In Thursday's Letters to the editor
In Thursday's Letters to the editor, readers react to the historic election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. Writes Brian Thompson of Signal Hill:
I am a 38-year-old black male. For all my life, I have considered myself an American. On Tuesday, Nov. 4th, 2008, for the first time, I am finally convinced that America agrees with me.
Edward Hieshetter, Sr., of San Diego expressed admiration for Republican John McCain, too:
Last night John McCain showed true statesmanship in his concession speech.
Last night Obama brought true hope for the future of our country. At long last we have a president who will unite us in one union!
Over the past eight years I lost faith, trust, and pride in my country. Last night it was restored by both Barack Obama and John McCain.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Sale of Placentia updated a controversy-sparking comment by Michelle Obama to express her doubts:
Today, for the first time in my adult life, I am afraid to be an American.
Coming in Friday's letters: reactions to the approval of Proposition 8.
*Photo of president-elect Barack Obama from AP Photo/Alex Brandon.
OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK GOD!
Posted by: Toni ashely henderson | November 06, 2008 at 12:06 PM
Jason, why do you focus on Obama's controversial acquaintances in academia instead of his friends in the Senate and his supporters in the campaign? Are Chuck Hagel and Dick Luger irrelevant? Warren Buffet and Paul Volcker? How are these folks, who are with Obama now, less revealing about Obama than the people he was seen with years ago?
The best tip sheet for where Obama is likely to go is the Center for American Progress. One of the heads of Obama's transition team, John Podesta (formerly chief of Bill Clinton's White House staff), comes from there. Read this piece from the Center on economic stimulus and growth -- that'll give you a pretty good clue what the people who truly are closest to Obama think. Isn't that more relevant than what the former pastor at his former church said in sermons Obama might have heard?
Gov. Schwarzenegger has called for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures -- how about a 90-day moratorium on unfounded speculation and guesswork about the new president, or wild theories drawn from his past associations? I mean, we're seeing real names now for people in the transition team and the new administration. How about focusing on them and what they're saying today?
Posted by: Jon Healey | November 06, 2008 at 11:42 AM
In answer to your question: the genuine fear of Obama, which I also feel deeply and genuinely is simple and pointed:
Barrack Obama is a man substantially unknown; what little of his history is known is deeply troubling. For all the rhetoric and ineptitude of the McCain campaign to explain it, the fear is still simple and clear:
Barry Obama spent 20 years in a Church that is "dedicated to Africa" and believes it has a commission from Jesus "to correct the evil of economic-maldistribution in america (TUCC website)." He grew up and consorted with radicals, whose phraseology he and his wife have used in their addresses, but increasingly hidden as it became politically expedient. His policies pose as supporting the American dream, but in reality nourish a culture of victimization and entitlemen based on a lightly veiled accusation. (ie. The "you've been wronged but government will saving you by bringing 'economic justice' line is both the opposite of Founding principles, and brings with it an implicit accusation. Who has done the injustice?)
In short, barry obama is certainly not a defender of principles that made our country free and great; he does not intend to support those principles, and worse, he might actually be the hands of a long-hatched scheme of radicals like Bill Ayers and Rashid Khalidi, to undo long-established institutions that guarantee liberty, and a culture of independent personal responsibility. If he is not this directly, he has certainly entertained the influence of such men for decades, and their ideas bare themselves out whenever Barry removes the veil of vacuous fatuosity that persuades the masses of people who don't care to learn. Furthermore, he's done nothing to warrant this high office accept sway the electoric--fought no wars, run no business, won no major lawsuits, had ZERO life beyond the effort to jocky for political position that put him where he is. (And I haven't even mentioned the world (Russia, Iran, Al Qaeda, etc) that hopes to destroy us.
Whence comes the terror?: We Don't Know anything about him but rhetoric, his shady history, and a radically liberal social agenda that got it's start by taking money from working people and giving it to various radical programs through the Annenberg Fund, right on schedule with the Jeremiah Wright agenda, into which he had his daughters BAPTIZED.
Get it?
Posted by: Jason | November 06, 2008 at 10:40 AM
I am intrigued by the letter from Charlotte Sale, that she is now "afraid to be an American." I have seen a lot of fear of Obama in the blogs over the past few weeks, some of it to the point of hysteria, and I think most of it is genuinely felt. My question is, where does it come from? No one really says what they are afraid of, they are just scared, darn it. Did these same voters fear George Bush, who barely hid his systematic torture policy and made a mockery of the constitution with his 'signing statements'? Do these voters really believe that a 3.5% difference in the top tax rate, putting it back where it was eight years ago, amounts to a socialist revolution? (Maybe they don't know that the top rate was 91% - that's ninety one percent - during the Eisenhower administration). I am concerned that this fear is rooted in ignorance, an ingnorance which has cost this nation dearly since November of 2000.
Posted by: tony zito | November 06, 2008 at 04:06 AM