Given the exceptional knowledge of detail that many, if not most of those reading this post have I’m going to present it in outline form.
Imagine you are suddenly thrust into an entirely public, search lights full blast, blaring audio, moment in which you are told that unless you act the global economy collapses and America is the cause. Imagine some thug from Goldman Sachs shoves a terse document in your face and says ‘do this or the 2008 version of the great depression will happen and you caused it.’
Imagine millions of Americans are suddenly confronted with another dose of mega-fear. What do you do? Well, if you are both strategically brilliant and tactically skillful you do exactly what Obama, Pelosi, Reid & Frank have done during the past two weeks.
Firstly, you recognize the timing and the intended impact on the impending first debate between Obama and McCain.
You recognize that should you refuse to do everything you can to be responsive to the crisis, and explicitly open to dialogue with Republicans, as to reach a necessarily bi-partisan agreement you will be called everything from traitor to terrorist.
You recognize that if you immediately begin informing the public that the three page manifesto you had trust in your face amounts to nothing less than further ravage of the Constitution and poison to any hope of real economic recovery, you will likely see the vast majority of Americans being rambunctiously against “Wall St. welfare.’
You recognize that if you structure your responses as a transformation of Paulson’s trash into a framework of responsible containment of the supposed “crisis” you will have established the high-ground knowing full well that you have primed two critical responses.
One of those critical responses is that you recognized that the vast number of Republican incumbents would have very little chance of winning on 4 Nov 2008 if they supported the plan.
Knowing that, you would have realized that you could easily have a significant number of House Democratic members vote yes without risk, thus diffusing any claim that the Democratic Party was unwilling to support an albeit lame and dishonest Republican President.
Knowing that. you would have painted the Republican members of the House in exactly the picture the entire world saw – they, for the first time in eight years, broke with their President because they knew that if they voted yes – ostensibly the heroic action that the “crisis” demanded – they would be crucified on 4 Nov 2008. Politics trumped serving the good of Americans – and its all the Republican members of the House’s fault.
Cliff Kincaid and his colleagues have accused Frank Marshall Davis (1905-1987) of being a Stalinist, a lifetime member of the Communist Party, and “Obama’s Communist Mentor.” Kincaid heads “Accuracy In Media” (A.I.M.), an organization dedicated to “fairness, balance and accuracy in news reporting.” Kincaid and his colleagues are all honorable men.
Having asked Kincaid to substantiate some of his accusations, and having received no reply, one can only conclude that Kincaid must be preoccupied with more important questions, because Kincaid is an honorable man.
Although the ironically named “Accuracy In Media” has yet to substantiate that Davis actually mentored Obama (a claim specifically rejected by the Obama campaign), such a relationship could have provided a bi-racial teenager with the key to success in mainstream America. To minimize criticism and maximize their potential, bi-racial African-Americans must walk a narrow identity path between group expectations. Davis was uniquely qualified to show the way. He may have significantly facilitated Obama’s vision of an inclusive society.
