Occasionally I encounter a writer I have never read before, and I find that he or she has something really worthwhile to say. Such a writer is Laura Hirschfeld Hollis in her TownHall article, A President Who Won't Uphold the Constitution? Never. I must have been traveling in the wrong circles or leading a very sheltered life. I commend her entire article to your reading.
Most of us have heard the fractured logic that Senator Barack Obama used to explain why he would not be wearing the American Flag on his lapel. We saw the pictures of the Democrat candidates on an outdoor stage, hands over their hearts during the performance of the National Anthem. That is, all were saluting except Senator Obama. During Obama's Excellent European Adventure and Middle East Tour, he had plenty of time for everything except visiting wounded American soldiers when he discovered that he could not use them for a photo-op. But he made time to play basketball. From these events, we have a superficial picture of his beliefs about his and our country. More on that below.
We have learned that he has had lengthy relationships with shady characters after explaining those relationships as "choosing my friends very carefully" in his autobiography (which was apparently ghost-written by William Ayers.) In the final weeks of his campaign, he tells us these people are not "advisors, or associated with his campaign in any way, and will not be a part of my administration." And we heard him try to explain away his association with ACORN as inconsequential, when just months before he promised ACORN that they would meet with him during the transition months between his election and inauguration. And he said that ACORN would have a significant role in shaping his policies. From these associations we gain a pretty good indication of his character by the friends he chooses.
This is all well-documented in the smaller area of the media reserved for conservatives, talk radio, and the blogosphere.
A man is known by the company he keeps. In his 1995 'memoir' "Dreams From My Father," Obama wrote:
To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. [pages 99-100]
Obama chose William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, unrepentant terrorist bombers. Ayers hired him to chair the Chicago Annenburg Challenge when he was fresh out of law school, and they served together as Directors of the Woods Fund. He chose Tony Rezko, now a convicted felon, who provided campaign cash and worked a cushy real estate deal to get the Obama's a $1.6 million home, plus additional adjacent real estate. He chose Rashid Khalidi, a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, whose views are not in the best interests of Israel, the most reliable ally we have in the Middle East. He chose Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose bigoted, racist rants Obama never heard in twenty years of attending church "maybe twice a month." Wright was (is?) his spiritual mentor and advisor. And he chose Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, who drove Fannie Mae into the ground and walked away with tens of millions of dollars in bonuses for doing so, and now they are key advisors to his campaign. And ACORN... Well, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal was all over television Wednesday proclaiming that he is working a BIG negative story with a whistleblower (with documents) that will confirm that the FBI investigations currently under way are no witch hunt. There is a long history of Obama-ACORN connections.
This should be enough to call Obama's judgment into question, but the LSM (LameStream Media) has not seen fit to even publicize these relationships. And his policies would be just as questionable, and there will be more on that in a later article.
Laura Hollis hits a bulls-eye on Obama's view of the Constitution. She writes:
The Drudge Report and other legitimate investigative sources like the National Review, have exposed the most damning evidence yet of Barack Obama’s utter disregard for the core principles of the United States government. In a radio interview given in 2001, Obama reveals yet again about what he means by ‘equality,’ when he says, “…the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.”
Our Constitution gives the Supreme Court no authority over redistribution of wealth, or political and economic justice. But Obama laments the fact that the Supremes under Earl Warren “didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” Can you guess what kind of judges and justices he will appoint to the various courts? Of course, he will be seeking jurists who are not afraid to ignore the "Supreme Law of the Land" in favor of his dream of what the United States should be.
Hollis continues:
At this point, any belief in Obama’s respect for constitutional limits is delusional. If he is so cavalier about the Constitution’s limits upon the power of the judiciary, why on earth would he respect the limits on the power of the Presidency? Or on Congress? ...These views are why Obama’s acquaintances, associates and allies matter. Why his Alinskyite “by any means necessary” philosophy matters. Why we should care that he funds and takes money from people who say they hate or wish to undermine America. Why we should be concerned when he took spiritual sustenance from a man who spends much of his time condemning white people. This is what drives Barack Obama. And this is why he wants the Presidency.
The rest of Obama’s observations during this interview are just as asinine, and just as threatening. He says, “generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.”
"A charter of negative liberties?" What bull! The Constitution very deliberately defines the structure and powers of the federal government, and then it reserves all other rights to the states and the people. The Founding Fathers wrote it for (apparently) a much more self-sufficient people than the senator believes we are today. Obama seems to believe that we can not provide for our own lives, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Although the United States Constitution represents the longest surviving government on the planet today, it just does not conform to Obama's vision. And we know very little if anything from his campaign speeches about what The Chosen One thinks that government MUST do for us once you get past "universal healthcare." Hollis says that it boils down to what Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur in Ohio earlier this week, who said that Americans “needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.” The Founders would roll over in their graves to see what we have become.
Since Obama has so much disdain for The Constitution and that - in his mind - it fails to do what it should, how can he possibly swear to preserve, protect and defend it? I suppose that oath of office will be to Obama as he has said, "Words! Just words!"