"Truth never damages a cause that is just.”
May 23, 2012
He said, "I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity…We’re getting to a ridiculous point in America…I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses.
Before you could say "Bob’s your uncle,” however, Booker issued a YouTube video changing his position, calling Romney’s association with Bain Capital fair political game.
There’s no way you can cross Obama.
Like Joe Biden before him, Booker committed what the media is calling a major Washington gaffe, being "accidentally honest,” and both Joe and Cory lost no time beating a hasty retreat to express their mea culpas to the leader of their pack.
Booker will never know how much he lost in that split second.
What is "disgusting” is with all the news coverage, and there was plenty, no one saw anything wrong with an American citizen being pressured by the president of this country for voicing an opinion that was different from the party line. And this was the second time in as many weeks.
And we all know what happened. The call came from Chicago or Washington.
Booker had to be reigned in. If allowed to "go rogue,” Booker might become another statesmen cast in the mold of Gov. Chris Christie or Rep. Allen West or Rep. Peter King, men who have opinions, are unafraid to stand by their beliefs and do not change their beliefs to ingratiate themselves to anyone.
Even as Booker ran to Rachel Maddow to continue damage control, frustrated that "I’m being used by the GOP this way,” it didn’t matter. Booker got it right the first time when he had an opinion. Folks just want someone in government who has a backbone. And we’re tired of good ol’ boy politics no matter what side of the aisle is pulling the strings.
But now as all eyes are trained on Mayor Booker, I think they should be redirected toward the president, because something very important is at stake – freedom of speech.
It may be true Obama attacks businesses, big and small, attacks those who hold opinions he doesn’t like, does all he can to prevent development of energy, creates uncertainty in the minds of private citizens and businessmen about healthcare costs thereby slowing job growth and is alarmingly uninformed about business and economics.
It may be true that his comeback line regarding Bain/Romney is one with which I disagree:
"When one is president, as opposed to the head of private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits, your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot.”
No it isn’t.
But however flawed his reasoning, he has the right to say it. Just as Joe Biden and Cory Booker and all of us have the right to express our opinions.
We all realize why the president doesn’t understand any of the nitty-gritty details of economics and businesses and things. Been there, done that.
He has breathed the rarified air of ivory tower academia for so long that he never learned the nuts and bolts of working with others, sharing your toys and priming the pump of economic health because of his cradle-to-presidency care.
His feet never hit the ground of anything remotely related to the real world.
But it did make me wonder. This reminded me of something. What is the political model in communist or socialist nations? I seem to remember it’s something just like this. In those countries based on Marxist-Leninist ideologies you cannot speak your mind and stay out of prison.
Isn’t that the reason political activist Chen Guangcheng was persecuted? Isn’t it why he left China?
The blind, self-taught lawyer campaigned against forced abortions under China’s one-child policy. For speaking out, he served four years in jail in 2006. He was placed under house arrest after his release in 2010. He escaped to America last week, but he didn’t retract his words.
If we carried Obama’s approach to state-enforced censorship to its illogical conclusion, we probably never would have won our freedom from Great Britain, because the "radical thinking” Thomas Paine would never have come to Philadelphia with the assistance of the "radical thinking” Benjamin Franklin.
Paine was an outspoken critic of Parliament and its policies. His pamphlet "Common Sense” made a convincing case for independence and stimulated support for the revolutionary war.
Obama wouldn’t have allowed that.
Carrying this still further, we never would have had eccentric, creative visionaries such as Henry Ford because Ford’s words and actions would have been too dangerous for Obama’s world.
Melvin D. Barger in a book on Henry Ford makes an interesting point about the coercive forces still prevalent today.
"More books have been written about auto pioneer Henry Ford than any other person in the car business. Though he had critics, the judgment of history is that he put the world on wheels with his famous Model T.
"Less well known is the fierce independent streak that led him to wage a lone and herioc battle for the right to run his own business. It was a struggle against the kind of people who think they should have the power to determine what’s best for the rest of us.”
In the past three-and-a-half years we have had plenty of time to learn what makes Obama tick and figure out what’s really going on.
So what's going on? Abuse of the Constitution? Nah, that’s old news.
Obama is peeved because he is jealous of the clever, funny and non-partisan video filmed with Gov. Chris Christie and Mayor Cory Booker a few weeks ago. They looked like they were having fun and it was fun to watch. And they so obviously liked each other even though they were from opposing parties.
The film was everything Obama isn’t.
Booker and Christie were everything Obama can never be and were doing what Obama can never do – bringing people together and working with a member of another political party.
And make no mistake, Obama resented that.
So the president can pursue Bain Capital or anything he chooses as a campaign issue because it’s his Constitutional right. But the catch is he cannot tell his opponents what’s off or on the table for discussion. That's our Constitutional right.
We get the right to explore his citizenship issues if we so choose and his connections to a potpourri of radicals if we want to without his supporters calling us "Teabaggers,” or "Birthers.”
Because it’s our Constitutional right.
Hold the line, America.
- Mahatma Gandhi
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Cory Booker may have the courage to run into a burning building -- God bless him -- but not the fortitude to take on the Obama Chicago machine.
We’ve all heard about it by now. Appearing on Meet the Press, Booker blasted the political attacks on Mitt Romney by the Obama campaign and attacks on Rev. Jeremiah Wright from the right as "disgusting,” saying it had to stop.He said, "I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity…We’re getting to a ridiculous point in America…I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses.
Before you could say "Bob’s your uncle,” however, Booker issued a YouTube video changing his position, calling Romney’s association with Bain Capital fair political game.
There’s no way you can cross Obama.
Like Joe Biden before him, Booker committed what the media is calling a major Washington gaffe, being "accidentally honest,” and both Joe and Cory lost no time beating a hasty retreat to express their mea culpas to the leader of their pack.
Booker will never know how much he lost in that split second.
What is "disgusting” is with all the news coverage, and there was plenty, no one saw anything wrong with an American citizen being pressured by the president of this country for voicing an opinion that was different from the party line. And this was the second time in as many weeks.
And we all know what happened. The call came from Chicago or Washington.
Booker had to be reigned in. If allowed to "go rogue,” Booker might become another statesmen cast in the mold of Gov. Chris Christie or Rep. Allen West or Rep. Peter King, men who have opinions, are unafraid to stand by their beliefs and do not change their beliefs to ingratiate themselves to anyone.
Even as Booker ran to Rachel Maddow to continue damage control, frustrated that "I’m being used by the GOP this way,” it didn’t matter. Booker got it right the first time when he had an opinion. Folks just want someone in government who has a backbone. And we’re tired of good ol’ boy politics no matter what side of the aisle is pulling the strings.
But now as all eyes are trained on Mayor Booker, I think they should be redirected toward the president, because something very important is at stake – freedom of speech.
It may be true Obama attacks businesses, big and small, attacks those who hold opinions he doesn’t like, does all he can to prevent development of energy, creates uncertainty in the minds of private citizens and businessmen about healthcare costs thereby slowing job growth and is alarmingly uninformed about business and economics.
It may be true that his comeback line regarding Bain/Romney is one with which I disagree:
"When one is president, as opposed to the head of private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits, your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot.”
No it isn’t.
But however flawed his reasoning, he has the right to say it. Just as Joe Biden and Cory Booker and all of us have the right to express our opinions.
We all realize why the president doesn’t understand any of the nitty-gritty details of economics and businesses and things. Been there, done that.
He has breathed the rarified air of ivory tower academia for so long that he never learned the nuts and bolts of working with others, sharing your toys and priming the pump of economic health because of his cradle-to-presidency care.
His feet never hit the ground of anything remotely related to the real world.
But it did make me wonder. This reminded me of something. What is the political model in communist or socialist nations? I seem to remember it’s something just like this. In those countries based on Marxist-Leninist ideologies you cannot speak your mind and stay out of prison.
Isn’t that the reason political activist Chen Guangcheng was persecuted? Isn’t it why he left China?
The blind, self-taught lawyer campaigned against forced abortions under China’s one-child policy. For speaking out, he served four years in jail in 2006. He was placed under house arrest after his release in 2010. He escaped to America last week, but he didn’t retract his words.
If we carried Obama’s approach to state-enforced censorship to its illogical conclusion, we probably never would have won our freedom from Great Britain, because the "radical thinking” Thomas Paine would never have come to Philadelphia with the assistance of the "radical thinking” Benjamin Franklin.
Paine was an outspoken critic of Parliament and its policies. His pamphlet "Common Sense” made a convincing case for independence and stimulated support for the revolutionary war.
Obama wouldn’t have allowed that.
Carrying this still further, we never would have had eccentric, creative visionaries such as Henry Ford because Ford’s words and actions would have been too dangerous for Obama’s world.
Melvin D. Barger in a book on Henry Ford makes an interesting point about the coercive forces still prevalent today.
"More books have been written about auto pioneer Henry Ford than any other person in the car business. Though he had critics, the judgment of history is that he put the world on wheels with his famous Model T.
"Less well known is the fierce independent streak that led him to wage a lone and herioc battle for the right to run his own business. It was a struggle against the kind of people who think they should have the power to determine what’s best for the rest of us.”
In the past three-and-a-half years we have had plenty of time to learn what makes Obama tick and figure out what’s really going on.
So what's going on? Abuse of the Constitution? Nah, that’s old news.
Obama is peeved because he is jealous of the clever, funny and non-partisan video filmed with Gov. Chris Christie and Mayor Cory Booker a few weeks ago. They looked like they were having fun and it was fun to watch. And they so obviously liked each other even though they were from opposing parties.
The film was everything Obama isn’t.
Booker and Christie were everything Obama can never be and were doing what Obama can never do – bringing people together and working with a member of another political party.
And make no mistake, Obama resented that.
So the president can pursue Bain Capital or anything he chooses as a campaign issue because it’s his Constitutional right. But the catch is he cannot tell his opponents what’s off or on the table for discussion. That's our Constitutional right.
We get the right to explore his citizenship issues if we so choose and his connections to a potpourri of radicals if we want to without his supporters calling us "Teabaggers,” or "Birthers.”
Because it’s our Constitutional right.
Hold the line, America.