Is Barack Hussein Obama becoming the king of the flip-flop? Or is he suddenly just trying to come across as a tough guy by going into Sean Connery mode from The Untouchables?
I've never been impressed with people who will say whatever they think other people want to hear. When I was growing up and in church, I could tell a huge, huge difference between preachers who said what they thought and felt, and preachers who preached for the audience. Thus, I'm rarely impressed with politicians.
With the string of flip-flops and gaffes coming from the Obama campaign these days, it's hard to really trust him at his word for what he believes in and stands for. Not that anyone was fairly certain about that to begin with, other than that he believes in "change." We still don't know that much about the Senator from Illinois, other than that he DOES supposedly believe in "change." I believe in change, as well, get enough of it together and it can be converted into bill form...
I digress.
Barry H. is supposedly a propponent of gun control. Supposedly he believes that handguns should be heavily regulated (unconstitutional, by the way, as anyone who has ever bothered to actually READ the Constitution, particularly the Second Amendment, can tell you), and yet he is coming across with the Sean Connery line from The Untouchables in reference to McCain and the Republicans.
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night. “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”
McCain and the RNC took on the comment in terms that will be very familiar to people who followed Clinton campaign statements last year:
“Barack Obama’s call for ‘new politics’ is officially over. In just 24 hours, Barack Obama attacked one of America’s pioneering women CEOs, rejected a series of joint bipartisan town halls, and said that if there’s a political knife fight, he’d bring a gun," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said, referring also to the Obama campaign's shot at Carly Fiorina's lavish pay package and role in layoffs at Hewlett-Packard.
“Why is Barack Obama so negative? In the last 24 hours, he’s completely abandoned his campaign’s call for ‘new politics,’ equating the election to a ‘brawl’ and promising to ‘bring a gun,' " said the RNC's Alex Conant.
The bi-partisan town hall meetings, by the way, set up after Obama's challenge of "any where, any time." I'm not sure that there was screaming like a little girl involved, but he did, obviously, run from them like one.
Again, I digress.
The McCain camp was quick to respond Obama's "bring a gun" comment, stating on the McCain web site, "we're having second thoughts about our proposed series of town halls."
"New politics" indeed. Obama is the product of the Chicago political machine, having been schooled and tutored to fight a dirty, ruthless campaign if necessary in order to win at all costs. Understandable, this is politics. Politics is a dirty game, and Obama seems ready and willing to dip his hands into the mud and come out slinging, keeping a bottle of hand cleaner close by in order to do a quick scrub job in order to come across as the one playing clean. The problem with that arises in having an established public record that shows exactly what positions that a politician has taken on issues, showing, as in the case of Rudy Giuliani, exactly where a candidate has been on issues as opposed to what they say while running for their current bids for higher office.
Despite his Messianic appeal early on before his own skeletons began to come rattling out of the closet, Obama is starting to come across with all the charm of nails dragging across a chalkboard. His challenges to McCain and then backing down from an open forum town hall style series of debates are indicative of a tremendous lack of intestinal fortitude. Not that McCain is a great national treasure himself, but it speaks volumes that Obama is unwilling to face him man to man in debate without the aid of prescreened questions or a teleprompter. That would indicate a lack of character, a lack of principles, and a lack of having a firm stand on anything, in my opinion.
Perhaps these are symptoms of a larger, unasked question. If Barack Obama is unable to square off without having the issues defined ahead of time, could it be that there is someone behind the scenes who controls which issues Obama will address? If so, what does that say for how he will operate should he take the Oval Office come November? Will there be some unknown, behind the scenes puppet master controlling Obama's actions as President? If so, who might that be?
Given his associations with Ayers, Wright, and the questionable connections to known terrorist sponsoring organizations, could it be that we have allowed the Democratic party to put forth a potential candidate that we really, truly, know nothing about other than that he looks good in a suit and can talk about change?
And if he does come with a gun to a knife fight, does that mean that McCain can saddle up and bring in a jet fighter?
These are the questions that must be answered before the November elections. Perhaps Lincoln Davis and Bart Gordon of Tennessee are right in withholding their super-delegate support from Obama. It may very well indeed be that the Democrats have made a huge error in judgement in allowing themselves to be overcome by "the Messiah."
McCain has put forth that electing Obama will be bringing about the second administration of Jimmy Carter. What I have to wonder is, is Jimmy Carter suddenly starting to look a little bit better to anyone else?
Once and Always, an American Fighting Man
.
