Posted by MG on October 31, 2008 at 05:06:05
In Reply to: Re: Looking forward to getting answers to some important questions. posted by sawyer on October 30, 2008 at 23:36:45:
(Quotes from Sawyer’s post are in italics)
#2 The Times's initial story DID report Obama saying that his many dinners with Khalidi had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. For that reason, I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation." Does Obama still speak with Khalidi? What biases is Obama trying to overcome? How is Khalidi helping in that effort?
The Times article you refer to says quite clearly “The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years.”
To answer any problems people have with Obama’s friendship with a fellow professor, as far as I’m concerned, soon we probably are going to finally have a president who is intellectually curious and who will speak with people of diverse views and positions. After 8 years of Bush, where only Fox News gets turned on in the Whitehouse. Look where that’s gotten the country.
And if Obama needs to answer questions on Khalidi then McCain needs to answer one too: Will the “International Republican Institute”, which McCain led, continue to give Khalidi’s Palestinian research center $500, 000 contributions.
Khalidi who was never a spokesperson for the PLO as Palin has falsely said. He is however a member of such associations as: “The National Advisory Committee of the U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East”, which is nothing more than “a national organization of Jews, Christians and Muslims dedicated to dialogue, education and advocacy for peace based on the deepest teachings of the three religious traditions” according to the Center for Media and Democracy. He’s also a member of the "Board of Sponsors of The Palestine-Israel Journal” which is a publication founded by Ziad AbuZayyad and Victor Cygielman, prominent Palestinian and Israeli journalists.
McCain and Palin's accusations say more about their campaign than Obama …they are desperate and will do anything to win, it’s become “election first” not "country first".
#3 Campaign finance information. Obama has yet to release information on more than 80 percent of his contributors. Could this be because it's really more like 5 percent posing as 80 percent? (Obama's website allows contributors to use phony names, thereby allowing well-off financiers to circumvent contribution limits.)
Information on donations by millions of Americans that average only $86? I donated through Obama’s website and I can attest that there’s no way you can use a phony name. In fact contributing on both Obama’s website and McCain’s website follow exactly the same procedure. I just checked. (I suggest that before Sawyer posts other people’s lies that he investigates himself a little bit first.)
#4 Does Obama support or condemn Ohio state officials using government computers to rifle through Joe the Plumber's personal paperwork in a partisan hit job?
McCain created Joe’s problems, McCain put him in the spotlight without vetting him. He’s not a real plumber, he never planned to buy that business, he never had the money or income for it. Now he has his own publicist, and is trying to get book and recording deals. Why should Obama answer for Ohio state officials?
#5 If Obama believes the Constitution provides a "right to privacy" that includes aborting babies, does this right not also protect against Joe the Plumber-styled intrusions by the state?
Why is that a situation Obama should to answer to?
#6 What exactly did Obama mean when he compared America to Nazi Germany in a 2001 radio interview?
Details? I haven’t heard that one yet, but I don’t listen to Limbaugh.
#7 Does Obama still believe America suffers a "fundamental flaw" that is embodied in the Constitution? What is it, exactly? How does he plan on "fixing" the Constitution?
Limbaugh left out a big part of what Obama said when he charged that Obama believes the Constitution contains a “fundamental flaw”. Obama was speaking in regards to "Slavery and the Constitution", Obama explained that “Africans at the time were not considered as part of the polity that was of concern to the framers," and that the framers did not "see it as a moral problem involving persons of moral worth.” In fact Condoleezza Rice said just about the same thing on July 19th to the Council of Foreign Relations: "In our first Constitution, my ancestors were three-fifths of a man. What does that say about American democracy at its outset? I've said it's a great birth defect. And we have had to overcome a birth defect. And, like any birth defect, it continues to have an impact on us. It's why we have such a hard time talking about race, and dealing with race."
(Gotta run …if I have time I’ll address arguments #8-10.)
Vote for Obama!