Reflections From a Murky Pond

Sen. Barack Obama preaches “Hope” and “Change” to the multitudes. He stands as a savior of the unwashed masses and offers gifts and glory to them – if only they will grant him their votes.  There is no denying that Sen. Obama is a brilliant orator and has the capability of capturing the dreams of many in the US – but what will he deliver on those promises?

From The Times of London (Times Online):

Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.

The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of “hope” and “change” are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.

One senior adviser told The Times that the first few weeks of the transition, immediately after the election, were critical, “so there’s not a vast mood swing from exhilaration and euphoria to despair”.

The aide said that Mr Obama himself was the first to realise that expectations risked being inflated.

— Tim Reid

Read the full Times Online Article

Sen. Obama has sown the wind with his populist approach and his inspiring but insubstantial political platform. Now it seems that he and his advisers are worried that he will reap the whirlwind of dashed hopes, despair, and the rage that will ensue from false hopes and broken promises.

H/T to The Reluctant Optimist

*SMIRK*

Cartoon by Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle

I just want you to be clear, Sen. Obama – it’s not that I want to punish your success – I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you – that they’ve got a chance at success too.

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

Don’t judge Obama by his actions. Don’t judge Obama by the friends he keeps. Don’t judge Obama by his what he says. Don’t judge Obama because if you do, you’re a racist.

Of course if we can’t judge him by his actions, his friends, or his words then all we would have left is his race. Nice trick that! Remove all legitimate methods of judgment and then call – or let your surrogates call – your detractors racists.

Michelle Obama, wife of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama has drawn a lot of flak for various of her comments during the campaign. She’s a hard-hitting woman of no uncertain opinion and this has caused her to be occasionally reviled for her heartfelt but ill-advised rants and declarations. She does speak truth as she sees it though.

If you can’t run your own house, then you can’t run the White House.

— Michelle Obama

I think that is a very wise observation. If a candidate cannot properly manage and nurture that which is close to them, how can anyone expect them to properly manage and nurture the nation?

Sadly, like all truths Michelle’s wisdom is a two-edged sword that twist in the the hands of its wielder.

If Michelle’s husband can not successfully look after his constituents in Chicago how can anyone trust him to be President of the whole nation? If Barack Obama was willing to sacrifice the most vulnerable of his own constituents to the greed and corruption of his campaign supporters and business partners, how can trust him to be President of the whole nation?

Sen. Obama, talk to your wife; she may well be wiser than you.

This is how the Left and the Obama campaign and its surrogates and shills work. In the quest for the Presidency they seem to be willing to use any and all means – legal, quasi-legal, or outright criminal – to achieve their aims.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about “Joe the Plumber.”

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.

The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama’s tax proposals.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. “It’s outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama’s allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question,” he said.

Isaac Baker, Obama’s Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay’s statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. “Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated.  If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully,” he said.

The attorney general’s office is investigating if the access of Wuzelbacher’s BMV information through the office’s Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway computer system was unauthorized, said spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi.

“We’re trying to pinpoint where it came from,” she said. The investigation could become “criminal in nature,” she said. Brindisi would not identify the account that pulled the information on Oct. 16.

Records show it was a “test account” assigned to the information technology section of the attorney general’s office, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Thomas Hunter.

Brindisi later said investigators have confirmed that Wurzelbacher’s information was not accessed within the attorney general’s office. She declined to provide details. The office’s test accounts are shared with and used by other law enforcement-related agencies, she said.

On Oct. 17, BMV information on Wurzelbacher was obtained through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, records show.

Mary Denihan, spokeswoman for the county agency, said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services contacted the agency today and requested an investigation of the access to Wurzelbacher’s information. Cuyahoga County court records do not show any child-support cases involving Wurzelbacher.

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

The LEADS system also can be used to check for warrants and criminal histories, but such checks would not be reflected on the records obtained by The Dispatch.

Sgt. Tim Campbell, a Toledo police spokesman, said he could not provide any information because the department only had learned of the State Highway Patrol inquiry today.

— Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch

The Obama campaign is reported to have threatened the Jewish groups sponsoring the rally against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN with potential loss of their tax exempt status if they had Palin and not Clinton or Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden speak at their rally.

In key swing states Obama has set up “Truth Squads” composed of law enforcement officers and high profile prosecutors to intimidate any media outlet that airs or publishes any article critical of Sen. Obama that they – Obama and his Truth Squads – feel is false or misleading.

Obama has attempted to use the US Congress’ Special Prosecutor to attack the entire GOP and the current US administration due to their investigations into the actions of ACORN in key swing states. He has made spurious claims that the ivestigation of voter fraud and voter registrations fraud is somehow related to Congress’s witch hunt over the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys in late 2006.

Now it seems that that either the Obama campaign – they deny the allegations – or more likely some of Obama’s supporters have illegally used Ohio state law enforcement data in the attacks against Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe The Plumber.

I find it most disturbing that the illegal searches came from the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency. It’s frightening to think that the Obama supporters might use Joe’s children in their attacks upon him. Was this an attempt to punish Joe the Plumber by having his children removed from his custody? Probably not, but it still should send a chill of fear down all our spines.