February 11, 2008

"Barack Obama is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."

Hearing old acquaintances' opinions of Barack Obama is starting to resemble hearing old Korean War buddies' opinions of Raymond Shaw.

Fine, but what would he do as President? And what would he do in a second term as President, when he doesn't have to run for re-election? Who would he nominate as lifetime federal judges? When it comes to those minor questions, nobody who knew him in the early 1990s at Harvard Law School remembers him saying anything terribly relevant, "beyond a general emphasis on diversity and social and economic justice." Which sounds very anodyne, until you realize it's code for more quotas, more immigration, more multiculturalism, and more tax & spend.

Fortunately, in these days of electronic databases, we can look up what a public figure has published in the past on controversial topics. A couple of readers have now done searches looking for Obama's published contributions to public debate in the 1980s and 1990s.

Unfortunately, despite the enormous amount of talking about politics Obama did during those years, he doesn't appear to have put much of anything down on paper where it might come back to haunt him in a future campaign.

Reader Sideways comments:
LexisNexs law gives 4 hits for author Obama, all years. 2 from 89 with Obama as noted as a researcher for the author, one that simply borrows "the Audacity of Hope" title, and one that has nothing to do with him at all.

A search for Obama in the body, ignoring the earlier searches and before 1999 turns up one mention of "Dreams of My Father"

So, yeah, nothing much.

I ran a few other academic/legal searches for the heck of it, nothing came up. It's so little I suspect I'm doing something wrong.

Reader Planetary Archon Mouse comments:

"A Lexis-Nexis search pulled up a few mentions of Obama between Jan 1, 1980 and Dec 31, 1996. Most of it wasn't too interesting -- news articles about his being named to head the Harvard Law Review and thanks for his input on articles written by professors. (Although one of those articles, by Lawrence Tribe, is about what law can learn from modern physics, and is quite laughable. I wonder what Obama would say now about it..it was written in 1989, and he's probably smart enough now to stay away from a topic like that.)

The only thing specifically published by Obama, apparently, was a 1994 NPR vocal contribution, in which he went way out on a limb and ... took the side of all right-thinking people everywhere:

Charles Murray's Political Expediency Denounced

HIGHLIGHT: Commentator Barack Obama finds that Charles Murray, author of the controversial "The Bell Curve," demonstrates not scientific expertise but spurious political motivation in his conclusions about race and IQ.

Can anybody find anything else he published?

If not, we're faced with a puzzle. Here we have the president of the Harvard Law Review, who was later employed as a Lecturer at the U. of Chicago Law School for eight years. Yet he has apparently never published a law journal article.

What about in the popular press? He was a glamorous figure as first black president of HLR, and was given a book contract while still in law school. (His original outline was for a nonfiction polemical book on race and the law -- I'd sure like to see what he had to say.) He was, at least in part, the model for Blair Underwood's character on the hit TV series "LA Law." His contributions on public issues would have been widely welcomed. He was, by his own testimony, obsessed by politics and social change. Yet, he managed to leave a remarkably thin paper trail before he had pollsters to advise him.

With one fat exception -- a massive autobiography, whom nobody except Shelby Steele appears to have read with any comprehension. Everybody else just seems to absorb a sense of Obama's mellifluousness from it, and then gets bored before long, but never holds their boredom against Obama, who seems like such a nice young man.

So, what would he be like as President?

My original surmise a year ago still seems the most plausible: that Obama doesn't know either. His head is in the center and his heart is way to the left. Whether his head or his heart would win when he has attained the summit of power and can finally take off the mask that he has worn all these years remains a mystery, even to him.

P.S., I outlined a strategy of what the GOP would have to do to beat Obama in "Would McCain Go to the Mat with Obama?", based on the strategy they used the last time a Republican beat a fresh face with a funny name running for President.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

53 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike Huckabee has a similar paper trail problem. His archives are embargoed at his alma mater, Ouachita University. Nobody has turned up a copy of a sermon he has given before 1991 or videotapes of his old television evangelism programs. I have tried harder than anyone else. Huckabee, however, does have 10.5 years as Governor of Arkansas, so he is not a total unknown.

Anonymous said...

OK, this is a long post but I need to get my very valid points across here since I know something about black rule:

I left South Africa in 1994 when the messiah Mandela (that convicted terrorist who was instantly hyped as "freedom fighter" by the MSM) took over the country through direct intervention in the internal affairs of that country by the US and Britain (so much for International Law).

Back then leaving was voluntary since the basic deal forced onto whites was that they could keep their lives, houses and wives (for now) and in return hand over the government, their jobs, their schools and their daughters, i.e. basically a protection racket.

Since I actually voted for Dr. Mangosutu Buthelezi, who in contrast to Mandela is a de facto member of the Zulu royal family, and actually was a Chief with administrative powers in Natal, it's a little hard calling me a racist even though I am from that tribe, the Afrikaners, who seem to have a genetic dispossession toward racism.

Nowadays, leaving South Africa is an act of desperation, and basically anybody who can get out will do so. Just 10 years down the line to that black ruled heaven, many liberals in the US seem to yearn for in their own country, here's the bottom line in South Africa:

-Violent crime is now the highest in the world. Rape is the highest in the world. Basically every 2nd women should expect to get raped in her life, possibly by an AIDS infected criminal
-AA and BEE have produced an impoverished Afrikaner underclass now numbering 1 mio. That's about 30% (!) of the Afrikaner population. Don't expect to see an article featuring this desperate impoverished lot in the NYT any time soon!
-The country is effectively ruled by the ANC party system, very reminiscent of the Soviet system, making it a de facto a one-party state, even though the NYT will hyperventilate about "democracy" there knowing full well that the demographics and tribal loyalties render traditional democracy meaningless in that country.
-Power outages 4-6 hours daily. Mines and smelters were forced to cut production by 10% this year. This is a direct result of the AA policies which drove out the white technicians and engineers and replaced them with clueless black workers who'se only qualification was that they were “black”.
-1.2 million qualified whites (out of 5 mio.) now live overseas because they cannot get decent work due to AA.
-Water shortages due to the power problems (pumping stations not working)
-The currency is now worth 10% of its last value under white rule.
-School education has become worthless. Rape and muggings are normal in once disciplined and high-learning environments. In order to get ANY university graduates, they are forcing the standards down in the universities which means the degrees obtained there are not internationally competitive anymore.
-Food shortages are driving food prices up, due to the state-orchestrated murder of 3000 white farmers so far, with many farmers abandoning farming instead of facing certain death.


I can go on and on but I think the picture is clear.
The next step up from the current South Africa seems Zimbabwe which is a tragedy and a joke all in one. Granted, the pickings in the US are so much larger, so I guess it will take about 30 years to destroy the US whilst it only took 10 years to get South Africa down to Third World status.

Recently I saw that the German mag "Der Spiegel" hyping Obama as a Messiah. Now serious journalists like Steve Sailer have convincingly debunked this myth, and this type of storytelling will bring any person knowledgeable about the cultural and racial settings in Kenia to tears. That’s because the contrast between Obama’s media portrayal and his cultural and racial roots cannot be larger. Kenia is a typically dysfunctional African tribal society. Obama seems to have gotten a good raising, but that fact should reflect on the culture of the mother, not the father, who as is often the case in Africa just abandoned him.

Steve, what's going on here??

Anonymous said...

A South African calls on Americans to choose the right candidate so that the world can love them again. No prizes for guessing who that should be:

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/khayadlanga/2008/02/11/america-is-the-hope-of-the-world/

Anonymous said...

"Fine, but what would he do as President?"

Funny how the Presidential election season sucks all the air out of other news. One of those (under-reported) news stories is what is likely to happen to the House and Senate, where laws actually get made and money actually gets spent, during the upcoming elections. In the Senate, for example, the Republicans have 23 seats at risk, the Democrats only 12. Combine that with the fact the turnout for the Democratic nomination has been half again as large as turnout for the Republican nomination (19 million vs. 12 million) and it looks like Democrats will sustain or extend their control of the legislature in the upcoming elections.

Keeping that in mind, it looks like a Democratic President will have the sort of support necessary to enact the sort of policies he (or she) prefers. Chapter Five ("Opportunity") of the _Audacity of Hope_ outlines some of the policy positions favored by Obama. Here is a list of some of the proposals:

1. $42 Billion for science grants over a five year period.

2. 1% oil profit tax for alternative energy.

3. "Health Care for Hybrids". Uncle Sam agrees to pay for the health care benefits of auto workers if auto companies agree to develop hybrids.

4. Raise the Federal minimum wage.

5. Extend and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.

6. Grant pensioners prior standing (before bond holders) when a company declares bankruptcy.

7. Have Uncle Sam match contributions to 401k accounts.

8. Automatically enroll employees into 401k accounts so that they must take action to opt out.

9. Mandate health insurance portability so that health insurance is attached to the worker not the job.

10. Cut the cost of health care by mandating electronic record keeping from every health care provider that accepts federal funds.

And the end of the chapter is how "the rich" (he talks about the top 1%) have an obligation to pay more taxes.

Evidently "hope" means, "I hope Uncle Sam gives me other people's money when Obama gets elected".

Anonymous said...

" anonymous said...
A South African calls on Americans to choose the right candidate so that the world can love them again. No prizes for guessing who that should be: "

I wonder how he even managed to get his article online with all the power outages down there caused by that last "hope for the world" Mandela and his ilk? Maybe he sent his hand-written notes to a white racist country so as to get them posted on the internet.

Anonymous said...

rick said...
"Health Care for Hybrids". Uncle Sam agrees to pay for the health care benefits of auto workers if auto companies agree to develop hybrids. "

Obviously Obama has not done his homework. Here in Germany studies have shown hybrids to be in the same ecology class as good Diesel's, so there's no point developing them. It's better to stick money into developing proper batteries for electrical cars or ways to store hydrogen more safely and compactly.

This is the kind of crap you get when politicians sculpt their platform around the trendy themes in the hope if getting favourable MSM backing, instead of thinking for themselves. The MSM which put out these "trends" are basically as clueless themselves and usually one to two generations of research knowledge in the rear anyway.

Anonymous said...

"it only took 10 years to get South Africa down to Third World status."

The majority of South Africans were living in Third World (or worse) status for years. The difference now is that some Afrikaners are in the same boat. That's unfortunate, but it seems like a lot of this could have been prevented had Afrikaners started preparing for majority rule decades ago. For example, what if you had developed a "talented tenth" black elite 20 or 30 years ago? Then you might have competent blacks today to work the utilities.

"8. Automatically enroll employees into 401k accounts so that they must take action to opt out."

The Pension Protection Act recently passed under Bush made this legal. It's a good idea.

"Here in Germany studies have shown hybrids to be in the same ecology class as good Diesel's, so there's no point developing them."

This is a good point. The Diesel versions of small cars often get as high gas mileage as hybrids, and they are cheaper. Another point is that hybrids are loss-leaders, and not a viable business line currently. Toyota loses a small amount of money on every Prius it sells.

Anonymous said...

Obama's platform amounts to redistributing wealth to those who did not generate it. His "Believe in Change" slogans carry the racist assumption that having a Black man in the White House itself amounts to change. No need for a platform, Obama has skin color. Right?

What people will figure out in years to come is just how much American political thinking (including VDare style thinking) has been completely shaped by a pro-Black agenda for so many generations.

The idea that all non-white people have something in common and will band together? That idea is straight from the Black political agenda, and it is nonsense. But so many VDare type white people hold to it like a dogma, because they have been unwittingly trained to think by pro-Black rhetoricians.

African-Americans are probably the most racist people on this earth. How did the Bantu people spread through most of Africa? Probably the same way they tried in Rwanda. By a certain kind of group rhetoric ("We are oppressed by [X group: Tutsis, Afrikaners, you name it]!" "We must band together for our rights!"). Then they assemble a few hundred thousand of themselves, take out the machetes, and get to work.

Too many people have been trained to think in the (crazy) terms of Afrocentric thought. Too much of the so-called Conservative / reactionary thought is just inverse Afrocentrism. That kind of (crazy) thinking only brings social chaos.

If we are going to have any kind of social order in the future, people need to start thinking in terms generated by stable societies, not by giving in to unreal fears and phobias created by extortionist agitators.

David Wilbur said...

Obama, like many a Harvard Law Scool grad, probably envisioned himself as a Supreme Court Justice one day. The demonization of both Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas happened around the time he was in school. Having an extensive paper trail can be dangerous.

Anonymous said...

Supposed Obama agenda:

"1. $42 Billion for science grants over a five year period.

2. 1% oil profit tax for alternative energy.

3. "Health Care for Hybrids". Uncle Sam agrees to pay for the health care benefits of auto workers if auto companies agree to develop hybrids.

4. Raise the Federal minimum wage.

5. Extend and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.

6. Grant pensioners prior standing (before bond holders) when a company declares bankruptcy.

7. Have Uncle Sam match contributions to 401k accounts.

8. Automatically enroll employees into 401k accounts so that they must take action to opt out.

9. Mandate health insurance portability so that health insurance is attached to the worker not the job.

10. Cut the cost of health care by mandating electronic record keeping from every health care provider that accepts federal funds."

If this is indeed the agenda, I think it mostly sounds pretty good and sensible. What's supposed to horrify me?

Anonymous said...

"Whether his head or his heart would win when he has attained the summit of power and can finally take off the mask that he has worn all these years remains a mystery, even to him."

Perhaps one of the moderators at the Presidential debates should ask Obama "Why don't you play a nice game of Solitaire?", and we'll see what he does.

Truth said...

"OK, this is a long post but I need to get my very valid points across here since I know something about black rule:"

Whenever I see these 'poor Afrikaners as prey for savages' posts I always wonder: Who forced the Dutch into Africa to begin with?

Anonymous said...

Steve would know about the timing better than I, but it would seem that he came of political age right around the time Robert Bork was getting "borked" and learned the appropriate lesson.

al fin said...

The wonder and glory of Obama is that he is a "blank slate." You can make of him what you will, and feel good at the same time! Because he understands you, he really does. You just know he will do the right thing, so you can relax and put your trust in the man.

I like this Obama Messiah website. It says it all.

Audacious Epigone said...

Relatedly, this site--Is Obama the Messiah?--provides a little humor.

Anonymous said...

here's the bottom line in South Africa:

-Violent crime is now the highest in the world.


I recently met an individual who works in the oil industry and who constantly travels the world for his job.

Name a country on Earth, and he has been there, more than once.

We were talking about scary places and he said the most dangerous country he had ever been to was South Africa ... worse than Colombia, worse than the Middle East.

For visiting business officials, no taxis, no public places, no exit outside the gated/barbed-wire compounds where companies operate.

The locals told him life was cheap there ... killing and violence was second-nature.

Jane Becker said...

He's even less impressive when you actually read his chronological resume:

http://thedamedomain.blogspot.com/2008/02/please-submit-your-resume.html

Half Sigma said...

"Here we have the president of the Harvard Law Review, who was later employed as a Lecturer at the U. of Chicago Law School for eight years. Yet he has apparently never published a law journal article."

That's not unusual, student law review editors EDIT articles written by tenured law professors.

Lecturers don't generally write such articles.

* * *

To answer the question of what Obama will do, he appears to have a very high "Agreeableness" score, referring to one of the five personality factors.

Maybe he just votes liberal in the Senate because he's agreeing with his party and he doesn't really have any strong opinions himself. Obama will probably be more conservative as president because he will then have to agree with both parties. Obama will have a George Bush relationship with Congress, never vetoing anything or pushing for them to do anything.

Anonymous said...

Recently I saw that the German mag "Der Spiegel" hyping Obama as a Messiah.

The German media is second to none when it comes to p.c. leftist anti-American "anti-racism". Thankfully, some Germans are waking up to this and expressing themselves online: www.pi-news.net (in German)

Anonymous said...

The more I learn about Barack and the more I see of Hillary, the more I start to think that Republicans may just snatch victory from the jaws of defeat this year.

Assuming anyone is paying attention.

Anonymous said...

Automatically enroll employees into 401k accounts so that they must take action to opt out. - Rick

That's already happening, at least at some companies. So it's certainly legal, if not mandated. And it's not really a bad idea

Grant pensioners prior standing (before bond holders) when a company declares bankruptcy.

That might do just enough to encourage businesses to adequately fund their pension plans - or else drive the final nail in the coffin of defined pensions, which most employers no longer offer.

Have Uncle Sam match contributions to 401k accounts.

Which is a back door to privatizing at least a portion of social security - a good thing, needless to say.

Mandate health insurance portability so that health insurance is attached to the worker not the job.

Once of the biggest health insirance concerns people have is what happens if the lose their jobs. Give them the assurance that they won't lose coverage and support for socialized medicine will decline.


Raise the Federal minimum wage.

I once would have considered that to be a bad thing, but since American businesses are (allegedly) creating millions and zillions of jobs that apparently no Americans are available to fill, I'm not sure that the result - slowing down job growth - would be a bad thing. Certianly not if it caused a million or more Mexicans to go home.

I consider myself to now be pro-minimum wage - at least until the borders are locked down tight and mass immigration ends.

And the end of the chapter is how "the rich" (he talks about the top 1%) have an obligation to pay more taxes. Evidently "hope" means, "I hope Uncle Sam gives me other people's money when Obama gets elected".

See the part above about the minimum wage. So long as some of the most ardent supporters of open borders are the top 1% of earners, I have no problem with raising their taxes. I consider it revenge.

Quite frankly, Rick, I don't see much in the list above to be too concerned about. Are you really an undercover Barack supporter?

Anonymous said...

Nowadays, leaving South Africa is an act of desperation, and basically anybody who can get out will do so.

I don't consider myself to be a hard-hearted person, but if misery in South Africa will finally manage to open people's eyes to the failure that is multiculturalism and get rid of white guilt, then I say "burn baby burn" in the hopes that we will be spared the misery here, too.

Few countries have been the focus of as much aid and media attention and hope as South Africa. If it fails, which it will, inevitably, then everyone in the world will know that it happened, and that whites had nothing to do with it.

Anonymous said...

Forgive an OT remark, but if you visit
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article3352273.ece
and look at the comments under the post, you'll see that you have a disciple, Steve.

Anonymous said...

The first two policy items on Obama's website are "Civil Rights" and "Disabilities"

Money/AA thrown at both, one would expect.

Next, the economy, which consists of middle class tax cuts, infrastructure/R&D investments, and reform of mortgages and credit cards.

Education is next: the problem with NCLB is that we didn't throw a ton of money at it!

Energy/environment next, first he wants to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Not a good start. No hits for "nuclear" on the page. Talk of biofuels, but of course he wouldn't anger the corn industry by mentioning going away from that.

Ethics is next. He's not going to have everyone in Washington executed, so I can't bring myself to care what he has written here.

Faith. Very very little here.

Family. I'm bored writing and you're bored reading.

Fiscal. Higher taxes on the rich, lower on the poor, and balance the budget. No mention of the giant tax increases.

Foreign policy. No mention of invading Pakistan. I'll quote his section on Iran because it's so funny.
The Problem: Iran has sought nuclear weapons, supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region, and its leaders threaten Israel and deny the Holocaust. But Obama believes that we have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them. That's why Obama stood up to the Bush administration's warnings of war, just like he stood up to the war in Iraq.

His answer is diplomacy, of course. He wants to open/reopen consulates in the most dangerous parts of Africa. I'm sure our courageous State Department employees will love that.

Really, the entire foreign policy section is appalling.

The immigration section is interesting for being long on bullet points and extremely short on details.

The first description of Obama's job as a "community organizer I've seen is from his Poverty page:

as a young college graduate, he rejected the high salaries of corporate America and moved to the South Side of Chicago to work as a community organizer. As an organizer, Obama worked with churches, Chicago residents and local government to set up job training programs for the unemployed and after school programs for kids.

Well, that's as far as I'm going. I hate this election year.

Anonymous said...

The majority of South Africans were living in Third World (or worse) status for years. The difference now is that some Afrikaners are in the same boat. That's unfortunate, but it seems like a lot of this could have been prevented had Afrikaners started preparing for majority rule decades ago.

No, it would have just been decades down the same road it is traveling now. Whites should have avoided exploiting blacks in South Africa and instituted a true apartheid by separating themselves entirely from blacks.

Anonymous said...

I've talked to a few people who were in elite law schools around the time Obama was at Harvard (although they did not include anyone who was at Harvard), and they said it was fairly common practice at the time that student contributions were unsigned, or attributed to "staff" at the law review. (Kind of like articles in the Economist.)

So Obama may indeed have a paper trail, for someone who has resources and is willing to do some digging. Get a program that matches authors with text, and then scan in articles from the Harvard Law Review while he was a student at Harvard (not just while he was the editor), and the text of things known to be authored by Obama.

That should turn up some things he wrote.

Planetary Archon Mouse

Anonymous said...

I posted this to another thread, but let me archive it here, as well.

After Obama Jr's bio-Dad, Obama Sr, abandoned Obama Jr & his mother, Ann Dunham, he was said to have gone off to Harvard to get some sort of a graduate degree.

However, there is no evidence in the Harvard library that Obama Sr ever filed either a Master's Thesis or a PhD Dissertation:

http://lms01.harvard.edu/F/?func=scan&scan_code=AUN&scan_start=Obama

For that matter, there is no evidence there that Obama Jr has ever written anything other than Dreams & Audacity.

You know, one obvious candidate for an explanation here is that both Obama Sr & Obama Jr were quota admissions as students [and/or quota hires as employees], and that neither of them was ever capable of writing any serious intellectual work.

I wonder if there has ever been another President of Harvard Law Review who has NOT written any scholarly law articles, treatises, or texts?

Don't the people from HLR usually go on to become law professors & government bigwigs who have their names on all sorts of documents?

That actually strikes me as a testable proposition - if you had access to a good law library database, and a list of all the presidents of HLR, then you could get a nice statistical spread on what they had published, and see how it compares to Obama Jr.

Maybe I'll go into the law school library one of these evenings and see what I can find.

Anonymous said...

No, it would have just been decades down the same road it is traveling now. Whites should have avoided exploiting blacks in South Africa and instituted a true apartheid by separating themselves entirely from blacks.

Actions speak louder than words and black actions indicate that blacks know that they are incapable of running an advanced industrial nation, which is why restitution for purported past wrongs always has to take the form of legally coerced penetration of white institutions (e.g. civil rights laws), rather than land and cash settlements.

AFAIK blacks from outlying countries were immigrating to "racist" South Africa during the apartheid years.

Anonymous said...

Wow. A post about how our host went looking for embarrassing published comments and couldn't find any. And then, right in the second comment, a fellow says he can comment on Obama's hypothetical administration because he knows about "black rule." He's not a racist, he says, because when forced to choose among black candidates he actually voted for one. Of course, he adds that South Africa's new (black) government wanted whites to hand over "their daughters." My, my, my.

You want embarrassing published remarks? This thread is the place to find them.

So having a black president means the blacks

Anonymous said...

Fred: it seems like a lot of this could have been prevented had Afrikaners started preparing for majority rule decades ago. For example, what if you had developed a "talented tenth" black elite 20 or 30 years ago?

And what if it's the case that their IQs are so low that [on average] they are simply incapable of becoming a "talented elite"?

Charles Murray's data indicates that only 7% of all American blacks are born to mothers with IQs of 100 or greater [and that's with the advantage of all the miscegenation that's been going on lo these many years].

But Wonderlic scores place a person with an IQ of 100 at the low end of what you'd want in a truck driver.

BTW, this is what Black rule has done to Zimbabwe:

Zimbabwe's last white farmers face final push
October 2, 2007
telegraph.co.uk

Zimbabwe runs out of bread
October 1 2007
guardian.co.uk

The Blacks in Zimbabwe are so stupid and so corrupt that they can't even figure out how to feed themselves.

All they had to do was simply continue using the methods & the infrastructure that the Caucasians left behind for them, but they couldn't even do that - i.e. they are so stupid [and corrupt] that they aren't even capable of mimicking or imitating the behavior of the Caucasians.

Anonymous said...

Interesting comments, especially the eye-opener about the South African disaster.

Anonymous said...

Obama as President would have impossible demands on him and would be a disaster because he would try and satisfy them.

Blacks would expect reparations, release of black criminals (the disparate sentencing issue), greatly expanded Affirmative Action, and a mostly Black cabinet.

That would incur the mother of all political fights, because other groups (Latinos, Asians, Whites, etc.) have competing interests. Obama NOW can be all things to all people but once he makes choices he WILL make enemies, or more likely he'll try and be "friends" with everyone end up paralyzed and weak.

Not to mention the fight with Iran. The American public clearly wants no more Iraqs -- costly occupations. "Negotiations" Carter-style while Iran goes nuclear is not going to fly either and might get Obama impeached. Obama is unlikely to order the policy that the Public (wrt Kosovo) has shown they're fine with -- massive bombing. Much less the likely effective means of stirring up nasty insurgencies in Iran as a leverage ("cool it with nukes and we'll back off the Azeris.")

As far as spending goes, massive deficits run up inflation and hurt the middle class. He's about on the par with McCain in economics and would likely dither about helplessly.

Jimmy Carter by all accounts was a fine nuclear engineer on his boat, but a disaster as President (because of dithering). Barack Obama by all accounts is a fine Chicago machine pol but likely a dithering Carter-disaster because he's shown no ability to make choices where someone in his backers loses.

Anonymous said...

"A post about how our host went looking for embarrassing published comments and couldn't find any."

Reread.

The argument is not that there are so few embarrassing comments in the paper trail but that there is very little in the paper trail to begin with when a paper trail can actually be found.

Face it. Obama is an empty suit, which a lot of people are more than happy to try on. The question is, after the election, will those people have buyer's remorse?

J said...

Lucius speculates that :

one obvious candidate for an explanation (that there is no record of Obama Sr or Obama Jr's academic production) here is that both Obama Sr & Obama Jr were quota admissions as students [and/or quota hires as employees], and that neither of them was ever capable of writing any serious intellectual work.

Lucius, In France you have to write a serious intellectual work to qualify as presidential material. But this is America. Think, instead, of the meaning of Obama having benefited from the racial quota system. He may extend the system to cover everything in America. In Malaysia the system works. In other places it works less. Interesting times for America, as Steve commented.

Anonymous said...

Don't the people from HLR usually go on to become law professors & government bigwigs who have their names on all sorts of documents?

Obama's decision not to clerk after leaving Harvard was big enough news for me to get a lexis news hit for that in an LA paper (something else I came across last night).

Anonymous said...

Fred sed:
"For example, what if you had developed a "talented tenth" black elite 20 or 30 years ago? Then you might have competent blacks today to work the utilities. "

Fred, where do you think the current black middle class comes from? From the ANC? No, not really, they were far to busy cleaning out the massive government coffers left behind by the whites. The National Party started developing a black middle class from the 60's onwards. But it did not work because the black middle class switched over to the ANC the minute it saw more goodies there. In addition, blacks never study technical subjects, and when they do its to get into managerial posts. The technical work was always done by whites, and they have been forced out through AA.

Anonymous said...

Truth sed:
"Whenever I see these 'poor Afrikaners as prey for savages' posts I always wonder: Who forced the Dutch into Africa to begin with?"

Wer're bitching now because the Americans disarmed us without giving us a ticket back home. Before, when we had our own army, there was no bitching.

Anonymous said...

Kyle sed:
"He's not a racist, he says, because when forced to choose among black candidates he actually voted for one."

Kyle, back then when I voted de Klerk was also running for Prez. So I was not "forced" to choose between black candidates, in fact I could also have abstained from voting. If my overarching reason would have been skin color, I guess I would have voted for that sellout. But instead I chose the black Chief who was not a MSM hype but actually had worked for his education and had some respect for whites.

The problem for your kind now becomes that the hard facts of black rule in Zimbabwe and South Africa are so disastrous that no amount of pro-black hyping and Apartheid guilt-tripping is going to hide that. And everybody knows the blacks took over those countries recently so that the connection between ethnic rule and competence is there in your face.

Anonymous said...

Whenever I see these 'poor Afrikaners as prey for savages' posts I always wonder: Who forced the Dutch into Africa to begin with?

(yeah really, what where they thinking moving into a black neighborhood!)

You'd have been better off keeping mum (no need to reinforce the race-realist data on lack of empathy in blacks).

But you're right of course - no surprise since you're echoing White Nationalist arguments (e.g., "blacks whine about racist white America, so we should ship them back to Africa where they'd be happy and free" (thus completing the circle and making full restitution for the evil of the transatlantic slave trade); "separation is good for everyone"; etc.)

Truth said...

"Lucius, In France you have to write a serious intellectual work to qualify as presidential material. But this is America."

Yes Lucius, this is America. You show me the scholarly dissertations produced by Ronald Regan, or either Bush and I will be gald to read them.

Truth said...

"Wer're bitching now because the Americans disarmed us without giving us a ticket back home. Before, when we had our own army, there was no bitching."

I think you lost me there, Sparky. It went right over my head.

Anonymous said...

Truth: Yes Lucius, this is America. You show me the scholarly dissertations produced by Ronald Regan, or either Bush and I will be gald to read them.

1950s:

Ronald Reagan in Hollywood: Movies and Politics
Cambridge University Press
$110.00
ISBN-10: 0521440807
ISBN-13: 978-0521440806
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521440807/

1960s:

The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of his Conversion to Conservatism
Columbia University Press
$31.00
ISBN-10: 0231138601
ISBN-13: 978-0231138604
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0231138601/

1970s:

Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America
Free Press
$30.00
ISBN-10: 074320123X
ISBN-13: 978-0743201230
http://www.amazon.com/dp/074320123X/

Truth said...

"but you're right of course - no surprise since you're echoing White Nationalist arguments (e.g., "blacks whine about racist white America, so we should ship them back to Africa where they'd be happy and free" (thus completing the circle and making full restitution for the evil of the transatlantic slave trade); "separation is good for everyone"; etc.)"

Svigor, please put the pipe down for just one second. I am not echoing any white nationalist anything, what I am saying is quite simple actually. The land in South Africa, (as in The United States, New Zealand, the Caribbean, Australia, South America, and everywhere else that whites have immigrated) was originally owned by someone else. There was a tribe living there that was usurped (extremely violently) by whites. Then, in their future magnanimity, a few hundred years after raping, stealing from and murdering the local population whites convince them that they are genetically predisposed to be, well, rapists, murderers, and thieves.

That is, what the Hindu's refer to as Karma. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it goes. Nations that were once established by the incredibly evil actions of whites are now governed by whites that consider these actions barbaric: When propagated by the original owners upon whites. It actually reminds me of a long yet very funny joke.

In the early sixties in Arizona, NASA in anticipation of the future lunar landing sends established a "space base" out on what was formerly indian territory. One day an old Indian and his son were riding their horses when they saw some white men doing strange things in a vehicle in funny-looking silver clothes.

The old man says something to his son which prompts the young man to approach a couple of white observers in suits.

"My father does not speak English" he said "but he would like to know what you are doing."

"Oh we're preparing to meet the man on the moon" said the CIA observer.

The young man translates to his father at which point the old man raises an eyebrow and says something again to be translated.

"My father would like to say something to the man on the moon" he says.

Seeing the opportunity for helpful PR, the CIA agent says "Wait, Wait, let me grab my tape recorder!" and runs to the car and back.

He then thrusts the tape recorder into the old man's face and says "go ahead sir."

The old man says something in Navajo, which makes his son bust out laughing, but when the men ask what he has said, he refuses to translate.

So they take the tape back into town, and play if for a local shopkeeper. The elderly woman again cracks up but refuses to translate.

The men receive the same treatment a few more times and are now dying to know what the old man has said to 'the man on the moon.' The figure out that the only way to find out will be to send the tape back to the CIA language lab at Langley.

As official CIA events go, it takes many weeks to get a response, but finally the agent received a very short telegram:

In response to the tape submitted from the Space Base in Arizona. The tape translates roughly to: "WATCH OUT FOR THESE A**HOLES, THEY'VE COME TO TAKE YOUR LAND!"

Anonymous said...

"Truth said...

I am not echoing any white nationalist anything, what I am saying is quite simple actually. The land in South Africa, (as in The United States, New Zealand, the Caribbean, Australia, South America, and everywhere else that whites have immigrated) was originally owned by someone else."

And the land in South Africa that the Afrikaaners took from the Bantus, had been earlier taken by from the Khoikoi and San peoples by the Bantus.

So perhaps apartheid was just karma opening a can of whoop-ass on the Bantu, huh?

Anonymous said...

"Charles Murray's data indicates that only 7% of all American blacks are born to mothers with IQs of 100 or greater...."

I too have read this depressing information by Murray. However, do not the prevailing IQ data generally show that black Americans have a mean IQ around 85? With a standard deviation of 15, would not that put approximately 16% of black Americans at or above IQ 100? Even our gracious host, Steve Sailer, has commented on this statistical fact. Of course, I recall that some researchers have stated that the black American standard deviation might be somewhat lower than 15.

Anonymous said...

"African-Americans are probably the most racist people on this earth. How did the Bantu people spread through most of Africa? Probably the same way they tried in Rwanda."

Following your logic, I guess Germans and people of Germanic descent can be considered "the most racist people on earth." How did the Germanic tribes spread throughout Europe? Think of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Angles, Saxons, Franks, and Vandals. What ethnicity is primarily responsible for both World Wars? Again, I am simply applying your way of thinking.

Truth said...

"So perhaps apartheid was just karma opening a can of whoop-ass on the Bantu, huh?"

Interesting that you should mention that Martin.

The truth is that there is a lot of disagreement over the Bantu expansion into East Africa. The party line has said for years that there was a genocidal advance in which the hunter-gatherer San and the Herder Khoi peoples were systematically murdered over a period of a few hundred years. There is NO great evidence that this is true. No mass graves, handed down oral traditions or anything else.

No while any clash of cultures is going to lead to some bloodshed, modern day anthropologists believe that the itinerant Khoi and San peoples simply moved away (for the most part) when the Bantu arrived. The Bantu were farmers and established property rights, so to speak. There was also a lot of interbreeding which is why most East Africans show mixed heritage genetic markers today.

Anonymous said...

I am not echoing any white nationalist anything\

But you are echoing WN arguments. Every time you open your mouth to champion blacks and accuse whites, you make our argument for us.

I skipped the joke; I tired of your argument-via-just-so-stories some time back; I hope and expect I didn't miss anything.

Anonymous said...

"Truth said...

The party line has said for years that there was a genocidal advance in which the hunter-gatherer San and the Herder Khoi peoples were systematically murdered over a period of a few hundred years. There is NO great evidence that this is true. No mass graves, handed down oral traditions or anything else."

And the Afrikaaners did not exterminate the Bantu they found at the cape either. None-the-less, after arriving, the Afrikaaners ended up running the land that the Bantu had held. Just as previously the Bantu ended up running the land previously held by the Khoi and San.

And your point was?

I'm not saying that whites can't be ba***rds. I'm just saying that they are ba***rds who are capable of running a modern country, whereas the empirical evidence suggests that blacks cannot.

Anonymous said...

The majority of South Africans were living in Third World (or worse) status for years. The difference now is that some Afrikaners are in the same boat. That's unfortunate, but it seems like a lot of this could have been prevented had Afrikaners started preparing for majority rule decades ago. For example, what if you had developed a "talented tenth" black elite 20 or 30 years ago? Then you might have competent blacks today to work the utilities.

-fred


Why not develop a "talented tenth" of Palestinians in Israel?

How would you like it, fred, if Jews in Israel had to live like Palestinians in Gaza?

Tsk tsk. We're all getting tired of listening to the same old hypocritical cant from Jews.

Anonymous said...

truth,
You’re not serious and you certainly have no empathy so there is no point arguing. I'm going to close with this:

When John Minto, another insufferable Anti-Apartheid activist (which you seem to be as well) from New Zealand was told by a Boer who had recently lost relatives to black, state-organised farm murderers that he (Minto) has blood on his hands, the guy just hung up.

You people say many fantastic things about the evils of the past and Apartheid, but you never come with facts. It’s because you know that the few short years of black governance have already produced a more criminal record than 45 years of Apartheid. And that's with the ANC firmly entrenched (due to black masses) and without a Cold War. And you also know that states such as Angola and Congo are veritable cess-pools of violence, corruption and disease. And you also know why that is. But because it behoves you to bait whitey, and the Afrikaners have no political and military might anymore (thanks to your types), they are easy prey for your heartless arguments.

Truth said...

"It’s because you know that the few short years of black governance have already produced a more criminal record than 45 years of Apartheid."

There were 342 years of Apartheid in South Africa, not 45, it just took a while for them to come it with a fancy name for it. And by the way; if Minto has blood on his hands for something he didn't do does that mean that white 'gun rights' advocates are responsible for the (white) moron who shot up NIU university as well?

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