New Media Alliance - Bob Parks

By Bob Parks

I think we all know what’s coming. The ramp up to the November general election will be ugly. That’s the very nature of politics today. But it’s what’ll happen afterwards that should be cause for concern.

America is a racially fractured nation, okay? Let’s be honest here. Despite all our overtures and marches and Kumbaya moments, when the rubber meets the road, the race issue is that which always seems makes us swerve into the ditch. You thought the aftermath of the 2000 election was unfortunate? Just wait and see what happens if Barack Obama loses.

It will be beyond a “stolen election”. For that to happen, many Democrats and Independents will have to do the unthinkable: vote for a white man. Should John McCain win, I can hear it now: America is a racist country.

It’s not like the United States has never elected black people. Unfortunately, it’s some of the blacks that we’ve elected that have talked a good game to get elected, but have (in some cases) performed poorly once in office. Precedent can be a hard thing to shake.

The election of former New York mayor David Dinkins was to signal the dawn of a new day. His inauguration speech included the obligatory “references to oppression, human rights, and the need for equality. He vowed to be ‘mayor of all the people of New York,’ and declared: ‘We are all foot soldiers on the march to freedom.’”

However, “Dinkins faced a $1.8 billion budget deficit when he entered office which grew to $2.2 billion by the time he left office. The economy remained sluggish throughout his term, preventing the enactment of much of his agenda.”

There are few examples of Democrats (of any gender or color) leaving an area in better shape than they inherited it.

Today in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick (Massachusetts’ first black governor) has been a disaster, primarily because of his personal behavior, lack of common sense, and outright arrogance.

“Deval Patrick was the one who came into office claiming our state was in a bad financial situation. Yet, the independently wealthy Deval didn’t forgo his salary like Mitt Romney and Kerry Healey did when they took office. Instead, he upgraded his car, started accumulating frequent flier miles on a state police helicopter, got his wife an unnecessary chief of staff, and decided to redecorate his office with expensive furnishings at our expense.

“Deval Patrick has proven himself to be a liberal’s liberal and a Democrat’s Democrat. He sees our tax dollars as play money that can be thrown at anything to help him live a life of luxury.”

These things reflect badly, and are parked in the memories of those just looking for an excuse to vote against a black candidate.

“Patrick has directed a state budget process that is weighed down by deficits and spending, including a gubernatorial office budget that jumped 80% in one year.”

Now while Barack Obama has been touted as a break from the past and has received near-Messiah status from the mainstream media and his supporters (who call those who oppose him “haters”), he won’t easily shake the bad blood left by his electoral predecessors. We have elected blacks who garner questionable respect, like Congresswomen Sheila Jackson-Lee and Maxine Waters, and former senator Carol Moseley-Braun.

Let’s not forget the former mayor of Washington D.C., Marion Barry who served from 1979 to 1991, and again from 1995 to 1999. Despite the fact he was behavior-challenged, he was clearly reelected solely because of the color of his skin. That continues to irk many.

Granted, the Reverend Wright incidents are nowhere near the level of “The bitch set me up”, but Barry Obama has survived his share of media-ignored gaffes. Some people may still have Marion on their minds asking whether Obama will continue the incompetence and embarrassment legacy while holding the highest office in the land.

“I read a funny story about how the Republicans freed the slaves. The Republicans are the ones who created slavery by law in the 1600’s. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and he was not a Republican.”

“I am a great mayor; I am an upstanding Christian man; I am an intelligent man; I am a deeply educated man; I am a humble man.”
— Marion Barry

America is not an inherently racist country. While some (blacks and white guilt liberals) will vote for Barack Obama solely on the color of his skin, some will vote against him because they don’t agree with him. The harm will come from those on the left that will see that as an instinctive racist motivation.

While Republicans didn’t bring up Obama’s race initially, we will get the blame should he lose (even though no “real” Republicans would vote for him) and the issue of race in the 2008 election will eclipse the bad blood that remains to this day over Al Gore’s debacle.

So it would appear, either way we’re screwed.

If John McCain wins, we’ll have a Republican who doesn’t respect the conservative wing of the party. If Barack Obama wins, the ramifications on the War on Terror, Supreme Court judges, energy policy, and the economy will all be at risk. The last thing we should be concerned with is Barack’s race.

But then again if that wasn’t a prime factor, we wouldn’t be America, would we?

By Bob Parks

A fair amount of people (those who seldom agree with me on anything) take issue with my use of the phrase “Affirmative Action president” when referring to Barack Obama. Like many who even today receive preferential treatment in hiring or admissions because of their race or gender, Obama hasn’t put in the time, thus is considered vastly inexperienced when it comes to his applying for the top job in our nation.

And the perception is he is receiving a lot of support where it shouldn’t be coming from.

According to a new Rasmussen poll,

Just 17% of voters nationwide believe that most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of election campaigns. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that four times as many—68%–believe most reporters try to help the candidate that they want to win.

The perception that reporters are advocates rather than observers is held by 82% of Republicans, 56% of Democrats, and 69% of voters not affiliated with either major party. The skepticism about reporters cuts across income, racial, gender, and age barriers.

Now while I’ve been documenting examples of media bias for years, it’s kind of comforting to know it’s beginning to stick, and the American people aren’t going to take it anymore.

Pardon my repetition, but the point has to be made: liberals want a black man (or woman) to win this fall’s presidential election. In this case, they have Barack Obama.

Today, the media has selected him. Tomorrow they will work in concert to get him elected. It has everything to do with self-imposed white guilt and condescension, and has nothing to do with his qualifications (or lack thereof).

For example, using this season’s candidates as examples,

If Janet Huckabee wrote a college thesis saying that she felt uncomfortable around her liberal black professors and students in college, would that have been “understood” by the mainstream media, or would Mrs. Huckabee have had the scarlet “R” burnt into her forehead?

I think we all know what the answer would’ve been. Janet would still be on her “apology tour”, would have attended at least one sensitivity training to get her mind right, would have done quality time at some inner city community center, been a guest on Al Sharpton’s radio show to accept her punches with no guarantee of forgiveness, and would still have it all hanging over her head and staining her husband’s campaign (as long as it lasted).

Liberals are morally-equating the John McCain-Reverend John Hagee “relationship” to that of Barack Obama-Pastor Jeremiah Wright. While the length and quality of the associations vary to the point where a comparison isn’t logically possible, imagine the media firestorm if Hagee had a whole DVD library of speeches where he blamed black males for raping white women, and/or black women for ballooning the welfare rolls by giving birth around 70% without a husband to support her kids. In that context, imagine if Reverend Hagee shouted, “God damn America!”

Just what do you think would have happened to John McCain’s campaign if he claimed to have gone on an overseas visit to our soldiers, and dodged sniper fire after getting off the plane, causing him and others to serpentine their way to the nearest cover? What do you think would be the status of his campaign today if video surfaced of him on the tarmac in that country, receiving a flower from a little girl, surrounded by dignitaries from that nation, nary a sniper’s bullet whizzing by?

Let’s be honest here. John McCain would be toast, finis, end of story, with a fork stuck in him.

And let’s not even try and guess how hard the media WOULD be digging if there was a rumor that Ann Romney was videotaped at a private gathering, blaming corrupt “nigger” politicians running unstable governments in Africa that’s resulted in the deaths of millions of Africans. How long would this remain a “rumor”? Do you think the media would be disregarding it, or seeking to prove/disprove it once and for all?

Again, I go back to the statement my very first editor sent me out the door with…

“It’s the job of the media to report the news. Not incite it.”

It’s too bad today’s reporters feel so comfortable blowing off the basic ethics of journalism, as they not only want to report a story of potential historical importance, but they also want to be a part of it. As many of us know, many of today’s liberally trained journalism students leave school not wanting to report the news as it happens.

They want to “make a difference”, and the only real way to do that, as a journalist is to go beyond the job description.

The media knows how much power it has. They know how to use it. It doesn’t matter how many times they get caught red-handed slanting a story to their personal preference, they will continue to do so until they get what they want.

Barack Obama. Selected, and the media is working to get him elected.

By Bob Parks

All day Wednesday, the Fox News Channel was repeating some poll in which around 45% of Americans believed we are in a recession. It¡¯s not like the signs aren¡¯t all around us.

While Neil Cavuto reminded fact-challenged, Clinton operative Lanny Davis that 95% of homeowners are indeed paying their mortgages on time, Davis continued his recitation that America is spiraling downward.

Despite all the doom and gloom, America is not in a recession, in fact, according to our rule of economics, ¡°if the economy contracts for six straight months it is considered to be in a recession. That, however, didn¡¯t happen in the last recession in 2001¡å, and it isn¡¯t happening now.Soaring gas prices, higher food prices, and a sputtering job market aren¡¯t helping things but since the Democrat presidential candidates, in an effort to differentiate themselves from President Bush, chose the economy as a topic to beat on, well, if you repeat something often enough, people will believe it.

Just last fall, the stock market was soaring, jobs were plentiful, the sub-prime mortgage mess was just starting to rear its ugly head, but the economy was rolling along full steam. That is, until presidential candidates who have to appear at photo-op visits to people¡¯s places of employment so they can understand what ¡°ordinary people¡± do, decided to call ours the worst economy since the Hoover Administration.

According to Fox News and Associated Press,

Many analysts were predicting gross domestic product (GDP) growth would come in at 0.5 percent during the January ¡ª March 2008 period. Earlier this year, some economists thought the economy actually would lurch into reverse during the opening quarter.

The latest numbers reported Wednesday by the Commerce Department also did not meet what economists consider the classic definition of a recession, a retraction of the economy. This means that although the economy is stuck in a rut, it is still managing to grow, even if the growth is modest.

So why do so many Americans believe we are in recession? Ignorance of what the true definition of a recession is. The fact that presidential candidates are repeating this inaccuracy doesn¡¯t help either.
The economy¡¯s in trouble. When the housing crisis broke, Hillary Clinton called for action: a freeze on foreclosures. Barack Obama said, no. Now, gas prices are skyrocketing, and she¡¯s ready to act again. Hillary¡¯s plan: Use the windfall profits of the oil companies to pay to suspend the gas tax this summer. Barack Obama says no, again. People are hurting. It¡¯s time for a president who¡¯s ready to take action now.
¨C Clinton campaign ad running in Indiana and North CarolinaIf Hillary Clinton says so, it must be true.

I¡¯m here to tell you the truth. We could suspend the gas tax for six months, but that¡¯s not going to bring down gas prices long-term. You¡¯re gonna save about 25, 30 dollars, or half a tank of gas. That¡¯s typical of how Washington works. There¡¯s a problem, everybody¡¯s upset about gas prices, let¡¯s find some short-term, quick-fix that we can say we did something even though, even though we¡¯re not really doing anything. We cannot deliver on a better energy policy unless we change how business is done in Washington. We¡¯ve got to go out to the oil companies and look at their price-gouging. We¡¯ve got to start using less oil, and that means raising fuel-efficiency standards on cars and developing alternative fuels. That¡¯s the real honest answer to how we¡¯re going to solve this problem. That¡¯s what you need from a president ¡ª someone who¡¯s going to tell you the truth.
¨C Obama campaign ad running in Indiana and North CarolinaNow, let¡¯s be honest.

If a President Obama or Clinton were currently running for a second term while the economy was in this mess, do you think they¡¯d be calling it a recession? Of course not. They¡¯d be calling it what it is. A ¡°correction¡±, a ¡°bump in the road¡±, ¡°nothing we can¡¯t and won¡¯t recover from¡±. You know, optimistic phrases like that.

If Republicans were in control of the House and Senate, they would be receiving the brunt of the blame by our candidates. For example, since Democrats took control of Capitol Hill, gasoline prices have risen over a dollar a gallon. Has anyone blamed them? No, because save for the fact they tax gasoline, they have very little effect on the markets. But depending on who¡¯s in power, and who seeks it, they¡¯ll either receive or be spared blame.

Unfortunately, the left relies on the ignorance of the American people to scare them into thinking and doing what they want. Right now, they want your vote, so everything that can go wrong in America, according to presidential candidates, is.

Will we recover? Yes.

The real question should be, are you obsessing about a recession that is not?

By Bob Parks

Well this is a fine “How do you do”. The very Democrats, (including Barack Obama) who insinuate that Republicans are a party of bigots, have found the formula for victory within their own party: the politics of race and fear.

According to Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times,
Clinton loses 11 consecutive races, and the photograph of Sen. Barack Obama in Somalian garb shows up.

Clinton falls behind in pledged delegates and gets caught in a lie about her Bosnia adventure, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. story reignites.

On Philadelphia radio, Bill Clinton accused the Obama campaign of playing the race card, while denying he said that a day later.
Barack Obama has sewn up the youth vote, indoctrinated with the ideal that affirmative action on the presidential campaign level is one whose time has come. Hillary Clinton, despite the pride Democrats boast with the historical possibilities of this campaign, is playing upon the no-longer inert racist concerns some have with having a black man in The White House.

Apparently it’s working for Hillary, and after her Pennsylvania primary victory, we’re assured of hearing more cloaked race talk from Bill and her surrogates as the race to the Denver convention drags on. It would appear the only way Hillary Clinton can win the Democrat nomination is to convince the superdelegates that a black man cannot beat John McCain, and (without being an elitist…) Democrats are not ready to shuck their deep-seeded racism and give the reins of power to a black Obama.

A woman, yes; a black man no. For that reason, she’s the only person who can beat the Republican.

There are those pesky polls that say over 50% of the voting public wouldn’t vote for her under any circumstances. But that was then, and she’s a new and improved Hillary now.

Indeed, given that Gov. Ed Rendell, who is leading Clinton’s campaign in Pennsylvania, has said publicly that “conservative whites” would not vote for Obama because he is black, Obama could have had a lot more to say about the mind-set of rural voters in that state.

Clinton, who not once has challenged Rendell’s disgraceful stereotype of Pennsylvania voters as racist, has consistently seized upon polarizing issues in an effort to boost her campaign.

While throwing their fellow white Democrats under the very bus where they can sit in front, the Clintons seemingly care not about the widening racial chasm their strategy is creating in America. Now while this doesn’t surprise me, as I believe Democrats want an impoverished black community that will continue to vote for promises never kept, the potential jacking of the nomination from Obama is a floor covered with eggshells a rhythm-challenged Hillary will have difficulty dancing around.

In 2008, we are far from being the long dreamt of colorblind society we wish to be. In their quest for the presidency, the Clintons may be doing more to divide our nation than any macaca moment could ever do.

What’s unfortunate is that she is doing this on purpose.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are living their 60’s mantra of “by any means necessary”. Whatever it takes to win, they will do, and they’ve found their formula. If by encouraging the Democrat superdelegates to ignore millions of popular voters and nominate her, she will gladly replace the near eight years of blaming Republicans of disenfranchising with a whopper of her own.

What she’s done to Michigan and Florida, she will gladly do to the nation in order to win a presidency she believes is her birthright. If she polarizes the nation along racial lines, it’s a small price to pay to get what she wants.

Imagine what Hillary Clinton will feel she can do as president….

By Bob Parks

I touched on this over the weekend, but the more I think about it, the more I feel the need to expend a long-simmering rant.

I saw this op/ed in the Burlington Free Press by a now-enlightened Hector J. Vila, assistant professor in writing at Middlebury College …

“I have entered into an agreement with my mother and one of her friends: If Hillary Clinton is the nominee of the Democratic Party we won’t vote in the national election.”

The writer then goes on to enumerate the many things the Clintons have done during and after their presidency. What really gets me is his tone, which gives readers the impression that he’s tipping us off to things we did not know.

For example, he talks about Hillary’s now-laughable story of her serpentine under enemy sniper fire in Bosnia.

“Sidestepping the truth is in the Clintons’ DNA. Continuing down this road will drain us emotionally and spiritually. My mother, her friends and I are exhausted.”

Over the years, I’ve been called a “sell out” and “Uncle Tom” for being a Republican, but it was precisely my intellectually honest fatigue of blindly defending the Clinton escapades of the 90’s that prompted me to change my party affiliation in 1995.

I too was tired of lying for them. Thirteen years later I am, all of a sudden, not alone…?

As I peruse the Daily Kos and Huffington Post prop up all things Obama, they now lecture us about Hillary and the Clinton family trait of dishonesty. What galls me is that these were the very people who called people like me a “Clinton hater” for simply doing what they are doing now. These Democrats act like we should have known this about the Clintons long ago.

Many of us did.

As I am not officially a betting man, I can’t come right out and say that Obama WILL be the Democrat presidential nominee, because I know the Clintons won’t take defeat lying down. If I may bring up a talking point of the recent past, when people dared expose a Clinton malfeasance, they where subject to the three D’s: deny, delay, and destroy.

Barack Obama is only in the “delay” phase right now.

“Hillary is asking voters to take a look at her baggage because the Republicans have attacked it and she has come through this test victorious. Indeed – there is Whitewater and Travelgate and Filegate, and the circumstances around Vince Foster’s death. A cloud hangs over Hillary. Old news, perhaps, but if we stop and take a closer look, we see a couple that has miraculously escaped condemnation, legal or otherwise.”

The only reason that Bill and Hillary came through the test victorious was because so many Democrats were willing to have a suspension of belief when it came to the many scandals that popped up, one after another after another, during the Clinton administration.

There was Cattlefuturegate, Indonesiagate, Pardongate, and maybe this fall we’ll hear from all the people who fled the country to avoid testifying against them.

While progressives demand we give women the respect and honor they deserve, Bill Clinton was defended by his minion as the many women who gave uniform descriptions of his boorish tendencies were discredited, attacked, and accused of being lying, Republican operatives. One Hollywood actress who claimed to be a victim of Bill’s “touch” left the country instead of subjecting herself to the liberal love.

By the way, I wonder if Juanita Broaddrick will soon become an honored speaker at the next Yearly Kos Convention?

“Hillary claims that Obama is out of touch, an elite. But the Clintons have skirted reality – our mounting debt and the fear that we are transitioning into a new age where America is no longer “top gun” but something else, lagging behind China and India. Neither Clinton nor Obama are addressing this reality. This and the war plague the American consciousness.”

Alas, the fear in which America is no longer “top gun” lagging behind China. We “Clinton haters” were accused of gross exaggeration while we were screaming about the possible treason that was “Chinagate”. Maybe now, Assistant Professor Vila will newsflash the details behind that little gem, details that he probably dismissed as Republican fantasy and hate.

It’s sad that Democrats, who are suddenly defenders of all things proper and legal, now want to warn us about the very Clinton past they vilified us for while they were happening.

I guess better late than never.