Frank Salvato, Managing Editor

Barack Obama:
Neither Oblivious Nor Deceptive
December 12, 2008

Death by a thousand cuts. That is exactly what is happening to President-Elect Barack Obama’s credibility as he and his campaign continue to abuse the “plausible deniability” political tactic. As the list of radicals, political opportunists and ethically challenged elected officials that Mr. Obama portends not to know continues to grow, the voters who believed they voted for “hope” and “change” are starting to realize that the promise of an Obama presidency, well, it isn’t so much...

Admittedly, I did not vote for Barack Obama to be President of the United States. I didn’t support him not because of the color of his skin (in fact I would have voted for Michael Steele or even Ward Connerly should they have decided to run and made it to the ballot). I didn’t support Mr. Obama because of tangible reasons that included three significant facts:

▪ He hasn’t the experience needed to steward our nation through times that include a declaration of war against the United States by committed jihadists and a contingent of one-worlder billionaires making a concerted effort to compromise the economic strengths of the United States.

▪ He possesses a voting record that lands so far to the left of center it would make the now deceased leader of the Communist Party USA and four-time US presidential candidate, Gus Hall, green with envy.

▪ But most significant to my inability to vote for – or support the candidacy of – Barack Obama was that he is a product of the Chicago Democrat Machine; a political organization that in many respects is so corrupt that you can picture the boys in the smoky back rooms lighting their cigars with subpoenas and laughing.

It is significant that Barack Obama is a product of the Chicago Democrat Machine because in “The Machine” everybody knows everybody else, whether they have direct dealings with one another or not. There is a hierarchy in Chicago and Illinois Democrat politics that one must acknowledge, defend, feed and then engage if one is to become a serious political player in Chicago or Illinois. Barack Obama acknowledged, defended, fed and engaged “The Machine” and it did well by him.

Understanding Chicago politics, to the extent one can not being a “player,” I was willing to give Mr. Obama a pass on many of his questionable associations. I understood that what he was trying to achieve by embracing those associations was to achieve his Chicago Democrat Machine bona fides. An aspiring Democrat politician emanating from Illinois or Chicago must have his credentials in place or he will find that “The Machine” doesn’t work on Election Day (I think it’s a union thing).

Where the Reverend Jeremiah Wright was concerned it was obvious, at least to me, that Mr. Obama was attempting to acquire the credentials needed to achieve support from the large Black communities of the South and West sides of Chicago. Honestly, when there are White candidates running for Cook County Board or Commissioner positions, it isn’t uncommon to see their pasty white faces at churches not unlike Trinity United where they unabashedly and, most often, disingenuously kowtow for votes. It doesn’t mean they are anti-white, it means they were “putting their time in” with the Black folk in order to say, “I feel your pain! Viva hope and change!” In this same vane I wasn’t surprised about Obama’s celebrity with Louis Farrakhan’s crowd.

And I wasn’t too surprised that Mr. Obama’s first political fundraiser took place in the living room of two unrepentant terrorists, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. These two reprobates, who now advance their Socialist goals masquerading as university professors while professing their love of education reform, symbolize the cream of the crop when it comes to Chicago’s Progressive-Left community. The objective of Obama’s association with this contingent was to shore up his Progressive-Left credentials, regardless of the fact that he is more in tune with the ideology championed by the Progressive-Left than any other political ideology. His goal wasn’t to advocate, it was to solidify support. The same can be said for his associations with the folks at ACORN.

When Tony Rezko surfaced as a major contributor to President-Elect Obama’s state and then federal political campaigns the notion almost garnered a yawn. Republicans and Conservatives tried to make great hay out of the relationship because Rezko was “dirty.” Note to the politically aggrieved from outside of Chicago, you shouldn’t be surprised when a Chicago Democrat Machine politician has tainted money contributed to their coffers...as Sean Connery’s character in The Untouchables, Jim Malone, said, “It’s the Chicago Way.”

Now come questions about Mr. Obama’s association with scandal-ridden Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich; a man who profanely espoused his contempt for Mr. Obama suddenly “not playing the game” by sweetening Blagojevich’s Chicago Democrat Machine “401K.”

Through it all, Mr. Obama’s one and only defense when asked about these associations was to deny them. He never heard Rev. Wright puke his racist remarks over the twenty years he sat in the pews of Trinity United Church of Christ. William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are just people who live down the street, whose children went to the same schools as Obama’s. Tony Rezko was just some over-zealous supporter who Obama never really had all that much contact with. And Rod Blagojevich...who is he?!

In each instance when a radical relationship or detrimental association was questioned, Mr. Obama – the lawyer that he is – tried to execute the political tactic of plausible deniability. With his “betrayal” of Gov. Blagojevich, someone he had to know – both personally and professionally because of his political ties to the Chicago Democrat Machine – he effectively over-exposed his willingness to play the plausible deniability card. From this point forward, Mr. Obama will be required to explain himself. After all, he is now squarely in the public eye and is so as a public servant.

Prior to the election I expressed my concern for the well-being of our nation’s political system – and our nation, for that matter – if it came to Barack Obama winning the presidency. I explained to readers what they would get for their vote in an article titled, This Is What a Vote for Obama Gets You. Now, as I stand witness to the demise of my state’s governor at his own greedy, arrogant, Chicago Democrat Machine created hand, I wonder just how deep the corruption goes and whether or not the “powers that be” will allow it all to be exposed. Simply put, I “hope” for “change” where the corruption executed at the hand of the Chicago Democrat Machine is concerned.