An old friend sent me this one, don’t know where he got it. Nothing I didn’t know, but somehow it resonated. And since it’s Nobody Reads My Blog on Friday anyway, I’m reprinting it with minimal editorial snark:
Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around?…..think about it. Would the country’s collective point of view be different? Could racism be the culprit? Ponder the following:
What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?
What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
What if Obama couldn’t read from a TelePrompTer?
What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?
What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer distribution?
What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?
You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?
This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.
Educational Background:
Barack Obama:
Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science. Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)
vs.
John McCain:
United States Naval Academy- Class rank: 894 of 899
Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University- 1 semester
North Idaho College- 2 semesters – general study
University of Idaho – 2 semesters -journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester
University of Idaho – 3 semesters -B.A. in Journalism
Education isn’t everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.
Yes, Obama parades his 5 kids across the stage and I can just hear the snarky jokes about dusky lust and hyperactive black dicks. And jokes about how “they” can’t drive cars, let alone jets. And Daddy’s beer business. Oh, yeah. I hear ’em all.
Joke’s on you, wingnuts.
Obalesque 
that’s funny and true. Image is everything. Maybe that’s why we continue to elect losers. I mean, would anyone have elected Abe Lincoln or Washington or Jefferson according to looks? I guess it’s true we get the leaders we deserve.
GO PHILLIES!
PS ~ The Phillies are the guys in the red suits ~ right?
Ms Calabaza:
This isn’t about image at all. It’s about reality and the way we see what we want to see. Some people look at McCain and see a great military hero. But if Obama had thes ame record, including the disciplinary issues and low graduation status, he’d be singled out as a troublemaking black dude getting by because of political correctness. Same facts, different slant.
What if McCain had refused to release his medical records (as Obama has refused)?
What if McCain had refused to make public his class rank at Columbia or Harvard, his college applications, transcripts, papers, theses or anything else relating to his higher education (as Obama has refused)?
What if McCain had become president of the Harvard Law Review without ever having authored a law review article?
What if McCain had launched his political career in a terrorist’s living room or had been a congregant for 20 years in a White Supremist church?
What if McCain had sealed his army records (as Obama sealed all records pertaining to his tenure as an Illinois legislator)?
What if McCain had refused to release his birth certificate (as Obama has refused)?
I think Manny has just help prove the point.
Proven what? That your perception of Obama’s life is based on the systematic concealment of the facts of his life by Obama and the MSM?
Steve:
Kindly add Occidental College to Obama’s vita curriculum.
Accidental College, Manny? Interesting: he and Jack Kemp have something in common.
Now if you had said “Oxycontin College,” we’d really have Rush Limbo’s attention.
Manny: I don’t think anybody can seal the daily records of a legislative body like the Illinois legislature. I suppose there are exceptions to specific hearings or activities — closed-door sessions — but the broad claim that Obama “sealed his records” strikes me as just wrong.
Also, if you Google that claim, you uncover articles critical of his voting “Present” so often when serving. If the records are sealed, how do the media know he voted that way?
I also Googled and learned he graduated Magna Cum Laude, indicating the upper 20%, which is evidently how that school ranks graduates. No concealment there.
Those are the easy ones. I invite more skilled researchers to tackle the others.
Still, the point is one of perception. True or false, the same things that outrage us when attributed to the one we don’t favor are overlooked as unimportant on the one we like.
Ok, I’ll do one: McCain “released” his medical records thusly: (1) there were over 1,000 pages of records, (2) reporters were allowed a total of 3 hours to read them, (3) cell phones, cameras, and other recording equipment was not allowed in the room, and (4) note taking was not permitted.
Oh, one more thing: Obama releases medical information:'”excellent health.’
Everything’s been said. The only think left to say is get out the vote.
Tune in, turn on, turn out.
dk
Alesh:
I guess you don’t read RCAB. Here, then, to spare you the trouble:
Friday, May 30, 2008
What, No Drug Tests?
Barack Obama has just released a one-page letter from his doctor attesting to his “excellent health” and pronouncing him “medically-fit to serve as president.” Last week, John McCain granted reporters access to more than 1200 pages of his medical records. Obama’s physician for nearly half his life, Dr. David L. Scheiner of Chicago, has not examined his patient since 2006. Yet he has no qualms pronouncing him in “excellent health” today. Obama’s campaign claims that the 300-words or so contained in Dr. Scheiner letter constitutes “a complete summary of [Obama’s] doctor visits and medical records for the past two decades.” William Strunk and E.B. White should have been that good.
I wonder what the media reaction would have been if McCain had released a one-page letter from his doctor as the sum total of his medical history? The general inference would have been that he had something to hide because of his age. Yet the sickest man ever to occupy the White House was also the youngest man ever elected president, John F. Kennedy. Everything about his health except his bad back was concealed from the public. The bad back was a war injury and hence could serve as his “Achilles heel.” Unless you count his Nicorette gum, Obama has no “Achilles heel,” none, at least, that could be mentioned in 300 words or less.
Steve:
As regards his past, Obama has left no stone unburied. His refusal to release his health records is not an isolated incident; it is part and parcel of his penchant for concealment. Black Sheep of Exile recently inventoried the great lacunae in his vita curriculum:
1. Occidental College records — Not released
2. Columbia College records — Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper — “Not available”
4. Harvard Law School records — Not released
5. Selective Service Registration — Not released
6. Medical records — Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule — “Not available”
8. Law practice client list — Not released
9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate — Not released
10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth — Not released
11. Harvard Law Review articles published — None
12. University of Chicago scholarly articles — None
13. Record of baptism — Not released or “Not available”
14. Illinois State Senate records —”Not available”
15. Records of the Chicago Annenberg Project — Not released
The American public may be about to elect an absolute stranger as president and one who has gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that he remains a stranger at least until Election Day.
P.S. You still have not added Occidental College to Obama’s vita curriculum. If you are going to note that Sarah Palin attended two semesters at North Idaho College, you should also note that Obama spent 2 years at Occidental. Does that detract from his Ivy League bona fides?
Manny, everybody’s seen that list of supposedly concealed info, and I imagine by now everybody’s seen all the rebuttals of its legitimacy. Like the Columbia senior thesis: read this if you like.
And you’ll see what appears to be a birth certificate on FightTheSmears.com. Etc ad nauseam. There’s no cover-up here, just a lot of noise from some unhappy and desperate professional Obama-bashers and their equally unhappy followers.
As for Accidental College, if you spin it one way, it deflates his ivy league credentials somewhat; if you spin it the other, it shows he’s not an elitist. I guess. Either way it counts for quite little. Insofar as that’s not my article up there, as I clearly stated, I don’t intend to modify it,
You’re not serious about shutting down RCAB, are you?
steve:
In a word, yes.
Of course, it need not be so.
I still believe that McCain will win in a landslide and that civilization will be saved, and with civilization, RCAB.
If Obama is elected, however, democracy will die in this country and will never be resurrected in Cuba.
I am the first among Cuban bloggers to realize this fact and act accordingly. The others will follow suit eventually, even Babalú.
Manuel~
In this case the Kennedy comparison is daffy — everybody knows you can’t even get a fucking blow-job in the oval office without the world finding out. Why would Obama ask his doctor to write the summary if there was anything significant being hidden — everybody involved would know the truth would come out sooner rather then later.
Of course Obama’s doctor has no problem declaring him perfectly fit — us folks who are under 50 just don’t see our doctors that often because, duh, we just don’t have that many problems.
A medical “history” is a summary of the procedures a person has had. A typical 47 year old in good health of course would have had very few, and 300 words is more then enough to say that. On the other hand, 1,200 pages worth of medical records, even for a 72 year old, is a whole lot of things that have gone wrong, and could go wrong again.
Of course it comes close to ageism to hold someone’s long and scary medical history against them. Good thing nobody’s really thinking of this as a real issue, otherwise McCain would be even sunker then he is now.
Alesh:
I’m sure that whatever Obama is hiding is more serious than Reagan’s anal polyps.
My guess?
He’s bipolar.
Both his parents were.
Steve:
The link that you provided merely affirms that Obama’s Columbia thesis on nuclear disarmament is still missing.
Right, he’s bipolar. That makes total sense. I guess I’d better not vote for him, than.
“WHAT IF” Sarah Palin had aborted her Down Syndrome baby and walked across the stage with only four children instead of five?
“WHAT IF” Barack Obama had taken legal pain killers instead of snorting illegal crack cocaine, would McCain voters still be RACISTS?
“WHAT IF” John McCain’s father had been a Communist Polygamist with five wives who believed in taxing 100% of Kenyan’s income, would McCain voters still be RACISTS?
“WHAT IF” both John McCain and Sarah Palin had become lawyers like Obama and Biden, would McCain voters still be RACISTS?
“WHAT IF” Barack Obama could speak without stuttering or could say more than three words without an “AH” between them, would McCain voters still be RACISTS?
“WHAT IF” John and Cindy McCain attended Reverend Wright’s Liberation Theology church for twenty-five years but never heard a word “GOD-DAMNING” America, would McCain voters still be RACISTS?
“WHAT IF” Michelle Obama, or anyone in the Obama family, had run a successful business of any kind, even a beer company, would McCain voters still be RACISTS?
“WHAT IF” Cindy McCain had graduated from Harvard, would McCain voters still be RACISTS?
http://www.kerfuffles.blogsome.com
Kerfuffles: You miss the point.
This what-if scenario isn’t about calling people racists, but about using race as a filter through which people (including but not limited to people I’d call racists) make jusgments about others. Evidently in your case it struck a sensitive chord.
BTW — look at one of your own examples. You ask what if Obama had abused pain pills (as Cindy McCain did) instead of “snorting illegal crack cocaine.” First, all crack cocaine is illegal, but second, did Obama really say he used crack?
I think he said he tried “a little blow,” which isn’t crack. Reason this might be significant is, crack was the drug of choice among low-income street-level Blacks, users who were punished by law out of proportion to mostly-white abusers of ordinary cocaine. So the taint of race creeps into your own twisted example to show how it really should be irrelevant. I find that interesting, do you?