Barack Obama: Rhetoric of Deceit

From Chicago Sun-Times: "Exactly what did Obama just say?"

Note: I'm doing rsearch on the relationship between George Soros and his political funding of -- and ideological influence on -- Barack Obama. A Hungarian who emigrated to American and made billions of dollars in finance and currency speculation, Soros, his family, and business associates have contributed huge sums to Barack Obama in his senatorial and presidential campaigns. (See the "Obama" financial sections on http://opensecrets.org/, especially the "top contributors" segment for 2006 and 2008.)

Soros is the financial "godfather" of Moveon.org, the nation's largest political hate group. He's also a fan of Hamas, the Palestine-centered terrorist group. On Feb. 1, 2008, Moveon.org, an organization that claims 3 million-plus left-leaning members, gave its first endorsement to a presidential candidate: Barack Obama. The vast amount of money that's recently poured into Obama's coffers apparently has come from Moveon-types. Moveon.org members and Soros have been pressuring Obama to take more extreme positions on the economy and the war on terrorism.
My columns on Soros, Moveon, and Obama will begin appearing on Sunday, February 17.

Michael Barone's The Almanac of American Politics, 2008, p. 539, says the following of Obama as an Illinois State Senator: "He voted against providing medical care for fetuses who survived abortions." So much for his "universal health care."

"Hope is the thing with feathers [the bird that flies]." -- Emily Dickinson

"I'm not a hope-monger." -- Barack Obama (Oh, really?)

"It's not a promise of hope. It's a platitude." -- John McCain on Barack Obama's "message"

"Where's the beef?" -- Walter Mondale to Gary Hart in 1984 (Wendy's commercial)

My friends, I'm fired up -- and ready to go." -- John McCain

I'll have a new column on Barack Obama on Wednesday by noon, EST. My first column on Obama, the one with Che Guevera on a Cuban flag, is below. So are the links that will take you to the news sources that broke the flag/Guevera story.

Two columns down you'll find a piece about Mrs. Clinton ("Iraq: Is it Hillary's War?"). Mrs. Clinton is starting to look a lot like the silver medalist in the race for the nomination.

CNN announced earlier tonight (Tuesday) that the Virginia Republican Primary was "very competitive" (and thus "too close to call," their other favorite cliche). In fact, John McCain apparently won VA by about 50,000 votes (a 9 percentage-point victory). Anderson Cooper just called it "a close win." Wonder who CNN is backing?

NOTE: I'LL BE WRITING MUCH MORE ABOUT BARACK OBAMA, WHO NOW LOOKS LIKE THE LIKELY WINNER OF THE NOMINATION. The following material is new as of 1 p.m. EST on Wednesday.

John McCain did something important last night when he noted that Barack Obama's "message of hope" consists mainly of "platitude(s)." The emptiness of Obama's rhetoric -- not a typical subject in campaigns -- is quite amazing.

Frankly, Obama is drowning his audiences in rhetorical syrup, and many people who should know better are lapping it up. Senator Obama has been delivering mainly the same speech since 2006 (and probably longer), and he's good at giving it. The speech has some great lines and good anecdotes, such as the one about the 105-year-old African American woman. In Obama's case, practice does make nearly perfect -- in style if not in substance.

Frankly, the Senator's speech sounds great, but it doesn't really hold up to any kind of examination. In unguarded moments, Obama is almost incredibly pompous.

For example, in New Hampshire in 2006, Obama was repeatedly asked if he wanted to run for the nation's highest office. His response was he "expected to be involved in the process." That's double-talk meaning "Yes, I want to run for President." Rather than being candid -- or "audacious" -- he was evasive.

In looking carefully at Obama's speeches, I'm reminded of a passage in a new book by Englishman (and Harvard professor) James Wood. In writing about a minor novelist named A. C. Benson, Wood said of his subject's literary routine: ". . . He did nothing all morning and then spent the afternoon writing up what he'd done all morning." The same holds true for Obama.

The best analysis of Obama's speaking styles -- and he has at least two them, one conciliatory, one militantly leftist -- is by Dean Barnett. You can find Barnett's piece in The Weekly Standard at: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/728ofzey.asp/url

Barnett focuses on a recent speech Obama gave in Virginia, one where he deviated from his usual stump presentation. His remarks contained a "threat to take away the profits of the drug and insurance companies." [Note: He took the same approach last night in Madison, WI.]

Barnett continues, "Perhaps Obama thinks that the drug companies will continue to develop life saving therapies out of benevolence, and that their employees will happily take the pay cuts that will accompany the loss of profits. This is yet another simplistic piece of us-against-them politicking, the kind of thing that Obama has reliably eschewed--at least when he's on script."

Barnett adds, "What makes Obama's Jefferson-Jackson speech [in VA] especially relevant is where he went when he went off script. The unifying Obama who has impressed so many people during this campaign season vanished, replaced by just another angry liberal railing against George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Exxon Mobil, and other long standing Democratic piñatas."

Barnett concludes, "The pressing question that Obama's decidedly uninspiring Jefferson-Jackson oratory raises is which Obama is the real Obama--the one who read beautifully crafted words from a Teleprompter after his victory in Iowa, or the tediously angry liberal who improvised in Virginia?"

Note from Steve: I'll be writing much more about Obama, his speaking style, and his dismaying agenda for America.