Fantasy Questions for Obama
By Paul Sperry
FrontPageMagazine.com | 10/15/2008
With just a few weeks remaining in the campaign, Barack Obama remains an enigma. The media have left him largely unvetted. Tonight's debate offers one final chance to get to know him.
Will CBS News host Bob Schieffer finally ask the tough questions that have eluded previous moderators? Don't hold your breath.
While Schieffer may be more cantankerous than his colleagues, he's still a liberal who like the rest of the media elite probably see nothing wrong with Obama's radical ties. So why bother asking him about them? What's the news value in that? Don't we all agree with Tom Brokaw that Bill Ayers is merely a "school reformer"?
For what it's worth, here is my fantasy list of questions for Obama you won't hear in the debate:
1. You say unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers is just a guy from your old Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Have you or Michelle ever entertained either Bill Ayers or his (cop-assaulting) wife at your old condo there, or at your new home?
2. You say you were just 8 years old when Ayers bombed the U.S. Capitol. How old were you when you first learned he was the guy who did what he did when you were 8?
3. Did you have any help writing your "Dreams" memoir outside of your editor's input? Are all the words in that book your words?
4. Have you ever traveled abroad with Jeremiah Wright, and if so where? What about with Louis Farrakhan?
5. Did you or Michelle attend "Trumpet" magazine's gala tribute to Farrakhan at the Chicago Hyatt last year? Did you know at the time that he was being so honored?
6. Where were you on 9/11, and what was your immediate, visceral reaction to those attacks? You said in the 2004 preface to your reprinted "Dreams" memoir that "history returned that day with a vengeance," and that "the past is never dead and buried." What did you mean by those remarks?
7. Do you believe the Bush administration had specific, advance knowledge of the attacks? Do you believe it was involved in the attacks in any way?
8. Your resume lists you as "executive director" of Project Vote in 1992. Project Vote's parent company is located at the same New Orleans address as the radical group ACORN. Were your checks cut from there? Have you ever visited ACORN's New Orleans headquarters?
9. Your campaign says you were never "hired" to train ACORN leaders in agitation tactics. Did you ever train them on a voluntary basis?
10. What are some of your favorite films? Did you ever see Spike Lee's "X"? What are your favorite books? Have you ever read any of James H. Cone's works?
11. When you worked briefly right out of college for Business International Corp. in New York, you said you were "spying behind enemy lines." Are you saying corporate America is the enemy?
12. You cite in your 2006 autobiography as one example of racism that you've personally experienced, an incident at a restaurant in which a white couple "tossed" their keys at you thinking you were the valet. Can you recall the name of the restaurant where that occurred, and who you were with at the time? You also suggest this happened to you on more than one occasion. If so, where else?
13. As another example of racism, you say that police have pulled you over for no reason. Where and when did this occur? If no tickets were issued, did you file a harassment complaint?
14. Tell us about your relationship with Tony Rezko. Did you and Michelle ever socialize with him and his wife Rita?
15. When you visited Raila Odinga on a junket to Kenya in 2006, you called it a "fact-finding" mission. What did you glean for constituents in Illinois? And who paid for that portion of the trip?
16. Do you believe Hamas is a terrorist group?
17. In 1995, you said, "Reagan and his minions did dirty deeds." What were those "dirty deeds" you speak of, and what is your opinion of the late president today?
18. Your ex-pastor Wright believes "racism is how America is still run." Do you believe that's true today?
19. Bill Cosby says much of the problems in the black community are self-inflicted, that it's a cultural thing more than an economic one. Where do you agree with Cosby, if anywhere, and where do you part company?
20. When you were sitting at Frank Marshall Davis' knee, sharing his whiskey, did you have any knowledge of his communist sympathies? How did your grandfather describe him? And why did you fail to identify Davis by name in your book, when he'd already been dead for several years?
21. You were trained in the agitation tactics of Saul Alinsky at his Industrial Areas Foundation in Los Angeles, and taught those tactics -- specifically with respect to power analysis -- to your students in Chicago. And you received a letter of recommendation to Harvard from one of his top disciples, John McKnight. More recently, you hired veteran Alinsky trainers to teach your campaign volunteers at Camp Obama. Why then did you never mention Alinsky in your memoir detailing your experiences as a community agitator? And why don't you ever talk about Alinsky on the campaign trail?
22. Have you ever hired members of the Nation of Islam to work on your campaign or government staff in Illinois or Washington? Are any NOI member working for you now?
23. What was your transferring GPA at Oxy and your cummulative GPA at Columbia? Why won't you release your transcripts as have past presidential candidates, including John Kerry?
24. Your faith, Black Liberation Theology, holds that Jesus was African? Do you share this belief? Do you believe Africa is the Promised Land, or that blacks are the chosen people?
25. Did you or Michelle ever teach Bible class at Trinity United? Did you ever participate in the African Studies Program there? Have you ever taken a Bible class taught by Dwight Hopkins?
26. Have you ever met Hopkins or his mentor James Cone?
27. The church typically issues a packet to new members detailing its so-called Black Value System, and requires members to attend classes on it and pledge to uphold its tenets. Tell us about this program, and what you learned from it. Do you still believe in its tenets as you said you did in your first memoir? What about Michelle and your daughters? Do they subscribe
to this system?
28. Did you and Michelle socialize with Jeremiah and Ramah Wright? What was your relationship with them outside the church?
29. Tell us about your relationship with Louis Farrakhan. Have you ever met with him one-on-one?
30. Were you aware Farrakhan's sermons were offered for sale at Trinity?
31. Did you receive the Trinity magazine "Trumpet" or the church bulletin at your home or office?
32. When you weren't able to attend church service, did you listen to recordings of the sermons?
33. You say you've used hard drugs such as cocaine. Have you ever bought cocaine directly from a dealer? Have you ever smoked crack cocaine?
34. Have you ever been arrested?
Sigh, so many questions, so little time.
During the 1992 election, the mainstream media failed to properly vet William J. Clinton, another charming young liberal "change" candidate. History is repeating itself now with Barack H. Obama, though the consequences could be more severe.
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Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington. He can be conacted at Sperry@SperryFiles.com.
