This won't help with Obama's elitist image.
Those gun-toting, Bible-thumpers probably won't be able to relate to this much either...
During a break from his busy campaign grind, Barack Obama was able to unwind with some light reading:
The Post American World
Maybe there was some truth to what Sunni Cleric Sheik Muhammad Abu Al-Qat was saying.
Nahanni adds:
I guess he is studying up on how to make his dreams, the dreams of his BFF Bill Ayres and the Democrats come true.Hmm... The Dreams of His Father?
This has got to be a photoshop. Is he serious?
ReplyDeletePresident Clinton and Albright would often mention that the United States wouldn't always be the strongest country in the world, and that we need to start planning for it. I find it interesting that democrats always seem occupied with that idea. Barack seems to be cut from the same cloth.
ReplyDeleteI want to make sure I am not reading your post incorrectly: are you implying that its a negative point on Obama, that he is seen holding this particular book in his hand?
ReplyDeleteI will assume for a second that its a real image. I think it is wonderful, no matter my or your political leaning, that a potential President would be reading a book by a well respected (whether you agree with Zakaria or not, he is still well respected as an intellectual) thinker on a critical topic: what is going to happen next? If America's super power status is on the decline, how will the world look/act/react? In my opinion, this is an excellent book for any decision-maker or politician to read, especially the President! This picture represents what a politican should do: be open to (meaning: listen to, read, entertain, etc) ideas and concepts to the left AND to the right of where he/she may stand in order to make the best decision for the country.
'In my opinion, this is an excellent book for any decision-maker or politician to read,'~ anon
ReplyDeleteAnon, here's the other question: what if he is reading it because HE is preparing to make sure the US is no longer a superpower?
That IS the Leftist ideal, after all.
Isn't there a saying about judging a book by the cover?
ReplyDeleteOtter: you are correct. he could be planning to bring the US down to less a super power status, though I think that is a bit of a reach. As for the leftist ideal...that is certainly not correct. The left is no less fragmented as the right is today. There are those on the far far left who do think the US should be taken down a peg. Other's on the left don't believe that at all. The left is not a coherent ideology, it is an amalgamation of different ideas, just as the right is.
ReplyDeleteBut, not being into conspiracy theory, I would think that Obama is reading it for the same reason why many philosophers and critical thinkers read it: the book offers an interesting hypothesis, and potential solutions to that hypothesis. I have read Mein Kampf: if someone saw me holding it, they would assume that either A) I was simply trying to understand a historical figure and the events he instigated or B) I seek to implement what the book details. Understanding ideas and concepts outside of your current understanding is critical for any politician...unless of course you're a fascist!
Anon @ 10:42- good points, I agree, and shall temper my view accordingly. I have also read Mein Kamph, and a couple other books which have garnered me odd looks from the librarians :P
ReplyDeleteI'd have been pleased to see obama reading any one of Robert Spencer's books, for example *g*
Obama is reading it because he thought it was a "How to" type book that he could get some tips from...
ReplyDelete...LOL...
Well, if you read From Dreams of My Father then you would know one reason stated by Obama himself for reading even books he radically disagrees with (not saying this one he does or does not), since on p. 102-103 of the 2004 edition he explains it, which basically comes down to know "the other":
ReplyDelete"'Actually, he's right,' I said, 'It is a racist book...'
'Regina blew on her coffee. 'So why are you reading it?'
'Because it's assigned.' I paused, not sure if I shold go on. 'And because--'
'Because...'
'And because the book teaches me things, I said. 'About white people, I mean. See, the book's not really about Africa. Or black people. It's about the man who wrote it. The European. The American. A particular way of looking at the world...So I read the book to help me understand...The way ideas get twisted around. It helps me understand how people learn to hate.'
...
'That's the only way to cure an illness, right? Diagnose it.'"
In sum: don't jump to conclusions, by Obama's own admission he for many years now reads all sorts of books, even controversial books, to learn how others are viewing things.
Thank God for Obama's preparation!
(read his book!)
Watch the Obama campaign jump on this one. Within the next couple of days there will be another photo of Obama reading, not holding, a "patriotic, USA is great" book.
ReplyDeleteQuiz: Which book do you think they will choose to have Obama reading?
Obama impresses me as particularly prone to shallow analytics. This is surprising and disconcerting in view of his educational background.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the volume he carries will only serve to reinforce his defeatist posture.
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ReplyDeletetoo bad the world isn't reading up on Obama.. here's yet another of his dubious connections (i stopped counting after 20 or so)..
Reagan's would-be assassin aided by top Obama adviser
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ReplyDeleteCindy @ 11:07 AM..
if that is true, and it does sound reasonable..
then i cannot wait for Obama to write yet another book based on his pastoral mentor of 20 years hatred of America & white people..
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ReplyDeletehere's a good (albeit scary as heck) read for the Obamessiah worshipers, not to mention everyone else who is cognizant of Obama's dubious (to say the least) friends & connections..
Pundita: Barack Obama's candidacy as
a take on The Picture of Dorian Gray
excerpt:
[Yet by the time I finished wending my way through his recap of the roots of the Ayers-Obama relationship (and his taking the MSM to task for ignoring his research), his summary of the Forum for Education and Democracy and reparations for Black descendents of slaves, I found myself staring blankly at the computer screen in a kind of frozen panic.
When my brain could work again I heard myself blurt, "It's like The Picture of Dorian Gray! The ruddy bastard isn't a crook, he's William Ayers in blackface!" ]
links @ link..
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BG,
ReplyDeletehomerun!
For 20 years Obama attends a racist spewing church of hatred. A church whose cornerstone is not built upon Christ, but upon Marxist ideology with a "twist," a black "twist" run by a Hamas loving and terrorist excusing nut.
A man who hates "white" America, blames "white" America for the worlds probems. Who is a former Muslim until he... had a revelation? Hmmm, why would he leave Islam? Afterall, he loves Nation of Islam.
"In 1984, Wright was one of the inner circle that traveled with Farrakhan to visit Libyan strongman Col. Muammar Khadafy. The ostentatious Farrakhan junket came at a time when Khadafy had been identified as the world’s chief financier of international terrorism, including the Black September group behind the Munich Olympics massacre."
Hmmm, his church is founded upon black liberation theology built upon black values, built upon a black Jesus, who only believes black is right as was taught by another racist and white American hater/author black liberation theologist James Cone.
Obama attended this hate filled church for 20 years simply because he wants to understand the views of black liberation theologist who hate America.
Right Cindy?
Is that how you excuse Obama's actions?
What is so sad is how many people depend on the evening Un-News for their information. How else can one explain Obama walking into a Jewish organization, giving a speech and saying with a straight face he loves Israel.
Please, give it a rest Obama worshippers, your messiah is false. That book in his hands is his dream and the dream of his father. Communism at its roots.
Cindy admonishes us to read her false messiah's books and quotes him to us in that we too may be healed:
ReplyDelete"So I read the book to help me understand...The way ideas get twisted around. It helps me understand how people learn to hate."
Ah, the hidden manna of your master. Anyone with a high school education knows the concept of reading those you abhor or may disagree with.
Know your enemy. Love your Enemy.
I read Communist Manifesto in 9th grade by Marx. Have you Cindy? I recommend you do. It was required reading for our entire class by a great American history teacher.
He forewarned us about men like Obama who would "twist" "around" the truth and mislead youth to "hate" America and preach "ideas" enveloped in Marxist lingo that Free Market Economy is inherantly evil.
This false logic hides the truth. It is not the system, but the people that can be inherantly evil. This is why communism does not work. A free market system allows for more people to partake and quicker corrections. This helps to cut down on graft and corruption because it seperates government from business.
He taught us that men like Obama would again teach a Marxist doctrine, masked in utopian language - ooh "yes we can." They tried marketing Communism in America during and after WWII. The Greatest Generation that defeated Hitler recognized Marxism and defeated it at home. Hitler was an uber socialist afterall.
Marxism like relativism rears its ugly head thru generational cycles. Thru 60s by drug dealers fed by Cuban masters, supported by the Soviet Union - free love man hippies - no such thing. Or the malaise of Carter on bended knee allowed Iran to fall to radical Islam and Russia to return with the nuclear time bomb after our ally the Shah was driven from power. Appeasement does not work. It emboldens our enemies. Thus today Iran supported by Russia and China support terrorist. But Obama says? Like Jimmy says? Like Appeasement says? Talk!
People here are aware of books on history and great works of non-fiction, works about or by Lincoln, Schwarzkopf, Michael Yon. During a time of war, that's what I'd read. As well as the Quran.
But then there is the opportunistic brand of self-absorbed autobiographies by men like Obama. Cindy, you know Frank Davis was a member of the Communist Party? That loved Stalin and hated America, right? This is the dark foundation upon which Obama's views are shaped today. From the Communist indoctrination and rantings of an angry man that lived in the past. This is now Obama's worldview.
Would you like to quote "Frank" from Obama's book? Cindy?
My teacher taught us to know history for a purpose. That when masses rushed in blindly to accept utopian nightmares of Karl Marx, we would recognize the darkness Cindy, of a godless, humanist propaganda machine.
So we could sound the alarm and shine a light on it.
One more important point Cindy. After reading Communist Manifesto, I did not become a member of a Communist organization that hates America and free market economies. It was enough to read the book to "understand" "how" Communist "twist" the "truth" Pravda.
Obama however; after being mentored by a communist and a racist, joined a church of hatred, racism, and marxism. It therefore makes his acceptance of such views more clear, his rhetoric more deviant, and leaves his integrity demolished.
Frankly, Obama could carry a bible every single day. It would not matter. One need look no farther than his actions, his associates, his false church to know him.
He produces fiction. He does not tell the whole truth(see "Frank" Davis), of his Father's background or even himself.
It is a clever device for his ladder climbing upon which sheep eat. Of which was freely given to him(see how he was published).
But sheepdogs sniff around. They're trained by the one true shepherd to be cautious, not by some false political ideology marketed by wolves in sheeps clothing. Obama is a wolf.
Cindy, listening to your enemy is as ancient as Greece, old as Confucius, and predates King Solomon back to the Garden of Eden.
But then, so is arrogance and pride as the serpent. Obama lacks not the mouth as his subjects ears tw-itch with hysterical abandoment of all that is sacred and true.
I suggest you stand upon a more solid rock than a politician's tome to himself. Seeing as Obama has written two books about himself, surely there will be more about his non-accomplishments in life.
And HOPEfully that is all he will do.
For a review about Obama's book writing, I recommend NYT article review by American Thinker's Patrick Casey:
ReplyDeleteThe Back Story on Obama's Books.
I've wondered why a man would write a book about himself so early before accomplishing anything in life. He's not anything special in comparison to anyone else in politics. He's not truly accomplished anything more than the average joe of politics.
The review by Patrick is an eye-opener. Thanks goes to Cindy for encouraging my curiosity about Obama's book writing credentials.
Obama's major accomplishment as Patrick writes is his two books, besides his speech in 2004 DNC convention.
Some excerpts of Patricks review of NYT article...
"He was approached by an agent, Jane Dystel, who got him a contract for a book. Obama missed his deadline, and Dystel promptly got him another contract and a $40,000 advance for the same book. And the next time you hear Michelle Obama complain about how hard they had it early on in their life together, the following passage is useful to remember. It happened after Obama had been given free use of an office at the University of Chicago, along with a law school fellowship and the aforementioned advance, to finish his first manuscript - at a post-education time in their lives when most people would be working at real jobs:"
NYT: "The two worked mostly by telephone and by manuscripts sent by Federal Express between New York and Chicago. Mr. Obama, an inveterate journal writer who had published poems in a college literary magazine but had never attempted a book, struggled to finish. His half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said he eventually retreated to Bali for several months with his wife, Michelle, "to find a peaceful sanctuary where there were no phones."
Ha! This arrogant ivy league twit tells us how to eat, how to live, how to shelter yourself during the heat of the day. Yet, to relieve himself from stress, he retreats to Bali on an advance of $40,000 for several months!
Hypocrite! Hey Obama, maybe Americans don't like elites like you telling them how to live! Who fly half way around the world courtesy of a 40K advancement for doing nothing at all except graduating from law school!
What had he done? Had others in his shoes been given such advances to write phony books about their lives? Ohhh, no, how did Michelle ever live in Bali on 40K? Must have been tough! I wonder if OBama ever met with any islamic radicals while there? Hmmmm... ;-)
Oh gosh, stop the phones, he's answered 8 questions already! LOL! He must go to Bali!
$40K Obama
Thanks Cindy for inspiring me :)
Snopes.. A very handy, but far left leaning ideology substantiates the photo.
ReplyDeleteBut, Snopes also seems to go along with the "critics" that the book is not about the "demise of America" but rather the "rise of everyone else". Which is a lot of hooey.. IMHO...
Anyway, you might want to check it out.. If you haven't already..
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/postamerican.asp