OBAMA'S CUBAN FLAG, EMPTY RHETORIC

Picture from NewsBusters (via Race42008) of an Obama campaign office in Houston. Note the Cuban flag with the picture of Communist fanatic Che Guevara superimposed.

NOTE: I'M GETTING REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION ON THE FLAG ABOVE. BELOW ARE THE LINKS THAT WILL ALLOW YOU TO SEE IT UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL.

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=5700252&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

It [the flag] was on the news in Houston. Above is the video from Fox Houston showing the flag in the background of Obama's office that was linked from Newsbusters at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/d-s-hube/2008/02/11/another-flag-issue-obama

NOTE: THIS IS THE SAME OBAMA WHO REFUSES TO WEAR AN AMERICAN FLAG ON HIS LAPEL AND DOESN'T CHOOSE TO PUT HIS HAND OVER HIS HEART DURING THE PLAYING OF THE NATIONAL ANTHEM. MORE TOMORROW ON OBAMA AND HIS FAR-LEFT RELATIONSHIPS AND FUNDING.

I'll build on this column throughout Tuesday, February 12, 2008 and will be writing the entire week on the two Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I've been writing for nearly a year about how Hillary Clinton will be the nominee. However, I'm much (much, much) less certain of that. Frankly, if Mrs. Clinton doesn't win in Ohio and Texas next month, she probably won't get the nomination.

The numbers are working against her. When she loses all three races today (MD, VA, and DC) in the "Potomac Primaries," that will be TEN losses in a row. When you're on that kind of losing streak, it's hard to see the trend coming to an end. The Democratic Establishment recognizes Obama's limitations, and they don't really want him to be the standard-bearer, but in the end they might not have a choice.

As a speaker, Mrs. Clinton reminds us of the proverbial fingernail scratching on a blackboard (now apparently known as "whiteboards"). In contrast, Barack Obama comes across as the silver-tongued orator. Where he fails is in what Martin Luther King called "the content of his character." His main commitment seems to be bamboozling the American people with pretty words. He relies on feel-good rhetoric to sell himself politically. He talks the talk but he doesn't truly walk the walk.

For example, Obama's stump speech begins with these words: "We are at a defining moment in our history." Some Democrats seem to find that statement to be profound. Actually, it's a clanking cliche that foreshadows presentations light on content and heavy on sanctimony.
Obama drenches his Democratic audiences in rhetorical syrup ("Yes we can!"), and they lap it up. But what do the pretty words actually mean? Do his stirring speeches stand up to any kind of examination?

Yesterday on TV, he said, "Change does not happen from the top down. Change happens from the bottom up."

A cynic (like me) might say, "I guess his belief in generating from the bottom-up is why he's running for a low-level office like President of the United States." His statement certainly doesn't apply to the candidate himself.

He likes to tell us that "Washington is broken," implying that he (and his Party) have little if anything to do with Washington, DC. He forgets to add that he -- and his main political allies -- are charter members of the Beltway Gang. He doesn't delve into how people like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are part of the fractured government.

Obama always begins his stump speech with the following words: "We are at a defining moment in our history." Oh, really? A few unsophisticated people might regard that hoary cliche as somehow uplifting. In fact, every generation has heard the same thing from politicians. It's like Macbeth's "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Senator Obama has made himself a very wealthy man by giving speeches and selling books, particularly his The Audacity of Hope, for which he received an advance payment of $1.9 million. However audacious his own hopes, Obama's main characteristic is the emptiness of his rhetoric. Frankly, there's nothing especially "audacious" about hope, a universal human characteristic, but the phrase does have a nice ring.

Granted, he never quite reaches the total inauthenticity of Hillary Clinton, but he comes close.

The more one examines what Obama says, the less content there is. Without specifics, his stock-in-trade concepts like "hope" and "change" have no meaning. He's floating to the top on a stream of vast emptiness.

OBAMA WEARING THE FLIP-FLOPS ON TIME-TABLES:

Team McCain is chuckling over a comment from Barack Obama last night on "60 Minutes": http://cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/07/60minutes/main3804268_page2.shtml

"At a time when American casualties are down, at a time when the violence is down, particularly affecting the Iraqi population, is that the right time to try and set time tables for withdrawing all American troops? I mean you talked about…the end of 2009," [Steve] Kroft remarked.

[Obama said] "Yeah, absolutely. I think now is precisely the time. I think that it is very important for us to send a clear signal to the Iraqis that we are not gonna be here permanently. We're not gonna set up permanent bases. That they are going to have to resolve their differences and get their country functioning."

"And you pull out according to that time table, regardless of the situation? Even if there’s serious sectarian violence?" Kroft asked.

"No, I always reserve as commander in chief, the right to assess the situation," Obama replied.

First he's for timetables, then he isn't. As one McCainiac just put it to me, "Shades of John Kerry. We already beat this guy. The last thing we need right now is indecisiveness."

Obama can ask Mitt Romney about how merciless McCain is when it comes to reading into his opponents' words on timetables.

Tomorrow's column on Barack Obama's supposed commitment to "universal health care." Question: if he's for it, why did he vote against mandating physician assistance in the case of "botched" abortions when a child is born alive? I hope it's not "audacious" to ask that obvious question.