Explaining the “community organizer” joke to the outraged Left
One of the best moments of Wednesday’s GOP convention — and there were many — was Rudy Giuliani’s jab at Barack Obama’s days as a “community organizer.” The follow-up from Gov. Sarah Palin was icing on the cake.
On cue, Team Obama and its satellites in the blogosphere reacted with ginned-up outrage. The Obama camp sent not one, but two, missives to its worshipers claiming grave offense and asking for donations to help fight the meanie Republicans. Kos posted an e-mailing likening Obama to the community organizer Jesus and Palin to Pontius Pilate. And the Atlantic suggested it was…RACIST!
My second syndicated column of the week patiently explains the joke the Left doesn’t seem to get. Adding to the punchline: After I filed my column yesterday afternoon, ACORN issued a press release condemning the “condescending attacks” on all the good-hearted community organizers like them.
Laughing out loud.
(**Check this out: Obama’s leftist claptrap on community organizing.**)
Plus: Hey, guess who else was a “community organizer?” And guess who wasn’t so fond of community organizing after all?
One more great satire you must read: Iowahawk.
***
Why Obama’s “community organizer” days are a joke
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008
Rudy Giuliani had me in stitches during his red-meat keynote address at the GOP convention. I laughed out loud when Giuliani laughed out loud while noting Barack Obama’s deep experience as a “community organizer.” I laughed again when VP nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin cracked: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.”
Team Obama was not amused. (Neither were the snarky left-wingers on cable TV who are now allergic to sarcasm.) They don’t get why we snicker when Obama dons his Community Organizer cape. Apparently, the jibes rendered Obama’s advisers sleepless. In a crack-of-dawn e-mail to Obama’s followers hours after Giuliani and Palin spoke, campaign manager David Plouffe attempted to gin up faux outrage (and, more importantly, donations) by claiming grave offense on the part of community organizers everywhere. Fumed Plouffe:
“Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed. Let’s clarify something for them right now. Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.”
Let me clarify something. Nobody is mocking community organizers in church basements and community centers across the country working to improve their neighbors’ lives. What deserves ridicule is the notion that Barack Obama’s brief stint as a South Side rabble-rouser for tax-subsidized, partisan non-profits qualifies as executive experience you can believe in.
What deserves derision is “community organizing” that relies of a community of homeless people and ex-cons to organize for the purpose of registering dead people and shaking down corporations and using the race card as a bludgeon.
As I’ve reported previously, Obama’s community organizing days revolved around training grievance-mongers from the far left group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). The ACORN mob is infamous for its bully tactics (which they dub “direct actions”); Obama supporters have recounted his role in organizing an ambush of a government planning meeting on a landfill project opposed by Chicago minority lobbies.
With benefactors like Obama in office, ACORN has milked nearly four decades of government subsidies to prop up chapters that promote the welfare state, undermine the free market, and perpetuate illegal immigration and voter fraud. Since I last detailed ACORN’s illicit activities in this column in June (see “The ACORN Obama knows,” June 19, 2008), the group continues to garner scrutiny of law enforcement:
Last week, Milwaukee’s top election official announced plans to seek criminal investigations of 37 ACORN employees accused of offering gifts to sign up voters (including pre-paid gas cards and restaurant cards) or falsifying driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers or other information on voter registration cards.
Last month, a New Mexico TV station reported on child rapists, drug offenders, and forgery convicts on ACORN’s payroll. In July, Pennsylvania investigators asked the public for help in locating a fugitive named Luis R. Torres-Serrano, who is accused “of submitting more than 100 fraudulent voter registration forms he collected on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now to county election officials.” Also in July, a massive, nearly-$1 million embezzlement scheme by top ACORN officials was exposed.
ACORN’s political arm endorsed Obama in February and has ramped up efforts to sign up voters across the country. In the meantime, completely ignored by the mainstream commentariat and clean-election crusaders, the Obama campaign admitted failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were disguised as payments to a front group called “Citizen Services, Inc.” for “advance work.”
Jim Terry, an official from the Consumer Rights League, a watchdog group that monitors ACORN, noted: “ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain. Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama’s political gain.” With a wave of his magic wand, Obama changed his FEC forms to change the “advance work” to “get-out-the-vote” work.
Now, don’t you dare challenge his commitment to following tax and election laws. And don’t you even think of entertaining the possibility that The One exploited a non-profit supposedly focused on helping low-income people for political gain.
He was just “organizing” his “community.” Guffaw.
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Trackbacks
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- What Does A “Community Organizer” Do? « I Took The Red Pill (and escaped the Matrix)
- Explaining the “community organizer” joke to the outraged Left « Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian
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- How Can You Trust Obama? | Democrat=Socialist
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- Obama, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: « Riggword Weblog
- Obama’s Community Organiser Experience « Something should go here, maybe later.
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- American Street » Blog Archive » Organized Communities
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On September 5th, 2008 at 12:29 pm, OMU, an rabid infectee of the hive-mind, said:
Poor hive-mind must re-direct and reword arguments in order to feel as if it is winning. It so hates freedom.
Yes or no hive-mind, do you agree with this statement in its entirety:
Begin Statement
People working together for others out of their own free will is a good thing.
People forced to do so by the State under force of arms is slavery.
Conclude Statement
I breathlessly await the hive-mind’s response.
Note, dear readers, that hive-mind has yet to say that it is NOT hive-mind.
Who was the first to bring race into this?? HINT his name begins with O
No need to apologize. I understood what you meant. I was the one that messed up and was willing to take the dig for it. Unlike libs, I can admit my mistakes. I do appreciate you helping me out though.
This may sound a little silly but go back and listen to Sarah’s acceptance speech again but, after each dig she makes, stop the tape and try to imagine Ronald Reagan saying exactly the same thing. Your mileage may vary but I was pleasantly surprised that her demeanor seemed kinda Reaganesque to me here and there. Am I getting carried away or is there something to this?
That is a fabrication. White guilt is a liberal disease. I know of what i speak after spending nearly 30 years working across racial lines in 5 states with white folks who wanted to figure out their racial baggage.
It is real as rain. And right wingers had nothing to do with its inception into the political lexicon.
Get your facts straight. Right wingers dont “feel” white guilt.
Bear1909 out.
Living in the Chicago area exposed me to an interesting layer of behavior. I want to see how the Chigago machine will deal with Palin. Having been on the receiving end of “let’s put her in her place” crowd, I know that they expect the victim to slink away. Instead, I had them slinking away. GO, SARAH, GO!!!
I thought the elites and crooks were already organized…silly me…
On September 5th, 2008 at 1:31 pm, conservativesRus said:
He is one of the very few infectees of the hive-mind that can, on occasion, tell a good joke.
When the hive-mind releases its grip on his brain, that is.
Can’t remember what he said exactly. I just remember laughing at something he said. Must have been post-Monica-stain but pre-impeachment Clinton time frame.
“I was a community organizer” = “I worked in the ‘peace and justice’ movement” = “I used the Marxist/Leninist playbook to incite the oppressed peoples of the world against the slave masters”…and I did my best to do it all with grants from the federal government and the same sorts of foundations that are always identified as sponsors of NPR programming
I am a better orator than Flinchy. Hands down.
He is flawed in one major way: he uses inflections and pauses like a speech class student.
And the reason I am just better is because when i speak publically, i incite people to T-H-I-N-K.
Flinchy gets the hungry puppy response. Standing and clapping and yapping….without a thought in their heads.
What a puke.
Back to the point of this story because I’m board with all this making fun of Omu…
Since you liberals can’t seem to understand the joke, that Rudy and Sarah were making fun of Obama’s experience(and not community organizers)…Conservatives give much more time AND money than liberals and that’s REAL community organizing and we would never make fun of helping our fellow man…Most liberals would rather give their money to the gov’t to take care of the have nots(easy way out) than to actually have to go to Guatemala for instance and drill a water well for a village(I have done this and more - And there were no libs there helping)….It’s been well documented. So the Obambis are just doing their typical whining as usual. We hear all the time how those evil repubs are being mean again when it is really the other way around.
And to the main emphasis of this point which has been stated many times:
The libs are the ones who are “being mean”. Their standard tactic is to accuse the conservatives of what they themselves are doing.
Noting that MO states that she is not proud of her country(when she is campaigning she’s fair game).
That Obama’s mentor of 20 years is a racist.
That Obama’s has a million dollar home thru the help of a criminal.
The use of ACORN members as criminal, get out the vote thugs.
And there is much more…
All of these things are well documented and can be verified. It’s called doing the job of the MSM since they won’t dare do it to Obamanation. Not able to handle the truth guys?
By the way…I had a thought….Sarah is Ronnie Reagan in a dress. And I mean that affectionately, in personality and character, for those of you that we would have to explain this to, or who would make something different of the statement.
Dances,
I actually thought about the Ronnie in a dress statement last night and hadn’t seen your statement when I posted. Not trying to steal your idea but I agree with you of course…
More leftist nonsense. As jimtreacher points out, the left has polluted the blogosphere with the mindless mantra “Jesus was a community organizer, Pilate was a governor”
Ummm… Jesus was NOT a community organizer
Matthew 10:21 - 22
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Doesn’t sound like a community very well organized to me. Jesus was a MAVERICK, he came here to set the old order on its ear.
Yeah I’m still clinging to my bible, wanna see my gun?
Okay, here’s what ‘community organizer’ means.
Check out this scary description from Investor’s Business Daily called “Michelle’s Boot (re-education–that’s my insert) Camp”
pass it on!
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=305420655186700
Does this stuff scare any of you Democrats? Are you listening? Will it take the brownshirts marching down the streets to wake you up? This man is truly DANGEROUS to our (Democrats and Republicans alike) way of living and the future of America.
Historically, the last instance of that in a major country that I am aware of is The Waffen SS.
He’s advocating a national paramilitary force with the power of arrest. These are the people who fear wiretaps and looking at library records.
Sigh. So that’s who we’ll end up having to take up arms against to get our freedom back?
Not looking forward to having to wage war against a militia composed of limp-wristed hippies.
Yeah, but you won’t have a gun by then! The guns will all be rounded up and outlawed by the time this breaks out. The hippies will have BIG guns.
I don’t remember her saying Obama’s name on any of those criticisms of him. Nor did I ever hear her say a word about what the left and their propaganda media said about her for a week. I would say Obama has proved himself to be the very thin-skinned one.
Palin-Obama Comparison Chart
If Obama was a community organizer on the south side of Chicago, This is what the picture of Obama at the blackboard really looked like.
And this civilian militia stuff happens as the Left are trying to dismantle the Second Ammendment.
The Left are worse than spoiled children.
Just as strong as the military? How much will that cost? Will they have carrier battle groups? What happens to the National Guard?
When does Flinchy have to go back to school and write up this 19 month internship he has been on running for President?
This “just as strong as the military” is the most ridiculous spew to come out of his disingenuous pie-hole yet.
Are we supposed to believe he is a serious candidate?
Blow hard and blow often. The Flinchy unspoken strategy to win hearts and minds.
I will add my own final line to this…
..”as long as I am not asked to pay for the results of their community organizing.
So, Mr. Flinchy, community organizer running for POTUS, which community were you accountable to when you were organizing?
And, while I am at this, I want to know, how did you develop community leadership at the grassroots level so that you organized yourself out of a J-O-B?
Also, can you/will you provide me with references from this community you organized so I can see and know for myself just what (in the hell) you accomplished in that community you are now parlaying (PIMPIN’) for political gain.
Bear1909 out.
BemusedLib wrote:
Republicans place as much value on working for the poor as they do on the poor themselves — little to none. For at least part of the day after Palin’s speech my friends and I emailed jokes about how quintessentially Republican it is to imply that community organizing is worthless: The premise, basically? “Why, of course they’d think it’s not important! After all, that’s pretty much the same thing they think of the very people in those communities.”
On September 5th, 2008 at 3:33 pm, old_texan said:
Good point.
I hope everyone is planning for this in the event that Obamahole wins. I am.
I wonder too, Mr. Flinchy, did you claim this community organizing thing to be some kind of calling back in the day? And did anybody else hear that phone ringin’?
Can I see the funky hat you wore to show you were “down” with the peeps? ROFLMAO
Bear1909 out
Community organizing is just another democrat “feel good” job. You love to fell good about doing stuff for the downtrodden masses, as long as they STAY poor and downtrodden. And don’t lecture us NYK about not helping the poor. We (Republicans) do as much to help as democrats do.
MCCAIN SPEECH 10-11:15PM
FOX NEWS - 9.1 MILLION Watched
NBC - 8.7
ABC - 6.0
CBS - 5.3
CNN - 4.8
MSNBC - 2.5
Take THAT Olberman and Matthews you liberal weenies.
I guess now we can say that being a mom has more experience than a community organizer as well
Maybe this link will help some of you see what is true and what is false about Gov. Palin.
nyk overlooks the fact that the Left do not work “for” the poor at all. the “poor” is the colony of the Left.
The “poor” ensure the middle class Left remains intact.
How many programs run by socialist democrats, public or private, are run so as to make themselves unnecessary? Oh no. They arent. They cant be because everybody “deserves” a job.
Really? Even do nothing agency heads and non-profit charlatans who make a living chasing money by b-s ing there way thru the grantwriting process?
Selectively trotting out “poor” people to say “Yassa Massa Becky- yooz runna real good program for us po folk”.
It is the essence of the colonia-plantation-reservationl system the Left decries. And it has done more to keep people poor than any “Republican” attitude in our own communities.
Berkeley is full of nyk-types. They “believe” things. They know very little but they are really good at “believing” things.
And that includes absolute hogwash about the Democrats “working for the poor”.
Bear1909out.
Nyk said:
Conservatives charitably donate 30% more than liberals as a whole?
abcnews.go.com — ABC reports on charitable donations: “It turns out that this idea that liberals give more …is a myth. Of the top 25 states where people give an above average percent of their income, 24 were red states in the last presidential election… Turns out conservatives give about 30 percent more, [despite] making less money.” Hopefully both can give more.
On September 5th, 2008 at 4:15 pm, nyk said:
nyk, you are right in a sense, although your are wrong in your premise that we don’t want to help the poor. I do not work for the poor, or on their behalf as for the most part they are able bodied adults that are quite capable of taking care of themselves if they would change their behavior. Do you think we should all dedicate our time to babysitting adults so they can continue with self-destructive tendencies? If that is how you want to spend your time and money, fine. (In reality, I am already forced to do so by the government through taxes for programs I do not support)
In case you haven’t noticed it seems no amount of input of resources over the past 40 years to fighting poverty ever makes the slightest long term improvement. Only hard work and change of behavior will lift people out of poverty. People that are waiting for government, NGO’s or community organizers to improve their lives will be waiting a very long time and will die poor.
Liberals always play the race card…
I say screw the poor but I am always willing to give them my food and clothing without question.
On September 5th, 2008 at 4:39 pm, Goldwater Knight said:
That’s because liberals get jobs as community organizers. They don’t take their work with them to their homes.
Instead, they confiscate money from us through force of arms and buy homes for their voting poor.
PKAmmoTroop said:
Jesus wasn’t a community organizer, He was an itinerant preacher. And when I say a preacher, I don’t mean like Jeremiah Wright.
If anything, Obama is more like Pilate. When questioning Jesus, Pilate responds with the Obamaesque question “What is truth? [That is above my paygrade.]“
For the love of Jesus, can we leave Jesus out of discussions about Flinchy the Rube?
Bear1909 out.
How long until we start hearing from the true believers on the left WWOD? (What Would Obama Do?)
jsr said:
I think the Apostle Paul said it best: “For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.” (2nd Thessalonians 3:10-12)
This “poor” thing is kinda like the Black thing with Democrats.
The Left and the Democratic Party “need” to be perceived as the arbiters of what Black and Poor folk need and is in their own best interest.
And to do that they give up just so many jobs to get a few Blacks and poor folks into the ranks of overseers.
But when one gets off the rez or the plantation— say like Clarence Thomas: the Left must destroy them.
So how free are Black folks and poor folks to participate in an electoral system that is corrupted by the Democratic party’s control of purse strings and benefits that some Black folks and poor folks rely on in a life/death manner?
I call it extortion politics. And we as taxpayers are culpable in its perversion of our wealth.
What it comes down to in this election is simple: do you want to see your taxes go thru the ceiling and your personal treasury ransacked by Democratic lunatics who think we need a civilian military as strong as the real one.
How many poor folks and Black people and their descendants are gonna be pressed into that rank and file?
What an opportunity?!?!?!?!?
Puke.
Bear1909 out.
We should all remember the adage about “give a man a fish…” Work is the word.
well cbs is reporting just this summer alone there have been 125 homicides in chicago….almost double us solider deaths in the whole country of iraq for the same time period.
not sure if i would put community organizer on the resume since you obviously didn’t do to good of a job.
forget pulling out of iraq lets pull out of chicago!
On September 5th, 2008 at 4:15 pm, nyk said:
Hive mind, put up or shut up. How much money and time have you given to the poor of your own volition?
If your host body is in college or high school or being supported by rich parents I will not be impressed.
Meanwhile, I just spent about 30% of my day enslaved to your “poor” (in reality to corrupt bureaucrats shuffling money around, medicare and social security for mentally deficient baby-boomers, etc.), thanks to the state confiscating the money I generated through my own industry.
I think that is giving Obama too much credit (although Pilate washes his hands of any wrong doing).
But in the situation that involved our Savior & Pilate, it also involved another character, which the crowd called for: Barrabas.
That’s what Obamania reminds me of.
We need the poor to do the jobs the rich won’t do.
On September 5th, 2008 at 4:15 pm, nyk said:
Just one damn minute.Who the hell “works for the poor?”
Answer: NOBODY!
Any welfare bureaucrat who has deluded themselves into thinking that they work for the poor has never looked at their pay check.
Look at it, you rotting excuse for humanity.
It comes from the state.
ROFLMAO….no kiddin…and oakland california while u are at it…. 8 shootings in a single weekend recently….let’s start over.
Executive Experience?
From March on my own:
Let’s not kid ourselves. Executive Experience in all logic showed before me in conservative circles should make Palin more qualified then all of them put together.
Much depends on how one defines “working for the poor.” My concurrence is with jsr in #334 above.
If favoring a political and social environment that will assist the poor to take responsibility for their lives, and allow them the freedom to lift themselves out of that status is “working for the poor,” then conservatives work for them.
If fostering a collective sense of resentment, envy, superstition, greed, anger, hatred, jealousy and revenge is “working for the poor,” then liberals are hard workers.
If convincing the poor to trade in their self-reliance, self-respect and self-determination for a collection of government handout programs is “working for the poor,” then there’s no doubt that liberal are industriously working on their behalf.
If the goal is to eliminate individual wealth differences through compulsory, confiscatory and redistributionist government policies — that make everyone “equal” in that they’re equally miserable — then there’s no questioning that liberals are “working for the poor.”
There’s a difference — that liberals never seem to grasp — between helping someone learn to fish, and helping him learn how to depend upon others to take fish away from the fisherman. One builds a man up, the other hollows out and eventually destroys him.
The only things that liberal creations like the “Great Society” and the “War on Poverty” — all meant to “work for the poor” — ever accomplished were to waste hundreds of billions of dollars making no meaningful impact on uplifting them, while simultaneously providing a horrific demonstration of the Law of Unintended Consequences: destroyed families, husked-out inner cities, reverse racism in the guise of “affirmative action,” soul-sucking debilitation of the human spirit called “welfare,” and the creation of a largely race-based, multi-generational, poverty-minded subculture of adult wards of the state.
If that’s “working for the poor,” then maybe liberals need to sit on their butts more often.
The Left lost their sense of humor [if they ever had one] when Ronaldus Maximus was in office!
I thought the really interesting part of that e-mail was what came at the end of it, after Pouffe [if that name doesn't define the "New Castrati", I don't know what does!]. It read “Obama for America”. The friend that sent it to me wondered what happened to Obama for Change? I replied, “translate it to mean “Obama for TAKING OVER America”. Research “Mansourian Candidate” to see what I mean.
Over at “Best of the Web Today”, a WSJ production, they held a contest asking:
“What’s the difference between a community organizer and X”?
My favorite, submitted by some wiseass identifying himself as “O. Nara” (”onara” being the Japanese word for “fart”), went like this:
Q: What’s the difference between a community organizer and a shih tzu?
A: zu.
On September 5th, 2008 at 5:42 pm, Regulus said:
Great, well written post.
But if you take the phrase literally there is a much shorter answer.
No one works for the poor.
No one in the history of mankind has ever worked for the poor.
The poor, by definition, do not employ people. Otherwise they would not be poor.
Obama is a joke. His camp has been reduced to these petty rebuttals because he has no record of achievement that merits entrusting him with the presidency. Some on the right have complained about the Palin pick because her lack of experience defuses the experience argument against Obama. Actually, it only strengthens that argument. She’s five years his junior and has more executive experience and achieved more than him while making time to have five kids. Obama can’t even stand up to McCain’s VP.
To the American people, governor beats senator. Mayor beats do-nothing state legislator. And business manager / newscaster / beauty queen / mother of five beats a B.S. job like community organizer. The one semi-executive job Obama ever had was president of the board for the Annenberg Challenge, where he managed to burn through 100 million dollars without having any tangible benefit on Chicago’s schools according to the group’s own research. This is a guy we want directing hundreds of billions of dollars? Think he’ll do any better?
He’s worse than an empty suit. None of his supporters want to admit it either. He’s a symbol. Sullivan admitted as much in his fawning piece in the Atlantic not long ago. He is not qualified. They like how he makes them feel voting for him, and that is it.
“Let me clarify something. Nobody is mocking community organizers …… working to improve their neighbors’ lives. What deserves ridicule is the notion that Barack Obama’s brief stint as a South Side rabble-rouser for tax-subsidized, partisan non-profits qualifies as executive experience you can believe in.
Let’s see,
From BHO’s 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father:
“When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn’t answer them directly. Instead, I’d pronounce on the need for change.”
Unable to explain one’s job … reminds me of the Career Day episode of “That 70’s Show” where Kelso interviews his father.
Then there’s the hilarity that this memoir of a ~34y.o. (who apparently achieved nothing) is being used, apparently seriously, by the same (but now ~47y.o.) candidate for President.
I figure (am I alone?) that by age 30, all authors would be capable of finessing the described situation with at least more eloquent prose.
alternatively, simple omission of the quoted sentences would have been simple.
Who else, on the planet, would have known of this “problem”?
The adults sum things up nicely:
“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.”
- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
And can (and could at the time) answer, directly, just what it is a mayor does.
Believe or not, a lot of convention watchers didn’t have any ideas about ACORN. A lot of voters don’t assume Obama was involved in corruption as a community organizer. What a lot of people saw were rich, elitests making fun of a guy who tried to better his community after out of school. Moreover, unless MM is withholding some disclosures, I’d like to know how she presumes to know exactly what the speakers meant.
I doubt if the vast majority of viewers got the “joke”. Some were surely offended, and some were probably thinking “who cares about this dude’s community organizing from 15-20 years ago? Right on Rudy, being a recent mayor and governor is more impressive”. Many don’t see the point in “beavisnbuttheading” the issue while ignoring all of his time in elected office.
What were his accomplishments in office? You have a PC, so look them all up in Illinois and Washington. If you’re not impressed, so be it. The community organizing jokes came off as a desire to belittle him, and nothing more. Your “joke” is pretty much “inside” for the readers of your blog, and those few others who share your distrust and disdain for everything Obama stands for.
MJ: It seems that our posts occurred at about the same time.
“A lot of voters don’t assume Obama was involved in corruption as a community organizer.”
Perhaps, but obtaining a $2.6million mansion for $1.6million (and Obama effectively has all of the original parcel) is at least highly irregular; the guy who mad it possible has been convicted for …… then there’s the public housing refurbishment project ($42million, same guy) that failed … what was (then state legislator) Obama thinking / doing?
The scent of corruption is overpowering.
“I doubt if the vast majority of viewers got the “joke”. ”
I’ve made it (them?) slightly clearer in my post #356. Search further back in the thread for more details.
But it really isn’t exclusively an “inside” joke; the idea that one’s experience as a “community organizer” is directly applicable to being qualified for anything higher than City Councilman is laughable.
Regretably, this is a sizable portion of Obama’s resume
Further, the reports from the Altgeld project suggest that Obama was completely unsuccessful. Why would anyone take “unsuccessful” to be a valuable result?
Regretably, this sizable portion of Obama’s resume screams “Failure”.
Next:
“What were his accomplishments in office? ”
An excellent question.
What, exactly, were they? Some of the earlier posts provide links; one gives details and links, but the results indicate “sponsor” / “co-sponsor” (i.e., “add me to whatever you write”), not “the guy who actually wrote the bill”.
It is known that virtually all legislation Obama “proposed” in the Illinois state legislature were actually “arranged” by one particular senior state legislator. Guess who?
The evidence shows that Obama apparently never wrote any major piece of legislation during his time in the Illinois legislature or the US Senate.
So, specifically, what are Obama’s accomplishments?
You don’t have to say the word corruption you only need to murmur, “Chicago politcs.”
Sounds like Obama wants to be Hitler
This is actually — genuinely — very funny, Rob.
I should restate this for the Elmer Fudd literalists: “Republicans place as much value on working [with and on behalf of] the poor as they do on the poor themselves — little to none.
This may or may not be true, since ABC’s story is based on a single book by a conservative writer who’s been consistently called out for questionable and selective use and interpretation of data. There are a number of articles online…here’s an example:
http://www.casefoundation.org/spotlight/whocares/abramson
Absolutely.
I’ve volunteered for everything from soup kitchens to a battered women’s shelter to day care centers and mentoring programs, and my boyfriend and I give to everything from food pantries to AIDS walks (I actually just gave to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society this morning, since you ask). Oh — and how can I forget Planned Parenthood! Right now I’m not doing any charitable volunteerism, mainly because I’m giving my free time to political volunteering.
By the way, there are a number of “liberal” social programs focused on getting people skills and training to provide for themselves. I don’t buy that poor people want to be poor. And I just don’t think that aiding those in need (aren’t most of you here Christians?) is ever a bad thing.
On September 5th, 2008 at 6:25 pm, mistressjustice said:
I gather you’ve already done your homework, hive-mind. So show me the work. Not all of it, mind you. I don’t care about voting in favor of declaring “National Strawberry Day.”
List, I don’t know, five pieces of legislation that he authored while in office. (Not sponsored or voted on. Both sponsorships and voting are brain-dead actions that can be accomplished from a hospital bed with an IV - and have been).
Special hive-mind brownie point for you if you can list something that he did that furthers the cause of individual freedom as opposed to collectivist confiscation of money by the State.
Can you expound on this a bit and explain precisely how you’ve come to this conclusion? I’d really be genuinely interested to hear more about the reasoning behind this statement.
Chop them babies up and toss them in the dumpster.
On September 5th, 2008 at 7:04 pm, nyk said:
Ewmer Fudd says:
I can’t speak fow Wepubwicans, as I am not one…
Back to regular voice:
…but I can say that for myself, I have to disagree with you in the opposite direction.
I have greater disdain for those who work [with and on behalf of] the poor than the poor themselves.
“Working” with and on behalf of the poor implies a paycheck somewhere. These “workers” make money either from The State or from an organization that gets money from The State. Which confiscates that money from its people at gunpoint.
“Volunteering” for and on behalf of the poor is a different matter, and if that is what you do and have done, then kudos to you. I’ve done the same.
But don’t use the State to force people to do the same. That is called slavery.
Slavery - even in the cause of poor people - is wrong.
Actually Obama uses the same hand gestures as Hitler. Hmmm.
#363 nyk
Perhaps this link will be of some inerest:
Michelle’s Boot Camps For Radicals
at Investor’s Business Daily.
It sounds much too Brownshirt/SA -ish to me, and it appears to not be a joke.
Oh yeah, and let’s fight one fight at a time on the Planned Parenthood for now. Before you ask I’m an agnostic / atheist anti-abortion person.
I have my moments… thanks.
Remind me…has it come out that he actually (not part of the myth) turned down more lucrative job offers? I ask because I read he graduated without honors so I wondered if he was like many college graduates who were just drifting after college without the prospects they hoped for.
On September 5th, 2008 at 7:40 pm, deedledee said:
Then one day he wandered into a beer hall and through charismatic powers of speech he enthralled a nation and…
Oh wait, wrong biography.
For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like
busybodiescommunity organizers.Fixed it for ya.
Food panties? You mean like those “Sweet Cheeks” edibles they used to advertise?
I appreciate your posts, FilmLadd. You are not easily distracted from the distaste you have for socialism.
In actual fairness - not my usual
- after being Editor of the Harvard Law Journal, he would have been inundated with six figure jobs from everywhere. SCOTUS law clerking, law firms, major corporations, the mailbox would have exploded - no wait, that was the letter from Ayers…
On September 5th, 2008 at 7:55 pm, b-cat said:
Thanks b! It’s pretty much for any collectivism, which is anathema to true freedom of discourse.
Speaking of freedom of discourse, too bad the current site doesn’t have a user’s lounge, lots of great folks here, and lots of fun to be had with hive-minds…
Maybe a future upgrade? Malkin 2.0…
There is no lounge because they do not make chairs small enough for hive-minds
That is all.
The crowd participation chanting “Zero! Zero! Zero!” is one of my favorite parts of Rudy’s speech.
But there’s been NO mention of it anywhere.
I heard today that when Palin became the mayor of the town in Alaska that the town had a balanced budget. When she left it was 27 million dollars in the deficit. Does anyone know if this is a true or not?
I heard that a certain poster owns way too many Elton John albums.
Does anyone know if this is a true or not?
You poor thing. Is this your way of telling us you’re illiterate? Because that would explain A LOT.
Robbing others is always wrong, no matter what you do with the proceeds.
It is interesting to note that the Obama’s are loathe to part with their own money for charitable donations unless it benefits them politically.
To wit:
and
I recommend you read both articles for all the details.
Do you see a trend here? Do you remember the pathetic donations made by Gore and Clinton?
It is really easy to tell others how, when and how much to give while neglecting to do the same oneself.
Is that hypocrisy? I mean, how does one reconcile what the Obamas do with what they preach?
I absolutely will. Promise.
On September 5th, 2008 at 11:43 pm, Dimsdale said:
Good, but let’s reword a bit to say instead:
Which is exactly why hive-mind, possessing the body of the poster known as
NYK
ignored post #365.
Hive-mind has no answer.
How would you know whether Obama is a joke? You obviously have no sense of humor. The letter posted by Kos: “Jesus was a community organizer, …” was a joke.
Clue for the clueless: it was poking fun at wingnuts complaining that liberals think Obama is Jesus.
On September 6th, 2008 at 10:31 am, lgm said:
Because he makes us laugh, hive-mind.
Firstly, not until Democrats repeatedly characterized Governor Palin’s experience as essentially that of a small-town mayor did she and other Republicans counter, quite fairly, by characterizing Senator Obama’s experience as essentially that of a community organizer. A very natural and effective retort. You misleadingly characterize my experience as consisting solely of a relatively unimpressive job that I once held, and I will return the favor and misleadingly characterize your experience as consisting solely of a relatively unimpressive job that you once held. Turnabout is fair arguing.
But not to The Great Teleprompter Reader. As only a lawyer can do, he took the very argument first used by Democrats against Governor Palin and distorted its reuse on him into an “attack” on community organizers. Quite sleazy. Obviously he is an intelligent man and no doubt understands that the purpose of the Republican rebuttal was to contrast the position of community organizer (is there such a thing?) with the position of President of the United States precisely in the same manner that Democrats contrasted the position of small-town mayor with the position of Vice President of the United States.
But I guess turnabout of a distortion is fair as well. Let me see:
Why would Democrats spend the days following the announcement of Governor Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate attacking ordinary people? With the whole nation watching, Democrats on the Internet and on television derided and ridiculed the thousands of Americans who are serving as mayors of our cities and towns. I’d like to know, Mr. Obama, how vitriolic attacks on the patriotic mayors of America will help lower health care costs and gas prices? How will the contempt Democrats have for American mayors– and the Americans who support them– help improve my child’s education and the security of our country?
And one last point: anyone who engages in Saul Alinsky-izing communities is not an ordinary person.
Didn’t Pilot vote ‘present’ when he was consulted?
I’m just saying, maybe this Jesus was a Community Organizer meme may have some unforeseen drawbacks. I also don’t recall Jesus asking the government for programs for the poor. Did you?