Much of America was astonished that a convict in a Texas prison, Keith Judd, would garner 41% of the vote in the May 8 West Virginia primary, nearly beating the incumbent president, Barack Obama.
"What are those uninformed, uneducated West Virginians thinking? How could they possibly select a convict over a sitting president? Those West Virginians must be racist, aren't they?" This is probably what most of America was thinking.
Before jumping to any conclusions, though, let's take a look at each of the candidates.
It's evident that Judd can't be trusted. He's a convicted felon serving a 17 1/2 year sentence for extortion. Prior to the election, his background was pretty much unknown. The bio provided to the news media, and which the news media publicized, was largely a work of fiction. According to his bio, Judd is a Harvard-educated musician whose mother was a 1920s actress and whose father helped to develop the first atomic bomb. The news media blindly publicized his bio for all voters to see.
In comparison, we are beginning to understand that Obama's biography from the early 1990s is also a work of fiction. We learned last week that the President's bio publicized by his literary agent described Obama as "Kenyan born" in a booklet printed in 1991. This same literary agent continued to include Obama's birth place as Kenya until 2007, just a couple of months before he announced his intention to run for the presidency. We've also learned recently that a girlfriend described in Obama's autobiography was a compilation of a number of women he dated. What's true and what isn't true about Obama's bio? It appears that Obama's biography has "evolved," much like his stance on a number of issues.
It's evident that Judd was not properly vetted by the news media. They took his candidacy on face value, not really checking into his background or even his views. Clearly, this was a disservice to West Virginians who cast their vote on May 8.
Obama wasn't properly vetted by the news media, either, before voters went to the polls in 2008, and even now as Americans prepare to select a new president later this year. Although he wrote in his autobiolgraphy of using drugs from marijuana to cocaine, attending socialist conferences and being attracted to the teachings of Marxist professors, the news media have asked few probing questions and have provided very little coverage about his background. The mainstream news media have acted more like cheerleaders and the President's public relations people than journalists. Chris Matthews and other so-called journalists feel all tingly when Obama speaks, and they aren't afraid to admit it.
Judd has no legislative accomplishments, and based on his current residency and prospects for at least the next decade or so, he probably never will.
As a candidate in the 2008 election, Obama could also boast of few if any legislative accomplishments. His claim to fame was voting 130 times as "present" in the Illinois Legislature, and he authored no significant legislation as a U.S. Senator. Obama's most significant claim to fame was a rousing speech he gave at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
Judd will have a 17 1/2 year record when he's finally released from prison. During that time, Judd will have perfect attendance, not taking a single day off or taking a single vacation. Although Judd really hasn't accomplished anything, he also hasn't done anything in prison that has raised the ire of ordinary Americans.
By comparison, Obama now has a record of over three years as President. While he's taken dozens of vacations and played hundreds of rounds of golf, the economy is in the tank, the real unemployment rate is at its highest rate since the Great Depression, and millions of Americans are out of work, underemployed, or have simply dropped out of the workforce. Obama's EPA is essentially trying to kill the domestic production of all fossil fuels. In West Virginia, with hundreds of years of coal reserves to power this country and several thousand mining and mining-related jobs, Obama's policies will ultimately result in a death sentence to the West Virginia economy. America has no coherent energy policy other than wasting money on new technologies that aren't yet economically feasible, and even our staunchest allies do not trust America under Obama. The country is going into debt faster than ever before, saddling our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with debt and the strong likelihood of their standard of living being lower than previous generations of Americans. Other than authorizing Navy Seals to kill Usama Bin Laden and implementing a health care law that the majority of Americans don't want, Obama has no accomplishments of significance as President. A recent 99-0 vote by the Senate, controlled by Democrats, sent the proposed Obama budget to the scrap heap. To think that his proposed budget couldn't get a single vote of support should send a powerful message to all Americans about his effectiveness as a leader. Of course, the mainstream news media barely covered this story, so most Americans aren't even aware that his proposed budget went down in flames.
After looking more closely at the two candidates, maybe West Virginians aren't uninformed, uneducated and racist. Maybe they're the smart ones, after all. The most surprising fact about the primary isn't that West Virginians voted for a convict, it's that Judd didn't win.
No comments:
Post a Comment