The Audacity of Dopes

Hillary Clinton wants you to vote for her because of how good things were the last time she was President. John McCain wants you to vote for him because he is a genuine war hero.

And Barack Obama wants you to vote for him because he will bring “hope and change” into your life.

Why is it that laundry detergent commercials treat their viewers like intelligent people who can make reasoned decisions, but politicians, who are after all talking about issues slightly more serious than the mud stains on little Jimmy’s favorite Elmo T-shirt, treat voters as though they can’t understand a sentence with more than three words in it?

How stupid do these guys think voters are?

Did Obama really think nobody would notice the people he hangs around with? That his spiritual leader, that “cranky old uncle” of a pastor, is a rabid hate-monger racist who thinks that Louis Farrakhan is a role model for young people and that America got what it deserved on September 11^th? That no one would care that Obama has been at this church with this pastor for over twenty years, that he was married in this church by this pastor, that his children go to Sunday School in this church, that he asked for this pastor’s blessing before he decided to run for President, and that he donated $22,500 to the church in 2006? No sane person would listen to the race-baiting Reverend Wright for five minutes without walking out but Obama has been listening to him for more than twenty years, and he and his family are still listening.

Did Obama really think that nobody would wonder how it was that he had no problems buying land at a very favorable price from Tony Rezko, who he knew was under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office and who has since been indicted for allegedly trying to collect nearly $6 million in kickbacks from government deals and trying to shake down a Hollywood producer for $1.5 million in campaign contributions. Obama and Rezko have been friends since 1990, and Rezko raised as much as $60,000 in campaign contributions for Obama. Why did the candidate of “hope and change” accept campaign contributions from Rezko and some of the other shady figures in the case?

Did Obama think nobody would ever wonder how an unknown, unheard-of, inexperienced minor politician could go in only three years ago from the Illinois Senate to the Democratic front-runner in the Presidential race? That nobody would ask who helped him along the way and why?

Did Obama think nobody would notice that among the $740 million of earmarks he requested, in only 3 years (!) in the US Senate, was $1 million for the hospital where his wife Michelle works, at about just the time she was promoted to VP (at a salary of over $300,000 a year), just about the time she finally decided she could be proud to be an American? That Obama cynically switched positions and voted for reforming the earmark privileges he had until only yesterday been so energetically abusing. Does Obama think nobody will demand to see the list of his earmarks from his days in the Illinois Senate?

Did Obama think nobody would ever ask him to spell out what exactly he means by “hope and change”?

Every once in a while an Eliot Spitzer comes along to remind us of Lloyd George’s observation that politicians are like monkeys; the higher they climb up the tree, the more revolting are the parts they expose.

Obama is exposing his contempt for the American people, his cynical belief that they are too stupid to ask the right questions, that they will swallow whole his meaningless slogans and empty promises, and that they will vote for him for no better reason than that he makes them feel good all over.

Now there’s audacity for you, the audacity of dopes.