The potential significance of the 2007 Obama Hampton video…
…is that it shows Obama misrepresenting facts to a black audience in order to stir up racial resentment.
But like so many other things that Obama has said and done that belie the image he has carefully cultivated of “we’re all in this thing together” reasonableness, it will be ignored and/or dismissed by the MSM, and its messengers will be the ones accused of racism.
The problematic remarks are here:
Now here’s the thing, when 9/11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act ”” said, ”˜This is too serious a problem. We can’t expect New York City to rebuild on its own. Forget that dollar you got to put in. Well, here’s 10 dollars.’ And that was the right thing to do. When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, ”˜Look at this devastation. We don’t expect you to come up with y’own money, here. Here’s the money to rebuild. We’re not going to wait for you to scratch it together ”” because you’re part of the American family.’ ”¦ What’s happening down in New Orleans? Where’s your dollar? Where’s your Stafford Act money? Makes no sense. Tells me that somehow, the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much.”
But just weeks before Obama gave this speech, the Stafford Act had been waived by Congress for Katrina relief. Obama, you may recall, was a member of Congress, and knew or should have known this [emphasis mine]:
by January 2007, six months before Obama’s Hampton speech, the federal government had sent at least $110 billion to areas damaged by Katrina. This was more than five times the money that the Bush administration pledged to New York City after 9/11.
Moreover, says the DC, the federal government did at times waive the Stafford Act during its New Orleans reconstruction efforts. On May 25, 2007, just weeks before Obama’s speech, the Bush administration sent an additional $6.9 billion to Katrina-affected areas with no strings attached.
So when Obama asks the crowd, “Where’s your dollar? Where’s your Stafford Act money?” he knew or should have known the answer, but chose instead to whip the audience up into (yes, there’s no other way to put it) the sort of victimization mentality that Mitt Romney was talking about in his notorious 47% speech.
To be fair (which I always try to be), in his Hampton speech Obama also explicitly disavowed the idea that race had anything to do with the federal government’s policies that he alleges were discriminatory against New Orleans. This, I think, is a fascinating demonstration of Obama’s remarkable ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth on this and so many other issues—to pander to racial resentment while simultaneously denying he’s doing so, and to ignore the contradictions and hope his audience will do so as well.
So in the same speech Obama also stated:
People ask me whether I thought race was the reason the response was so slow,” Obama said. “I said, ”˜No. This Administration was colorblind in its incompetence.’ But everyone here knows the disaster and the poverty happened long before that hurricane hit.
I’ve been having difficulty getting a transcript of his remarks that includes the off-script ones (that’s where the controversy lay), although I assume one exists. So I’m not sure which came first, the accusations or the disclaimer. But the explanation for the contradiction is that the accusations were ad-libbed whereas the disclaimer was scripted (here’s the text of his prepared remarks, which in general have a loftier tone than his spontaneous ones).
In general it’s true that extemporaneous declarations are much more likely to be heartfelt expressions than written ones would be. But in Obama’s case I’m not sure that either represent his true feelings and his true thoughts. I think his entire public persona is a series of masks adopted for purely pragmatic and strategic reasons.
That’s the significance of the accent so many people have remarked on that Obama uses for this speech, one that he often adopts when addressing largely black audiences. It is just another mask. That sort of phoniness doesn’t concern me nearly as much the content of his words, and especially his actions as president, which concern me most of all. I see the adoption of this accent as a response to the biggest defeat of Obama’s life, the 2000 Chicago primary race in which Bobby Rush trounced Obama by flashing his own superior black credentials:
Rush portrayed Obama, the Harvard-educated civil rights lecturer at the University of Chicago, as out of touch.
“He went to Harvard and became an educated fool,” Rush said then in an interview with the alternative newspaper Chicago Reader. “We’re not impressed with these folks with these Eastern elite degrees.”
Another opponent, state Sen. Donne Trotter, said Obama was seen as “the white man in blackface.”…
Chicago City Council member Toni Preckwinkle, an early Obama supporter, said, “I think he took a hard look at himself after that campaign and became a much better campaigner, more at ease on the campaign trail.”
That “long hard look” almost undoubtedly included a change to a more ethnic and less professorial type of speech when campaigning in front of black audiences. Not really a surprise.
I don’t think this video is some sort of unprecedented smoking gun. People who would be shocked by it just haven’t been paying much attention, and there’s no reason to believe they’d start paying attention now. I also think that most people have already bought the line that Katrina relief was inadequate, and so Obama’s charges will have a certain amount of resonance with them. A person needs to know some boring facts (such as the timing of the waiver of the Stafford Act for Katrina) to understand why his remarks were offensive.
It’s an interesting prelude to the debate tonight, though. Perhaps the biggest effect it might have would be to rattle Obama and put him a bit off his game. We’ll see.
Ann Althouse says that focusing on the Obama speech makes us look ugly. I say that she has lost her mind. The president stirs up racial hatred with lies and slanders and she thinks it is wrong to point that out?!
Of course, she also says she still hasn’t decided who to vote for — which means she gave up on logic a while ago.
Obama’s ‘long hard look’ clearly extended to the woman who would be the mother of his children (and perhaps ‘beard’).
What is with people like Althouse? Do those elitists live in a different world? Maybe it comes from drinking too much French water.
Well, Neo I borrowed from your post and sent it to my mailing list (with all of the links), especially to the recalcitrant ones who claim to still be Obama supporters. As is often the case I think you summarize the issue quite clearly.
I frankly asked the question: “How can rational people still support a man for President who deliberately sets out to stir up resentment and hatred among the population, without regard for the effect on the country?” I await responses. Oh, and I used the information you provided on the waiver to the Stafford act, and the amount of Federal money spent on Katrina relief/reconstruction, to point out that he is a liar, who lies without flinching.
Thank you. I was going to research the issue, and you did the work for me.
I believe Obama will be a little angry and bring up the 47% and attack Romney – go on the offensive.
I believe he’ll do that just like the DNC convention in order to whip up more passion on the left.
I believe it’s Obama’s only option at this point.
Here’s Ann’s problem. She isn’t inclined to understand or even listen to a conservative point of view.
Hey! I call it like I see it. When the logical bones are gone. All you have is a limp spine with no conviction.
When I first started hearing an alternative view pioint in 1991. It IMMEDIATELY made sense to me and I took to it like a fish to water.
I went to the library 3 times a week that year hungering for information to CEMENT in place a libertarian / conservative view point.
Easy enough. When Ann hears it. She has her figurative finger in her ear. Horrible.
For goodness sakes Ann,
please consider that the divider is the originator of the dividing comments not the messenger.
The divider in chief continually strikes a very negative and INACCURATE message when speaking about Republicans and/or conservatives.
Are you Ann inclined to believe the negative talking points?
Let’s boil it down like this:
1) Forget the personalities and politics of who is who Romeny vs. Obama. – ARE YOU ANN, conservative or liberal on fiscal issues? Are you for personal responsibility? Are you for strong national security?
2) If you are indeed like 80% of us then you should stop being misinformed on the personality of Romney/Obama and know with just a minimal amount of research that Obama is not fiscally responsible – not for personal responsibility (see Sandra Fluke) and NOT for strong national security.
Period.
You cannot honestly (key word honestly) after doing due diligence believe that Obama is anywhwere near a good leader on these areas.
Therefore you are either dishonest or you continue to be lazy (not doing the due diligence required to make any informed decision).
You can’t have gone almost 4 years since your original misinformed vote and still not know with cruelty how you will vote
That’s just pure idiocy or laziness – you choose.
Having killed Bin Laden does not make a president strong on national security by the way.
To quote Edwin Edwards, I fear that the only thing that could derail Obama would be being found in bed with a dead woman or a live boy. So now we know he is a race baiter and a liar who tailors his accent to his audience. Gambling in Casablanca.
And Mr. Frank, that happened (in bed with a live boy) to Michael Jackson, with no real repercussions that I could see.
In reading Ann Althouse’s response to this video I got the impression that she was reacting to the racial aspect of the video itself.
Obama promised to close Gitmo and Gitmo still operates. Are references to Gitmo ugly? Obama promised to halve the deficit. Are references to Obama’s profligate spending ugly? If neither of the above is true, then why should probative information regarding race baiting be ugly when it reveals that the “post-racial” president is in fact the race-baiter in chief?
Hard evidence is sometimes ugly, ask any prosecutor who shows a jury photos of bodies in a murder investigation, but the character of the evidence is conditioned by the nature of the crime. So, too, in this case, and ugly or not I hope that this video gets much much air time in the court of public opinion.
Since she’s now “come out” on Instapundit [using her [temporary? experimental?] guest-hosting privilege], I wonder whether Ann A might see herself as something of a mediator between Left and Right; I think that subjectively she means well and intends her racialist comments to serve as helpful warnings to conservatives who just don’t “get” the mindset of the “undecided voters” with whom she says she identifies. Maybe she’s trying to act as an “interpreter” of sorts because she knows and speaks the language of both tribes? I would like to think so, but in my experience “left is left and right is right and never the twain shall meet”.
Re her still being “undecided” after 4 years, I liked Bill Whittle’s comment on her blog at 11:45AM this morning. Indeed, how, for Pete’s sake, could any adult still be undecided after having lived in the USA these past 4 years ?
carl in atlanta and others:
About Althouse, a few observations:
(1) If you read her blog regularly it appears that she sees it as a kind of provocative theater, where she sometimes is intentionally ambiguous about her message in order to stimulate discussion and tweak her readers. In 2008 and again this year, she’s adopted a stance (a sincere opinion or a pose, I don’t know which) of “cruel neutrality” about the election, I suspect partly to stimulate discussion, partly to keep people guessing how she’ll vote in the end, and partly who knows what else. Perhaps she really made up her mind a long time ago; I really don’t know.
(2) Althouse has also long shown a strong tendency towards extreme sensitivity to anything she perceives as smacking of racism on the part of white people. Sometimes it takes very odd forms where it appears she is imagining it—witness this, from 2008, and this takedown of it. There was also this very odd incident from 2006.
Lately she has also condemned Rush for being racist, or at least playing on racist elements, when he played the Obamaphone lady tape over and over. This latest incident with the Obama Hampton tape and blaming the messenger would also be in that vein, also, as she indicates here:
Let’s leave Ann herself aside for a moment. It’s an interesting Catch-22 she presents, and I think it’s a real one that Obama has long exploited. He is allowed to do and say racist things, and those who point it out look ugly (which is another way to say, I think, that somehow they look racist; I’m not sure what else the “ugly” word could mean in that context). McCain dealt with it by never going there—never exploiting the awful Rev. Wright stuff, for example. Romney hasn’t gone there either, but Hannity and Tucker Carlson did.
The question is how much truth can people stand, if the truth makes a black person look bad (or racist)? Have we bent over backward so far to redress racism that we wink at black racists and are not allowed to expose them without looking bad ourselves? If it’s come to that, we’re in deep deep doo-doo.
I don’t know whether it has. I think most people have more common sense than that, and that Althouse is actually describing a liberal mindset more than she’s describing what she thinks she’s describing, a middle-of-the-road mindset. But I confess I’m not really sure.
I also think she’s describing an attitude towards emphasizing the appearance of things and whether they look ugly, and whether we should therefore be protected from seeing ugly things that are in fact true, an attitude that is more commonly held by women than men.
Is it sexist of me to say that? Or am I allowed to say it because I’m a woman?
A Catch 22 indeed.
I do not read AA’s blather very often, so perhaps I’m not seeing the forest and instead I am focusing on the trees, but IMO she’s a prima donna who believes, or at least pretends to believe, she is the arbitrator of what is up and what is down.
“… an attitude towards emphasizing the appearance of things and whether they look ugly, and whether we should therefore be protected from seeing ugly things that are in fact true, an attitude that is more commonly held by women than men.”
I agree females in general wish to avoid or ignore the ‘ugly’; but the ‘ugly’ in life has to be faced square on, judged ‘ugly’, and dealt with. The real racists are those who make excuses for ugly behavior based on the race of the perpetrator. In my world ugly is colorblind for ugly is as ugly does.
One more thing. I’ll be surprised if Glenn Reynolds continues his group-blogging experiment for much longer and will be interested to see who gets invited back — or not — to guest blog for him next time he goes on vacation.
It addition to having to address AA’s provocative (and perhaps presumptive?) post, he’s also had to distance himself from at least two quotes that were mis-attributed to him by other blogs, including POLITICO.
Neo,
I refer back to your comment @4:42 about Ann Althouse, whose blog I read regularly. I respond, again by pointing out my own “ugly” comment above @4:11.
Althouse is a prof. of law. In litigation, both the prosecution making its case and the defense defending the accused get ugly. I can understand on one hand why she might mention revulsion at something she considers ugly. What I can’t understand is why that’s not an acceptable (as opposed to desirable) part of the process for someone schooled in law and presumably litigation. Especially in the case of Obama whose minions play the race card with impunity to the point that it’s virtually meaningless in the national dialogue.
Furthermore, as an intelligent woman, I can’t for the life of me understand how she can not be decided with regard to her vote. I can understand a battle between intellect and emotion, but I’m confounded by any prof. of law (and this will include many other law profs.) who seem to tolerate Obama’s end runs around Congress, legislation and the Constitution itself. If there anything that’s truly ugly and unconscionable its Obama running legal roughshod over the rule of law.
HYPOCRASY: Obama voted AGAINST a waiver of the Stafford Act requirement of 10% matching local funds for federal Katrina funding just 14 days BEFORE his speech!!!
Obama had voted to keep in place the very things that he condemns in his speech — all with a straight face.
There he is playing the race card (then denying he’s playing the race card in the next sentence) all the while knowing that he voted to support what he is condemning!
Here is the link to he “Nay” vote:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00181
Is this the kind of man we deserve to have as our president???
Ken: extraordinary and quite fascinating.
I looked at this list, and the “nays” were mostly Democrats. Apparently this was because there were also some Iraq war appropriations as part of the same bill? See this.
So to protest the Iraq War, Obama was willing to throw the Katrina victims under the bus. He was one of only 14 votes in the Senate against the bill.
T: all I can say is that Althouse’s stand does not surprise me. I know many many people whose intelligence I deeply respect who will be voting for Obama. It is a conundrum I have never been able to solve.
The only illumination I can give on the subject is that I believe if I hadn’t gotten into reading a lot of conservative writers after 9/11 (something I didn’t even realize I was doing at the time; I thought I was just reading stuff that was interesting that I found online) I might have been among them.
I like to think I would not have supported Obama even had that not happened, however. But I’ll never know.
I know many many people whose intelligence I deeply respect who will be voting for Obama. It is a conundrum I have never been able to solve.
Intelligence isn’t a scalar; it’s a tensor.
I know quite a few highly intelligent people–nuclear scientists, biochemists, etc.–who support Obama. They have a very selective intelligence, not a practical survival-value intelligence. Their livelihoods depend on living in an orderly civilized society. They would be dead meat in many cultures.
As I said on a previous post re Althouse, she lives in a bubble and doesn’t understand how the world works. She also belongs in that class of people who live for the utopian dream and not the doable reality.
In reality, the world will never be free of racism. Anyone who studies this subject will learn that right away. Ditto for theft, thuggishness and demagoguery.
As various posters above pointed out, Althouse ignores all the criminal and irresponsible things Obama has done because she wants to be a “good person” who doesn’t want to be racist.
But, of course, she is the worst kind of racist because she would allow a so-called black man to stomp all over the rest of the American people, white or black or mixed or whatever. Obama is a Mugabe/Mussolini/Chavez wannabe, but Alhouse is too lazy to explore the real world to see how that works.
There’s a reason why academics are said to be living an ivory towers.
Neo,
Yes a conundrum, indeed. As I said I can understand the tug of emotion v. intellect. I can also understand those who don’t see the world through economic eyes. The confounding thing with Obama is that he has sullied everything he’s touched. What is is about failure that these people don’t understand and why would anyone want to suborn failure? Or is it just that they are incapable of admitting to themselves that they made a mistake in 2008?
Promethea says, “I know quite a few highly intelligent people…”
What we determine to be intelligence is rather selective and many of the ‘intelligentsia’ are rather impractical and would, as you note, be dead meat in a more harsh environment. I have neighbors who are very good, considerate neighbors and they are ‘intelligent’ in that they are well educated and are employed as professionals; but a few of them have Obama-Biden signs (far fewer than in 2008) out on their lawns. When I try to engage them in a friendly manner as to why they support Obama their responses are based on a visceral, emotional and out of touch with reality concept that voting for Obama is in the end PC. They are oblivious when it comes to BHO’s record as POTUS or his prior history.
Go figure.
Watching the debate. If one does not know the information, Obama comes off as quite convincing while he mouths statistics and numbers that are factually incorrect.
He is a consummate liar.
I know many many people whose intelligence I deeply respect who will be voting for Obama.
The brightest person in my high school class has spent the last 3 1/2 years working in the Obama White House.