To say today’s “Restoring Honor” event in Washington will be historic is an understatement.  Gauging by the biased reporting on the news pages of the New York Times and the seething, sputtering outrage from Bob Herbert and Charles Blow on the Op-Ed pages should give you a pretty good indication of the focus this event will garner.

Kate Zernike opens her report, titled “Where Dr. King Stood, Tea Party Claims His Mantle”, saying it is the ultimate “thumb in the eye” to stand on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” in the place he stood and talk about restoring honor.  How dare he?  Isn’t that what racists said of Dr. King when he stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial with these words?

“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”

Ms. Zernike reminds us of the case of Shirley Sherrod, who was fired by the Obama administration when a videotape of her redemptive speech about how she first discriminated against a white farmer but later helped him was shown across the Internet.  She writes about video tape being heavily edited by failing to show how she mended her ways and helped that farmer.  But Ms. Zernike doesn’t finish the story where later in her speech Ms. Sherrod says that those who opposed Obama’s health care plan had racist motives because President Obama is black.  Ms. Sherrod’s redemption is far from complete.

She then says that the Tea Party’s talk of states’ rights raises the specter of Jim Crow and George Wallace.  But it was the federal government that passed and enforced the Fugitive Slave laws and it was independent states of the north, exercising their states’ rights, who supported the Underground Railroad and refused to actively assist returning slaves to the South.  So states’ rights cut both ways.

She concludes that, “Even if Tea Party members are right that any racist signs are those of mischief-makers, even if Glenn Beck had chosen any other Saturday to hold his rally, it would be hard to quiet the argument about the Tea Party and race.”  It’s hard to quiet the argument because those on the left keep falsely making it.  They cannot prove racism so they feel that by repeating often enough, they can make it stick.

I was at a street fair manning a booth for a Tea Party organization this spring.  An African-American teacher approached us tentatively to ask what we were about.  I asked her if she wanted the rumors or the truth and she opted for the truth.  I told her that we were a policy based organization focusing on accountable government, fiscal responsibility, limited federal government and following the Constitution.  She said she didn’t know any of that, she got e-mails from Moveon.org all the time and before leaving she signed our e-mail list.  When the truth reaches the ears of people over the screeching of the New York Times and the main stream media, it is generally well received.  The racial of mix of the Tea Party rallies will change over time when we can speak to the folks one on one without the lies of the left.

The Opionators

Bob Herbert begins his Op-Ed piece in a very open minded fashion, “America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure.”  Thank you for sharing that, Bob, but there’s no need to pull punches here.

“There is a great deal of hatred and bigotry in this country, but it does not define the country. The daily experience of most Americans is not a bitter experience and for all of our problems we are in a much better place on these matters than we were a half century ago.”

So why to you and your fellow travelers throw down the race card every time someone disagrees with a policy, if they are not of the same race?  Object to ObamaCare, that’s racism.  Object to the stimulus, racism.  Wanting Obama to fail to turn America into a socialist states, racism straight up.  Yes there is hatred and bigotry in this country, but it is primarily coming from the left.

Not to be outdone in the outrage department, Charles Blow titled his Op-Ed piece, “I Had a Nightmare.”  Mr. Blow said the following, “I find it curious that many of the same people who object so strenuously to the Islamic cultural center proposed for Lower Manhattan, many on the grounds that it is inappropriate and disrespectful, are virtually silent on the impropriety and disrespect inherent in Beck’s giving a speech on the anniversary of King’s address.”  This would be an excellent point, if he could point to 3,000 blacks that Glenn Beck has murdered in the name of restoring honor.  But Mr. Blow can make no such connection, so his analogy to the Ground Zero mosque falls flat.  Curious indeed.

After venting his spleen, Mr. Blow suggests we re-read Dr. King’s speech “and to recommit ourselves to the nobility of righteous pursuits.”  Let’s do that.

“But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” –“I Have a Dream Speech”

How do the actions of the left, throwing down the race card at every turn, accusing everyone who disagrees with Barack Obama to have racism at the core of that disagreement comport with not “drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred”?  It arrogantly assumes that it is impossible not to see the glorious benefit of the government running every last aspect of our lives, therefore the only reason to disagree has to be racism.  With regard to violence, where do we see the violent demonstrations on the left or the right?  Breaking windows, looting, SEIU members beating down street vendors for selling anti-Obama buttons, etc. are all on the left.  When the police show up at rallies organized by the left they show up in riot gear, at Tea Party rallies the mounted police have to decide whether to let people pet their horses or not.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” –“I Have a Dream Speech”

Didn’t America elect an African American President of the United States with 53% of the vote?  More than voted for Clinton either time, or Jimmy Carter?  Barack Obama wasn’t elected by minority votes alone.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” –“I Have a Dream Speech”

Who more closely shares that dream, Glenn Beck, or those on the left who insist that forty years after Dr. Martin Luther King gave his speech that blacks can’t get into college or get a job without affirmative action; that black families have not been destroyed by government programs like welfare that drove fathers away; that government run schools that can’t graduate its students are far better for blacks than school vouchers that will let them escape those hellholes?  Dr. King’s speech says nothing about racial preferences.  Dr. King’s speech talks about color blindness.  Dr. King’s speech says give us an equal chance.  Glenn Beck believes that.  Those on the left do not.  It is those on the left who believe African Americans cannot compete without more government programs to help them.  Glenn Beck believe they can succeed if government gets out of their way and if the left stops the lies of dependency that hold them back.  It is the New York Times, Charles Blow, Bob Herbert who wrap themselves in racial division and then say, “Why can’t we come together?”  If you want us to come together, stop standing in the way.

The Sherrod incident is the latest in a long line of shoot from the lip misfires from the Obama administration, from the president on down.  Here is a review of some of the more egregious of them:

• President Obama, without waiting for the facts says the Cambridge, Massachusetts police department “acted stupidly,” in an incident involving African American  professor Henry Louis Gates.  A picture from the “beer summit” shows the president confidently striding toward the cameras while in the background Sergeant Crowley takes Professor Gates arm to help him negotiate the stairs, as Professor Gates walks with a cane.  Racist?
• With 13 dead Americans at the hands of terrorist Nidal Hasan, Janet Napolitano comes out and claims, “The system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days.”  A few days later she would eat those ridiculous words.
• Not to be outdone by herself, after another terrorist attempt on our soil in Times Square, Secretary Napolitano quickly came out to label the attempt a “one-off” and the suspect a lone wolf.  As the investigation picked up steam there were all sorts links to terror groups in the Middle East.
• When the president of Honduras tried to override term limits and become the next Hugo Chavez, the Honduran government enforced its laws against the changes that its president was trying to illegally implement.  The Obama administration immediately labeled the legitimate actions of the democratically elected Honduran government a coup.  Hillary Clinton’s State department cancelled the visas of all members of the Honduran Supreme Court.  Not to be intimidated by Chavez, Castro, or Obama, Honduras stood its ground.  The Congressional Research Service looked at the Honduran Constitution and the actions of its government and found that the government acted properly and within the law.
• When Arizona reached the end of its rope and could not get the Obama administration to enforce the law on the border, they passed a law to give their police greater flexibility to determine the legal status of people stopped for another police matter.  The Obama administration immediately called the law unconstitutional.  When asked if they read the massive 10 page law, that’s right 10 pages, both Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary Janet Napolitano (yes, her again) both said they hadn’t read it before declaring it unconstitutional.  This administration pushes through legislation running thousands of pages each and they can’t find time to read a ten page law before condemning it.
• Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod gave a speech to the NAACP where she spoke about her transformation from having a racial bias in a decision she made 24 years ago, to today where she tries to treat all individuals regardless of race.  Only the first part of the story was headed toward the airwaves, the part about her past discrimination, and before the news hit the air she was fired by the Obama administration.  Had they watched the whole tape before acting, they wouldn’t be swimming in apologies right now.

Is this just the lack of experience or does the Obama administration need adult supervision?  They jump to these wild conclusions and then end up backtracking days later.  After eighteen months in office you would think they would have learned by now how to govern.

Another case without as quick a trigger is the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.  After taking office President Obama appointed a commission, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the root causes of the crisis.  A prudent person might say, let’s hear what the commission finds out and then write legislation to address those root causes.  With months more to go before that commission’s work will be done, we have another 2,000+ page bill coming out of Congress and signed by the president to put new regulations in place on the financial services industry.  Why the rush?  Wouldn’t it be better to fix the real problems rather than what Chris Dodd and Barney Frank think are the problems and let them paper over their own culpability in the creating the crisis?  Why were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac excluded?  In one of the hearings before the commission an argument was made that AIG did not have to be bailed out, that there were measures in place to ride out the crisis and that in the long run their policies would be fine.  Whether that is true or not, will have to wait for the final report, but the “just don’t stand there, do something,” mentality is disconcerting.  I certainly hope we are never faced with another Cuban Missile Crisis with this team in place.

The NAACP was once a proud organization with a noble cause, to advance the lot of people of color.  Today it has abandoned those principles to become just another attack arm of the Democratic Party.  This week they released a resolution condemning racism within the Tea Party movement.

I have been to a number of Tea Party events with hundreds of thousands of peaceful orderly participants and racism was not evident, surprisingly so.  I say surprisingly because with any gathering of that magnitude to have a few fringe elements at either end of the spectrum would almost be expected.  So is it possible there are racist elements at any given event? Sure.  It is routine in the Tea Party?  It is so rare, you have to aggressively search to find it and when you do, what proof is there that they are really Tea Party members or supporters or just some wacko who walked into the crowd with a sign?

Let’s look at the Strategy

The left has tried vainly to paint the Tea Party as racist because that is the most toxic label that they have.  The racist label brings out the black electorate, polarizes  the progressives, mortifies the moderates, and makes conservatives cringe.  If they can make it stick it is very effective.  It is also overused and as such, it is losing its sting.  So how do you make it stick? 

One way is to follow what the NAACP is doing.  Pass a resolution condemning racism and demand the Tea Party repudiate racism in their ranks, which by the way is virtually non-existent.  If you can cow the Tea Party members to take the pledge, then the liberal/progressives  can plant racists at each rally with nasty signs, videotape them and then blame the Tea Party for failing to honor their pledge and thus “proving” racism is in the ranks of the Tea Party and it cannot be eradicated.  This is straight out of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

Let’s Look at the Facts

This is from the NAACP web site:

“Today, NAACP delegates passed a resolution to condemn extremist elements within the Tea Party, calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.”

I was a marshal at the Tea Party rally in New York on April 15^th this year.  We were concerned about reports on the street that infiltrators with racist signs might show up to garner media attention, which to that point had been rather thin.  What were we to do?  We couldn’t take their signs away, we couldn’t touch them as they had as much of a right to be there as we did.  We came up with the idea that we would carry signs repudiating the person that our signs pointed to.  We would approach the person, politely, tell them that their sign did not comport with the values of the Tea Party and ask them to put the sign away or leave.  If they did not comply, we would surround them with our signs that said those views of that individual were not consistent with the Tea Party so that any media picking up their sign would see ours as well.  If things got aggressive we would call in the police that were on hand.  To my knowledge we never had to use our tactic as there were no racially offensive signs at the rally.  We did not need a resolution by the NAACP to develop our counter strategy.  It was part of our core beliefs, which puts the big lie to the NAACP’s resolution.

More from the NAACP web site:

“The resolution came after a year of high-profile media coverage of attendees of Tea Party marches using vial, antagonistic racial slurs & images. In March, respected members of the Congressional Black Caucus reported that racial epithets were hurled at them as they passed by a Washington, DC health care protest. Civil rights legend John Lewis was called the “n-word” in the incident while others in the crowd used ugly anti-gay slurs to describe Congressman Barney Frank, a long-time NAACP supporter and the nation’s first openly gay member of Congress.”

The first part of this passage was almost laughable.  High profile media coverage?  The lame stream media has been trying to bury the Tea Party by not covering them.  What main stream media coverage was there in Washington in September of 2009 where several hundred thousand Tea Partiers rallied?  It was dismissed as a couple of thousand.

Nancy Pelosi’s stunt to march through a crowd of Tea Party members to pass the Obamacare bill, did draw a lot of media attention and controversy.  Show us the money!  Andrew Breitbart put up $100,000 to anyone who could produce any video evidence that the things claimed in the above quote from the NAACP actually happened.  There were media cameras and microphones all over the place, hundreds if not thousands of people with cell phone cameras and miraculously not one of them captured what the NAACP claims happened as fact.  John Lewis was invited on several news programs to give his side of the story and he declined.  Mr. Breitbart is still waiting to write that check.  As Groucho Marx famously said, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own two eyes?”

NAACP President Ben Jealous had this comment.  “I give a 42-page speech. Half a page is focused on the tea party,” Jealous said. “We need the media to pay attention to the issues that are most important to this country” such as jobs, education, and crime.  Uh, what did you expect sir?  If you wanted the media to pay attention to the other 41 ½ pages of your speech, perhaps you should have dropped to bogus charge against the Tea Party.

I scoured the NAACP web site for any mention of the New Black Panther party and the case against them that was dropped by the Obama Justice Department.  The site lacks a search feature so it made it more of a challenge but I looked through the site’s blog and found nothing.  Now here is a case that is plainly caught on video tape and other video tape is found of King Samir Shabazz, spewing racial epithets and advocating murder of whites or “crackers” and their babies, but we hear nothing about this from the NAACP.

So, we have the NAACP issuing a resolution about alleged racism in the Tea Party for which they have no proof (there are some still pictures on their websites of people holding signs, but no reference to where the pictures were taken or who the sign holders were.  They could have just as easily been a plant to smear the Tea Party).  They ask the Tea Party to pledge to oppose racism, which I have demonstrated that opposing racist messages is standard operating procedure among the Tea Party, but they make no mention of the overt racism among their followers, where that racism is clearly on full display in living color with sound and includes not only racist sentiments but a call to actually murder whites.  This apparently is considered worthy discourse to the NAACP leadership.

I call upon all members of the NAACP who really believe there is no place for racism in America to cancel your membership in the NAACP and join the Tea Party.  We do not tolerate racist messages among our members.  We have many African Americans in prominent positions in the Tea Party and we would have more if you join us.  Our positions to end wasteful government spending and free up our economy will probably do more to advance you and your fellow NAACP members than fighting for the next government program.  The NAACP has run aground on the shoals of petty squabbles to help the Democratic Party.  It’s time to abandon ship and swim for shore.

The above opinions are my own.  I do not speak in an official capacity for the Tea Party.

I do not like to throw around a charge of mendacity without good reason particularly after listening to the mainstream media and liberal blogosphere accuse Bush of this all day long.  But the more I listen to what comes out of this administration and the actions they take it is getting harder to hold my fire.

Take for example the brouhaha over the immigration law that hasn’t even gone into effect yet in Arizona.  From the start the administration has falsely portrayed the law as racial profiling, but when asked if they had actually read the ten page law, both Attorney General Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano said they had not.  How do people in such senior positions in any administration make such a bold claim without reading what they are opposing?  It begs the question, do they know they are talking about?

The federal government has gone forward and is suing Arizona over the law claiming that it preempts federal law.  But here are some interesting questions:

• If the Arizona law preempts federal law and that is a bad thing, why does the federal government not sue San Francisco and other cities who have openly professed that they are Sanctuary Cities and immigration law will not be enforced therein?
• A recent news report is that there is a law on the books in Rhode Island that is virtually identical to the law in Arizona and it has withstood judicial challenge?  Why isn’t the federal government suing Rhode Island?
• The thrust of the federal government’s pique with the Arizona law is their claim that it is discriminatory.  But this same administration has just ordered that a case be dropped against a radical hate group, the Black Panthers, for putting armed thugs outside a polling place in Philadelphia on Election Day in 2008.  According to six career Civil Rights attorneys in the Justice Department, the case was a slam dunk and they had already gotten a default judgment from the court, but this administration chose to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  The Justice Department’s claim is that the facts did not fit the law.  Anyone who has seen the video of the incident knows that is a bald faced lie.  Is this administration for discrimination or against it?

The latest move by this administration against the rest of us is the recess appointment of Donald Berwick as the head of Medicare.  The lie in this case, is that the Republicans were stalling the appointment for “political purposes.”  Now other presidents have used recess appointments.  Both Clinton and Bush used them many times, however it was typically when they could not get the Senate to act on their nominee.  In this case, Max Baucus (D – MT), had not even scheduled hearings and eleven weeks after the nomination, the administration had not yet completed the nominating paperwork.  So was this action taken because of inaction on the part of the Senate or was the administration lying because they really didn’t want a public debate on Dr. Berwick?

Dr. Berwick has said he is, “Romantic about the National Health Service,” of Britain.  For all the false claims by the Obama Administration that if you are happy with your current health insurance you will be able to keep it, they stealthily appoint a socialized medicine disciple.  Dr. Berwick has also famously said:

 “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care – the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

Let’s see, the Obama Administration appoints Dr. Berwick head of Medicare.  Medicare is the health care program for the elderly.  Dr. Berwick is plain about health care rationing and suggests the way to do it is with our eyes open.  While the term “death panel” may have been used by Sarah Palin partially for its shock value to drive home her point, changing the name to a “rationing” panel would make it different in what way?

Here is the key distinction.  In the hands of the individual and their family, they can decide what kind of care they want to provide their loved ones.  They can decide when enough is enough or whether to press on.  In a free market, insurance policies would be true insurance not medical payment plans.  But regardless you would have the liberty to decide.  In this administration’s world, some bureaucrat makes the decision and after they have driven all the alternatives out of business, other than those available to the wealthy, you will have no choice but to succumb to the will of Big Brother.

We are currently surrounded by news of massive government failures in regulation in the areas of finance and the oil industry and we are to believe that they will be superb in running one-sixth of the economy.  Do you believe the lies?

His election was a major milestone in the history of the United States.  Leaving aside his political philosophy which a number of us opposed and more are seeing that philosophy more clearly now, electing the first African American to the presidency with 53% of the popular vote no less, truly shows how far our nation has come from the dark days of slavery.

Having achieved this milestone has proved a two edged sword to the progressives and statists.  By celebrating the election of Barack Obama it also signaled the defusing of the most potent weapon in their arsenal, the race card.  How can you routinely call America a racist country when we just elected an African American President of the United States?  By winning with 53% of the popular vote, more than Bill Clinton in two elections and more than Jimmy Carter, it was clear that the black vote alone could not have elected him.  It required him winning over many white voters as well.  How do you continue to justify Affirmative Action when an African American was chosen by his fellow citizens to the most powerful position on earth?  But the progressives and the statists continue to pull the trigger on this dud, particularly where the Tea Party movement is involved, without proof and without shame.

 A New Dark Chapter?

Ironically, it is the Obama administration that is practicing a new kind of racism that the mainstream media is conspiring with them to hide.

During the 2008 election, several members of the Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary uniforms and brandishing a nightstick, stood outside of a polling place in Philadelphia intimidating voters by their physical presence and through verbal taunts.  The Black Panthers were caught on video tape and as this was a clear violation of the Voting Rights act, charges were filed against them.  J. Christian Adams, one of the attorneys at the Department of Justice handling the case called it the “easiest case I’ve ever had.”  The facts were clear, the video tape provided irrefutable evidence and the defendants didn’t show up in court to dispute the charges.  Because they didn’t show up, the judge issued a default judgment, meaning the Justice Department won the case and only the punishment remained.  That is, until the new leadership of the Justice Department weighed in.

 This case was originally filed in the last days of the Bush administration.  So with the victory in hand, the Justice attorneys handling the case were told to dismiss the charges and drop the case.  The reason given was that the “facts and the law don’t support the case.”  It was further ordered that these kinds of cases were “not going to happen out of the Civil Rights Division” of the DOJ.  In other words, where the plaintiff was white and the defendant was black, the Civil Rights Division of the Department would not pursue the case.  If a regional United States Attorney brought a case, the DOJ would permit it to go forward, but not from within the Civil Rights division.

The individuals who delivered this order were Loretta King and Steve Rosenbaum, political appointees.  Adams went further to say that Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez of lying under oath to a federal commission about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the probe.   The Justice Department denied Adams allegation:

 “It is not uncommon for attorneys within the department to have good faith disagreements about the appropriate course of action in a particular case, although it is regrettable when a former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless allegations to promote his or her agenda,” she said in a written statement.

Mere partisan politics?  Sour grapes?  You might think that until you hear from Bartle Bull, a lifelong Democrat and Civil Rights attorney who was an eye witness to the incident.  Here is an interview with Mr. Bull and Megyn Kelly of Fox News.  It is nothing less than stunning.  Interview.   He describes how one of the Black Panthers said to him and a person with him, “Now you will see what it’s like to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”

The first African American president has people in his administration who will not enforce the Voting Rights Act if the person whose rights are being violated is white.  I need not point out that if  the Ku Klux Klan was standing in front of the polling place and the Justice Department dropped the case against them what the outrage would be.  But with the mainstream media merely the propaganda arm of the administration, this news is only being carried by Fox News and on the Internet.

President Obama and Attorney General Holder must answer to this outrage.  They have to tell the American people why they refuse to carry out their sworn duty and enforce the law, particularly when the case was already won and they demanded that the charges be dropped and that no new cases would originate from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.  A great moment in American history will have a stain upon it unless President Obama immediately reverses course.

I guess that getting a tingle running up his leg only lasted so long before he had to give himself another fix.  Since talking about all the successes of the current administration seemed like a hard sell, Mr. Matthews put together a hit piece on the Tea Parties and the right, or as he calls it, the “New Right.”

On his Hardball  program, Matthews “documentary” was titled “The Rise of the New Right.”  In it he tries to paint the Tea Party movement as a fringe group of racists, gun nuts, and generally a group waiting for a reason to break into violence. 

You would be hard pressed to find a more over the top cheerleader for Barack Obama than Chris Matthews.  Matthews took advantage of his position in the media to actively work to get Obama elected, and now he is crestfallen that General Electric, CBS, and Disney/ABC do not control the news like in the good old days.  He openly attacks Fox News and blames the Internet for allowing the Tea Party to do an end run around the main stream media and get their information out.  Matthews, like big government, is smarter than you.  He knows what “news” you need to hear, and will diligently work to keep what you don’t need to know from reaching your eyes and ears.

 The Tea Party that I know has some very basic principles:

1. Fiscal responsibility
2. Accountability
3. Transparency
4. Free market solutions

 Pretty radical stuff, eh?  In a Rasmussen poll taken earlier this month, 46% of voters say the Tea Party is good for America, while 31% disagree.  Matthews doesn’t tell you this and he makes sure his “documentary” doesn’t provide the information that would let you draw that conclusion.

He reports on the militia movement and specifically mentions the Hutaree militia that plotted to kill a policeman and then those who would attend his funeral.  While constantly tying the Tea Party, and the militia to the Republicans he doesn’t mention that the one person in the Hutaree militia whose political affiliation is known was a Democrat and he voted as such.  Not that there is any linkage between what party one belongs to and being a nut-case, but a fair reporter might mention that to give an honest representation of the story.

Matthews also makes several references to violence against Democrats after the health care vote.  He neglects to say that only one case of violence resulted in an arrest.  That was for an attack against Republican Eric Cantor’s office.  Any one can get a brick and write a note on it quoting one of the Founding Fathers, but until to catch who did it and find out who they really are, you don’t know if it is an extremist on the right, or a Saul Alinsky disciple on the left who wants to discredit the Tea Party people.

Matthews liberally, no pun intended, sprinkles through his story extremists on the right, going back to the 1930s, such as Father Coughlin, but nowhere does he mention extremists on the left.  There is no profile of Louis Farrakhan, Reverend Wright, the Democrats who fought against the Civil Rights Act, while a majority of Republicans supported it.  There is no mention of our government internment of thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II.

It’s getting closer to the mid-term elections and Matthews doesn’t like seeing everything he has bet his reputation on going down in flames.  So he takes out this “hail Mary” pass to try to turn the tide against the Tea Party and scare people into staying safe with the Democrats.  But this time, the main stream media is not in control.  They can’t craft the message and force feed it to the American public.  Broadcast news and many major newspapers are losing viewers and readership daily, because Toto has pulled the curtain back on the Great and Powerful Oz that was the main stream media and exposed it for what it is, a shill for the Progressive left.

Right after the Nancy Pelosi “in your face” parade to the capital to cram ObamaCare into law, the lame stream media filled the airwaves with “news” of those Tea Party Extremists.  They were spitting on a black Congressmen, shouting the “N” word and other ugly things.  In listening to those news stories I pondered the possibility that it was all a page right out of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”.  Make false accusations and let the slobbering media do the heavy lifting.  Well perhaps it’s time to re-visit the scene of the crime.

The Unsubstantiated Claims

• Spitting on a black Congressman  — video footage shows a man cupping his hands around his mouth to channel the sound energy as he bellowed his opposition to Pelosi and crew.  A black Congressman walking near by learned the true meaning of “say it, don’t spray it.”  Upon being struck with the vocal protesters spittle, the Congressman said something to him, but the man continued to shout his protests.  There was no clear evidence of someone spitting, in the true sense of the word, on the Congressman.  Perhaps you can call it collateral damage.
• Shouting the “N” word — another individual claimed that the “N” word was shouted at him “at least fifteen times.”  Hundreds of protestors, dozens of cameras, cell phones, police, news media, and no one can produce any evidence to back up this man’s claim.  Esteemed civil rights hero John Lewis was asked to come on several news programs to talk about this but he declined.
• Threats against Congressmen — reports of voice mail threats, faxes of nooses, bricks through windows, all no doubt happened, but no perpetrator has been caught.  Without out a suspect, this could just as easily been done by a left wing supporter to discredit the right as someone on the right.  Until such time as an individual is questioned there is no way to tie this to any Tea Party affiliation.

The Stubborn Facts

Here are some developing news items that you won’t hear reported in the lame stream media.

• There was one arrest regarding a death threat of a Congressman.  That was for a threat against Republican Congressman Eric Cantor.
• The ugly business about protesters at the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder who died in Iraq.  Members of the Westboro Baptist Church gleefully cheered the death of the brave Marine, saying it was God’s will.  The leader of this movement, Fred Phelps, calls America a “sodomite nation of flag worshiping idolaters.”  He believes all homosexuals should be persecuted.  He has also run for public office five times…as a Democrat.
• When the Hutaree Militia were arrested while plotting to assassinate a police officer and then kill those who attended his funeral, the lame stream media immediately referred to them as a “Christian” militia and ominously tried to link them to those on the right.  The political affiliation of one of the militia members, Jacob J. Ward has recently been uncovered.  He is a registered Democrat.

Let History Be Your Guide

Having attended several Tea Party gatherings, I can report that they were orderly, law abiding, polite and enthusiastic.  Did some expressions of frustration and outrage go a little too far?  Perhaps, but it was rare and limited to what was written on signs. 

However on the left we have real unrepentant bomb throwers (Obama pal Bill Ayers), we have smashing windows in Seattle, and at WTO meetings, we have tables being overturned and thrown at an Ann Coulter speaking engagement in Ottawa.  When the police show up for a left wing demonstration they typically arrive in riot gear.  At a Tea Party people come up to the mounted police and ask if they can pet the horse.  So when things get ugly, who do you think is really behind the nasty business?

“What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

So reads the opening paragraph of Saul Alinsky’s book, “Rules for Radicals.”  Barack Obama is a follower of Saul Alinsky taking his first job out of Columbia as a community organizer in Chicago and tutored by a man named Mike Kruglik.  Kruglig described Obama this way:

“He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards. As with the panhandler, he could be aggressive and confrontational. With probing, sometimes personal questions, he would pinpoint the source of pain in their lives, tearing down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they could make things better.” — “Obama’s Alinsky Jujitsu,” American Thinker, January 8, 2008 

Democrats Facing Threats After Passage of Health Care Reform

While wading through a crowd of protesters carrying a massive gavel, Nancy Pelosi was joined by several prominent black Democrats.  A racial epithet was called out from the crowd evoking a reaction from Pelosi’s companions.  The cameras caught the reaction, but not the provocateur.  Neither the police or any news organization caught the individual, but the “main stream media” immediately started linking Tea Party protesters with racism.

In the following days, CNN and others reported threats to Democrats who voted for the health care bill, including a graphic voicemail to Bart Stupak; an anonymous fax picturing a noose was sent to a black Democratic Congressman James Clyburn; Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter reports a brick being thrown through the window of her district office in Niagara Falls, NY.  Very troubling indeed.

Having walked down Pennsylvania Avenue with thousands of Tea Party protesters last year, I can say they were the most orderly, principled, polite, helpful gathering of people you could imagine.  Naturally the “main stream media” reported nothing of this demonstration other than a sign or two that linked this administration to the Nazis.  So was I surprised to see this vitriol suddenly sprout up?  While I could understand the frustration with this arrogant Congress and President ignore the overwhelming will of the people, I still couldn’t grasp them going that far.

When I heard about the broken window in Congresswoman Slaughter’s district office, I thought of other protests with broken glass.  Protesters smashing windows in Seattle at a meeting of the World Trade Organization in 1999.  The G20 summit in Scotland in 2009 had protesters smashing windows.  These violent protesters represent the left, not the right. Hmmm…

Last night in Ottawa, the police cancelled a speech by Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa, because the threat of violence became too great:

After Tuesday night, the hatred incited by Francois’ letter is no longer theoretical. The police called off my speech when the auditorium was surrounded by thousands of rioting liberals—screaming, blocking the entrance, throwing tables, demanding that my books be burned, and finally setting off the fire alarm.  

Ms. Coulter received a letter, before her speech, from the provost of the University that she could potentially be criminally liable for hate speech in Canada.  Who else spoke at the University without such admonishment?  How about Communist Angela Davis?  Hmmm…

Rules for Radicals

So what are Saul Alinsky’s instructions to radicals?  Here he outlines the purpose:

In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace…. “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.’ This means revolution.” p.3                               

“Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing.” p.6

“A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.” p.10

“An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth — truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing…. To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations….”

Everything is relative and changing.  Doesn’t that sound like the left’s view of a “living and breathing” Constitution?  The Constitution is not what the Founding Fathers intended when the wrote it, but what the words mean in today’s context.  In other words, there really is no Constitution, because the Constitution means whatever you say it means today.

“The tenth rule… is you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.… It involves sifting the multiple factors which combine in creating the circumstances at any given time… Who, and how many will support the action?… If weapons are needed, then are appropriated weapons available? Availability of means determines whether you will be underground or above ground; whether you will move quickly or slowly…” p.36

Clothe it with moral garments.  Did the Democrats argue the merits of health care or did they continually fall back to stories of, for example, “a woman who had to wear her dead sister’s dentures,” said Louise Slaughter.  Or, they said that when people were asked about the details of ObamaCare, the public overwhelmingly supported it, so they are not opposed to the whole package.  Really?  I’m sure that if you picked through the programs of Hitler, Stalin, Castro, and Mao you could get similar reactions: lower unemployment, self-respect, prosperity, etc., but the full package doesn’t work, it’s a lie.

Rules for Radicals: Tactics

9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

Can you say racism?  How many times has this trump card been played?  The epithet hurled from the crowd immediately sparked cries of racism and the “main stream media” tied them to the Tea Party protesters.

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.  In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…

The Democrats squeaked through an ugly health care bill.  The next hurdle is to get this far behind them and try to salvage the 2010 election before they are thrown from office.  Recent polls show a significant uptick in Obama’s approval, but it is all coming from Democrats.  Republicans haven’t budget and Independents are even worse.  Hmmm… what do Democrats do now?  Read Rule 13.

Pick the target: The Tea Party protesters are the most energized potent force in politics today.  They must be stopped.  Freeze it:  Have some left wing radicals, maybe some SEIU members mingle among the Tea Party protesters and shout the racial epithets and melt away.    Pelosi’s parade route was known among the Democrats.  They staged it to look like a Civil Rights march from the 1960s.  They knew the media would be there and they could see, once on site, where to stand to be heard by Pelosi & co., but not be caught on camera.  The lap dog media would immediately launch into grave concerns of the Tea Party turning ugly, “as we knew they would.”  Freeze them.

Personalize it.  What is more personal than racism?  How do you defend against a charge of racism?  Polarize it:  Paint the Tea Party as a bunch of hateful, racist, violent rednecks with guns and fair minded people will not want to associate with them.  They will drift away from the Tea Party and in the absence of another group to organize them, they hope these folks will become dejected and not turn out in November, and Nancy Pelosi can dodge a bullet and tighten her grip on the Speaker’s gavel.

Battle Back

The executive branch is responsible for enforcing the laws.  Press them to find out who did these things.  Put forth the theory that it is the left trying to discredit the Tea Party people.  After all, which is the more plausible explanation, radicals being radicals or law abiding citizens becoming crazed and dangerous?  Make them disprove the case.

This appears more dangerous and grave every day.  It’s eight months to November.  Stay vigilant and don’t let up.

Daniel Henninger wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells of congratulating freshman Sen. Obama on a phenomenal speech. Without a hint of conceit, Mr. Obama replied, “Harry, I have a gift.”

In the article he also describes this observation:

Harvard Law Prof. Charles Ogletree told how Mr. Obama spoke on one contentious issue at the law school, and each side thought he was endorsing their view. Mr. Ogletree said: “Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me.”

That’s essentially how he got elected.  With a heaping helping hand from the popular media, many people saw Obama as a blank screen upon which they could project their own views and see those as Obama’s own.  He’s our man!  He listens.  He cares deeply.  For a politician it is a phenomenal gift.  For a legislator it is an extremely valuable gift.  For an executive it is poison.

Pulling the Trigger

As a politician or a legislator you are in the role of persuader; somebody else makes the decision to vote for you or vote with you, respectively.  As an executive you are in the role of the decider.  You must make a decision and every decision, especially the tough ones are going to make a good many people unhappy.  Perhaps that explains why, in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted “Present” so many times.  Voting “Present” rather than “Yea” or “Nay” allowed him to hold that special place where everyone felt he agreed with them.  Too many decisions one way or another would have tarnished “the gift”.  So why is “the gift” poison for an executive?  If you don’t have “the gift” and you make a decision your opponents may disagree with you, but they are not surprised.  If you have “the gift” and you make a decision, those on the short side feel betrayed and angry, because they thought you agreed with them and then “sold out” and decided the other way.

Obama is in a tight spot where he has to make decisions and decisions have consequences.  When you make a decision it is very hard to make it seem like everyone got their way.  His complete lack of executive experience is telling.  If he had some executive experience, such as a mayor or a governor, he might have had enough practice learning how to make his decisions appear to satisfy everyone, as his campaign speeches did.  But that’s the thing about decisions.  If everyone supports them, they’re not much of a decision, like deciding to pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving.  Everyone enjoys the decision, but it’s really not what we elect presidents for.

I’ll Have the Waffles, Please

If you watch closely, you can see that Obama is struggling to preserve “the gift”.  He said he is for closing Guantanamo, but not yet.  He is for pulling out of Iraq, but no timetable.  The general he put in charge of Afghanistan, McChrystal, said he needed 40,000 more troops, but Obama could not bring himself to say yes or no.  He had to ponder, think, consult, weigh alternatives, and three months later, he gave McChrystal what he asked for.  Those on the left complained that he was not pulling out.  Those on the right complained that he wasted precious time while our troops were on the battlefield.  His backers tried to give him the fig leaf of showing gravitas.   He can’t seem to find the magic formula where everyone applauds him.  From “the gift” he has gone to “the anti-gift”.  Instead of satisfying everyone, he is finding that he is satisfying no one.

Move On

It’s time for Obama to “Move On”.  He should put “the gift” in his trophy case right next to his Nobel Peace Prize.  It got him to the White House.  How much more can he ask of such a thing?  So drop the pretense.  We all know he is a hard left guy, so he should just be who he is.  He may suddenly face a more hostile press, or they may love him more, although that would be hard to believe.  But when he makes a decision he will at least please his base, and then his opponents can fight his statist goals without being branded as racists.  As a hard left guy he will probably not get re-elected because America is not a hard left country, on the contrary the majority of Americans describe themselves as conservative.  But by choosing he can try to do what he can within one term.  It will be a battle. Obama’s poll ratings have dropped steadily since his inauguration and the Democrats are likely to lose seats in Congress this fall.  As an old acquaintance once said to me, “It’s like standing in the middle of the road.  Choose left or choose right, but choose; otherwise you get hit by traffic coming in both directions.”

Today Barack Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize in Norway for his accomplishments in the area of …..?  Well, nothing actually.  It was called anticipatory, in other words, he got the prize for what they hoped he would accomplish.  There’s that hope thing again.  I hope he stops burying this country in debt.

TR and Woodrow Wilson

In some puzzling way, President Obama’s acolytes like to make comparisons to two other presidents who won the Nobel Peace prize.  But they actually accomplished something or introduced a concept that eventually prevailed.  In 1905, Teddy Roosevelt successfully negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War, and that peace actually stuck.  Woodrow Wilson created the League of Nations which, although it failed survive, it was the forerunner of the United Nations.  Gentlemen, take a bow.  As for President Obama, I guess we’ll have to keep holding our breath and hoping.

Damaged Goods

However noble, the Nobel Peace Prize might have been, it has been reduced to a sad joke.  Let’s look at some past recipients:

• 2007 – Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Al Gore won the Peace prize for his deeply flawed documentary, which by the way two members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have called for him to return the Oscars he won  for the same film.  He didn’t win the Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry.  Meanwhile the IPCC is embroiled in the midst of Climategate. Who lost out to these two?  A woman who smuggled approximately 2,500 Jews, mostly small children, out of the Warsaw ghetto before the Nazi’s could exterminate them.
• 2005 – Mohamed El Baradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way” .  While investigating Iran El Baradei “opposed the publication of a secret report generated by his own agency, one which indicated Iran was using its civilian program as a cover to make weapons. And why did he oppose publication?” {more}  Do you feel blissfully peaceful now when you ponder Iran?
• 2002 – Jimmy Carter – “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.  Well he must have gotten tired as he mused about how any opposition to President Obama’s policies being racially motivated for the most part.
• 2001 – The United Nations and Kofi Annan – for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.  It seems they wanted to wait until the UN was nearly irrelevant in world affairs and Kofi Annan’s son was ripping off the UN’s Oil for Food program.  Hmmm, that must have come from the “better organized” part.
• 1994 – Yassir Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin – for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East. How’s that working out?

Notably Absent

So where are the Nobel Peace prizes for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, for ending the Cold War without firing a shot?  That wasn’t just peaceful that was miraculous.  But then again, they were conservatives and therefore they don’t qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize.