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Barack has been accused of running a campaign of words without substance. A close examination of those words reveal either a deliberate string of falsehoods or a loose grasp of the facts:
- In his memoir, Barack says as a child he was reading Life magazine when he found an article about a "'black man who had tried to peel off his skin' in a failed effort to use chemicals to lighten it." He describes it as "an ambush attack."
No such article exists.
Barack said later, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been ... who knows what it was?" I guess facts don't matter.
The Chicago Tribune writes:
"Several of his oft-recited stories may not have happened in the way he has recounted them. Some seem to make Obama look better in the retelling, others appear to exaggerate his outward struggles over issues of race, or simply skim over some of the most painful, private moments of his life."
- In Barack's speech in Selma Alabama, he claimed that his parents were motivated to get married and have Barack "because some folks are willing to march across a bridge." The thing is, Barack was born four years before the incident at Selma occurred. Barack later said he was talking about the whole civil rights movement. Just because he mentioned Selma, while talking at Selma, apparently doesn't mean he meant Selma.
- Barack also told people that his father came to America when Barack's grandfather heard John and Bobby Kennedy, who "sent a shout across oceans" for Africans to come to America and learn. Barack Sr. was then sent to America. There's a problem there also:
...having been born in August 1961, the future senator was not conceived until sometime in November 1960. So, if his African grandfather heard words that "sent a shout across oceans," inspiring him to send his goat-herder son to America, it was not Democrat Jack Kennedy he heard, or his brother Bobby, it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It would be easy to dismiss this as a simple mistake, if it were not for all the comparisons of Barack to John Kennedy.
- Barack Obama in 2003, talking to the AFL/CIO:
"I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage.
"That's what I'd like to see,"
Barack Obama on a nationally televised debate:
"I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer.
- Barack pledged to use public funding for his campaign if the Republican candidate did also. McCain has pledged but now Barack is backing out:
After all, when he made the promise, he didn't have a chance of raising more than the public's $85 million stipend. But now that he can raise $300 million, well, what's a little untruth between the waited-for one and his people? Yes, he can.
- In a televised debate, Barack raised his hand when asked who would oppose legalizing marijuana. But Barack told another group "I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws."
- Barack said that he estimated Tony Rezko raised around $50,000 - $60,000 for his campaign's. The fact is:
Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.
- Barack claims to have passed legislation that "require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks." The fact is, it went to committee, was drastically rewritten, had the teeth taken out of it, and still didn't become a law.
These are not simple errors. Barack is answering these questions with statements that just are not true. I don't think it would be too hard to answer a question with, "I don't know. I'll find out." if he is ignorant of something.
Some of these instances, however, show that Barack has one position in front of one crowd, and an opposite position in front of another. That's isn't change. That's typical.
It seems that Barry isn't all that different from other politicians when it comes to facts.
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