There's a Pattern to Obama's Whispers

Flashback to 2004, when Obama was running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois:

....The last time I [Ali Abunimah, Executive Director of the "Electronic Intifada"] spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.

As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him.

He responded warmly, and volunteered, “Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I’m hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.” 

h/t Ed Lasky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barack Obama eight years later, now President of the United States:

.... In the comments caught by the mic, Obama urged Medvedev to tell incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin to give him time:

"On all these issues, but particularly missile defence, this, this can be solved – but it's important for him to give me space."

Medvedev replied: "Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you."

Obama then elaborated: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."

 

 

 

.... The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest.

Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection...."

-- Henry A. Wallace

 

 

Don't know who Henry A. Wallace was? The unfortunate "middle child" of Vice Presidents under FDR, Wallace served as VP from 1941 to 1945. Worried that FDR might not secure a third term, the Democrats dumped him for Harry Truman in the second slot at their 1944 convention. If not for that, Wallace -not Truman- would have succeeded to the presidency just months later, when FDR passed away.

Pres. Roosevelt compensated Wallace by appointing him Secretary of Commerce after the election, but in 1946 Truman fired him. From there Wallace became the (virulently anti-Truman) editor of The New Republic, and two years later, ran for the presidency on the Progressive Party ticket. He finished in fourth place with only 2.4 pct of the popular vote... yet another reason you (and I) may never have heard of him.

However, it's fascinating to read about the 1948 election... if only at Wikipedia.

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

Henry Wallace was the prototypical American progressive: a well-intentioned liberal shlemiel whom the American Communist party played like a violin -- going so far as to take over his presidential campaign and turning him into a Soviet stooge. Wallace was a dupe who became a CPUSA pawn. He never went so far as Alger Hiss, who committed treason, but he was a Commie fellow-traveller. FDR made a lot of mistakes in the White House; selecting Wallace as his VP was one of the biggest.