GALLAGHER: Obama's truth deficit

This is chilling.

If you are going to accuse someone of having a "truth deficit" you need to offer supporting facts. One relevant fact is that Ayers and Obama served on a board for an organization created by the Annenbergs, a prominent Republican family that includes a former Russian ambassador appointed by Ronald Reagan and a John McCain supporter. But I'm sure he has returned the contributions by now to show his outrage at the family's decision to appoint Ayers to a board position. I am still waiting for facts that support your claim that Ayers was Obama's friend and mentor. You have a right to your own opinions; you do not have a right to your own facts.

It's not only Ayres. It's Rezko, Wright, ACORN, etc., etc. Every American should be questioning Obama's character and judgment. It is incredible that this is just being swept under the rug and not exposing just how dangerous he is.

Obama shows a masterful ability to inspire people. His opponents dismiss this as empty rhetoric. Yet Ronald Reagan had that same ability; his opponents dismissed it as empty rhetoric. Inspirational leadership is incredibly important, never more so than in times of crisis. The public lack of confidence in President Bush has emasculated any attempts he and his administration have made to lead the nation in these dark economic times. Obama has shown an extraordinary ability to inspire a very broad swath of the public – young, old, Caucasian, non-Caucasian, rich and poor. My Republican Party is boxing itself into a narrow corner that espouses, not only an American Exceptionalism that is in many ways justifiable and in some ways not, but more troublingly, an increasingly strident xenophobia. I am willing to take a chance on the young Obama because he is clearly intelligent, well-informed, practical and inspirational. For full disclosure, I am a Republican, Wall Street financial executive and US army veteran of OEF in Afghanistan. I am not ashamed of my life's work although I am deeply saddened by the disaster we as a nation are facing because of the "irrational exuberance" at so many levels of our national economy. I have faithfully voted the GOP ticket my entire life and donated thousands both to the GOP and McCain over the years. I voted twice for GHW Bush, for Bob Dole in 1996, and twice for GW Bush. I worked on McCain's 2000 campaign. In 2008 I'm voting for Obama/Biden.

I think the very long, thoughtful and candid first speech that Obama gave upon being confronted with Wright's more vitriolic speech is worth re-reading:  http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/18/obama.transcript/index.html Yes it is full of rhetorical flourishes; no he does not repudiate Wright in this first public address on the topic. He DOES repudiate Wright's messages of hatred. What I found most revealing in this speech is that Obama has no rosy illusions about the range of emotions that underlie either the black or the white poor communities in this country. The most important part of what I see in Obama is that unlike some affluent middle-class blacks who left their roots and original communities behind (and other ethnicities who have done the same; this desire to move on is completely understandable), Barack and Michelle Obama chose to stay and fight for their fellow black citizens who have not lived the American dream. Michelle Obama admittedly makes me nervous, for I think she is an angrier person than her husband although probably not as angry as some fear. But it is Obama who would be president – and in no way have I seen anger as a significant let alone governing part of his personality (I cannot say the same for McCain). This is why I am hopeful – for when Bill Cosby told black men and families they needed to live up to their responsibilities he was excoriated and excommunicated by his own people; when Obama said essentially the same thing, they sat up, listened and chose to support him. This is not solely the doing of Obama. Times have changed, but the black community still needs a powerful leader who can wrest their social orthodoxy from the reactionary victimology that the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton dictate and change it to a more constructive, integrated and responsibility-driven dialogue. I think Obama can be that leader.

When I read Obama's Audacity of Hope and his other writings, what strikes me is the severe honesty of observations and descriptions (in ways distinctly unflattering to him) of the agonizing choices he had to make as a young man in order to assimilate into predominantly Caucasian America, and the spiritual journey that he undertook moving into adulthood to understand better his mixed racial heritage. I can empathize with that journey but only to a degree – the racism I faced as an Asian growing up in Florida, Texas and Virginia, and even now as an adult, has been negligible and benign compared to what the average black male endured and continues to endure. Friends from around the country who show affection and respect for me, openly admit they would never vote for Obama because he is a black man; these people are kind and good people – but they cannot get past their pre-conceived notions and fears of what a "black American President" would mean to them. As for what Reverend Wright has said: while I love my country passionately not only for itself but above all others and wholeheartedly disagree with the bitter hatred underlying Wright’s words, I also sympathize with the decades of frustration, anger and hopelessness that the Reverend and many of his followers have endured – some of it their own making, some not. While I uncompromisingly condemn Wright's "God damn America," I would not completely disagree with Wright's assessment that 9/11 was "America's chickens coming home to roost." I do NOT excuse or condone the vile murders that violent terrorists commit, I still grieve for the victims both dead and living, and I put my Wall Street job on hold for nearly 2 years to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. We MUST be honest with ourselves, however, about the choices that we make and acknowledge that those choices will have consequences, some that are primary, secondary, tertiary or even unknown in effect. Everything that we as Americans do, whether it is choosing political allies, economic or financial policies, social policies, even our choices of consumption, has consequences. Our size, wealth and history as a nation have meant that our actions have disproportionately large effects not only within our own communities but globally. This is why I feel so strongly that I want leaders who are capable of stepping outside of themselves and understanding not only their own world but the perspectives of others around them. I feel very strongly that Obama has this ability; I also feel very strongly that McCain and Palin lack it to various disturbing degrees – for McCain it is his monumentally self-absorbed ego and temper that often (although not always) get in the way, for Palin it is not only her narrow life experience (rich as it undoubtedly has been in so many ways) but also her demonstrated lack of interest and knowledge in so many areas that we as American citizens should expect our vice presidential and presidential candidates to understand.

The real estate deal with the Rezkos involved bad judgment on Obama's part, but I don't see evidence of anything more corrupt in Obama's dealings there. The $250,000 in campaign donations that Obama's campaign uncovered as sourced from Rezko and his known associates were contributed prior to revelation of the federal investigation; Obama's campaign claims 2/3 of those contributions have been donated since to non-profit groups (it would be nice if someone could verify that). The prices that the Obamas paid for their own house and the adjacent parcel generally seem to reflect market prices at the time, and the property's previous owner has corroborated Obama's account. What this story reflects to me is Obama's naïveté in thinking that he could remain above the fray. Obama should have known that even if Rezko had not called in favors in the past, eventually there would be such a request, and a request from someone under investigation should have been something to be avoided at all costs. The real estate transaction was evidence of poor judgment, but I don't see other evidence of corruption in either this story or in Obama's history. This pales in comparison to McCain's active intercessions on behalf of the Keating Five, which I also don't think are worth discussing; this Rezko issue is even less questionable than Palin accepting travel per diem for 312 days that she stayed at home. The hardest piece to resolve in Obama's personal association is the relationship with Reverend Wright given its duration and intimacy. I think it has to be placed in the context of what it means to be a black man and particularly a black politician in the US. Until very recently, it has been almost impossible for a black man in this country to repudiate the social orthodoxy of the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton schools of racial politics. Look what happened to poor Bill Cosby.

So what of Obama's character? What of Ayers, Rezko and Wright? After reading as much as is available in open press (I've spent considerable time on conservative, liberal and independent web sites as well as reviewing MSM) about Obama's associations with Ayers, Rezko and Wright, I would dismiss the first two as negligible given what has been revealed of the nature of the relationships (as repulsive as Ayers' unrepentant support for violent acts of terrorism and Rezko's corruption are) and the third as the most troubling given the duration and intimacy of the relationship. The conservative attack wing has tried now for quite some time to find dirt on Obama for the Ayers and Rezko relationships. They haven’t found much. This is not a conspiracy of MSM to keep unflattering stories of leftist politicians under wraps. The conservative right is now just as well funded as the left, and they have found little if anything but vague allegations with little substance to the Ayers and Rezko issues. Neither of these stories passes my smell test for malfeasance either in the context of what we have seen demonstrated in Obama's legislative record and what we know of his personal finances. Obama has roundly condemned Ayers' history of violence that occurred 40 years ago when Obama was 7 years old. Ayers has been disturbingly unrepentant about his acts of violence, but he has also spent the rest of his adult life engaged in social programs targeting education of the underprivileged in our society and has been for at least 30 years a well-received figure in Chicago civics. Obama met and worked with Ayers when he was a respected and established academic devoted to educational projects – not projects to inculcate violence in children. These educational proposals funded by private charities, while decidedly left-wing and possibly unpalatable to the broad middle of America, are hardly radical let alone violent in nature. Obama has downplayed the frequency and duration of their interaction dating back to 1995, which is unwise but unsurprising given the nature of Ayers' past. I'm not sure how this is worse than McCain's long-standing friendship with G. Gordon Liddy, or Governor Palin "pallin' around" with her husband's Joe Vogler/Alaska Secessionists – Vogler who proudly and furiously states “I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

Some of my friends have accused Obama of an unattractive degree of narcissism and promoting or accepting a cult of personality. Obama's publication of two books detailing his personal journey is out of step with our times and certainly no less narcissistic than McCain's own publications and Palin's by now threadbare hockey-mom, pitbull and maverick tropes. Obama's books interest me as he reveals an almost clinical detachment in describing his own journey that is at times blatantly unflattering to himself in their lack of sentimentality (for instance his description of his father's visit). Obama's prose is elegant, but it cannot disguise his at times unsettling severity. I think it is this lack of sentimentality that people compare with McCain's unabashed romanticism, often to Obama's disadvantage. McCain is often Don Quixote tilting at the windmills of earmarks; Obama is like a field biologist examining an anthill. What is unclear to me is in what economic direction Obama will take his party – to the center as President Clinton did and Obama's advisors Warren Buffett, Paul Volcker, George Soros and Robert Rubin would undoubtedly prefer, or to the more left of center vision espoused by Robert Reich who hardly qualifies though as the socialist vanguard and whose advocacy of expanded technological education for workers is something I would support. While Obama undoubtedly supports higher taxation on the individual rich and on corporations, he routinely has championed middle class families (albeit at lower income levels than all middle income families would like to see), who are the backbone of this country. His plan for taxation I think is both reasonable and responsible given our deficits. Obama's passionate support for a national investment strategy of comprehensive energy independence that decreases reliance on fossil fuels while protecting our environment is far more credible and again indicative of good judgment than McCain's very late-to-the-game embrace of energy independence and Palin's drill-at-all-costs mantra.

My bottom line on McCain is that he has not set forth a compelling vision of why I should vote for him, and he has given me many reasons, not least of which is Governor Palin’s current state of unpreparedness, not to vote for him. Why do I now support Obama? What makes me hopeful that Obama is more than just a gifted orator, is that he DOES have a strong albeit short legislative record. After listening to and reading about Obama this past year and delving into his legislative record, I find in him a deeply cerebral, well-informed and compassionate intellect coupled with a dense legislative record given its relatively short duration. While his legislative record is clearly left of center, Republican claims that his accomplishments are non-existent and McCain's claim that he has never reached across the aisle are not true. I think you should read the attached links on Obama's legislation that started as typical left-oriented bills and became bipartisan efforts through Obama's hard work. It's no easy task to get anything passed in state legislatures – if anything it is harder than federal legislation because the politics are so close to home and become so immediately personal. This article in the Washington Post is a good discussion of how Obama started with a decidedly left-wing proposal and had to LISTEN to, compromise with and then persuade others who disagreed with him:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html  And here is a link from the Illinois state government web site on Obama's legislative record:  http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/legisnet90/summary/900HB1757.html I also think it's worth looking at Obama's US Senate legislative record. What I see throughout his time as both state and US senator is a politician who actively promotes the health and welfare of the citizenry, particularly of the disadvantaged and our veterans, protects consumer rights, protects the environment, promotes education of our children, promotes investment in our infrastructure and has taken a prominent role in nuclear anti-proliferation and monitoring issues and other foreign policy issues. Obama has sponsored a significant amount of important US Senate legislation given both his short tenure and his presidential campaign. Many of these bills are pending calendar discussion, but nonetheless the effort to get these bills to a vote on the Senate floor is there  http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400629&tab=bills Also, accusations have been flung by the right that Obama has missed an inordinate number of Senate votes. See the following nonpartisan website links to compare record Obama's missed votes vs McCain's; Obama missed fewer votes in the same period:  Obama: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400629&tab=votes  McCain: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=300071&tab=votes

Both Obama and McCain are less than forthcoming about how they will pay for the programs they envision launching, let alone the sucking chest wound that is Medicare, but I see no way out of our morass of debt without raising taxes at some level, cutting spending and stimulating investment. Global growth is slowing dramatically and may stagnate for a significant period. Revenue must come at least to some extent from taxes on my fellow high income citizens and on corporations that have accrued large levels of cash over the past several years (now admittedly diminished because of the credit crunch). I think Obama should raise his tax threshold levels for instance from the joint married $250,000 number to say $500,000 (which still hits me badly) and increase his estate tax threshold, but these are nits. There is no way for McCain to avoid grossly inflating our national debt given his desire to cut taxes on corporations by hundreds of billions annually and individuals (by 7.8% for earners making more than $600k per year; Obama wants to increase taxes by 20.2% on those same earners), continue indefinitely in Iraq, finally increase funding for the war in Afghanistan, finance all of the other programs he espouses doing simultaneously rather than prioritizing and most importantly reforming Medicare. And what of McCain’s proposal for the US government to buy bad mortgages – is this the hallmark of a fiscal conservative? Who in government will administer this massive program of possibly more than $300 billion, oversee and audit it? We do know who will pay all the costs of it including surefire losses (losses that are NOT surefire under the Paulson plan, which may even make a profit for taxpayers) and receive none of the upside if any – taxpayers. Lenders, investors and borrowers who made those bad decisions will get off unscathed under McCain’s latest proposal. Those who dismiss the burden of a large national debt that is mostly owed to irresponsible spending, are themselves insanely irresponsible. I don't think that Obama has set forth a clear plan to solve any of this, but I do think that at least he has set forth one partial and responsible revenue solution, which is raising taxes, has at least generally discussed cutting spending programs that don't work and eliminating corporate tax loopholes that plunge our world’s second highest tax rate among the 30 countries of the OECD developed nation economies to fourth LOWEST for federal and state revenue collection – 2.2% of US GDP vs 3.4% of the OECD GDP average. While the tax question is undoubtedly complicated, not least because of thousands of loopholes and problems of double taxation, it must be resolved. The idea that taxes should never be raised and that we should always favor tax cuts is blind both to history and to currently building deficits.

Let's talk about taxes. As a top income tax bracket citizen, I undoubtedly will be soaked, and badly, during an Obama presidency; I am dreading that, particularly as I have watched my life savings drop to 20% of what they were a year ago. As someone who views my income and the opportunities I have enjoyed in this country as the blessings created not only by my hard work but also as a byproduct of an entire nation of tolerant hard workers, I have an obligation to my country that exceeds my desires to keep all of that income for my personal expenditures. This feeling of communal obligation drove my decision 20 years ago to join the military when it was not considered desirable for someone with an Ivy League degree and opportunities on Wall Street. Ronald Reagan, who in my view was a great American president, ushered in the era of anti-tax and small federal government Republicanism. This was in response to the economic doldrums of the 70s and specifically the failures of the Carter administration. It was the right decision FOR THAT TIME. Republicans now have turned that innovative era of tax cuts and attempts to downsize the federal government into dogmatic ideology regardless of changes in both our domestic and in the global economies. We need to understand better the exigencies of our times – there is an asset side and a liability side to our ledger, and the liabilities today are monstrous.

What is beginning to change my mind on the magnitude of racism in this country are the comments I have heard from my own circles of acquaintance, in many media and particularly on conservative blogs, that opposed the recent attempt at immigration reform and that attribute the current financial crisis to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and ACORN of all things. Yes, some Democrats opposed the immigration reform bill and Obama tried to insert some codas that I opposed, but the defeat ultimately rests with my fellow Republicans who allow fear and vengeance rather than opportunity and compassion to dominate our discourse. What I have heard in the conservative commentary about both these issues is a very disturbing racially-based fear-mongering. I had thought we as a country and party were better than that, but the subtext underlying so much of the fear of immigrants (both legal and illegal) and the grossly distorted effect of financial burdens that the CRA and ACORN placed on the residential mortgage lending space, is racist. I'm no fan of the CRA or ACORN, nor do I think they are the giant bogeys my party would paint them. The CRA has no requirements and no penalties; it is a toothless piece of legislation. It encouraged, among many community-building activities including support of community churches, banks to set up deposit-taking branches and extend credit to neighborhoods where banks traditionally engaged in red-lining (avoiding borrowers with poor or no credit history, often racially categorized). The numbers of residential mortgage loans resulting from the CRA are a de minimis portion of the defaulted loans wreaking havoc in the marketplace (banks were not required to originate any loans – the same loans and securities backed by them could be and often were traded and re-traded among banks to fulfill CRA credits). The vast majority of bad residential mortgage loans were originated by specialty finance companies that were not subject to the CRA with a smaller percentage coming from institutions that were only partially CRA-covered. The idea that the level of residential mortgages exploded in growth due to pressure from ACORN or the CRA on Fannie and Freddie would be laughable if it weren't for the undertones of racism. Residential mortgages exploded due to a combination of low interest rates established by Fed Chairman Greenspan after the dotcom bubble burst, and a globally driven search for higher-yielding securities by investors worldwide who thought the higher yields of mortgage backed securities were safer because of this mortgage loan collateralization than unsecured corporate debt. I am NOT accusing all who blame CRA and ACORN for the financial mess of racism; I am saying that racism has propelled many of the grossly inflated estimates of the impact of the CRA and ACORN. Blame for the pressure to continue the mortgage lending bubble can be evenly apportioned to Democrats and Republicans alike.

Now let me discuss a trend that I find distinctly disturbing within my Party. First I'll state my positions. I am a strong supporter of free trade, free markets and a strong national defense. For years I have railed against the Democratic Party's poor track record in these areas (excepting some of Clinton's decisions on trade and markets). I am a socially libertarian Republican. I'm a devout non-denominational Protestant. I personally oppose abortion as a choice for myself (although I've never faced it thank goodness) but would not want another woman's right to choose dictated by the government not least because of the difficulty in many cases of proving rape let alone incestuous rape. I am supportive of gay rights, which should be protected by law and as a Christian and human being am sick of the hatred and violence that this community endures from many. I have opposed race- or gender-based affirmative action since the 90s; it arguably served a good purpose in the 70s and even late 80s, but the landscape has changed – we should instead be looking at race-blind socio-economic problems by region.

Despite Palin's personal support of Creationism over evolutionary biology, her lifelong attendance at an End of Days church, her decision (admirable in my view) to give birth to a baby with Downs syndrome (although I do wonder how she will care for that special needs infant and four other children while running for and possibly achieving the vice presidency), her disturbing interest in banning books, and what to me seem like too-frequent injections of what should be her private faith into the public realm, Palin's actual governance in Alaska was right of center and reasonably centrist, which helps account for her high popularity in Alaska. To support this view of her as not a right-wing ideologue, she was unable to name any Supreme Court decision that conservatives have opposed hotly: the 2003 ruling against a Texas anti-sodomy law, the 2003 ruling upholding the University of Michigan law school's affirmative action program, Bush vs Gore 2000, the Gitmo detainee decision? As a libertarian Republican who tends to care more about the economy and national security than about issues that to me should be a matter of private faith and personal choice, I'm actually pleased that Palin is not at all conversant with our own Party's more radical social issues. As a citizen, though, I'm alarmed because it tells me that, despite telling her friends years ago that she wants to be president, she has not spent any portion of her adult life learning anything beyond the confines of Alaska. Palin demonstrates an admirable quick-study ability to pick up on talking points; she performed well enough at her debate with Biden to handle the talking points she learned though she brazenly dismissed some questions from the moderator. Her supporters argue this is evidence of executive ability. I disagree. Most executives spend at least a decade learning the details of their trade before developing an INFORMED ability to discern the big picture and formulate strategy. Palin's knowledge is at best PowerPoint deep. The executive position that Palin is running to win is NOT the governance of a tiny town or a sparsely populated state with an economy fueled only by energy and federal government subsidies. We are facing the most turbulent times since FDR took office. We must face the fact that Palin could become president in the next four years. The reason I find her gaffes alarming and not the gaffes of Senator Biden is because Biden has several decades of public achievements and demonstrated knowledge to offset his minor gaffes; Palin has no context of national achievement against which to set her mistakes. We did a terrible disservice to her as a politician; if we had incubated her for 4-8 years in a national level position and then sprung her upon the national stage, she could have become a very credible Republican candidate, provided that she spent that time absorbing the issues at stake rather than politicking at a superficial level.