Barack Obama Speaks With Forked Tongue- Or The Art Of Political Pandering

Politicians will say virtually anything to get elected; contradict themselves or even blatantly lie, in hopes that a stupidly gullible voter will not bother to question the inconsistencies and contradictions and vote for him anyway. This is what Barack Hussein Obama hopes to do by pandering to the American voters. In an effort to ingratiate himself, at an invitation-only townhall meeting at a Boca Raton, Florida synagogue this past Thursday, he spent 20 minutes trying to convince the congregation that he loves the Jews, and has Israel in his best interests:

"One of the raps on me when I first ran for Congress in the African-American community was, 'He's too close to the Jewish community. ...All his friends are Jews" [snip] "The bottom line is this: Nobody can find any statement that I have ever made that is anything less than unequivocally pro-Israel."

Ah yes, the typical "my best friend's a ....... ", you fill in the blank. Umm, Barack I beg to differ. Though you mightn't have made any direct statements, the fact that you have consistently surrounded yourself with anti-Semitic, anti-Israel advisers and colleagues, speaks volumes.

General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, an Obama policy advisor and potential candidate for secretary of defense, no less, in an Obama White House, blamed the failure of the Middle East process on Miami and New York Jews. He has been

"a long-time critic of Israel's presence in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights. In a 1976 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, he criticized Israel for refusing to withdraw from areas liberated in the 1967 Six Day War, even as he wrote poignantly about the vital security advantages Israel obtained by conquering those areas."

Obama was a board member of the charitable Woods Foundation (the same one William 'the terrorist' Ayers was a member of) which has funded the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel organization Arab American Action Network (AAAN).

In an interview in French Magazine Match, he claimed that once president, he would call for a summit of Muslim Nations (including Iran and Syria):

"I want to ask them to join our fight against terrorism. We must also listen to their concerns."

Concerns? Hello, Barack, their concerns are the very existence of Israel and the Jews. Do you really think you're going to change that decades-old mindset? How supremely naive.

Then we have Obama's ex-spiritual advisor-cum-preacher the Reverend Jeremiah Wright who is most definitely anti-American and anti-Israel. A 20 year affiliation folks.

Wright has called Israel a "racist country," said that "Israel" is a dirty word, and claimed US foreign policy was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

But most telling, in my mind, are affiliations one hears nothing about in the mainstream media. His strong affiliation with Arab-American and anti-Israel activists, like Professor Edward Said, seated next to Barack and Michelle (in photo) at a 1998 Arab community function where Said was keynote speaker. Then we have Ali Abunimah, the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada who wrote a fascinating article about his relationship with Obama. Abunimah, claims

"The last time I 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." He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, "Keep up the good work!"

Echoing the Reverend Wright's accusation that Obama was simply being politically expedient with respect to Obama's criticism of his sermons, Abunimah says of Barack:

"If disappointing, given his historically close relations to Palestinian-Americans, Obama's about-face is not surprising. He is merely doing what he thinks is necessary to get elected and he will continue doing it as long as it keeps him in power."

I'm not convinced, at all, that he will continue, once he is firmly in power.

And back at the Boca Synagogue

Things got heated once, when Michael Ackerman of Boca Raton asked Obama to name Jewish friends who were not elected officials and who had influenced his thinking on foreign policy. Several South Florida Jewish politicians, including U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, introduced Obama. Ackerman, who later said he was a lifelong Democrat who planned to vote for McCain, also asked whether Obama was a friend of Rashid Khalidi, a controversial Palestinian scholar at the University of Chicago. Ackerman took several minutes setting up the question and was eventually booed and hissed by the crowd when he asked Obama to provide names of people who could prove he was "anti-terrorist." Obama quieted the crowd and said his and Khalidi's children went to the same school. He said he had spoken with Khalidi but the professor was not on his team of advisers.

However, there are those who disagree with that pronouncement

According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003 while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004. Sources at the university told WND that Khalidi and Obama lived in nearby faculty residential zones and that the two families dined together a number of times. The sources said the Obamas even babysat the Khalidi children.

Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi, who spoke to WND in February.

Khalidi's wife, Mona, just so happens to run the AAAN, that same organization the Woods Foundation funded with 2 separate grants.

The Boca congregation listened as Obama spent much of his 20-minute speech pledging his support to Israel, denouncing terrorism and distancing himself from the meetings former President Jimmy Carter held with Hamas.

How can he live with himself, blatantly lying to the American people? Then again, he's just a politician, and that's what they do.

If you can bear to watch 20 minutes of duplicitous, barely tolerable pandering, have at it. It sickened me.