. It is also clear that he has no compunction to actually act morally, though he has some wish to appear to be a moral man. What this man consistently lacks is moral courage.

If he had arisen to the Presidency as a moral reformer who was clearly appalled at the corruption of Chicago and Illinois politics and who had the courage to fight it, he would have earned some respect. Instead, he ignored the many cesspools around him and failed the people of Chicago and Illinois. Now, we must be prepared for him to fail as President of the United States. No one can succeed in this office who has no moral courage.

Obama: Proud Illinois Politician

Obama frequently speaks about how proud he is that he rose in politics in the rough and tumble political environment of Chicago. We have long known that Chicago politics was heavily tainted with corruption and some of Obama's past relationships in politics were with such people as the convicted Antonin Rezko, the racist, public fund-dispensing Rev. Wright, and the Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers. Chicago politics tends to set the trend for politics in Illinois state politics generally. Gov. Blagojevich has now been arrested for misuse of state power for corrupt purposes, which means that he has gone way beyond the accepted levels of corruption and abuse of power. He appears to have made an extensive practice of arranging to deliver state contracts and state commision positions to those who provided him or his wife with sufficient bribe money. He was trying to sell an appointment to fill the Senate seat being vacated by B.O. In the last 35 years, three previous Illinois governors have been convicted of felonies and sentenced to prison while in office. Blagojevich may become the 4th governor to be convicted of a felony.

Interestingly, in 1965, when I was a freshman at Brown University, I had to attend a series of lectures given by luminaries brought in for the purpose of apparently enlarging our view of the world. Brown University was particularly proud of a Brown University graduate who became a judge in Illinois and was then Governor of Illinois. This man was Otto Kerner and he did give a fairly interesting talk. In 1969, my senior year, he was the first of this series of three Illinois governors to be convicted of a felony and sentenced to prison. He was caught because the manager of two race tracks had bribed him with stock and then deducted the expense on her taxes as a necessary and usual business expense in the state of Illinois.

Obama's training as a Chicago and Illinois politician is definitely worthy of serious concern. What special skills does he bring to the Presidency as a result of this training? He must be watched carefully both as a socialist and as someone well-trained in corruption. These two always seem to go together very well. Apparently, absolute power still corrupts absolutely.