Taboo Topics of Barack “Middle Name” Obama

The level of absurdity employed by the people supporting or defending Barack Obama is remarkable. The tactics used while trying to defend him reach higher levels of preposterousness in each progressive week. Why is it considered bad taste or partisan politics to write or speak his middle name, or even the initial? Why is it out of line when his personal, political, and business associations are questioned? Why can only the Obama campaign and his supporters discuss the issue of race? Since when did running for political office include only a strict discussion of “the issues,” especially when a candidate has a thin resume? Barack “Middle Name” Obama’s supporters continue to complain about these things, so it’s time to address “the issues” and finally give them what they really want.

But first…the taboo topics.

At the top of the list of banned subject matter is Barack’s middle name. I’m not sure why this is such a big deal, but the Obama camp has done everything in its power to avoid speaking or writing his middle name and has shown ferocious indignation toward anyone else who decides to mention it. I realize that his people may be afraid that his opponents will try to use the middle name against him, which is very reasonable considering the name and the fact that many have already tried to do it. But continuing to hide from it does little to no good since everyone seems to already know Obama’s middle name. Furthermore, if he plans to become president, he better get used to having his name or initial widely known and even used because it will be in the history books…along with these past presidents:

John Quincy Adams
William Henry Harrison
James K. Polk
Ulysses S. Grant
James A. Garfield
Warren G. Harding
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)
Harry S. Truman
Dwight David Eisenhower
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK)
Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)
Richard Milhous Nixon
Gerald R. Ford
James Earl Carter
Ronald Wilson Reagan
George Herbert Walker Bush
William Jefferson Clinton
George Walker Bush

Believe it or not, I actually knew all of these from memory as I wrote this. I forgot these middle names and initials:

Rutherford B. Hayes
Chester Alan Arthur
William Howard Taft
John Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Clark Hoover

If you have a middle name, it will be known, recorded, and probably remembered by many people. In the case of Franklin Roosevelt and Kennedy, they are often referred to by their three initials. We do not call them “FR” or “JK” and almost never do we use only their first and last names. Are we supposed to call Barack Obama just “BO”? If I was him, I’d rather be known by my middle name. John Coolidge went by his middle name, Calvin. Our current president is widely known by only his middle initial, “W.”

So to Barack and all of his staff and supporters: Get over it. Stop being petty and crying foul every time someone mentions the middle name or the initial. This is not Pee-wee’s Playhouse, so you don’t have to scream every time you hear it. It’s not doing any damage to his campaign and it’s not catching on as a name that will be infamous with his potential legacy. It’s a non-issue when it’s used, but when you try to prevent everyone from using the name, it then becomes one. You’re just making things worse than they really are.

Barack HUSSEIN Obama.

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

And…nothing. Moving on.

Barack’s associations have been examined lately because of some questionable connections to people who are not what would be considered normal, everyday people within the mainstream of political thought. There are a few questions concerning some personal and professional relationships with Obama. Anytime these relationships are discussed, his campaign and supporters quickly denounce such discussions as “distractions” to the “real issues.” They whine and complain that scrutinizing his personal and professional relationships is taking away from the importance and urgency to debate policy issues, despite the fact that there were over 20 debates already held before and during the Democrat primary season and the fact that the general election is still over five and a half months away.

Never mind the fact that debating the issues has rarely been the tactic of the left, but since when have a politician’s associations been off limits to scrutiny? Politics is all about associations and influence. Political success is measured by how well one can use their associations and influences to achieve their desired plans and policies. One’s associations are essential to achieving and maintaining political power. In Obama’s case, he does not have a very strong resume, so the people that he has chosen to associate with become much more important.

What we have seen from the company that he keeps has been much less than stellar. By trying to defend these people rather than denouncing their words or actions forthright, it raises concerns about his character and judgment. Barack Obama has only publicly distanced himself from these questionable characters when he began to feel the heat from the media and when it began affecting him in some polls. Instead of addressing the concerns of the voters, he and his campaign avoid the topic or quickly dismiss it as dirty partisan politics. Since they refuse to clear up any suspicions, they simply prolong the situation and are possibly making it even worse. The longer the doubts about his character linger, the harder it will be to finally get past the issue that Barack’s campaign so adamantly proclaims is inconsequential.

In partnership with the middle name and the associations of Obama, his race is the ultimate taboo topic – but only for his opponents. We are reminded that Barack grew up with his “typical white person” grandmother and that his African father left him and his mother very early in his life. We hear about how tough it was for him growing up black in a white society. The rhetoric coming from his campaign details how hard it was for a black man like himself to make it to where he is today, despite the fact that he has practically become the Democrat nominee for president with the help of millions of white voters. Yes, he has won about 90% of the black vote, but when the population of this country is only about 13% black, no candidate can rely on that voting block alone to win.

The Obama campaign has no problem using his race as a defense mechanism. If anyone criticizes something about his character, they may be accused of bigotry. If his church or his friend/pastor is mentioned, we can expect to be told that we just don’t understand what it’s like to be black. If someone questions how he can use rhetoric about how rough his life has been – even though he has gone to some of the best schools in the country, wrote two successful books, and has become a presumptive nominee for president – his supporters will retort, “What? Being educated and successful is only for white people?” And once again, they completely miss the point.

It should be noted that Barack Obama is only half black (the other half of him is white), which gives me the right to criticize him as much as I please. Perhaps some of the critiques of him are actually assessments of his white half. Maybe they are only half-critiques. The notion that Barack’s race ought to be banned from discussion is simply not possible and ought to infuriate black and white people. Whether some people want to acknowledge it or not, this is a very historical time in our country. We are (most likely) going to have a (half) black presidential candidate in the general election. This is a defining moment in our country when it comes to race relations and how far we have advanced since the middle of the 20th century. Barack Obama has again proven (like many others have before him) that you can be black and successful in this country through hard work and dedication.

The Obama campaign ought to be embracing his ethnicity and this moment in history, yet all they can seem to do is complain that people continue to point out his black heritage. (And his ethnicity would not have hurt Barack so much if he had never aligned himself with Trinity United Church of Christ and their pastor, Reverend Wright.)

So, with the hate-America rhetoric and terrorist activities of the associations of the black Barack Hussein Obama aside, let’s move on to more important topics. What really ought to be taboo for Obama is “the issues,” where he is hideously weak and overwhelmingly statist.

First of all, we need to be reminded that Barack’s statist, left-wing agendas run through his blood and are reinforced by his associations. His father was a communist and his mother was a feminist and activist. Both Barack and his wife are/were activists in Chicago. Michelle Obama even began a program to encourage youths to get into careers in government, suggesting that government jobs are more honorable, more respectable, or more important than any other. We have established that Jeremiah Wright and terrorist Bill Ayers are also not what one would call “mainstream.” We also know that Barack has been identified as the most liberal Senator in 2007 by the National Journal. So with this in mind, let’s discuss the “real” issues.

At the top of the list we have universal health care. This plan alone should disqualify any prospective politician running for any federal office. But just what is Obama’s solution for “fixing” health care costs? His answer involves vast government programs funded by taxpayers and new regulatory policies that will enforce his federal mandates. This is from his Blueprint for Change at BarackObama.com (emphasis added in bold throughout):

“The benefit package will be similar to that offered through Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), the plan members of Congress have.”

This plan is the network of private insurance providers that is offered to federal employees in which the government (our tax dollars) pays up to 75% of the premium costs.

“Individuals and families who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but still need financial assistance will receive an income-related federal subsidy to buy into the new public plan or purchase a private health care plan.”

So, if you can’t afford the government plan, you will receive federal tax dollars to pay for it. This is called “redistributing wealth.”

“The Obama plan will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible. Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend on how healthy you are. The Exchange will require that all the plans offered are at least as generous as the new public plan and have the same standards for quality and efficiency. The Exchange would evaluate plans and make the differences among the plans, including cost of services, public.”

This means that Obama’s plan will create a new government bureaucracy, therefore increasing the already bloated federal budget. His plan also creates federal mandates on insurance companies which will result in an increase in prices which will not make plans any more affordable. This inevitably causes an increase in individuals who cannot afford the plans and they will undoubtedly qualify for a subsidy, thereby increasing again the cost to taxpayers and the cycle will continue from that point.

“Employers that do not offer or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. Small employers that meet certain revenue thresholds will be exempt.”

So, if your employer does not meet the ambiguous requirements established by the Obama administration, they will be forced to pay a percentage of their payroll to the government for national health care. The employer will be additionally taxed for each employee, which means the employees will be paid less and the costs of their products or services will increase.

From this point, it just gets worse. Nowhere in his “blueprint” for health care reform is there a free market solution. Barack’s plan consists of bigger government, more mandates and regulations, and higher taxes. And what do we get in return? The same services we can get now, except they will be controlled by a government bureaucracy – the same type of bureaucracies that have repeatedly failed throughout American history and that are costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars every year (and soon trillions, if not already).

Next up on the list of issues is taxes. Since we have already discussed the huge tax increases and wasteful spending on health care, let’s see what Obama’s plan is for taxation:

“Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.”

Sounds great, doesn’t it? But if it is fairness he seeks, why not push for real tax reform like the FairTax? Why not eliminate the income tax from every American? The answer is simple: He doesn’t care about fairness – he cares about class warfare, soaking the “rich” in taxes, and redistributing wealth. If he truly cared about fairness, eliminating tax burdens, and decreasing the stranglehold of the government on the American people, he would not have written this in the very next paragraph:

“Obama will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.”

So, his plan calls for additional expansion of the IRS, one of the biggest and most detrimental bureaucracies our government has ever created. Instead of eliminating the IRS, he wants government employees to prepare our tax forms for us instead of private tax preparers, which would mean that more taxes would need to be funneled into the IRS and less money would go into the market. But instead of saving only $2 billion dollars in fees, why not eliminate virtually all of them along with practically all hours devoted to compliance of our tax code by adopting the FairTax? Obama is not willing to do such a thing because Obama has no intention of shrinking the size of our federal government. This is obvious with his plans for Social Security:

“Obama is committed to ensuring Social Security is solvent and viable for the American people, now and in the future.”

And just what is his solution?

“Obama is strongly opposed to privatizing Social Security.”

Well, Barack, would you rather keep it in the hands of a government that spends the excess revenues every year, instead of locking it away in the Social Security trust that doesn’t exist? What would you propose in order to keep government from spending the confiscated income of every working American that the government is supposed to be saving for their retirement?

“Obama believes that the first place to look for ways to strengthen Social Security is the payroll tax system. Currently, the Social Security payroll tax applies to only the first $97,500 a worker makes. Obama supports increasing the maximum amount of earnings covered by Social Security…”

Barack’s solution to Social Security reform is to raise taxes? Now that is change we can believe in. What will happen when the government gets their hands on additional revenue? They will spend it! This man is more naïve than previously thought. Or he just believes that the American people are stupid enough to vote for him, regardless of his socialist tendencies – and rightfully so. The same old leftist philosophy of dumping more money into failing programs is alive and well within Barack’s plans. He has no real solution to fixing this program, unless you consider giving away more private wealth to the government a “solution.”

What is his plan for homeowners to avoid foreclosure?

“Obama will create a fund to help people refinance their mortgages and provide comprehensive support to innocent homeowners. The fund will be partially paid for by Obama’s increased penalties on lenders who act irresponsibly and commit fraud.”

So another government “fund” will be created for Congress to inevitably use for something other than its intended purpose. This fund will only be “partially” paid for by some new laws that Obama will try to implement and will be enforced through law enforcement agencies that have nothing better to do, like catch violent criminals for example. The rest of the fund will be paid for by what? Without a doubt, it will include some new taxes.

Barack even has a plan for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA):

“The FMLA covers only certain workers in businesses with 50 or more employees. Obama will expand it to cover businesses with 25 or more employees. He will also expand what’s covered under the FMLA, to include allowing workers to take leave for elder care needs; allowing parents up to 24 hours of leave each year to participate in their children’s academic activities; and to expand FMLA to cover leave for employees to address domestic violence.”

Obama’s idea to help strengthen the economy is to force more businesses, especially smaller ones, to pay people for not working. He also wants to force each state to adopt paid leave programs:

“As president, Obama will initiate a strategy to encourage all 50 states to adopt paid-leave systems. Obama will provide a $1.5 billion fund to assist states with start-up costs and to help states offset the costs for employees and employers.”

So, while he acknowledges that these programs will cost employers and their employees, he somehow concludes that this will strengthen the economy. Once again, he creates a new fund to get this plan rolling, but this time it looks like Obama will provide it himself. It says, “Obama will provide…” – not the taxpayers. Well, that’s a relief because I was afraid we’d be taxed to death. Surely, that was a typo.

His plans for education don’t seem to be much better, and may end up creating a bigger mess than we have now:

“Obama’s comprehensive ‘Zero to Five’ plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents…Obama will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state ‘zero to five’ efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school…Obama will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both…Obama will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.”

Barack will start government education even earlier, create new programs, and increase funding for old ones. We all know that government education is so worthy of more money and that the results of government education are so impressive that we ought to enroll our children in government schools as early as possible. He also believes that we need to pump more money into No Child Left Behind. But wait, the absurdity doesn’t stop there:

“Obama will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education…Obama will also create Teacher Residency Programs…expand mentoring programs…provide incentives to give teachers paid common planning time…promote new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay…will address the dropout crisis by passing his legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies…will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs…expand summer learning opportunities…will ensure that the first $4000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans.”

Barack wants to create and expand in a government bureaucracy that is failing, and has been failing for some time, despite repeated increases in funding and new programs. On top of that, he wants to give out another tax credit for college tuition, which does not at all help reduce the costs of higher education. Believe it or not, rudimentary economic theory still influences the cost of tuition. When more people are able to attend college because the government gives them more tax credits, loans, grants, or other aid, the schools will raise their prices to compensate for the higher demand. More government programs and more money (that comes from the taxpayers) is not the solution. Getting government out of the process is what we need.

Just like his plans for education, Barack’s ideas for energy policy are quite the disaster:

“As a result of climate change, glaciers are melting faster; the polar ice caps are shrinking; trees are blooming earlier; more people are dying in heat waves; species are migrating, and eventually many will become extinct.”

So we can see that Obama is already operating off of the false notion that humans are causing global warming and that the disastrous effects can be avoided if we do something about it now. His energy policies are based on faulty science instead of cost-efficient analyses and the free market. This becomes obvious, as well as his robustly statist agenda, when we look at his actual plans for combating “climate change” and achieving energy independence.

“Obama supports implementation of a market-based cap-and-trade system…”

Let me interrupt right there. There is no demand for a “market-based” cap-and-trade system, thus, there isn’t a “market-based” cap-and-trade system. Businesses do not need it and most do not want it. The idea that this will somehow improve emission standards is entirely false. It will only increase prices to the consumer and once again redistribute wealth – but this time from big business to small business. You cannot implement a market-based cap-and-trade system. That makes it government-based.

“Obama’s cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. A 100 percent auction ensures that all polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away to coal and oil companies.”

There you have it. It is nothing more than a government tax on emissions. It is required by the government and is therefore not at all based on the market, especially when the government decides how the system will operate – in this case, like an auction. Unfortunately, the nonsense doesn’t end with cap-and-trade taxes.

“Obama will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid.”

Barack pledges another huge investment – paid for by the taxpayers – into programs that cannot sustain themselves or are completely counterintuitive to solving either rising energy prices or the fabled human-caused “climate change.” Biofuels are a disaster. We need to end that practice immediately. Plug-in hybrids simply transfer energy consumption from petroleum-based fuel to electricity. That means we will need a vast increase in power plant supply at a time when our power grids are already near or at capacity. Then Barack wants to invest in additional coal power plants. Even if they are “low-emissions,” they are still emitting. Nowhere in his plan does he call for nuclear energy, which has no carbon emissions whatsoever. And despite the rhetoric about wanting to be independent from oil, the fact of the matter still remains: We need oil now and we will for at least a few more decades until we have completely transitioned into these new technologies. Yet Barack has no plan for helping to alleviate the prices of petroleum or gas.

“Obama will double science and research funding for clean energy projects, including those that make use of our biomass, solar, and wind resources…Obama will use proceeds from the cap-and-trade auction program to invest in job training and transition programs…Obama will also create an energy-focused Green Jobs Corps…Obama will establish a federal investment program to help manufacturing centers modernize and Americans learn the new skills they need to produce green products…Obama will create a Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund…Obama will invest $10 billion per year into this fund for five years…Obama will establish a 25 percent federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to require that 25 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from clean sustainable energy sources…Obama will significantly increase the resources devoted to the commercialization and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies.”

Barack’s plans include more government, more mandates, and more spending – all paid for by us. But wait, there’s more:

“Obama will invest federal resources…into developing the most promising technologies…Obama will create a number of incentives for local communities to invest in their biofuels refineries…Obama will establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard…Obama will require 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be included in the fuel supply by 2022 and will increase that to at least 60 billion gallons of advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol by 2030…Obama will double fuel economy standards within 18 years…Obama will also invest in advanced vehicle technology…Obama will establish a goal of making all new buildings carbon neutral (that is, producing zero emissions) by 2030…Obama will create a competitive grant program…Obama will pursue a major investment in our utility grid…Obama will create a Global Energy Forum…The forum would focus exclusively on global energy and environmental issues…Re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.”

Invest in, create, and establish a range of programs that include international organizations – all paid for by our tax dollars. In the meantime, the private sector is dictated to by the government and there is not one mention of private market solutions or reducing their costs from the increasing tax burdens levied by the federal government. The worst part about all of these plans is that they are being done in the name of saving the planet from human-induced climate change that has yet to be scientifically proven. In fact, there is ample evidence that humans are having very little effect at all. Furthermore, none of Barack’s plans will have any effect on our short-term energy or food prices – except that they will most likely increase the prices even more than we have recently seen.

Barack’s inept plan to curb illegal immigration is to legalize everyone who came here, lives here, and works here illegally. He has “fought for comprehensive immigration reform that…puts the 12 million undocumented immigrants on a responsible path to citizenship.” Let’s not offend the illegal aliens in this country by calling these criminals what they really are and then dealing with them appropriately. His punishment will involve “undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line…” They don’t have to leave the country. They just have to go to the back of an imaginary line while they remain working and living in this country illegally and enjoying most of the same benefits that legal citizens and immigrants do.

What is Barack’s plan to fight poverty?

“Create a Green Jobs Corps…Obama will double the federal Jobs Access and Revenue Commute program…Obama will increase the number of working parents eligible for the EITC benefits, increase the benefits available…increase benefits for families with three or more children…Obama will raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation…Obama will expand the Nurse-Family Partnership…Obama will create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund…Obama will fully fund the Community Development Block Grant program…Obama will create 20 Promise Neighborhoods…which provides a full network of services, including early childhood education, youth violence prevention efforts and after-school activities, to an entire neighborhood from birth to college…Obama will provide additional resources to the federal Community Development Financial Institution Fund, the Small Business Administration and other federal agencies…Obama will invest in rural small businesses and fight to expand high-speed Internet access.”

His solution to combat poverty is to apparently make the entire nation poor so that we can’t tell the difference between us. Where will the funding for all of these creations, expansions, and increases originate? How many programs have we already seen created or expanded in his “blueprint”? How will this help the American citizens? Are we to believe that our inept government can really provide better programs and services than the private sector? Are we to believe that Barack’s plans to expand the federal government even further than in the last eight years is going to be beneficial to this nation?

He’s not done yet folks. You better grab your wallet and start getting used to providing services to the state.

“Obama will expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 slots today to 250,000…He will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students…a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps…a Veterans Corps…and a Homeland Security Corps…Obama will double the Peace Corps to 16,000 by 2011…Obama will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year…Obama will expand the YouthBuild program…Obama will ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities…Obama will create a Social Investment Fund Network to use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding…Obama will create an agency within the Corporation for National and Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.”

Can anyone seriously defend this man by claiming that he does not have a statist agenda? Would it be wrong to call him a socialist? I think so. It would actually be more accurate to call him a Marxist. Portions of his “Plan to Support Rural Communities” are eerily similar to the philosophies of the agrarian reformers of the late 19th century, which were basically the American working class who most closely identified with the infamous proletariats written about in the Communist Manifesto.

So, those are most of his domestic policies. He will expand the size and power of the federal government by creating new programs, new mandates, and undoubtedly increasing taxes in any way possible. He will encourage the “disadvantaged youth” to become government employees, expand institutionalized government education to pre-school children, and will demand community service from students at all levels. He will dump billions upon billions of dollars into failed government bureaucracies and will create brand new government bureaucracies to follow along the same path.

But here’s the real kicker:

“Obama will stop funding wasteful, obsolete federal government programs that make no financial sense.”

When you’re done laughing and you’ve wiped the tears from your face and worked out the cramps in your side, just know that there is more. This is from a Barack speech in the U.S. Senate on March 13, 2006 (which is quoted at the beginning of the “Fiscal Discipline” section):

“If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we’d see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.”

After all of the new spending that is mentioned in his “blueprint,” how can he make any claims of fiscal discipline with the slightest bit of integrity? Such audacity! This man is an utter buffoon – or he must think we are.

Then we have his foreign policy.

It’s not enough that Barack wants to destroy our nation from within; he also wants to attempt to destroy it from abroad. “Naïve” does not even begin to describe his ideas for dealing with the rest of the world. This man is hideously unqualified to be our next president and commander-in-chief. Discussing Barack’s foreign policy ought to be the most taboo subject of them all. He should avoid the topic at all costs, but for some reason, he thinks he is quite strong on the issue.

At the top of the list for foreign policy is his plan for the Iraq War. He begins this plan by stating his repeated opposition to the war and his repeated failures at trying to end it. It’s not a good start for any politician trying to convince voters that he will get things accomplished. Even after stating that he has failed to end the war and bring troops home, he goes on with the same old promise:

“Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”

There’s nothing like telegraphing your military strategy to the enemy. But one should notice that he specifically mentions “combat brigades” instead of all troops. Does that mean we will keep the military personnel in Iraq that is there to rebuild and oversee the development of infrastructure? Will they be there without U.S. combat troops to protect them from attack?

“As we remove our troops, Obama will engage representatives from all levels of Iraqi society – in and out of government – to seek a new accord on Iraq’s Constitution and governance. The United Nations will play a central role in this convention…”

Barack will magically bring everyone to the table and they will magically work together like never before. But what exactly does he mean that he will engage Iraqis that are “out of government”? Is he referring to militia leaders? Is he referring to resistance groups that have been complicating the progress because of their own refusal to cooperate with the new government? Barack will also bring the U.N. to Iraq to play a “central role.” We all know how well the U.N. has succeeded in the Middle East, so it only makes sense to give them the reins for establishing a working government with staying power in the most hostile region in the world.

“Obama will launch the most aggressive diplomatic effort in recent American history to reach a new compact on the stability of Iraq and the Middle East. This effort will include all of Iraq’s neighbors – including Iran and Syria.”

So Barack is going to go talk to everyone and tell them they need to be nice to each other, including two nations that are at the top of the list for state sponsors of terrorism. Just what does he think he will accomplish that others have failed to do? Will he demand that they listen to him because he’s Barack Obama, the bringer of change?

His specific plan for Iran is to meet with the leaders of the country and offer them goodies to stop sponsoring terrorism and threatening our long-time ally in the region – Israel. Here’s his brilliant idea:

“Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions...Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation.”

Barack will meet with leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has repeatedly threatened Israel and its allies and has claimed that the Holocaust was a “myth.” Barack will convince him that he is wrong and that he shouldn’t say bad things about wanting to eliminate Israel, then reward him for saying that he will allow Israel to exist. He will reward Iran for abandoning programs it should not even have. He will reward Iran for not sponsoring terrorism. He will legitimize people who mock international laws and continually threaten and disrupt the small amount of peace and security in the region.

If the Iranian leaders don’t stop what they are doing, Barack will basically do nothing. They just won’t get all of the nice perks that come with being civil to their neighbors. It doesn’t sound like much of a deterrent. This plan actually sounds Chamberlainesque and similar to the appeasement President Bush was talking about during his speech in Israel last week.

Barack’s general plan for diplomacy doesn’t sound any better.

“Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe. He will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table, and that he is willing to lead.”

America is already at the table. We built the table and have invited everyone to meet us there. But we will not talk to anyone who refuses to acknowledge another nation’s right to exist, to abandon their nuclear weapons programs, to stop supporting terrorism, to stop committing genocide, or to stop suppressing fundamental human rights. We have preconditions for a reason, Mr. Obama. We don’t bring thugs and dictators to our table and legitimize them and their oppressive regimes.

The fact that Barack is unable to distinguish between peaceful and hostile nations and what it means to talk to the latter, is quite telling of his utter lack of judgment and his naivety when it comes to foreign relations. This is another aspect of the job in which a basic misunderstanding of international politics ought to disqualify him as a legitimate candidate for president. To put this man in the position to negotiate treaties, meet with foreign leaders, and command our military is just downright insanity. His fantastical idea of winning over every hostile foreign regime and his failure to recognize why we do not meet with certain leaders illustrates the precarious ignorance resulting from his inexperience. This is not a risk we should be willing to take.

The rest of his foreign policy is just more waste and ridiculously lofty goals.

“Obama will secure all loose nuclear materials in the world within four years.”

How? By passing legislation? I’m sorry, but that is just empty rhetoric. It will not happen. If he wins the presidency and secures all loose materials within four years, and can verify it, then I will work for his re-election campaign in 2012.

The most surprising part of Obama’s plan is his claim that he will expand the military, increase training, and improve equipment. Apparently, many of his left-wing supporters haven’t read that far down on his list. If what he says is true, then I applaud his efforts, even though it appears his assumption is that our military is not sufficiently trained or equipped today.

For fear of ending this discussion on a somewhat good note, I will mention one last thing about his foreign policy.

“Obama will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and he will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal.”

It’s just another lofty goal, another large sum of wasted American tax dollars, and another foreign policy failure.

So there you have it folks. Those are “the issues” that Barack and his supporters have been clamoring about for the last few months. I honestly don’t believe that they really want to discuss these issues, which is why all you ever hear from his campaign is, “Change we can believe in” and other such rhetorical nonsense. Barack is just your typical tax-and-spend Democrat with a little more flavor and a lot more socialism.

I hope this has been eye-opening for anyone who was planning to vote for “change” and for everyone that thought they had an understanding of how bad that change would be. The taboo subjects will undoubtedly be expanded soon to include all of these issues so that Barack doesn’t have to explain why he wants to increase government spending even more than the Bush administration, why our national debt will increase at a record pace, and why our country will become just like the socialist nations of Europe.

Can we elect Barack H. Obama in November? Everybody say it with me:

“No, no, no! Not Si, se puede! No, se puede!”

(Yes…that was a Reverend Wright reference.)

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