From Power Line:

More than any other cartoonist now working, I think, Michael Ramirez makes incisive points with his drawings. Like this one; click to enlarge:

It’s an excellent point: the real Bill Ayres scandal is not that he is pals with a guy who turned out to be President; it’s that he has had, over a period of years, a considerable influence on how children in Chicago have been educated. And that influence has been entirely pernicious. Ayers’ radical, racially separatist curriculum has been studied and has been found to be educationally worthless. In today’s liberal world, of course, that doesn’t put him out of business. On the contrary.

Bill Ayers happens to be famous, by virtue of his relationship with Barack Obama and the fact that some years ago, he bombed the United States Capitol and other landmarks. But how many other "educators" share Ayers’ perspective and values, but have never bombed anything and don’t happen to be friends with the President-elect? That number is huge. No one is tracking their influence on our youth, but isn’t it obvious that the influence of leftists in our public and private schools is both vast and malign?

 Here are some extracts from an article by Burt Prelutsky. Please read it all.

When I realized that Sen. Obama would soon be President Obama that the nightmare began. I truly felt overcome with grief, the kind you feel when a loved one dies. In this case, the loved one was America…

Looking back, I think the left-wing cancer took root in the 1960s and the funeral took place on November 4th. That’s why I’m having a really hard time putting up with people who are so darn jubilant about Obama’s victory. To me, it’s as if they’re dancing on America’s grave.

I know that a lot of people will regard me as a racist for being so depressed over the election result. I am probably the least racist person in America. As I’ve always said, people who hate others because of their race, religion or national origin, are just plain lazy. After all, once you get to really know people, there are always better reasons than that for despising them… 

Besides, it does no good to deny being a racist. Once you have to deny it, you’ve already been labeled. But I have to ask, if Hillary Clinton had been elected president and I had been upset about it, would I be branded a misogynist? The fact is, I would have been less upset if she had been elected. But that’s only because I only object to her politics and her voice. Her circle does not include the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Father Pfleger, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Louis Farrakhan and Rashid Khalidi. Aside from Hillary Clinton’s colleagues in the Senate, her only questionable associate is Bill…

One of my friends wondered how it could be that I wasn’t thrilled to see millions of black people, including Jesse Jackson and all of Kenya, in rapture over Obama’s victory. I told him it’s one thing for Obama to garner 96% of the black vote when he’s running against a Republican such as John McCain, but quite another when he got 91% of the vote in the primaries when he was running against a liberal such as Sen. Clinton. That, to me, reeks of racism, and I see no reason to celebrate it.

I went on to say that it often seems to me that it’s only conservatives who ever took to heart Martin Luther King’s fervent wish that we all learn to judge our fellow men by their character and not by the color of their skin.

I concluded by telling him that he had every reason to be ecstatic that a man who shared his politics was elected, but that Obama’s color shouldn’t enter into it, and that if I and many like me were disgruntled about the election, it had nothing to do with Obama’s pigmentation, everything to do with his character and his leftist agenda. We elected a president, after all, the leader of the free world, not a prom king.

If there is one bright spot in all this, it’s that I won’t have to spend the next four years listening to John McCain begin every sentence with “My friends.” The sad truth is, I pick my friends far more wisely than we pick our candidates or, for that matter, our presidents.

… and how would it serve Hamas to lie?

David Hornik writes at PajamasMedia: 

In an interview published Tuesday in the London-based Al-Hayat, Dr. Ahmad Yousef, political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said senior Hamas figures had held a secret meeting with advisers to Barack Obama in Gaza before the U.S. elections.

Throughout his campaign Obama’s official line was that he would “only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and agrees to abide by past agreements.”

Yet Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal responded to Obama’s win on an optimistic note, telling Australia’s Sky News on Saturday that his organization was “ready for dialogue with President Obama and with the new American administration with an open mind.”

On Saturday night, though, Obama’s senior foreign policy coordinator Denis McDonough seemed to hold the fort, deflecting Mashaal’s amiability by reiterating Obama’s three-part formula for making Hamas acceptable.

For those who don’t want America to have dealings with an Islamist terror organization like Hamas, that may have sounded reassuring. But now it seems it may be too soon to feel reassured.

According to Yousef in the Al-Hayat interview, the Obama-Hamas talks were already ongoing during the U.S. election campaign: “We were in contact with a number of Obama’s aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to reveal this information as it may influence the elections or become manipulated by McCain’s campaign.”

Yousef also claimed he personally had friendly relations with some of Obama’s advisers and that “Haniyeh will draft a congratulatory letter to Obama for his victory.”

Yousef added: “The policy Obama will instate in the Middle East will differ from that of his predecessor George W. Bush, although it is clear that the region and the Palestinian issue will not be at the top of his agenda. [Obama] will focus more on the economic crisis, Iraq, and Afghanistan.”

A clash between Obama’s public, anodyne, mainstream statements and behind-the-scenes activities of a different nature would confirm the fears of those concerned about Obama’s history of association with radical people and ideologies.

He has already begun to shape Obama’s Middle East policy. 

Who is he? What is his background? What is to be expected of his advice to the next president?  John Perazzo provides some answers in Front Page Magazine:   

Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of “Western imperialism”; a supporter of various revolutionary “liberation movements,” particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley “participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations.”

In a July 2001 op-ed which [Robert] Malley penned for the New York Times, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year’s Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat for the failure of the peace process.

Malley’s identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. It should be noted that Malley’s account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton’s Middle East envoy).

Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah (a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr (the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq). 

In addition, Malley has advised nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley’s calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian “anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat’s imprisonment, Israel’s incursions, [and] Western lecturing …”

Moreover, Malley contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.

Malley has criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining “on the sidelines” and being a “no-show” in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote in July 2006: “Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue.”

This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—clearly has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.

 Should Israel and American Jews be surprised that Obama lied?  This through Little Green Footballs:

According to a report on Middle East Newsline, President-elect Barack Obama has dispatched his "senior foreign policy adviser", Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria to outline Obama’s policy on the Middle East.
  
Malley reportedly relayed a promise from Obama that the United States would seek to enhance relations with Cairo and reconcile differences with Damascus.

"The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests," an aide to Malley was quoted as saying. The aide said Obama plans to launch a U.S. diplomatic initiative toward Syria. Malley met both Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad "to explain Obama’s agenda for the Middle East."

Aides to Malley also said that Obama told Mubarak that the United States would maintain military and civilian aid and sell advanced F-16 aircraft to Cairo. Egypt has not ordered F-16s in nearly a decade.

Malley was an advisor to President Bill Clinton and played an active role in the Camp David summit with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. He later published an article in which he laid some of the blame for the failure of those talks on Israel’s doorstep.

International Crisis Group
In May 2008, Malley said in an interview that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, as part of his work for a conflict resolution think-tank called the International Crisis Group. This aroused ire and concern in pro-Israel circles, and prompted a spokesman for Obama to say that “Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.”

One of the sponsors of the International Crisis Group is billionaire George Soros, who sits on its board and its executive committee. Other members of the board include former United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and former general Wesley Clark, who called US support for Israel during the Second Lebanon War a "serious mistake" and said that "New York money people" – a phrase interpreted by many as a reference to Jews – were pushing the United States towards a confrontation with Iran.

 Caroline Glick writes in the Jerusalem Post:

In certain respects, [Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni’s … attempt to hide her far-left policies while presenting herself as a new sort of clean politician and engine of political renewal, echoes the strategy that Obama employed with such success in his bid for the White House. Like Obama, Livni wishes to convince the public to support her by not telling us who she is and what she intends to do, sufficing instead with her claim to be different from the other guys.

It is far from clear that Livni will be able to pull off an Obama-like victory. She lacks his charisma. Unlike Obama, she has a public record of far-left governance and policy failure going into the election. And unlike [American voters and] Sen. John McCain, Israelis trust Netanyahu more than they trust Livni to protect the country’s economy.

Moreover, Obama benefited from the public support that the Democratic Party enjoyed after eight years of Republican control of the White House. In contrast, between its failed leadership in the war with Hizbullah and the corruption probes and criminal convictions of its leaders, Livni’s Kadima is the discredited incumbent party. But still, all is not lost for Livni.

Like Obama, she enjoys the full support of the media in her bid for power. In the past, media collusion has repeatedly sufficed to bring leftists posing as centrists to power.

With all that is at stake in February’s elections, it must be hoped that Livni’s Obama strategy will fail her. Facing Iran on the one hand and a potentially hostile Obama administration on the other, Israel requires a leader like Netanyahu who understands that if preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons means butting heads with Obama, so be it. 

 The degree to which Democrats ridicule and revile Sarah Palin is the measure of how much they fear her. (Why some Republicans are spreading lies about her to bring her into contempt I have no idea – its seems a foolish thing to do, she being important to their future.)

Austin Hill, radio talk-show host, writes today about an obviously organized campaign to mock critics of Obama’s leftist policies with accusations of racism. He concludes:

Conservative Americans in particular need to understand that in this new era, the rules have changed. And to understand this change, conservatives need to begin by reading “Rules For Radicals,” a book published in 1971 by noted “community organizer” (and a man who is said to have influenced Mr. Obama) Saul Alinsky.

Column space is limited here, so you’ll have to get a copy of the book for yourself. But consider this notion from Alinksy’s rule #5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”

And consider this language from rule #11, wherein Alinsky suggests that the main job of a “community organizer” is to bait his opponent into reacting in a certain way: “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”

Welcome to the new era.

Fortunately, ridicule is a two-edged sword. Mock back, my hearties, mock right back! It’s only fair.

And take note: now that the ‘long march’ of the left has achieved the capture of the most powerful institution in the world, expect Saul Alinsky’s book to be consulted by your radical ruler much more than the Constitution of the United States, despite the oath he will swear at his inauguration. 

 Melanie Phillips writes in The Spectator:

So now we are promised a change in America’s fundamental values. And they really will be changed. Obama has said in terms that he thinks the US constitution is flawed. America’s belief in itself as defending individual liberty, truth and justice on behalf of the free world will now be expiated instead as its original sin. Those who have for the past eight years worked to bring down the America that defends and protects life and liberty are today ecstatic. They have stormed the very citadel on Pennsylvania Avenue itself.  

Millions of Americans remain lion-hearted, decent, rational and sturdy. They find themselves today abandoned, horrified, deeply apprehensive for the future of their country and the free world. No longer the land of the free and the home of the brave; they must now look elsewhere.

But to where should they look?

 Diana West comments on race as a motive for voting for Obama and quotes the fine (African-American) scholar Shelby Steele:   

In a particularly trenchant post-election column, author Shelby Steele explained how it was that a candidate he describes as "quite unremarkable" regarding public policy (an amalgam of "old-fashioned Keynesianism" and "recycled Great Society") was able, first, "to project an idealized vision of post-racial America," and then "have that vision define political decency." Once these visions were set, Steele writes, "a failure to support Obama politically became a failure of decency."

In this way, the white voters who became Obama’s political base were vested in the success of Obama’s vision – or, rather, in the vision of Obama’s success. Longing to "escape the stigma of racism," as Steele calls it, white voters became "enchanted" with Obama because their support for him provided evidence and certification of their own now self-evident state of "post-racial" enlightenment.

But, as Steele further explains, there’s an inherent contradiction to this unusual, if not historically unique, relationship. "When whites – especially today’s younger generation – proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society … seduces whites with a vision of the racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist … would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally."

Bingo. Here Steele demystifies the great and perplexing divide between those who care supremely about documenting and displaying their own "racial innocence" – and I would put the mainstream media, Obama voters and most politicians including John McCain into that category – and those who don’t. These latter "real post-racialists" see Obama as a man, not an icon, as a politician who emerged from a hotbed of anti-American radicalism, not a sacred totem of enlightenment better suited to a glass case at the Smithsonian than the boisterous tussle of the political arena.

For almost two years, Obama has been, in Steele’s words, evaluated culturally. This has resulted in reverential media non-coverage and now post-election judgments and metaphors that are already beginning to defy satire. Of course, Barack Obama didn’t end the Civil War, isn’t the reincarnation of RFK, and benefits from, but didn’t bring about, the long-entrenched social changes that facilitated his political rise. As he now heads to the White House, it’s crucial that he finally be regarded as a politician, not a messiah, and as a man, not a moral judgment. Otherwise, the cultural juggernaut he seems likely to unleash will be unstoppable.

Read the whole thing here. 

 David Limbaugh asks his fellow conservatives:

Could you tell me under what moral principle you would advocate, say, conservative cooperation with liberal legislation during Obama’s "honeymoon" period that would further dismantle America’s capitalistic system or undermine our national security?

Right before the election, I wrote that Obama worries me because of his leftist ideas and the Saul Alinsky (Chicago-style, thuggish) tactics his campaign and its surrogates were using to secure the election. Now adding to my concern is all this talk about a new day in America and the need for bipartisanship, which is just an effort at soft intimidation and a strategy to shame the opposition from exercising its vigilance and acting as the opposition party. But even that would be far less troubling if there were fewer gullible people on our side.

Perhaps it’s Obama’s messianic aura and rhetorical generalities of harmonic convergence that blind "intellectuals" to his radicalism and deceive them into believing he’ll govern as a centrist. Maybe it’s his fluency and mellifluous voice that separate pro-life advocates such as Doug Kmiec from their critical faculties to the point they could argue that this poster child for Planned Parenthood was the more pro-life of the two presidential candidates. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal editors must have taken a quick slug of the Kool-Aid before opining that Obama now faces "a much greater foe: Democrats on Capitol Hill," who will try to pull this presumed pragmatist to the left.

Dream on, boys. They’ll be headed west together as fast as their partisan legs can carry them. And we better be ready for them, believing our own instincts and powers of observation rather than relying on the lying eyes of our elites and the false assurances of our political opponents who will tell us that left means center and wrong means right.

What is it about Obama’s leftist past and record as the most liberal senator that so many intelligent people do not understand?