Posts
t has been three weeks since the seemingly inevitable occurred. Sen. Barack Obama is now President-elect Obama. My guy lost. Rather than offer an immediate, blame-all, knee-jerk post-election analysis of "What went wrong," I felt obliged to think it over for a bit — and in the end decided how McCain lost, or how Obama won, was not truly the topic of the hour.
In the aftermath of the election, even Mr. Obama's most ardent critics cannot help but succumb to the natural inclination to "rally around" the incoming administration. While we wish Obama all the luck in the world, we still cringe with hesitation at the unexamined character of the man the country just elected. I raise these doubts, yet again, because one William Ayers has now, unsurprisingly, only after Obama's victory, decided to crawl out of his hole, re-release his book, and do the talk show circuit. Alas, one more time, the implications of what the Ayers-Obama link actually means must be reexamined.
It was not until the final presidential debate that Sen. McCain raised William Ayers' name to Obama himself. Good, I thought, here's another chance for the would-be president to prove to me that his long friendship and association with an unrepentant Pentagon-bomber isn't as big of a deal as I seem to think it is.
Sadly, Mr. Obama took the opportunity to chastise John McCain for talking about Ayers, using an old line every third-grader in the country is familiar with: "I think the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Sen. McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me." Basically, Barack was rubber, and McCain was glue.
Let's be clear: the William Ayers connection says more about Barack Obama than it says about anyone else on the planet. That's true for one reason only: Obama wanted to become our president and now will become our president. The only thing William Ayers suggests about McCain's campaign is how inept it was in not raising this association — and a dozen others like it — earlier in the race.
President-elect Obama first said Ayers was just a fellow in the neighborhood, then said Ayers did bad things when he was but a child, and then, upon further revelation, Obama finally admitted he served on multiple boards with him. But its okay, Obama swore, because Ayers is now an "education professor" and the two were working on "education."
Overlook for a moment how bizarre and radical the Ayers-Obama education "reform" actually was — so radical Hugo Chávez praised it personally to Ayers during a meeting in Venezuela — and instead focus on Mr. Ayers himself.
Ask yourself: if a man who bombed the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, police stations, declared war against the United States, told children to kill their parents, wanted to bring upon a communist revolution across the country, only to get off on a technicality — and today says he wishes he bombed more — was in your company, would you look him in the eye? Would you shake his hand? Would you launch your career from his living room? Would you serve on multimillion dollar boards with him? Would you keep in frequent and friendly contact with him via phone and e-mail until 2005 — at the least — four years after 9/11, when Ayers asserted he was unrepentant for bombing whom he bombed?
Do you know anyone who would have behaved like that? Do you know anybody like our next president?
On a personal level, if a punk like Ayers requested my services, or wanted to further advance my career, I'd do some serious soul-searching. I don't care if he wanted to begin a joint-venture to help old ladies cross the street. I would very impolitely point my finger in his face, tell him what I thought about him, and walk out of the room — all out of solidarity with the fellow countrymen he bombed and doesn't feel bad about bombing.
That is how most Americans would react. That is how most men — real men, self-confidant and aware of their surroundings — would react.
Which is what manhood boils down to. That's what character is all about. I don't merely dislike Barack Obama's unbelievably Leftist policies. I disrespect his behavior as a man. I consider it unbecoming of a man. In other words, it is unmanly.
We hear much talk about femininity and what contemporary feminism means for this generation of women. I see no such reason why we cannot discuss its logical gender-converse. Barack Obama's personal cowardice and impotence while in the company of bad people undermines what modern masculinity ought to be about. His flippant attitude about these characters, and advantageous use of them to further his ambitions and political career, makes him less of a man than most men I know.
I am in no way suggesting women are to be held to lower expectations. Certain traits are not mutually exclusive to gender. But just as independence is considered an integral part of feminism — but not exclusive to femininity — so too forthrightness, internal self-assuredness, personal courage, and individual autonomy are fundamental principles of masculinity.
This has nothing to with Obama's view on taxes and everything to do with his feeble disposition and fetal-position nature. It has everything to do with his moral fiber, his ethical clarity, and his intellectual strength. It has everything to do with his character and with his manhood.
Manhood is about solidarity, to stick up for your friends, just as patriotism is about solidarity and standing by your countrymen. I know people who get more defensive when you question their favorite sports team than Obama does when someone who has violently attacked Americans requests his hand in friendship.
Manhood is about saying what you believe, regardless of whose listening. It's about telling someone what you think of them, and telling it to them straight. When has President Hope and Dreams ever done this? When did Obama ever stand up to Ayers? To the crook Tony Rezko? To the racist Jeremiah Wright? To the communist Frank Marshall Davis? Has he ever even stood up to someone in his own party?
Allow me to reemphasize: this inquiry has nothing to do with President-elect Obama's view on, say, gun control or bailing out the auto industry. Vice President-elect Joe Biden is nearly as liberal as Obama, but I do not believe Biden would tolerate Soviet proxy Frank Marshall Davis lecturing him about "the American way and all that sh*t." I do not believe Biden would associate with someone who dedicated their book to Bobby Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan — let alone someone who set off explosives at the U.S. Defense Department.
Unlike any other candidate in our history, Mr. Obama became who he is due to a posse of racist preachers, bigot friends, unrepentant ex-domestic terrorists, Marxist father figures, and thug Chicago financial-backers — in essence, bad Americans, and by extension, bad men.
What does this mean? What does this say about Obama as a man?
John McCain struck me, and still strikes me, as the type of friend who would give the shirt off his back for his buddy — because he has already shown he's the type of American who, if pressed, would give the limb off his torso for his countrymen. If he were a young man again, he'd likely be in his familiar corridors and institutions: the Naval Academy, the U.S. military, the war theater of the hour. Like his sons today, he'd be "in the arena."
Barack Obama struck me, and still strikes me, as the type of friend who wouldn't verbally defend your integrity if others were talking poorly about you behind your back — simply because he's shown he is not the type of American who defends his countrymen when others talk about how many Americans they've bombed and declared war against. He strikes me not only as a poor friend — or family member, if you were to ask his mud-hut brother in Nairobi — but a poor leader, a weak individual, and a man of sub-par fortitude.
Mr. Obama recently said he regretted not joining the military, stating he opted not to enlist because we were not at war when he "pondered" the idea. I do not take him at his word. I believe if he could relive his entire life, like McCain, he'd do it the same way all over again; entrenching himself in his familiar corridors, the ultra-Leftist precincts that made him who he is.
How is a McCain supporter, who recognized this disparity of character and maturity months ago, supposed to reconcile this disparity now — in the aftermath of Obama's triumph?
President-elect Obama was elected by a plurality of American voters. He will become the next President of the United States. And yet this wouldn't have been possible had he not first associated with some of the most vehemently racist and radically anti-American elements in American society. Therein rests the sole possible explanation for his unprecedented Leftism: his unexamined past and questionable biography shaped him as a young man.
For the first time in our history, we elected a man we do not really know. At the very least, Obama's supporters should recognize and appreciate the historical nature of this fact alone. Most Americans would have considered Rev. Wright's church too radical for their blood, and left within the first 15 minutes of a racist tirade. Yet Obama calls this church "not particularly controversial" and stayed there for two decades. Most men would have to sit on their hands to avoid strangling a cocky ex-terrorist in their presence, still taunting and bragging about his detonations. Yet Obama calls Mr. Ayers his friend and "mainstream."
This isn't to say Obama agrees with these views. It is to say, however, that he does not consider them beyond the pale. Manhood is about knowing what is and isn't beyond the pale. Manhood is about drawing a line in the sand, and then saying "Don't cross that line" — and meaning it. Where is Barack's line in the sand? I'm not sure where it is, and I'm quite certain most of the country isn't sure either. I respectfully challenge any and all who voted for Mr. Obama to take me up on this proposition.
I believe Barack Obama intends to be decent, and is personally benevolent. He seems like a nice guy, a good father. He himself would never bomb anything, of course, and he himself opposes when domestic terrorists destroy American citizens. But judging from his actions and statements, he does not consider that an unforgivable transgression to the extent that people in my neighborhood would consider it.
In short, our next president is very, very different from everyone I know. Everyone. I do not know a single man that would have behaved like Barack Obama had they been in his shoes. Maybe it's just a Jersey thing, but I simply do not know people like this. The guy's a pushover.
For a male citizen to disrespect his president's manhood is the national equivalent of a son contemptuous of his father's character. I believe Obama loves America — I want to believe that, at least — but all of the empirical evidence suggests he loves this country in a way very unlike the way I love this country. Whether that love is on equal ground or not is a subjective discussion and open to interpretation.
But what is it, other than instinct, that tells me I would unhesitatingly do things for my country and countrymen that Barack Obama would not? Why do I trust the strangers in the grocery store to come to my aid, and to do the right thing, more than I do this unknown product of Chicago?
Facing the reality of an Obama presidency, this is a considerable question that I won't be able to get out of my mind until he proves otherwise.
No comments:
Post a Comment