Barak Obama and The News from Kenya
I find it hard to believe this story re Sen. Barak Obama apparently hasn’t broken thru to the Main Stream Media. It appears Obama has a friendly and advisory relationship with one Raila Odinga who has been contesting recent presidential elections in Kenya. You can read column by Daniel Johnson .
You have to read the entire article to understand the relationship. Here is the final quote from the article:
If Mr. Obama did not know about Mr. Odinga's electoral deal with the Kenyan Islamists when he offered his support, then he should have known. If he did know, then he is guilty of lending the prestige of his office to America's enemies in the global war on terror. We need to know exactly what Mr. Obama knew about Mr. Odinga, and precisely when he knew it.
I know the press coverage of Obama has been overly favorable, but how long before someone in the media starts questioning the candidate about this?
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Comments :
Gosh thanks
for this big fat load of fatuous hogwash.
I didn't know that Obama was a secret agent planted in the US by Islamofascists. Is he in cahoots with Keith Ellison and Al Sharpton?
OH and did you hear that McCain has a black daughter, and Harold Ford likes white girls?
Thanks for the enlightenment. I will add his name to Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Diane Feinstein, and all the rest to the list of enemies America. Which of course includes all Democrats.
What other garbage would you like to throw to see if it sticks. I will look forward to more of this trashy swiftboating as the days progress to the election.
It is the economy, stupid.
Did you read the article?
name the enemy, win the war
and the comments
It is the economy, stupid.
Mike Huckabee: Manchurian Candidate
When is this going to make it into the MSM?
Mike Huckabee is followed around by Chuck Norris at all campaign stops
Chuck Norris was in Lone Wolf McQuade with David Carradine.
David Carradine was in Kill Bill with Uma Thurman.
Uma Thurman was in Pulp Fiction with Samuel Jackson.
Samuel Jackson was in Coming To America with Eddie Murphy.
Eddie Murphy was in Trading Places with Dan Ackroyd.
Dan Ackroyd was in The Blues Brothers Movie with John Belushi.
John Belushi was in Animal House with Kevin Bacon
And Kevin Bacon supports John Edwards!!!!
Is Chuck Norris really just forcing Mike Huckabee to take populist positions to do John Edwards' bidding???
Who knew Chuck Norris was a terrorist sympathizer
! Seriously !
All these fear mongering claims are just utterly ludicrous.
It is the economy, stupid.
Also, let us not forget Mike Huckabee's Kenyan Connection
Mike Huckabee ran a marathon.
Who are the best marathon runners? That's right! The Kenyans!
When will this be discussed in the media? Before or after President Huckabee (makes me giggle if I say 'President Huckabee out loud. You try it) begins enforcing Souther Baptist Muslim Sharia law?!?
I never realized!
How frightening!
It is the economy, stupid.
Actually it's been played to death
We all know that Obama spent second grade in an Indonesian public school, which the media called a Muslim madrassa. But none of the implications that Obama is a terrorist seem to stick.
You mean
he has been planning to undermine the US since he was in Second Grade!
OMG! Shocking!
It is the economy, stupid.
Welcome! (nt)
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Responding to the above comments
the article does not question whether Obama is a secret Muslim (which is a foolish assertion). The article documents the relationship between Obama and Odinga, who is the individual who just lost the Presidential campaign in Kenya. It reviews Odinga's background and discusses his polical party as follows:
Don't you think the press should ask Obama about his relationship with Odinga? No one is saying Obama believes in any of the nonsense spouted by Odinga, but why is he associating and being indentified with such a disreputable character?
name the enemy, win the war
Do you have another (neutral) source
for this claim as to what Odinga promised? Because that sounds a bit unlikely. Here's how the AP reported it
:
Obama's involvement in Kenya after their elections has been to call for peace
: "Now is a time for President Kibaki, opposition leader Odinga, and all of Kenya's leaders to call for calm, to come together, and to start a political process to address peacefully the controversies that divide them. Now is the time for this terrible violence to end."
So it's not clear how closely Obama supports what Odinga wants now, if he does at all, and it's not clear to me anyway just what Odinga's actual policies are. Still, it's an issue worth investigating further.
Interesting if unrelated footnote from the Wikipedia entry on Kibaki (yes, I have to look all this stuff up):
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
I' ll see if I can find a "neutral"
source. In the meantime, here is an un-neutral source, Pamela from "Atlas Shrugs" website, which can be classified as a couter-jihad site. Even if only half of what she says is true, it is an awful story about Odinga.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/01/obamas-pal-uses....
Again, the point is not that Obama supports any of Odinga's activities. IMO Obama is a decent person. The association with Odinga goes to Obama's judgement. Here he is going to run for President and he doesn't have the good sense to avoid a character like Odinga.
name the enemy, win the war
Two thoughts
(1) I don't think it's been convincingly established that Odinga is involved with or approves of the crimes committed by his supporters. There is an allegation in that link but it is nothing I would accept without further support: Bishop Cornelius Korir of Eldoret confirms the killings were organized and planned. It is believed Odinga and his ODM Pentagon members had planned it all, long before elections, and especially William Ruto the MP for Eldoret North (the burning of women and children in a church.
(2) Obama's public statements are identical to the official US stance
:
To the extent that Odinga is now a force unbalancing Kenya I don't think it is clear that Obama supports such actions. For what it's worth I believe Odinga has publicly called for peaceful protests, and
"Attempts to protest the election have been met with deadly force by police. Human rights groups say many, if not most, of the deaths in the last two weeks came at the hands of police."
However, this is all stuff that I'm looking up as I go and perhaps I'm biased by my support for Obama. Regardless I very much hope they can come to some sort of agreement in Kenya and that things don't slide into open ethnic warfare.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Brendan, appreciate your interest and your trying
to look at this in unbiased manner. The US media has been noticably uninterested in covering this story, which bears out Bill Clinton's assertion that Obama has been given a free ride by the media.
name the enemy, win the war
I definitely think it's fair game
since Obama is claiming foreign policy insight based on his childhood experiences and his background. I don't know that lack of interest in this particular story is necessarily related to the media's fascination with Obama, which I agree is real -- it might be, but it's also sadly true that we as Americans don't seem all that interested in stuff like this, or maybe it's that our news outlets have a habit of minimizing such coverage in favor of whatever Britney is doing lately.
They'd revoke my liberal card if I didn't make a point of mentioning that while the media in general may be too uncritical of Obama, Fox News in particular has run pieces and commentary that essentially smeared him.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Color me a little suspicious
about the article, both for its simplistic view of Kenyan history and for its too-lose guilt by association (although the final part is damning, if true).
Case in point: the attempt at red-scare-mongering re: Odinga's father, who was part of an unsuccessful coup in 1982 against then-president. What the article doesn't say is that then-president was a popular but despotic ruler who criminalized all opposition parties and used anti-communism as his defense for doing so. This allowed support and funding to flow in from the West, but it also radicalized opposition: organizers of the coup were accused of accepting money from communist nations, but I don't know enough of the history to tell whether it was true or just a de facto criticism of political opposition. And even if it was true, the alignment makes sense: when the West is propping up an anti-Democracy democracy, you go with the support you can get.
Using this as a twice-removed smear by association is bad history and worse punditry. (I love how he exits the paragraph on communism with "Even more sinister...", as if the previous lines were supposed to send a chill of horror down my spine).
All that being said, the last portion, about a concrete working relationship between Obama and Odinga fils, is potentially more disturbing. I haven't read up much on this, but I'll give it a look.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Here is link to Odinga's memo
of agreement with National Muslim Leaders forum wherein Odinga recognizes Islam as the "one true religion" and agrees to set up sharia courts throughout he country.
https://secure.wikileaks.org/leak/MOU_between_Ralia_Odinga_and_Muslims.pdf
I'm not making this up.
Note: Odinga's opponent in the recent election President Kibaki is no angel either, being corrupt and likely a fixer of the election. So, I'm not defending Kibaki either.
name the enemy, win the war