SansPretense

I learned a new word the other day, “fisking,” through Treacher’s fisking of a NYT’s piece. I think I’m going to give it a shot today.

Roland S. Martin, a commentator at CNN.com, does this wonderful commentary full of the Obamassiah’s talking points and lacking all sense of reality. So I want to go through it point by point and have my way with him. So here goes…

Commentary: Republican attacks show fear and desperation

One word: Projection.

Watching Sen. John McCain and top Republicans swing wildly in their attempts to slam Sen. Barack Obama, with less than two weeks ago to go before Election Day, is like watching an old fighter –clearly out of gas, his legs turned to rubber, and all he can do is grab, hold, punch behind the back, just anything to try to win.

I kind of like this analogy, actually. With the way the latest polls are going, it reminds me a lot of quite a few old fighters.

McCain’s campaign is no longer about issues. He and his supporters want to bring up anything and everything to derail Obama, and nothing is sticking, so they just keep returning to their old bag of tricks.

Yup. Because Democrats don’t run dirty campaigns, right?

Actually, I think Obama’s political positions, vision for America, character, associates, and his role in the economic crisis are ALL very important and valuable ISSUES. Aren’t those all leadership traits? Don’t they say a lot about the direction Obama would want to take this country in?

Are the attacks sticking? Well, they do when McCain throws the right ones…
(more below the fold)

In the past two weeks, we’ve seen Minnesota Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann make one of the most audacious statements ever, suggesting that Obama holds anti-American views, that other members of Congress have the same views, and that the media should launch a widespread investigation to ferret them out.

The nerve of her. To state publicly what everyone paying attention on the Right already believes? Let’s be clear: “other members of Congress” are also some key Democrats.

Whether or not Obama’s views are anti-American is a matter of values and opinion. A politician stating a truthful opinion that pisses people off is pretty audacious, though. Maybe if she pandered like other politicians she’d be better off?

So what does it mean to be anti-American? Well, that’s a long discussion for another post, but I think I can give a good example here:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

That was Obama, for those who haven’t been paying attention, addressing a group of very rich Californians when asked about campaigning in small towns. If that’s not an anti-American, elitist statement, then you and I will differ on what exactly it means to be an American. I think Judeo-Christian values, taking pride in personal liberty and the right to self-defense, and, above all, strong family ties are all central to what it means to be an American. That’s what this country was founded on, afterall.

Having that type of elitist disdain for small-town and rural America is a very common attitude among the Left. To me, that’s anti-American.

Now back to rolling Roland:

No, seriously, she said that on MSNBC’s “Hardball.”

*gasp* Unbelievable. MSNBC actually let her insult Obama and get away with it?

It didn’t take long for the folks on the left to get ahold of her comments. After the video spread like wildfire, Democrats across the country pumped $700,000 into the campaign coffers of her opponent. The normally talkative Bachmann is now on lockdown, not granting any interviews, as she has to work hard to hold onto her seat.

Oh, well, I guess she didn’t get away with it. Let this be a lesson for all anti-Obama politicians running for office. Don’t insult Dear Leader on one of the most unapologetically baised-for-Obama news channels. His supporters are watching, and they have lots of money to spend.

Seriously, is it a surprise that when she insults the presidential candidate with a cult-like following that his supporters don’t act against her?

Then you have former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was caught suggesting that if Obama wins, he is going to put in place the policies of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Now, Gingrich has absolutely no clue what policies Wright advocated, but he wants to scare the dickens out of voters by literally making stuff up about Obama.

Believe me, one doesn’t have to make stuff up about Obama for him to come across as scary. All a person has to do is dig into his background a little bit. The man is a on the fringe, for sure.

Now Wright is a proponent of black liberation theology. For twenty years, Obama attended church led by a man who follows this hate filled ideology. From the wiki article:

“Black theology cannot accept a view of God which does not represent God as being for oppressed blacks and thus against white oppressors. Living in a world of white oppressors, blacks have no time for a neutral God. The brutalities are too great and the pain too severe, and this means we must know where God is and what God is doing in the revolution. There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks. We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God’s love.” [A Black Theology of Liberation, p. 70]

I’m not sure what exactly Wright’s politics are, but I do know that his theology is centered around this trash. I also know that this has its roots on the Left. I’ll let the reader decide what that implies in terms of politics, and I’ll let Gingrich defend himself. All I know is that Obama attended this man’s church for 20 years. Is it really “making stuff up” to suggest that Wright and Obama share a good portion of the same ideology and politics? You decide.

Cindy McCain, who has barely moved her lips during this campaign, is now accusing the Obama campaign of running the dirtiest campaign ever, and lighting up the New York Times and others for their viciousness. Never mind what’s happening in her own backyard with all of the false and outlandish comments coming from her husband, his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, and their supporters.

I agree, Roland: Cindy McCain hasn’t been in the spotlight that much during this campaign. So why did the NY Times feel the need to seek out dirt on her through facebook and publish a lengthy attack on her? You’re lighting into the McCain campaign for being dirty yet excusing the NY Times? Come on!

And what exactly is false and outlandish about what Palin and McCain have been saying? Surely what they’re saying is on par with the attacks from the Obama camp. Just go check out factcheck.org to verify that.

They are now in full blame-the-media mode.

Well, yes, I mean the treatment has been totally unfair. Palin, Joe the Plumber, Cindy McCain, and anyone else who speaks out against Obama has been brutally vetted and humiliated by the press.

Then you have both McCain and Palin slamming Obama for essentially being a socialist. We shouldn’t be surprised that it’s come to this because we already had radio hosts like Lars Larson, Glenn Beck and others trying to paint Obama for months as being a Marxist. Now the junior senator from Illinois is a student of Lenin!

Well, yea, because he IS a socialist…hold on, wait, what’s the difference between Marxism and Leninism? Hahaha, I think Roland was being nitpicky in order to make himself sound like an elitist jackass. No offense, Mr. Martin. We both know that not only do most people not know the difference, but that the difference really doesn’t matter in terms of this election. The point is that Obama believes in the Marxist principle of redistributing the wealth. Whether he’s a communist or socialist or what school of Left-wing Revolutionary ideology he follows, the important concept is that Obama, like his comrades, has a certain disdain for the American capitalist system (of course, that would define anti-Americanism, right?) and want to replace it with a totalitarian, wealth redistribution regime.

I’m sure the American people get it without you having to try to confuse them and sound all smart.

This has totally gotten out of hand, but instead of trying to castigate Obama and tar and feather him, the Republicans should look inward and look at how their actions have seriously harmed this nation.

You are correct. This thing has gotten out of hand. You’re just looking in the wrong direction. For examples, see the links in the second paragraph of this post.

The Republicans ran Congress for six years. The Republicans have held the White House for the last eight years. The Republicans have advanced the deregulation agenda that played a major role in creating the financial mess we are currently in.

BULLSHIT. The deregulation agenda worked to soften this crisis, and the Democrats push to give loans to people who couldn’t repay them is the single largest contribution to this financial crisis. See my posts here and especially here.

The Republicans have led the foreign policy we have in place that has destroyed the moral authority we once held. Their president is one of the most unpopular in history, so bad that he and Vice President Dick Cheney can’t even come out of the White House to campaign on behalf of McCain because they are so reviled by Americans.

Yes, the media did a wonderful job of destroying Bush, and he didn’t really help. This also brings up a question: what does it say about Obama that he isn’t crushing McCain in an election that historically he shouldn’t be close in?

Also, don’t forget the Democratic controlled Congress has an approval rating roughtly 10% lower than Bush…

Can someone please remind these folks of this?

I know. We Republicans keep forgetting we’re supposed to roll over and let the Obamassiah, the Savior of the world, win this one in landslide fashion. Apprently the American people keep forgetting that it’s meant to be as well. Let me see those poll numbers again…

Every campaign says they want the election to be about the issues, but when McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis made it clear that they want it to be about character and not issues, well, we should have realized we would get to this point.

Character IS an issue. Why would I want to vote for someone who agrees with me on every issue but doesn’t have the character to stand up to our enemies or is obviously corrupt? I’m not saying either candidate falls with those traits, but any election is about character as much as the issues. It’s fair game.

That’s why we’re hearing so much about Bill Ayers. That’s why they’ve spent more time blasting out statements about ACORN than real policy points.

Bill Ayers regrets not blowing up more buildings and ACORN is trying to steal an election. That’s a major concern for any political race. Why is voter fraud and associations with questionable persons only fair game when it’s a Republican that gets hurt? Hypocrite.

But OK, let’s talk policy points. Hot Air has the comprehensive case against Obama, point by point.

It’s pretty sad, really. It’s sad that instead of making it about a vision for America, they want it to be about the castigating of a good man. It’s sad that McCain can’t fully articulate an economic plan that encompasses all Americans, instead of redistributing income upwards to the super rich.

Actually, it IS about a vision for America. It’s about whether or not we want a president who will lead us into a socialism ruled by world opinion, thus leaving us with the same financial and moral ruins as Europe, or choosing a man who believes that isn’t ashamed to be an American, wants America to win its wars abroad, and, in general, wants to keep America strong by building on her wealth and NOT spreading it around.

You can’t get anymore about vision than that!

Castigating a good man? Right. Let’s talk to Joe the Plumber about that…

Redistribute wealth upwards to the “super rich”? That’s some new economic theory right there. There has to be a balance of wealth (with some concentrated) for the free market to work. Roland Martin is playing with words. McCain has never talked about any such policy. I say if Obama wants to redistribute the wealth of the super rich he can start with his own voluntarily.

It’s sad that his only answer to the economy is tax cuts, when we need a much broader answer.

Your right. We also need more deregulation and incentive for companies to come back to US soil and deep cuts to government spending. Tax increases, as Obama proposes, will do the opposite.

Much can happen over the next 13 days. I’ve seen campaigns won and lost with less time on the clock.

Yup. Bush in 2004, for example. You and Obama and the Left should be scared, sir.

McCain will continue to throw jabs, swinging wildly, ignoring the game plan he came into the fight with, hoping something — anything — connects against the jaw of his younger, more fluid opponent. And like any aging fighter, as the rounds tick away, he could get even more desperate and fearful. So hold on to your seats. Lord knows what will come out of the GOP side over the next 13 days.

Yup. And let’s wait for the next stupid comment by Obama or Biden…

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Roland Martin.

And CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NY Times, Washington Post, and the MSM in general.