Tuesday, March 25, 2008
You can pick your friends, but…..
Meet Hillary and Barack’s cousins. Read here for an explanation. I wonder what fascinating relations would be turned up if somebody here spent the hours researching the ancestries of our political leaders. Any ideas out there?
Chris Donnelly @ 11:47 PM
Peter Robinson’s Mum seduced young college graduates over in the states. Ken and Marty are 2nd cousins, Gerry is Uncle Festers son, Nigel is Ken Dodds lovechild which expalins that horrible grin. Paisley finds out he is related to Liam Neeson. Gregory Campbells real name is Gregory Ratzinger, and Mark Durkan is so boring nobody will admit to be related to him.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:17 AMMeet Barack’s preacher, Jaramiah Wright, who’s been making the news:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TH75oErLhB0
and meet the wife: “If you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House”.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:34 AMWell if we’re going to go as far as 9th cousins (as with the above story) we may reasonably assume that just about anybody in Ireland is related to anybody.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:43 AMim defintely not related to Mr Burns....sorry, i mean Reg Empey.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:45 AMIm afraid I dont want to know. Besides, I dont even like some of my first cousins. 9th cousin twice removed indeed.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 01:31 AMIndeed, Paddy. Statistically Confucius has to be there in my background; 100 times removed of course.
Statistically too, every time one of us takes a breath, we’re taking in a few molecules of the air in Julius Caesar’s last gasps.Some of our leaders are descended from a common ancestor of us and the apes, but they won’t admit to it. Not with the earth being so young. I’m not sure who the others are descended from. Can’t be snakes in the grass since glorious St.Patrick chased them all away.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 01:34 AMIt would appear that Barack Obama has nevr heard of the expression ‘you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your relatives’ if we are to judge by his speech in which he disgracefully traduced the reputation of his blameless and completely unracist grandmother in an attempt to make her the moral equivalent of the vile preacher he chose to be a friend and mentor to him and his family for two decades.
Any respect I may have had for Obama went down the toilet at that point. I suspect I am not alone, the speech played well for his base; the liberal left media and the looney fringe of the Black American community but for mainstream American voters it went down like a lead balloon.
I say it again Senator Barack Obama will never be president of the United States.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 04:10 AMHarry Flashman: “Any respect I may have had for Obama went down the toilet at that point. I suspect I am not alone, the speech played well for his base; the liberal left media and the looney fringe of the Black American community but for mainstream American voters it went down like a lead balloon.”
The support for both of the Democratic candidates is getting a little weird and wired… some polls suggest that about 20% of either candidate’s supporters will vote for McCain/third=party or stay home if the other one gets the nod.
Obama likely won’t carry the so-called “Reagan Democrats”—conservative blue-collar mid-westerners. That said, the longer and uglier this mess goes, the harder it will be for the Dems to heal the inevitable rift—they are several weeks past the “sell-by” date on the so-called “Dream Ticket” of Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 05:17 AMI hadn’t seen Hillary’s hilarious gaffe about landing in Bosnia “under sniper fire” at the time of writing the above, the meltdown of the two Democrat candidates at this point is truly hilarious, to quote Oscar you’d need a heart of stone not to laugh.
McCain must be sitting back with his feet up, watching this with a bucketful of popcorn, he’ll not have to run any campaign ads in the election he’ll merely have to rerun the stuff put out by the defeated Democrat contender.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 06:08 AMNice to hear from you Harry - did you know Obama’s nan?
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 08:14 AMYes; you would uncover the paradox, that a significant proportion of those that led the provisionals upto 1994 had relatives who fought in the British Army, either during the first or second world wars. Sadly, as I am bound by the oath of Omerta I cannot name names ;-)
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 10:38 AM*Nice to hear from you Harry - did you know Obama’s nan?*
No, but I have read enough that Obama has written himself about her to understand that a white woman who lived in Texas and fought bitterly against the racist attitudes of her neighbours and who loved, supported and helped raise her black grandson could not possibly have been a racist.
Why do you ask?
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 11:11 AMDon’t get too carried away Harry. Have another look at the speech. Obama claerly loved his granny. He is not saying that she was racist. You are missing the whole point of the speech (one of the most honest, subtle and nuanced speeches by a politician I have heard). He was saying that good people are still products of their environments and can therefore make comments that are wrong (eg - Wright) or hold fears that are unfounded (eg - his granny).
I liked him before this speech - I am really impressed with him after hearing it.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:19 PMOn the contrary Gum, Obama openly implied that his grandmother was a racist, not only that he alleged that her racist attitudes were “typical” of white people.
His grandmother by his own previous accounts was quite clearly not a product of her environment but rather actively fought against her environment (the only thing she is alleged to have done is speak of an incident when she was fearful of one particular black man on a bus, Jesse Jackson said something similar).
For him to then repay that decent woman’s love and support for him by comparing her to the shyster, race baiting, foul mouthed bigot Wright was an absolutely disgusting thing to do, shame on him.
He has proved himself to be a man who is beneath contempt, the only people who support him now are the liberal whites who enjoy the self indulgent frisson of their race guilt and the kooky loons of the conspiracy theory brigade.
Enjoy your strange company.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:38 PMJeffrey Donaldson separated at birth from Daniel O’Donnell...?
http://www.politics.co.uk/photo/jeffrey-donaldson-mp-$2685$180.jpg
http://www.dararecords.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/pages/images/d_odonnell_untilthenexttime_360.jpg
Hard to tell who got the better deal, mind…
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 12:41 PMHe has proved himself to be a man who is beneath contempt, the only people who support him now are the liberal whites who enjoy the self indulgent frisson of their race guilt and the kooky loons of the conspiracy theory brigade.
Enjoy your strange company.
Wow… seriously Harry, calm! It wasn’t your granny he was talking about ;-)
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 01:23 PMI believe the First Minister is closely related to the Grand Old Duke of York.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 02:44 PMG40- “Wow… seriously Harry, calm! It wasn’t your granny he was talking about ;-)”
Wow… seriously, Gum, reality… there is something repulsive about a political opportunist who would throw his own grandmother under the bus to redeem his racist rabble-rouser of a mentor.
The speech was pretty, but it won’t play in Peoria.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 02:49 PMI wonder how closely related Ian Junior and Seymour Sweeney are....
I’ll get me sash
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 03:01 PMDread, did you read or see the speech? I can’t see where you or Harry feel he ‘throws his own grandmother under the bus’.
I think the speech is playing well - reaction across the board (even commentators on FOX, shock, horror) has been very positive, some calling it the most important political speech of the last 40 years. It’ll not persuade those who already had cold feet about voting for a black man but it has already won back many who were concerned at video clips of Rev. Wright.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 04:03 PMHarry -
McCain must be sitting back with his feet up, watching this with a bucketful of popcorn, he’ll not have to run any campaign ads in the election he’ll merely have to rerun the stuff put out by the defeated Democrat contender.
Unfortunately McCain is providing the Dems with plenty of election material too. What the media in America has started calling ‘senior moments’ are simple enough mistakes but they are building up now. (Some are starting to undermine his hitherto legitimate claim to be the candidate with the best grasp of foreign affairs too).
These gaffs, combined with the image of the frail 71yr old, 5ft7 McCain beside the 44yr old, 6ft2 Obama will prevent any cake-walk for McCain.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 04:14 PMDarth, Seymour Henry Sweeney’s family tree might be difficult to trace. I understand his mother married a Belgian who, as a boy, had been adopted by the Sweeney family in Portballintrae and took their surname.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 04:22 PMHarry
“His grandmother by his own previous accounts was quite clearly not a product of her environment but rather actively fought against her environment (the only thing she is alleged to have done is speak of an incident when she was fearful of one particular black man on a bus).”
Actually this is incorrect. He also said that he had heard her make racist statements “that made me cringe”. However, I have to ask, did you actually see or listen to Obama’s speech, in its entirety?
(Or did you just read Charles Krauthammer’s polemic against it? To be fair, CK earned his fee there - he had to work really, really hard to find something to be offended by.)
If you did, you will have noticed the painstaking care taken in its composition, the sensitive exploration of context and the mature reflection of very difficult nuances. You might also have been impressed by the courage and character demonstrated by Obama in not simply distancing himself from the troublesome priest, as would have been the simplest course.
You will also have noticed that Obama’s point regarding his grandmother was that sometimes even exceptionally good people can say exceptionally bad things, and can even believe things that are bad or crazy. I’m sure that’s a reality most people in NI can recognise. (For example, I can think of members of my own family whom I would not regard for a moment as bigoted but who have, at particular moments, made the most appallingly sectarian statements. If I wanted to, I could condemn them as bigots and close my mind thereafter, but I know the truth to be more complex than that. I know of many instances of those same people demonstrating courage and generosity and kindness and whatever the polar opposite of sectarianism is.
Similarly, how does the caricature of Wright as a sort of American Abu Hamza, square with the reality that he is also a decorated US Marine? That he has been welcomed to the White House by two US presidents - including LBJ, whom he treated while serving as part of the US navy medical corps?
The issue of race in America is one deserving of mature and reflective debate, and as such, Obama’s speech must be seen as having been of a calibre not seen since Martin Luther King’s day.
Your response to Obama’s speech and your descent into what can only be described as a rant against “liberal media”, “loony left” and all those other chimeras that so exercise the Foxnews demographic, is disappointing. You fixate and work yourself into high dudgeon over an invented offence, rather than welcome the opportunity for a serious debate about a serious issue - one that mainstream politicians have largely sidestepped since the 1960s, leaving discussions of race to the cultural sphere and to artists.
What is particularly disappointing is that I don’t even believe your outrage is genuine.
“the speech played well for his base; the liberal left media and the looney fringe of the Black American community but for mainstream American voters it went down like a lead balloon.”
You’re a Taig from Derry, aren’t you? What credentials have you to make declarations about “mainstream American voters”?
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 04:48 PMGum: “Dread, did you read or see the speech? I can’t see where you or Harry feel he ‘throws his own grandmother under the bus’. “
In real time, Gum. Obama denounced his own grandmother—still alive—and likened her private fears to the public hate-mongering of his preacher.
Hint: Were I to characterize Obama’s father as a “typical black man” for abandoning his family, would that not be racist? If so, why is it fitting for him to refer to his gran’ as “typical white person” for having the same sort of fears as Jesse Jackson?
Now, I may also be tainted with the burden of having watched this mess unfold, complete with Obama’s lies that he never knew “Wright said such things” spin, despite his close two decade relationship with Wright.
Gum: “I think the speech is playing well - reaction across the board (even commentators on FOX, shock, horror) has been very positive, some calling it the most important political speech of the last 40 years.”
Gum, the talking heads are the talking heads. While they may vote, their numbers are thin.
Regardless of how pretty the speech was, it didn’t do what it was intended to do, which is shuffle Rev. Wright and the issue of race off the stage. If anything, it has elevated the issue, meaning we’re due for a future of Rev. Wright and other ‘Bama-backing bozo eruptions.
Gum: “It’ll not persuade those who already had cold feet about voting for a black man but it has already won back many who were concerned at video clips of Rev. Wright. “
Some, but not all and maybe not many. At best, it might pull things back to the status quo prior to the Wright eruption, where he was losing the war of attrition over experience and looking as some pretty dismal probabilities in Pennsylvania.
Per Rasmussen this morning, the number of folks who think Obama should drop out of the race is roughly equal to the number of people who think that Hillary should.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 04:49 PMDread -
Hint: Were I to characterize Obama’s father as a “typical black man” for abandoning his family, would that not be racist? If so, why is it fitting for him to refer to his gran’ as “typical white person” for having the same sort of fears as Jesse Jackson?
What? You’ll need to explain this one I’m afraid.
Gum, the talking heads are the talking heads. While they may vote, their numbers are thin.
My point about the reception to the speech is that it has been almost universally received as a speech worthy of MLK (as Billy Pilgrim suggests too). Not even pundits often accused of being in Bush’s pocket are claiming that it opportunism (the polar opposite in fact), let alone your own slightly hysterical accusation of the vicious betrayal of his grandmother.
At best, it might pull things back to the status quo prior to the Wright eruption
Yeah, thats what I was suggesting, and thats the way its looking. PA wont go for him but the rest will.
Posted by on Mar 26, 2008 @ 05:08 PM
