Of course by now everyone reading knows that saying which roughly translates to “you are known by the company you keep”. Barack Obama would have been wise to listen to such counsel. You see Barack it seems has a bunch of unsavory supporters. We saw Maria Isabel, the Cuban Che Guevara worshiper who made several media appearances on behalf of his campaign under the unblinking glare of the butcher of la cabaña. Now it’s the reverend Wright, Obama’s pastor, and his racist anti-American rhetoric.
When the Maria Isabel story broke I mentioned how many user generated web pages on Obama’s site were complimentary or sympathetic to Che. Now Gateway Pundit informs us of another user generated page at mybarackobam.com but this one is for the New Black Panther Party.
Now every candidate is going to have cranks and fringe elements that support him/her. But the questions we should be asking are:
How representative of the rest of his/her supporters are these people?
How forcefully or convincingly does the candidate repudiate the rhetoric espoused by such people?
And in Barack Obama’s case one has to ask why he continues to allow users to post material which is highly polarizing and in some cases deeply offensive on his web site? Campaigns are supposed to carefully control the image of the candidate. In Obama’s case, he got a free ride for over a year perhaps lulling his staff into a false sense of security. But I have no doubt that:
A) a significant proportion of Obama’s support comes from outside the mainstream. People like Maria Isabel who think Che style communism is the greatest thing since canned beer
B) Barack Obama either believes in the rhetoric spouted by Reverend Wright or is calculating enough to know he at one point needed the “cred” that Wright could give him and thus turned a deaf ear to the rhetoric is it was being spouted.
Either way it’s not a pretty picture. The company you keep is important, especially if you’re running for president.
10 thoughts on “Dime con quien andas…”
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Except that the Che supporter was a campaign volunteer very far removed from the circles of power. Not at all the same thing.
THINWHITEDUCK, yeah and Fidel is just a nice old grandfather…he is just misunderstood.
Thinny, would you give a Republican candidate the benefit of the doubt like this if a “campaign volunteer far removed from the circles of power” made media appearances on behalf of said candidate under the glare of a picture of Heinrich Himmler?
I strongly suspect you would go around screaming to anyone who would listen that it was like turning over a rock to see the creepy crawlies that represent the Republican mainstream the candidate represents.
She is a volunteer. So what? 90% of campaign workers are volunteers. Without volunteers there are no campaigns. This volunteer was making media appearances left and right on behalf of the campaign. Geraldine Ferraro was a volunteer of Hillary but that didn’t stop her statements from sticking to the candidate in the media’s eyes. And Hillary loudly denounced what Ferraro said. Obama had some bullshit tepid statement about the “flag being inappropriate” He didn’t even mention Guevara by name.
The Obama Cult is very reminiscing of the fidel Cult of the late 1950s:
Both are superb public speakers.
Both can spout the same rhetoric to persuade the masses.
Both are charismatic in their own way.
Both are loved by the MSM.
Both are near saints and can do no wrong … NO matter what!
Thinny, would you give a Republican candidate the benefit of the doubt like this if a “campaign volunteer far removed from the circles of power” made media appearances on behalf of said candidate under the glare of a picture of Heinrich Himmler
C’mon – you and I both know the comparison is meaningless. No one except alienated high schoolers would consider pasting a picture of good ol’ Heinrich on their office computer or wherever. A better analogy would be to other right-wing bugaboos who killed or were involved in the killing of their own citizens: Pinochet or Duarte, say.
To answer your question, no, I wouldn’t mind. I never much accepted the Cuban saying. You don’t choose your friends because they MUST have something in common with you; unless you’re a crank you have a lot of friends because you like arguing, exchanges, and the healthy tension that makes any relationship worthwhile.
But since we’re talking about campaign workers and not friends, I would hold them to the same standard I hold my office employers: these are my rules, follow them. I don’t supervise them hourly. Do you think Obama personally knew that he’s got people who put up Che pictures? You can’t control that sort of thing. I don’t doubt the Republican Party’s got itinerant John Birch Society members in its ranks. Why would I blame John McCain for it?
This is a meaningless issue unless you’re prone to conspiracy thinking. If you want to attack Obama’s health care proposals or foreign policy, go ahead; the rest is distraction.
PS: I’m not a Democrat. I renounced my membership more than four years ago.
By this logic, doesn’t President Bush’s shared party affiliation with people like Bob Ney and Mark Foley make him a man with a propensity for bribes and underage boys? Just curious.
“C’mon – you and I both know the comparison is meaningless. No one except alienated high schoolers would consider pasting a picture of good ol’ Heinrich on their office computer or wherever.”
Thin-meister, that’s irrelevant to the point, which is that if it did happen, you would NOT give the Republican candidate the benefit of the doubt you give Obama.
It also illustrates the point in here that while Himmler and Co. are justly demonized by both right and left, Che is deified on the left. You make my point for me that only a lunatic fringe would hoist a Himmler banner or wear his face on a t-shirt, yet you see Che pictures and t-shirts everywhere. Mainstream righties recognize far-right lunacy, but mainstream lefties think left-wing lunacy doesn’t even exist. “No enemies on the left” and all that. How else do you explain the ubiquity of Che t-shirts?
That you are no longer a Democrat very likely means the Democrats are no longer left enough for you.
“A better analogy would be to other right-wing bugaboos who killed or were involved in the killing of their own citizens: Pinochet or Duarte, say.”
Really? Do you see Republicans wearing Pinochet t-shirts?
miramiradePalmira
Nobody said anything about party affiliation jerky. We’re talking about the pastor whose church Obama has been going to for TWENTY FREAKING YEARS. The pastor that married him and baptized his kids.
“By this logic, doesn’t President Bush’s shared party affiliation with people like Bob Ney and Mark Foley make him a man with a propensity for bribes and underage boys? Just curious.”
Yet another one who misses the point. Your statement above was PRECISELY the template for lefty activists and their media enablers during the Foley and Daniel Craig fiascos, namely that it was just more evidence that the typical conservative is just a repressed sexual deviant. In other words, what you said above is been-there-done-that Dem/media material, which illustrates my point:
In bringing up this Che-sycophant working for Obama, I am not saying that it automatically follows that Obama loves Che or Castro. It doesn’t. I am instead wondering why the mainstream media doesn’t harp on this Che-lover the way you KNOW they would if even the most lowly precinct signature gatherer for a Republican candidate was caught wearing a Himmler t-shirt while taking his trash out to the curb after dark.
It’s the double-standard that McCain’s presidential bid wouldn’t survive the discovery of someone like that working for his campaign while Obama has already survived Ms. Che.
While we’re at it, I have to admit Obama almost had me yesterday with his speech. It was refreshing to hear a black politician say that lots of working class white people don’t feel privileged because of their skin color. I never thought I’d hear that in my lifetime. (Even if he wasn’t sincere, and the below notwithstanding, it’s a sign that things are changing for the better.) Then Kevin James out here in L.A. played an interview with Obama during the Don Imus flap, in which he said that he would never let somebody like that work for him. Ooops…