July 2, 2008
America Needs 'Call to Service,' Says Obama in Speech at University
In a speech today at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Sen. Barack Obama touted his plans to increase opportunities for national service, saying that the Fourth of July offered an occasion to look beyond the “bustle and busyness” of everyday concerns.
Mr. Obama, the presumed Democratic nominee for president, said that the United States must expand opportunities for citizens to serve beyond the military, saying that “the future of our nation depends on the soldier at Fort Carson, but it also depends on the teacher in East L.A.”
In the speech, Mr. Obama plugged his service initiatives, including expanding the AmeriCorps national-service program to 250,000 jobs from the current 75,000 and offering tax credits to college students who agree to perform 100 hours of public service. He also reiterated his support of legislation to expand the GI Bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and signed into law on Monday by President Bush.
As he spoke, Mr. Obama drew on his experience as a community organizer in Chicago, which he said helped him improve the neighborhood and become a better citizen. “Through service,” he said, “I discovered how my own improbable story fit into the larger story of America.”
The speech coincided with the premiere of a new radio ad, broadcast for the first time today on Christian talk stations in evangelical-heavy Colorado Springs. In the ad, Mr. Obama refutes attacks on his faith and recalls kneeling before a cross on Chicago’s South Side, dedicating himself “to discovering His Truth.” —Ingrid Norton
Ingrid Norton | Posted on Wednesday July 2, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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Barack Obama is willing to come up with just about “any” recollection to adapt his image to the political mood du jour.
So, now he recalls “kneeling before a cross on Chicago’s South Side, dedicating himself ‘to discovering His Truth’.” Funny that , at first, he had no recollection of the Reverend Wright’s anti-white hate rhetoric. Only when his amnesia started to look ridiculous did Senator Obama “recall” some of the things that his spiritual adviser of 20 years had said. Sounds like the typical selective memory of a politician.
But why not pander to those Americans who want confirmation that their new political prophet is indeed a true Christian? The “memory of kneeling” might just get him a bunch of votes.
I have a question for Senator Obama. What, Sir, happened to your belief in the constitutionally guaranteed Separation of Church and State? Obviously, you are not as courageous and “refreshingly different” a candidate as your devotees make you out to be. Or, Sir, has your courage left you after the flag pin debacle?
Okay, okay, I understand. No pin = no patriotism. No kneeling before a cross = no follower of Christ. The lack of both might cost you the presidency, and that just isn’t an option.
I understand, Mr. Obama, and “God bless you!”
— Forliberty Jul 2, 04:31 PM #
When you have so little experience, you have trouble knowing what will and won’t work. That’s one reason why Obama’s “Call to Service” is an uninspiring collage of ideas he’s taken from other people.
Another reason is that, if you listen carefully, Obama is about as inspiring (to someone with experience) as Clinton was eloquent (to someone who’s heard Churchill, Kennedy, and King). Clinton was not eloquent. He was glib — a Hope, Arkansas, used-car salesman who had the historical vision of a hot-tub salesman.
I agree that Obama can sound inspiring, if you’re across the room and don’t listen carefully. Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, … all listen carefully and will quickly become uninspired by his hodgepodge of stolen ideas, none of which will get through Congress except those that become part of the bill recertifying Arbor Day. Then the rich, the poor, and the middle-class will have their chance to be uninspired by an inexperienced, untested leader, who will be fumbling away the opportunities of a new century, because his party couldn’t find a way to put him at the right place in line.
— S. Britchky Jul 2, 04:35 PM #
Hm. “His truth” as opposed to “the truth?”
Talk about truth in a way that accepts contradictory ideas as being true at the same time leaves me cold. If those who use this language mean that they only see part of the truth, it’s fine—that’s all of us, really.
but my-, his-, your truth? Syncretic nonsense.
Forliberty: The constitution guarantees freedom of religion [thank God! :) ], not freedom from religion.
— Green Eyeshade Jul 2, 04:36 PM #
OK, all the Obama-bashers, form a line to the right…..nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
— Al Jul 2, 04:56 PM #
Can somebody please quote for me the “constitutionally guaranteed Separation of Church and State”? I can’t remember in which article those words are found.
— deborah Jul 2, 05:03 PM #
deborah, try Article I.
As for Obamaisms, I will defer to my learned colleagues above who have made the case time and time again, Obama is simply wrong for America (and the world) at this time. Sure, once all the bad guys are put away behind bars and the “age of terror” gives way to an age of renaissance, with people of all ages and stripes flocking to academe to study the arts and literature … . Oh, right … and when might that take place?
— marci Jul 2, 05:54 PM #
Obama is smart for he remembers as a six year old overseas living with his wayward mother and a muslim step father being read the constitution every night to put him to sleep.
Service must mean being an organizer in Chicago and making deals for millin dollar homes.
oh my is that true?
— russ Jul 2, 05:55 PM #
From Dreams of My Father: ‘I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa , that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin an d Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.’
From Audacity of Hope: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’
— frank donley Jul 2, 06:10 PM #
Ekect Obama and in 4 years the country will have such a swing to the right that the Democratic party might not even survive.
— Mark de Goz Jul 2, 08:05 PM #
Obama gave a nice speech, except for everything he said about race. He apparently believes we’re not talking enough about race. This is like hearing Britney Spears say we’re not talking enough about pop-tarts with substance-abuse problems.
By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours.
But the “post-racial candidate” thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people?
As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said — not about black people, but literally, the exact same things — I think we’d notice that he’s crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke’s love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming “home to roost.”)
Imagine a white pastor saying: “Racism is the American way. Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run. … We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God.”
Imagine a white pastor calling Condoleezza Rice, “Condoskeezza Rice.”
Imagine a white pastor saying: “No, no, no, God damn America — that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people! God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human! God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme!”
We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, “Isn’t that cute?” As a post-racial American, I do not believe “the legacy of slavery” gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.
Obama tried to justify Wright’s deranged rants by explaining that “legalized discrimination” is the “reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up.” He said that a “lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families.”
That may accurately describe the libretto of “Porgy and Bess,” but it has no connection to reality. By Rev. Wright’s own account, he was 12 years old and was attending an integrated school in Philadelphia when Brown v. Board of Education was announced, ending “separate but equal” schooling.
Meanwhile, at least since the Supreme Court’s decision in University of California v. Bakke in 1978 — and obviously long before that, or there wouldn’t have been a case or controversy for the court to consider — it has been legal for the government to discriminate against whites on the basis of their race.
Consequently, any white person 30 years old or younger has lived, since the day he was born, in an America where it is legal to discriminate against white people. In many cases it’s not just legal, but mandatory, for example, in education, in hiring and in Academy Award nominations.
So for half of Rev. Wright’s 66 years, discrimination against blacks was legal — though he never experienced it personally because it existed in a part of the country where he did not live. For the second half of Wright’s life, discrimination against whites was legal throughout the land.
Discrimination has become so openly accepted that — in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist — Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist “old uncle,” Rev. Wright.
First of all, Wright is not Obama’s uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don’t choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with the idea that you can’t be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives.
But Wright is not a relative of Obama’s at all. Yet Obama cravenly compared Wright’s racist invective to his actual grandmother, who “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”
Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama’s grandmother — who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school — has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has.
Unlike his “old uncle” — who is not his uncle — Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama’s grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn’t get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she’s white. Denounce the racist!
Fine. Can we move on now?
No, of course, not. It never ends. To be fair, Obama hinted that we might have one way out: If we elect him president, then maybe, just maybe, we can stop talking about race.
— Arthur Jul 2, 09:34 PM #
Regarding #10
1. I wish the writer of that post had given the website where he criticized the late Rev. Falwell for his racism, or where he criticized Falwell for blaming Americans for 9/11. Although at one time McCain referred to Falwell as an agent of intolerance, he of course changed his assessment of Falwell. I also wish the writer of #10 had given the website where he criticized the Republicans for seeking the endorsement of Rev. Hagee, who also blamed Americans for 9/11.
2. Rev. Wright experienced racism when he went to college in Virginia. He said that although he saw racism in Philadelphia, he was surprised as to how Christians treated each other (White vs. Black ) in the South. Additionally, as late as the 1990s, a Black woman was intimidated and threatened when she moved into a White neighborhood in Philadelphia. The South has never had a monopoly on racism.
3. I definitely don’t believe White people invented AIDS to kill Black people, but the Tuskegee Experiments were developed by White men and that is a fact. Local doctors were instructed not to treat them (black men in the experiment) and these men also infected their wives and some of their children were born infected. This experiment lasted into the 1970s. The first person that I heard say that AIDS was accidently created was a White man, on a national television program. I remember him saying words to the effect of, “Now watch them try to blame it on the Africans.” That, plus the Tuskegee Experiments don’t instill trust in at least some Black people.
4. I wish the writer had specified the law that states it is “mandatory” to discriminate.
5. Evidently the writer of #10 can’t move on either, or else he wouldn’t have spent so much time, posting a comment about race filled with half-truths and total distortions.
— Ve Jul 3, 12:14 AM #
What in god’s name are all you people blathering about?
Is this STILL disgruntled Hillary supporters? My god, I thought this was an educated forum.
Let me make this easy, since everyone here seems to have their pants up in a twist: Obama is not the second-coming. He’s a politican, he needs to get approximately 100 million people without anything like a real education or understanding of the world to vote for him. He’s going to have to do a lot of BS before, and during his presidency.
So what?
He makes John McCain look worse than George W. Bush.
That’s the only choice we have, so what’s the big fuss about?
— a Jul 3, 12:34 AM #
“Is this STILL disgruntled Hillary supporters? My god, I thought this was an educated forum.”
Thanks for an educated and thoughtful guess.
— Mark de Goz Jul 3, 02:25 AM #
Thanks a ! (#12) You hit the nail on the head!
— John Jul 3, 06:46 AM #
Words mean nothing to liberals. They say whatever will help advance their cause at the moment, switch talking points in a heartbeat, and then act indignant if anyone uses the exact same argument they were using five minutes ago.
When Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by half a percentage point, but lost the Electoral College — or, for short, “the constitutionally prescribed method for choosing presidents” — anyone who denied the sacred importance of the popular vote was either an idiot or a dangerous partisan.
But now Hillary has won the popular vote in a Democratic primary, while Obambi has won under the rules. In a spectacular turnabout, media commentators are heaping sarcasm on our plucky Hillary for imagining the “popular vote” has any relevance whatsoever.
It’s the exact same situation as in 2000, with Hillary in the position of Gore and Obama in the position of Bush. The only difference is: Hillary has a much stronger argument than Gore ever did (and Hillary’s more of a man than Gore ever was).
Unbeknownst to liberals, who seem to imagine the Constitution is a treatise on gay marriage, our Constitution sets forth rules for the election of a president. Under the Constitution that has led to the greatest individual liberty, prosperity and security ever known to mankind, Americans have no constitutional right to vote for president, at all. (Don’t fret Democrats: According to five liberals on the Supreme Court, you do have a right to sodomy and abortion!)
Americans certainly have no right to demand that their vote prevail over the electors’ vote.
The Constitution states that electors from each state are to choose the president, and it is up to state legislatures to determine how those electors are selected. It is only by happenstance that most states use a popular vote to choose their electors.
When you vote for president this fall, you will not be voting for Barack Obama or John McCain; you will be voting for an elector who pledges to cast his vote for Obama or McCain. (For those new Obama voters who may be reading, it’s like voting for Paula, Randy or Simon to represent you, instead of texting your vote directly.)
Any state could abolish general elections for president tomorrow and have the legislature pick the electors. States could also abolish their winner-take-all method of choosing presidential electors — as Nebraska and Maine have already done, allowing their electors to be allocated in proportion to the popular vote. And of course there’s always the option of voting electors off the island one by one.
If presidential elections were popular vote contests, Bush might have spent more than five minutes campaigning in big liberal states like California and New York. But under a winner-take-all regime, close doesn’t count. If a Republican doesn’t have a chance to actually win a state, he may as well lose in a landslide. Using the same logic, Gore didn’t spend a lot of time campaigning in Texas (and Walter Mondale campaigned exclusively in Minnesota).
Consequently, under both the law and common sense, the famed “popular vote” is utterly irrelevant to presidential elections. It would be like the winner of “Miss Congeniality” claiming that title also made her “Miss America.” Obviously, Bush might well have won the popular vote, but he would have used a completely different campaign strategy.
By contrast, there are no constitutional rules to follow with party primaries. Primaries are specifically designed by the parties to choose their strongest candidate for the general election.
Hillary’s argument that she won the popular vote is manifestly relevant to that determination. Our brave Hillary has every right to take her delegates to the Democratic National Convention and put her case to a vote. She is much closer to B. Hussein Obama than the sainted Teddy Kennedy was to Carter in 1980 when Teddy staged an obviously hopeless rules challenge at the convention. (I mean rules about choosing the candidate, not rules about crushed ice at after-parties.)
And yet every time Hillary breathes a word about her victory in the popular vote, TV hosts respond with sneering contempt at her gaucherie for even mentioning it. (Of course, if popularity mattered, networks like MSNBC wouldn’t exist. That’s a station that depends entirely on “superviewers.”)
After nearly eight years of having to listen to liberals crow that Bush was “selected, not elected,” this is a shocking about-face. Apparently unaware of the new party line that the popular vote amounts to nothing more than warm spit, just last week HBO ran its movie “Recount,” about the 2000 Florida election, the premise of which is that sneaky Republicans stole the presidency from popular vote champion Al Gore. (Despite massive publicity, the movie bombed, with only about 1 million viewers, so now HBO is demanding a “recount.”)
So where is Kevin Spacey from HBO’s “Recount,” to defend Hillary, shouting: “WHO WON THIS PRIMARY?”
In the Democrats’ “1984” world, the popular vote is an unconcept, doubleplusungood verging crimethink. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
— Arthur Jul 3, 09:30 PM #
I totally agree with your points number 12. We have two candidates left for presidency, both have differ views. Lets look at it on the bright side everyone… If Obama wins its based on his merit not based on affrimative action! Also lets not forget that wel come from sons & daughters of immigrants.
God Bless America!
— Doris Martin Jul 10, 02:44 AM #