THE INAUTHENTIC SELF

Before or after (it doen't really matter) you listen to Barack Obama's speech today as he tries to extricate himself from the racist mess he is in (see here), please consider this excellent analysis by Shelby Steele:

Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

This is how Mr. Obama has turned his blackness into his great political advantage, and also into a kind of personal charisma. Bargainers are conduits of white innocence, and they are as popular as the need for white innocence is strong. Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence....

His actual policy positions are little more than Democratic Party boilerplate and hardly a tick different from Hillary's positions. He espouses no galvanizing political idea. He is unable to say what he means by "change" or "hope" or "the future." And he has failed to say how he would actually be a "unifier."

[...]But bargainers have an Achilles heel. They succeed as conduits of white innocence only as long as they are largely invisible as complex human beings. They hope to become icons that can be identified with rather than seen, and their individual complexity gets in the way of this. So bargainers are always laboring to stay invisible. (We don't know the real politics or convictions of Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey, bargainers all.) Mr. Obama has said of himself, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ." And so, human visibility is Mr. Obama's Achilles heel. If we see the real man, his contradictions and bents of character, he will be ruined as an icon, as a "blank screen."

Thus, nothing could be more dangerous to Mr. Obama's political aspirations than the revelation that he, the son of a white woman, sat Sunday after Sunday -- for 20 years -- in an Afrocentric, black nationalist church in which his own mother, not to mention other whites, could never feel comfortable. His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a challenger who goes far past Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in his anti-American outrage ("God damn America").

[...]How does one "transcend" race in this church? The fact is that Barack Obama has fellow-traveled with a hate-filled, anti-American black nationalism all his adult life, failing to stand and challenge an ideology that would have no place for his own mother. And what portent of presidential judgment is it to have exposed his two daughters for their entire lives to what is, at the very least, a subtext of anti-white vitriol?

What could he have been thinking? Of course he wasn't thinking. He was driven by insecurity, by a need to "be black" despite his biracial background. And so fellow-traveling with a little race hatred seemed a small price to pay for a more secure racial identity. And anyway, wasn't this hatred more rhetorical than real?

But now the floodlight of a presidential campaign has trained on this usually hidden corner of contemporary black life: a mindless indulgence in a rhetorical anti-Americanism as a way of bonding and of asserting one's blackness. Yet Jeremiah Wright, splashed across America's television screens, has shown us that there is no real difference between rhetorical hatred and real hatred.

No matter his ultimate political fate, there is already enough pathos in Barack Obama to make him a cautionary tale. His public persona thrives on a manipulation of whites (bargaining), and his private sense of racial identity demands both self-betrayal and duplicity. His is the story of a man who flew so high, yet neglected to become himself.

Read it all, because it is an excellent psychological analysis of exactly what is so very wrong about the Obama campaign--and about the power of White guilt in this country.

There is still much work to do to heal ourselves as a nation over the racism of the past. That healing--including both justice and forgiveness-- is a very worthy goal and priority for Americans. But understand this: it will NOT happen; it will NEVER happen if the pendulum of racism and bigotry have only swung to the other side. We cannot heal our racist past BY BEING RACIST, and ultimately judging a person--even if it is a positive judgement--on the basis of the color of his or her skin.

Martin Luther King was right. And neither Jeremiah Wright NOR Barack Obama comes anywhere close to King:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope.

And to finally put our racist past behind us, it is our only hope.

UPDATE: I think we may have just seen some brief glimpses of the authentic Obama in that Philadelphia speech; and I agree with K-Lo at The Corner:

The more I think about this speech, the more I think Obama said: Damn straight, Rev. Wright is angry. That's how I wound up at his church. That's why I stay there. I'm mad too, I just control it better. Now let's get electing me president so we can all feel good.

UPDATE II: And, as far as the usual leftist, marxist BS that framed Obama's speech, I think Scott Ott has captured the essence:: Obama: Racial Unity Can Overcome Capitalism

IS OBAMA DONE FOR ? ...OR, THE DEMOCRAT'S DILEMMA

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THE SANITY SQUAD AT 8 PM TONIGHT !

Please join us for another Sanity Squad podcast this evening at 8:00 pm! Siggy, Shrinkwrapped, Neo and I will be discussing the Obama-Wright connection and the results of a recent study on the suicide bombers of Al Qaeda. It's sure to be provocative and hopefully illuminating!

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PUTTING YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH ISN'T ?

Mark Steyn:

In tight spots in the colonies a century back, Cecil Rhodes used to buck up his men by telling them that each had been an Englishman and therefore had won first prize in the lottery of life. Today, to be born an American is to win first prize in the lottery of life. One understands why that might not seem obvious to black people of a certain age: Condi Rice, for example, has childhood memories of a segregated south and racial violence. But that's what makes Obama's association with Wright so significant. He's not from Alabama. He's a biracial middle-class Kenyan-Kansan Hawaiian-born Indonesian-raised Columbia and Harvard graduate who chose to immerse himself in the most corrosive and paranoid end of a racial-grievance ghetto mentality that is nothing to do with him, his family or his upbringing. He doesn't have the same excuse as a Jackson, Sharpton or Farrakhan.

Why would he do such a thing? I wouldn't expose my kids to the four-letter ravings of Jeremiah Wright because I wouldn't want them to grow up loathing their country. I find it hard not to think less of a man who does.

Me too.

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry
**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. Lion love..it's the real thing!

2. Sheesh! Everybody seems to think they're a shrink these days....

3. Eliot Spitzer explained. Are you a spitzer?

4. Ho No! Whore-ible ordeal! But even the john got a movie deal out of it!

5. You go girl! It's not often you get a case where there's someone in the room with a higher hourly rate than the lawyers. Hotties with assets clearly don't need get rich schemes. Her mother is very very proud. But she's still expected to resign.

6. Of course, it's all Bush's fault--who else?

7. Iran's client #9. BWAHAHA...There's a 'sinister connection' indeed, but not quite what Al-Ahram had in mind. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Hugo is shocked, SHOCKED that terrorists are in his country!

8. Did most of the media even read the report? Why bother? The return of the “Yeah, But” narrative in war reportage. Terroristss have poor sanitary habits? Who knew? Their dietary inclinations aren't too good either. Not to mention their family relations.

9. There was a cease-fire? When did the Paleos cease firing?

10. The "pitch". Well, isn't this cozy? Obey, or else?

11. 'Please Let an Old Black Man Have His Anger in the Privacy of His Church'--at least he isn't a Branch Dividian! You might have guessed this was coming

12. A really bad investment, even for a Democrat. In steps the Democrat's 'crack suicide squad'... The MSM to the rescue! Oh dear, they're shooting each other, how sad.

13. Suggestions for the Florida write-in ballot!

14. In praise of meaty women. The fashion burka is an oxymoron.

15. Nobel Laureate emerges from cocoon to see this ! Now the environmentalists are coming after porkbusters!

16. Actually, no information is private anymore. We are all French now. Attention, pedophiles--this is for you. And this is for all those porn-deprived monks out there.

17. When you have a university whose first response to unwanted speech is to try to ban it and punish students who take part, it's a bigger problem. At least one intellectual has a miracle recovery.

18. Only suspended? What's the world coming to?

19. Sing along with me: Oh Denny Boy...

20. Popeye Doyle or Olive Doyle?

21. He comes to bury homeschooling, not to praise it....

22. Still recovering from the latest leap forward?

23. Book spamming for the Lord.

24. If you die, he'll kill you.

***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

Heard the Word of Blog?

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Where are your priorities? It's SPRING! The sun is out--even in Michigan!!!--the snow is melting and the long winter is drawing to a close....and here you are reading blogs! You get points for reading Dr. Sanity, of course, but really.

Go outside. Enjoy.

Consider this an open thread. I'm rather sick of politics and intend to ignore the insanity today.

Because I do have a pathological compulsion to blog, I may get bored with the lovely weather we are finally having, and I may come back later...but I wouldn't count on it till tomorrow!

Meanwhile, Eric Allie is on a roll!

BETRAYED ?

Following up on the last post, here is a quote from Victor Davis Hanson just a short while ago:

Sen. Obama promised to transcend race; millions of sincere people of both parties took him at his word and invested psychologically and materially in his candidacy. Part of his message was that collectively America had made great progress, and their Ivy League and subsequent careers, in addition to his rhetoric of inclusiveness and tolerance, bore witness to that progress in racial equality. Now we learn, that for much of his career, he was not only attending hate-filled sermons against “rich white people” and the “g-d d——d America” (in hopes of solidifying his racial fides in regional Chicago politics?), but subsidized that ministry of intolerance. So while he promised an evolution beyond the race-identity politics of Jesse Jackson or the Rev. Sharpton, his own minister trumped anything that either one of those preachers might have sermonized. All in all—a betrayal.

Read it all. I'm sure there are a large number of people of goodwill who support Barack Obama because the persona he projects is so positive and, as Hanson says, he promised to transcend the usual racial divides that plague this country. In fact, he seemed almost too good to be true, considering the the reality of today's politics.

Well, guess what? He is too good to be true. Check out his earmarks. As I suggested in the previous post, check out his religious mentor, his political associates, and business partners.

This is not change, people. This is the same old same old politics that everyone else plays, but with the new twist of the Democrat's own special brand of identity politics. He's ahead of Hillary because race trumps gender in the victimhood food chain.

So the true believers now have to come to grips with the reality that their great black hope is just another guy who plays the political game rather well and is a real smooth talker able to seduce the masses.

Gee, now why should that sound familiar to the Democrats?

POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS, AND RACIAL PARANOIA

Victor Davis Hanson on the Democrats and race:

I recently listened to, and read from, various disgusting excerpts of Rev. (“God damn America!”) Wright, the Obama pastor and his Ward Churchill-like “chickens coming home to roost” rhetoric.

The problem is that he is not simply a well-meaning black pastor, sounding themes of African-American self-improvement. His loopy references about the past, and the many sins of a white racist America, coupled with his promiscuous use of slurs about other races and religions, (and his own country), put him clearly in the camp of extremists. In other words, he is a nut, and the more Obama’s tries to pooh-pooh that, the worse it gets. Most who could sit through those diatribes and venom each week might find it difficult to have a balanced view of so-called “white” people or the country at large.

That Rev. Wright is a racist of the worst kind is indisputable--all you have to do is watch him to understand the hatred he preaches. This is the kind of hatred that Barack Obama has listened to and admired for more than 20 years-- and given his money to support; it represents the audacity of hate and a high dose of racial paranoia, rather than the audacity of hope or change.

So it is interesting to wonder how so many people have come to imagine that Barack Hussein Obama could possibly heal America's racist past? That he represents some sort of redemption?

Don't you think it's interesting that for all of Barack's saintly attempts to "keep race out of the race" that the Democratic primary has been the scene of the most disgusting race-baiting and racist/sexist name-calling in memory? I don't believe this is only Hillary and Bill's fault....just listen to Obama's mentor for a moment or two and think about it.

The Democrats (who were largely responsible for America's racist past) are in pure denial and wishful thinking mode (are they ever in any other?) if they believe that either Obama or Hillary represent any sort of healing, since both campaigns are based on the identity politics the Democrats have championed over the last two decades.

In a recent post, I said:

I am repeatedly astonished at how the left in this country jumps to their pre-ordained conclusions about things. Everything that happens is instantly transformed into a "fact" that supports their fantasy. We see this in people with paranoid delusions. They take reality and then creatively rearrange it to fit the pattern they have already set up inside their heads. That's why most people with paranoia and with a modicum of intelligence develop complicated conspiracy theories over time.

Basically, their delusional system becomes the only thing they can see, and hence they are completely unable to visualize the "Big Picture". The "Big Picture" is just a shorthand way of describing reality over time.

The Rev. Wright appears to believe in a vast number of conspiracy theories, including the idea that AIDS was developed to use against the Black community; that the government is feeding Blacks drugs; that they are behind 9/11 etc. etc.

And you thought that such nonsense was so paranoid and psychotic that it could only exist on the margins. Well, the Democratic Party is about to take it mainstream.

Remember, Obama has been listening to and supporting this crap for more than 20 years. His "repudiations" of Rev. Wright are lukewarm and affectionate. You've got to ask yourself how any reasonable person could stay in such an environment for two decades without absorbing some of the insanity being preached there.

But this is the same sort of insanity that infused the left wing of the Democratic party. It is the same sort of insanity that is promulgated in many of our academic institutions--and you have to spend time on university campuses to appreciate the baseline level of intense political and racial paranoia that exists in this particular bastion of "diversity". The university campus is where you can promote diversity as much as you want--as long as you aren't inclusive of white, heterosexual, male, Republicans.

Like Type O blood,--the universal donor among bloodtypes--the WHMR is the universal oppressor in the postmodern rhetoric of the left. There is nothing that can't be twisted, distorted or spun in such a way in order to ensure that this particular group gets the blame for everything bad that happens in the world.

This kind of paranoi and conspiracy are of the "politically correct" sort--and therefore academically and religiously sanctioned. No matter the color of the skin of the person who does it, it remains racial stereotyping and scapegoating. But it is affirmative scapegoating, I guess.

Along these lines, remember this surreal exchange from a recent House Committee hearing:

Two congressmen yesterday said the Department of Homeland Security needs more diversity to do its job effectively, and scolded Secretary Michael Chertoff for not bringing any black or female staffers to his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee — even though two staffers were immigrants and a third was Hispanic.

In what appeared to be a sort of diversity sting operation, Rep. Robert C. Scott, Virginia Democrat, led off his questions to Mr. Chertoff by demanding that the secretary's staff stand up to be scrutinized. Minutes later, during his own questions, Rep. Melvin Watt, North Carolina Democrat, said the point was to prove that none of the 10 staffers who stood met his definition of diverse.

"You brought 10 staff people with you, all white males. I know this hearing is not about diversity of the staff, but I hope you've got more diversity in your staff than you've reflected here in the people you've brought with you," Mr. Watt told the secretary.

The hearing was called to examine the administration's record on border security and immigration, but Mr. Watt said diversity mattered for law enforcement. Both Mr. Watt and Mr. Scott are black.

Mr. Chertoff responded that Mr. Watt shouldn't judge his staff based purely on appearance.

Well, yes. That's exactly what the identity politics of the Democrats says you should do.

And an article from the Washington Post:

President Bush's crop of political appointees includes fewer women and minorities than did President Bill Clinton's at comparable points in their presidencies, according to a new report by House Democrats.

Women made up about 37 percent of the 2,786 political appointees in the Bush administration in 2005, compared with about 47 percent in the Clinton administration in 1997, according to the report and supplemental data released last week by the Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee. Similarly, about 13 percent of Bush administration appointees last year were racial minorities, compared with 24 percent in the fifth year of Clinton's presidency, the report found.

This kind of casual racism that is so much a part of the whole identity politics/equality of outcome schtick is absolutely disgusting. Once, people marched for equal rights and opportunity. Now they demand equal results and the sanctity of victimhood.

How have we come to live in a society that once idealistically sought to permanently END the pervasive and evil racism that had made Blacks second-class citizens since the beginning of our republic; and which now has come to CELEBRATE a new and even more sinister racism as some sort of political good?

Can you think of a single person from a "non-White" background in the Bush Administration that has not been acused of being a "traitor" to their respective racial or ethnic groups--simply because they are Republicans? Instead of being role-models for others to emulate; any "person of color" who happens to be conservative is regularly excoriated by the mullahs of multiculturalism and the degenerates of diversity as "white". So, it isn't even enough for them that you be a person of color--you also must toe the ideological line, or you don't count.

This cycle of neverending racial stereotyping and politically-sanctioned racism is a fundamental political strategy of today's left, which uses the racism of identity politics to forward on their collectivist agenda. It reaches a pinnacle of absurdity in the rantings of Rev. Wright.

Paranoia and conspiracy theories help keep the clueless minions under control and constantly feeling victimized and oppressed--even as those minions now feel free to victimize and oppress others. No theory is ever too outrageous if it badmouths that "universal oppressor."

Racism itself is a form of psychological projection. It results when a person does not take responsibility for their own unacceptable or angry feelings and projects them onto an identified group; so that one can feel virtuous or morally superior to members of that group. And psychological projection is as the heart of paranoia.

The Democrats have been using racial stereotypes for years as a bludgeon against the Repulicans. Most people have forgotten that they are the party that historically was associated with black oppression and their vocal "championship" of blacks and other minorities--even as they support programs and policies that clearly have the consequence of keeping those minorities in a dependent and underdog state-- has always had an "Eliot Spitzer" type of overcompensation and moral hypocrisy associated with it.

Welcome to the age of political, religious, and racial paranoia--brought to you by the Democrats.

UPDATE: Mona Charen this morning at The Corner:

Obama's True Beliefs

Derb: I am coming to believe that Barack Obama is one of the greatest con artists we've seen. His entire campaign has been about "coming together," a post-racial consensus, etc. Any mention of his middle name was immediately condemned as ignorant fear-mongering. He has played the role of racial unifier with great skill and finesse.

But there is a great deal of evidence out there that he is anything but. The Reverend Wright is exhibit A. Mrs. Obama is Exhibit B. But there's lots more. Here is a piece by John Batchelor about some of Obama's other connections. For example:

William Ayers is the second Chicago figure to consider in the political profile of Mr. Obama. William C. Ayers, known as Bill Ayers, is notorious as a terrorist bomber from the 1970s who, on September 11, 2001, in the New York Times was quoted as finding "a certain eloquence in bombs." Now, at 62, Mr. Ayers, a former aide to the current Mayor Richard M. Daley, is an established professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Importantly, Mr. Ayers and his wife, the equally notorious Weatherman terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, hosted a crucial meet-the-candidate event in their Hyde Park neighborhood home in 1995 when Mr. Obama, also a Hyde Park resident, was sounded out by vital citizens, among them the retiring state senator Alice Palmer for the 13th District.

Obama's book is strewn with hints of his far left sympathies, as when he tells an African cousin who complains about the hardships of life in Kenya that things are no better in America. Or when he suggests that the lives of poor black young men in the inner city are blighted by white racism. He never says it explicitly, but it's there.

He has been very friendly with Rashid Khaladi, the fierce anti-Israel professor who took Edward Said's post at Columbia.

My own theory, FWIW, is that Obama acquired his far left views at least in part to make himself as authentically black as he could to compensate for having a white mother. His mother, of course, was very left herself. But looking the way he does, and having been raised among only white people (mother and maternal grandparents) he felt the need to better identify with his black heritage. That struggle is what the book is all about.

One can have sympathy for his psychological predicament . But that sympathy certainly does not extend to electing him president of a country that I sincerely believe he does not love.

" NO, WE CAN'T ! "

Bad news for the Democrats, good news for Americans.

Abe Greenwald notes:

The Democrats hitched their presidential hopes to a sense of national defeat that wasn’t sustained by circumstances. If there’s one thing every military expert will tell you, it’s that war is fluid. Defeatism does not allow for this fluidity. Once you declare a war lost, you’ve closed the door on the possibilities that arise with the changing nature of the fight and any potential innovations to capitalize on them. In this sense, defeatism is a practical handicap, whereas striving for victory necessarily depends upon the ability to adapt to a shifting landscape.

Cartoons by Eric Allie

THE PARTY OF NOTHING

This may be the first and only time I agree with Paul Krugman:

I’m sorry to say that a large part of the progressive movement seems to have lost its sanity.

He's just noticed this, it seems.

Meanwhile, Wretchard makes a case for the idea that progressive politics has come to resemble extremist politics:

The principle followed by kidnappers in Baghdad who sent five severed fingers belonging to "four Americans and an Austrian taken hostage more than a year ago in Iraq" was that if you want to be taken seriously you have to demonstrate how far you are willing to go in order to get what you want. And although neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton have sent anyone actual severed fingers yet, both have amply shown their astonished supporters that they are willing to ignite race war, tear the Party apart or engage in political cannibalism to serve their own individual ambitions. What's really awesome about Hillary and Barack is not their resumes but the lengths to which they are willing to go....

Plausible deniability. Severed political fingers. These tactics are not a demented application of rational rules but the rational application of the demented rules of left-wing politics. The problem with the axiom "by any means necessary" is that it means "by any means necessary". Neither Hillary nor Barack have lost their sanity. But the rules themselves have been taken to their own inevitable conclusions.

It will be amusing to watch how much lower the Democratic Party of the United States can sink in its quest to regain power.

What next, Democrats? An Obama photo-op with Zarqawi? Honorary membership in your party offered by Pelosi to Bin Laden or Ahmadinejad? How about a friendly dinner hosted by both Hillary and Barack to celebrate the positive uses of exploiting racism and sexism for personal gain in American politics ?

Let me cut to the chase. I've said it before, but never has it been so obvious. The Democratic Party has lost whatever anchor it once had in the real world and is blowin' in the wind. It has become the party of nothing; led by vapid nothings, who stand for nothing.

If their insane behavior weren't so predictable based on inevitable outcomes of the 'principles' they pretend to espouse, it would be quite painful to watch.

As it is, I find myself making popcorn and settling down into my comfy chair with some anticipation.

DEMOCRAT FAMILY SECRETS

Cliff May asks an intriguing question which has also crossed my own mind as I watch the 24/7 Spitzer coverage:

I have assiduously avoided commenting on the Spitzer Scandal, even telling one TV booker that my only strongly held opinion is that the governor should not have to resign – he should have the option of being waterboarded instead as his punishment.

But it occurs that there is a dog not barking here: Why have the media been so reluctant to compare Spitzer’s transgressions to those of Bill Clinton? Is it not clear which are the more egregious?

Spitzer paid high-dollar call girls in exchange for sexual favors. Leaving aside the question of how a low-paid public servant affords that, what Spitzer did is surely immoral, illegal, hypocritical, and embarrassing.

By contrast, Clinton exploited the power disparity between the American president and a young intern in his office. Earlier in his career, Clinton allegedly used state law enforcement officers to procure women for him. He allegedly sexually harassed Paula Jones. Juanita Broaddrick alleges that he raped her.

May goes on to suggest a few things that Clinton might recommend to Spitzer, but I am more interested in the answer to his question, because I think it is very revealing.

I suspect it has to do with the whole idea of "family secrets"; i.e., if you don't mention a thing--particularly a bad thing--then it doesn't exist anymore and you can pretend it never happened. This is the dynamic in many families where incest or abuse have occurred. Everyone knows on some level that these things occurred, but you pretend that everything is fine. Usually in such situations, there is an seemingly inexplicable animus displayed for the innocent victim of the sexual or violent abuse, since that person is the one who can "blow the lid open" on the collective fantasy.

The Democrats have their little family secret when it comes to Bill and his multiple sexual transgressions over the years. They have always dealt with it by attacking and destroying the reputations of his victims while defending the essential goodness of their man. That this behavior is perversely contrary to their professed committments to women's rights and 'social justice' has always been a source of amazement to me. The fact that they don't see how self-serving--not to mention morally and intellectually bankrupt--their behavior in the Lewinsky matter was, is clearly of clinical significance.

God knows that Hillary has her faults, but I suspect that one of the reasons the Party has turned so viciously against her presidential ambitions is that they don't want to have to deal anymore with the reality of her unfaithful spouse. They also don't want to have to admit that there was anything wrong with Bill's behavior, or even dredge up that inappropriate behavior in any way, shape, or form ever again.

If it is dredged up, then it might even result in some unwanted scrutiny of both the Democratic Party and its ideological contradictions by the electorate. It might result in some truly unpleasant moment of insight and self-awareness. Better to blame the usual suspects. Then the "family" can go on as if nothing of importance happened.

This is the reason that many on the left have come to the defense of the sleazy behavior of the New York Governor; or have remained mysteriously silent hoping he will simply resign and make it all go away. Better not to talk about these things too openly or else the family secret (which is never really a secret anyway) becomes a focus of attention once again.

Better to suggest that it is a frame-up; a Republican plot against the poor defenseless Democrats, etc and so forth. In other words, party/family business as usual.

UPDATE: ShrinkWrapped has further analysis.

BRAIN-DEAD NO MORE !

I have a very busy day today, but I want to make sure that you read this article by David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer A 'Brain-Dead Liberal'.

THE 'LITTLE GUY'

Yes, he's spent 6+ years and >$80,000 on the 'little guy'. Nice.


Cartoons by Eric Allie

A EULOGY FOR LINCOLN

Siggy posts excerpts from the moving eulogy of Abraham Lincoln given by Rabbi Isaac M Wise, delivered in Cincinnati Ohio, on April 19, 1865.

Here is just one paragraph:

The photographer or lithographer, the painter or sculptor, can not eternize a man; he can not give you more of him than a faint delineation of the outside, shape and features, the most unimportant portion, the mere case of a person. Monuments, however lofty and extensive, crowded with inscriptions and symbols, tell very little, after all, of the man himself, to whose honor they may be erected. The passions, feelings, struggles, victories, motives and thoughts of a great mind, and each of them is a real fraction of his existence, are so innumerably manifold and change so often, that no artist can represent a considerable portion of them. This is the case especially with the deceased, Abraham Lincoln. The best representation of his figure will not tell posterity who he was. His outside appearance bore no resemblance even to his real nature. The most skillful philosopher will fail in describing the man who stood at the head of affairs during this gigantic struggle, his cares and troubles, his sleepless nights and days of anxiety, his thoughts and his schemes, his triumphs and mortifications, his hopes and fears, and ten thousand more sentiments, feelings and thoughts, which moved his mind in the stormy period of his Presidential term.

Go and read it all.

Siggy asks, "Would the candidates for the highest office in the land today be worthy of these words?" Alas, no. Most modern politicians aspiring to the highest office in the land are mere moral pygmies compared to Lincoln, who--though he was vilified by many in his own time--was arguably among the greatest, if not the greatest, of all American Presidents.

ZOMBIES OF THE MSM

In "George Orwell, Call Your Office", Cliff May asks a pertinent question:

A bill to restore to American intelligence agencies the authority they formerly had to monitor, unfettered, the communications of foreign terrorists passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support. Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee said that every day that our spy shops don’t have this authority our intelligence is being “degraded.”

National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell, a former vice admiral of the Navy, an intelligence officer for 25 years, and head of the National Security Agency under President Clinton, said that without this authorization, vital intelligence is being “lost.”

A letter sent by 25 state Attorneys General of both parties says that America’s security is being “jeopardized” by the refusal of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow her members to vote on the bill – which, it is believed, would pass with bipartisan support in the House as well. The moderate Blue Dog Democrats are pushing Pelosi to permit the vote.

And in an interview with National Journal, an intelligence adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign broke with his candidate’s position opposing this bill – which also contains a provision granting legal protection to telecommunications companies being sued for cooperating with the U.S. intelligence officials to detect and prevent acts of terrorism.

"I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity," former CIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in the interview. "They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context." Last month, Senator Obama voted to strip language in an intelligence bill that would have granted to Verizon, AT&T and other companies the immunity.

Regarding the telecoms, Senator Rockefeller has said: "What is the big payoff for the telephone companies? They get paid a lot of money? No. They get paid nothing. What do they get for this (for cooperating with intelligence officials to prevent terrorism)? They get $40 billion worth of suits, grief, trashing, but they do it."

I have publicly praised those Democrats — e.g. Rep. Joe Donnelly of Indiana — who have taken a principled stand on this issue and, by doing so, incurred the wrath of Speaker Pelosi, the trial lawyers who stand to make billions of dollars, MoveOn.org, the ACLU and CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations, a pro-Islamist group which has organized a campaign against the Senate bill).

Yet for some reason, in all the mainstream media coverage of this issue, those who support the bill are portrayed as “partisans,” and those who oppose it are called “civil rights advocates” or something equally flattering. Why is that? Discuss among yourselves.

There’s much more on this issue – the substance and principles, not the politics — here.[emphasis mine]

This is relevant to the post just previous to this one. From a psychological perspective, the behavior of the MSM in this as in so many other matters appears to be motivated by underlying ideological principles of which they are largely unaware; and almost none have thought through the consequences of promoting those principles.

Beneath the conscious, deliberate bias and blatant manipulation of news for 'the good' of us all, is an uncritical, unthinking cognitive apparatus that has been virtually destroyed by years of academic propaganda-- to the point that many of these journalists simply regurgitate the marxist talking points in which they have been marinating for several decades--without even recognizing them as such.

Instead, they believe that their behavior is truly motivated by a desire for 'social justice' and 'peace'.

Many of these walking, talking advertisements for 21st century neo-marxist fascism--who laughingly call themselves "objective journalists"-- are nothing but the mindless zombies of a not-quite-dead marxism/communism/socialism that rose from its 20th century grave. What gave new life to these moldering and rotting ideas that certainly deserved to die after the mass death and destruction they caused, was the energizing power of postmodern rhetoric, cultivated in the hallowed halls of academia, and inoculated into the unsuspectng children who came there to learn.

Instead of learning to think, they were indoctrinated into the ever-growing ranks of leftist zombiest churned out by those institutions.

The zombies of the MSM walk among us without hinderance; wreaking havoc and mindlessly mouthing the multicultural platitudes and encouraging the 'class struggle' and promoting marxist envy--in other words, generally behaving like this undead ideology is some sort of beacon of "hope" or "change" for today's world.

These zombies prey on the soul and eat the life force of free societies like ours; and, like the utterly clueless Sean of the Dead, we go through our days oblivious to the havoc, barely noticing that something is very wrong.

Eventually, even the hapless Sean's perceptual and cognitive abilities kicked into gear and were able to override the overly emotional self-involvement to make him aware of the danger.

Godzilla and the many monsters in Japanese and American cinema were symbolic of the dangerous and frightening forces unleashed after WWII. In our own time, it is the ubiquitous fascination with zombies that symbolizes the forces that threaten to engulf our society and the world.

What better image than a zombie is there to represent the horrifying mindlessness of the herd mentality that the political left have re-dedicated themselves to in the new century?

UPDATE: Charles Johnson asks, "What the hell is wrong with our mainstream wire sources?"

Also, GatewayPundit wonders about this story.

The answer? Zombies. See above.

UPDATE II: Disaster preparedness--even for zombie invasions! (hat tip: Instapundit)

A PATHETIC 'TRIUMPH' FOR THE LOSERS, PSYCHOPATHS AND BARBARIANS OF ISLAM

At American Thinker, Gary Wolf deconstructs the pervasive anti-Israeli bias of the media (hat tip: Larwyn):

The bias of the mainstream media against Israel never ceases to amaze me. It must rank as one of the most curious sociopolitical phenomena of our era. The further the Palestinian Arabs move toward a barbaric Islamic theocracy, the deeper the support for them among the cadre of "progressive" journalists.

An example of the entrenched bias is last Thursday's (March 6) article from the Associated Press, "7 die in shooting at Jerusalem seminary."

Let us first examine the headline: "7 die." Seven what-people? Jews? Martians? And they are not killed, they simply "die," in the passive sense, as if from a stroke. The main reason why this is so insidious is that such language is never used when the enemies of Israel are the ones who die. One of the calling cards of Leftist journalism is that when Arabs die, you know how they died, who killed them, and whether they had any special characteristics worthy of pity. If the sides were reversed, the headline would read, "Israeli extremist massacres 7 youths learning Koran at Gaza holy place."

Wolf goes on to deconstruct the entire article with all its implicit and explicit bias; and then demonstrates how an article about 9/11 would sound, using the same sort of media template that is used to protect terrorists today.

Over at Israellycool the human face of this massacre and the media's horrific anti-Israel bias is further exposed. Here is how the AFP frames the face of the mass murderer, his picture lovingly held by a sweet little girl:


___________________________________________________
A relative holds up a picture of Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim, a Palestinian suspected of gunning down eight students at a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem. Israel went on alert as crowds mourned eight teens killed by a Palestinian at a Jewish religious school in an attack claimed by Hamas that shook faltering peace talks. (AFP/Ahmad Gharabli)
___________________________________________________


Only the Israeli papers bothered to show the faces of the innocents who were butchered by the "suspected" murderer in the attack, and I urge you to go over to Israellycool to see their faces and find out something about them. They are: Yonatan Yitzhak Eldar, 16; Segev Peniel Avihail, 15; Yochai Lipschitz, 18; Roey Roth, 18; Avraham David Moses, 16; Neria Cohen, 15; and Yehonadav Haim Hirshfeld, 19.

As Wolf noted in the American Thinker article:

One of the calling cards of Leftist journalism is that when Arabs die, you know how they died, who killed them, and whether they had any special characteristics worthy of pity. If the sides were reversed, the headline would read, "Israeli extremist massacres 7 youths learning Koran at Gaza holy place."

Needless to say, the MSM articles I read did not state the ages of those who were murdered, simply referring to them vaguely as "people". [Wouldn't want to inflame the passions of the readers in the wrong way, would we?]

ShrinkWrapped sums up the pitiful Palestinians (and their enablers in the media, as well ) when he commented on Friday:

In Pity the Poor Anti-Semite I pointed out the core conflict within the Arab anti-Semite:

Here is the crucial point for those who imagine that a tiny group of people, barely 60 years out of an almost successful genocide, left with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, comprising approximately .05% of the world's population, who came to the desert in Palestine and built a modern technological nation, would have the time and interest to simultaneously devote themselves to oppressing the Muslim world, with almost 100 times their population and oceans of oil:

The anti-Semite necessarily defines himself as monumentally inferior to the Jew.

This resides in the core of the anti-Semite and renders him permanently damaged and weakened. Only the aid of a being much greater than themselves, Allah, can save them from disaster. Short of such divine intervention, they are doomed to remain defeated. The Muslim nations of the world do not see it as within their abilities to compete in a world of high technology, higher education, competitive open economies; no, they look to nuclear weapons, only available to them by virtue of their Allah given oil money rather than by the sweat of their own brows, to bring them relief from the often imagined depredations of the now conflated Jewish/American demi-Gods.

It is this inferiority that leaves the Arab celebrating as a great triumph the murder of unarmed Jewish students, many of them teenagers, as they study their Torah. What a pathetic triumph!

If Hamas and Hezbollah consider this some sort of "triumph", then it indeed a pathetic one, of a kind that only losers, psychopaths and barbarians can be proud.

UPDATE: Oh, and the "moderates" in the so-called Middle East peace process have now honored the mass murdering terrorist:

Mahmoud Abbas's official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper has honored the killer of the eight high school students gunned down this week with the status of Shahid - Holy Islamic Martyr. In so doing, the PA is sending its people a straightforward message of support for the terror murders and the murderer. According to the PA interpretation of Islam, there is no higher status that a human being can achieve today than that of Shahid.

In this sick religion, there is no higher status than that of Shahid; and no more subservient one than that of dhimmi. Mass murdering religious degenerates and mass media useful idiots---a match made in Allah's paradise.

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry
**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. Degenerate mass murderers of children somehow think calling us capitalists is some sort of insult. I wonder who they take their cue from ?

2. It's fun to blame the Jews--it's that same old double standard.

3. The mullahs of love. Oh, you meant those engineers.

4. It's war, comrades! Nevermind. He doesn't help the poor either. Don't you love it when a plan finally comes together?

5. The video that fulfills Obama's promises. Pick a new, middle name for him! Join the Rezkorama--or is that off-limits in discussing The Messiah too? The audacity of losers?

6. Depends on what your definition of "mainstream" is, doesn't it? Just another job Americans won't do.... and some advice from John Kerry about looking like a dork...

7. Do what this person suggests...or join the Democratic Party and learn to feint--or be inscrutable! It's not just well-aged beef...it's rotten.

8. Somebody should answer that damn phone--and we know who!

9. Power failure? Whoops! Clearly, an apology was not enough.

10. A whole latte talent and a whole latte more.

11. Sheesh! Just tell him goodbye. The essential difference between male and female!

12. The roar of the gyno-saur (sour?) This is your brain on Hillary! Sexual predator? The essential difference between a Clinton and someone who has nothing to hide.

13. We're just so00 mean. Clearly we are the suckers we've been waiting for! Diversity is job one! Hill and Barack of the Casbah (is it too un-PC to say that?).

14. An escalating war...but the military become more and more PC. Waiting around for respect from people who don’t respect themselves is a fool’s errand. Even judges get into the dissing act.

15. Hey! It's only a game! Compare the doodles and you'll see how much Hollywood has deteriorated! California ticky tacky.

16. The colon who came in from the cold.

17. Every kid wants one of these. It's a toy with a twist! I mean, what contemporary kid wouldn’t want this fine, fun-filled example of a failing bureaucracy in an ever-growing fascist state?

18. Daylight Savings Time: A really really bad idea.

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Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

Heard the Word of Blog?

A BEACON OF REASON AND SANITY

My admiration for Dr. Wafa Sultan continually grows as she courageously--despite death threats, is willing to shine a psychological spotlight on the many insanities of Islam.

Cox and Forkum penned a tribute to her a while back:


The cartoon seems particularly insightful after reading this transcript from MEMRI (the video clip is here, and is even more fascinating to watch her do battle with the puppets of Islam). Here are a few excerpts, but you must read it all:

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: "All religions and faiths, throughout the history of humanity, have been subject to criticism and affronts. With time, this has helped in their reform and development. Any belief that chops off the heads of its critics is doomed to turn into terrorism and tyranny. This has been the condition of Islam, from its inception to this day. Islam has sentenced [its critics] to prison, and whoever crosses the threshold of that prison meets his death. The Danish cartoons have managed to break down the first brick in the wall of that prison, and to open up a window, through which the sunrays enter, after a lengthy darkness.

[...]
Wafa Sultan: "Why are they upset about what is going on in Gaza, while the Koran says to them: 'They shall kill and be killed.' So here they are - killing and being killed. What's wrong with that?"

Tal'at Rmeih: "Leave the Koran out of it. If you want to talk politics, go ahead."

Moderator: "I beg you to stick to politics. He talked only about politics."

Wafa Sultan: "Dr. Faysal, you know that you cannot separate Islam from politics. Islam is not a religion, but politics. You must let me express my views the way I want. When you called me, you didn't say I was not allowed to discuss Islam or the Koran. Islam says to them that they will 'kill or be killed', and here they are-killing and being killed. So what's wrong with that? They want to be martyred and to meet their black-eyed virgins, and Israel is merely helping them get what they want. What's wrong with that?

"If you want to change the course of events, you must reexamine your terrorist teachings, you must recognize and respect the right of the other to live, you must teach your children love, peace, coexistence, and productive work. When you do that, the world will respect you, will consider you in a better light, and will draw you in a better light."
[...]
Wafa Sultan: "How can someone who believes in killing people who do not pray possibly criticize liberties in the West? This is a farce. What past is he defending? Is he defending the invasions and lootings?"

Tal'at Rmeih: "I am defending the past of the Islamic nation, which was the beacon of knowledge for the entire world…"

Wafa Sultan: "…polygamy, beheadings, chopping of heads and feet on alternate sides, accusing people of heresy, and drinking camel urine, as a cure for all ailments - is this the past he is defending?"

Tal'at Rmeih: "No, I am defending a magnificent past of a magnificent nation, which was the cradle of knowledge and civilization, at a time when the most that people in the West could do was to catch a rabbit and scurry back to their caves. This nation has made the greatest contribution to civilization and humanity. Our religion is not complete without recognition of other religions. We are the ones who have called for tolerance and respect for religions."

Yes, we in the West are constantly being reminded of the incredible ''tolerance and respect for religions that the followers of Islam demonstrate. Just the other day, I believe, we were witness to the the horror and death a shining example of that 'tolerance' and the kind of 'respect' for life that Islam teaches.

Clearly--at least according to the 'expert' on Islam who debates Dr. Sultan--Islam is a powerful force for civilization while those who support such atrocities as freedom and the sanctity of individual human life are leading the world back to barbarism and ignorance. LOLOL

Dr. Sultan is a beacon of reason and sanity shining in the mental darkness and moral depravity perpetuated by the leaders of today's Islam.

BATTLE HYMN OF THE OBAMA

Amid discussion about whether BHO is the Messiah or not, here's a little hymn for Barack Obama supporters....

Their eyes have seen the glory of the coming of Barack;
He'll be trouncing on both Hill and Bill till they ain't bouncin' back;
He hath loosed his fearful rhetoric of hope for Joe Six-pack;
His truthiness marches on!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truthiness marches on.

They have watched Him in the reruns of a hundred lame debates
When He smiles they swoon and when he blows his nose how He relates!
You can sense his substance clearly in the mood that He creates;
His words go on and on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His words go on and on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall always call retreat;
He is fearless in his certainty we must embrace defeat;
Oh, be swift, thou moonbat infidels to kiss his holy feet;
Your God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Your God is marching on.

Like the king of kings Barack Hussein was born across the sea,
With a chance to win the White House and restore democracy;
He'll get rid of Bush and Clinton and we'll finally be free!
When He's elected Prez.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! When He's elected Prez.

Now don't ask them what He's ever done to get to where He's at;
They don't worry 'bout that Rezko stuff-- He is so much more than that;
As for ringing phones at 3 AM, He always likes to chat!
He'll bring us hope and change!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! He'll bring us hope and change!

UPDATE: A cartoon by Eric Allie says it all:

LET'S HOPE FOR THE BEST !

Muqtada Al-Sadr Comatose In Iranian Hospital

Why do I really have doubts that it was food poisoning? Personally, I'm hoping the Mossad had something to do with cooking the food and used a secret sauce that only effect lunatic shiite clerics who preach hate and death.

Some justice in that, don't you think?