Socialism We Can Believe In

Socialism We Can Believe In
Ben Johnson
Oct 29, 2008

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Now that a 2001 public radio interview has surfaced to confirm The One has plotted to redistribute middle class wealth since the beginning of his political career, the media are in overdrive to save their savior. In a burst of “news” stories culled directly from the talking points of the George Soros-funded Media Matters, a string of reporters have accused the McCain/Palin campaign of misrepresenting Obama’s statements and ideology. In the process, these impartial journalists and analysts for the nation’s most prestigious media outlets have obfuscated more than McCain could manage in his most imaginative “rhetorical flourish.”

Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded in identical fashion to other irrefutable scandals, such as his candidate’s longtime association with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright: he channeled the Wizard of Oz. “This is a fake news controversy,” he said, “drummed up by the all too common alliance of Fox News, the Drudge Report, and John McCain, who apparently decided to close out his campaign with the same false, desperate attacks that have failed for months.” After shooting the messengers, the campaign, and its allies at Media Matters, claimed Obama had merely been offering an intellectual assessment of civil rights strategy – and in no way advocating (perish the thought!) the Supreme Court redistribute wealth. In his only remark addressing the content of the tape, Burton asserted, “In this seven-year-old interview, Senator Obama did not say that the courts should get into the business of redistributing wealth at all.” [Bill Burton later got into an on-air tiff with Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly, ironically charging her network with having “an agenda.”]

Soon, his words found their way into the mouths of multiple unbiased, independent journalists.

The Washington Post awarded the McCain campaign “two Pinocchios” for lying about the tape. “Obama says pretty much the opposite of what the McCain camp says he said,” the Post contended. The paper concluded, “The McCain camp is wrong to suggest that the Illinois senator advocated an [sic.] ‘wealth redistribution’ role for the Supreme Court.”

Obama made his now-infamous comments on “Odyssey,” a program hosted on the Chicago NPR station WBEZ-FM. Chicago Public Radio quickly rolled into full protection mode, with CPR’s Ben Calhoun claiming someone on YouTube “posted excerpts of the interview, edited to misrepresent Obama's statements…Obama’s position is distinctly misrepresented.” He adds, “ironically, he says the Supreme Court was a failure in cases that it took on a role of redistributing resources.”

Others went further in defending the pure common sense of Obama’s call for “economic justice.” Andrew Sullivan blogged, “it seems to me that this statement is actually a conservative one about the limits of judicial activism. Is this really all McCain has left?”

Yet no one could equal NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who said, with a straight face, that Obama took “a strict constructionist view.” Mitchell added, “he was saying the courts were not in that business and shouldn’t be in that business.”

The world’s largest news agency joined the fray. The Associated Press charged, “Republican John McCain is misreading seven-year-old comments by rival Barack Obama.” The story implies his comments dealt only with civil rights strategy, not the court. It added, “Obama did not define redistributive change in the interview, but he said one example of such change involves education, ‘how do we get more money into the schools and how do we actually create equal schools and equal educational opportunity.’” Thus, “redistribution” simply means equal schooling; who could be against that?

In all these cases, one is left with the impression his is merely a meandering historical argument of refined legal theory, using highly specified language that does not mean what it sounds like. Normal people like Joe the Plumber cannot possibly comprehend it. However, all these media reports distort the facts and leave a false impression that covers up the explosive revelation contained in his own words: Barack Obama believes the Constitution embodies a “fundamental flaw” in the fabric of America “that continues to this day,” has pined for “economic justice” for at least a decade, seeks political power to implement “wealth redistribution” with the aid of Congress, implies the Supreme Court should “break free” from the “constraints” of the Founders, believes public financing of abortion is an “important” aspect of the struggle, and has promised an “activist” Executive Branch to enforce his socialistic vision.

Yet the view that slavery lingers in 21st century America is perhaps the most contemptuous thing one can say about a country that lost hundreds of thousands of lives fighting a war to end slavery, endured massive social upheaval to bury Jim Crow, transferred untold trillions of dollars of wealth so that we would “wipe away the scars of centuries,” then welcomed the son of a Kenyan Muslim reared in a foreign land and are presently entertaining a national debate about elevating him to the most powerful office in the world.

It is, however, precisely what is to be expected from an individual reared by an “unreconstructed liberal” mother of the ‘60s era, an individual who consciously sought out Marxist professors – both as college instructors and as sponsors for his career in Chicago politics.

Far from an insignificant and highly theoretical bout of legal navel-gazing, this 2001 interview provides a clear glimpse into the ideology Obama wishes to implement. For this reason, the transcripts must be assailed – with those news outlets that report them.

After all, he does not have the luxury of saying he made these comments when he was naïve and inexperienced, because he is still naïve and inexperienced. Further, reparations based on race, sex, class, or sexual orientation still lie at the heart of his judicial philosophy. His only option is to deny the words on the page. His fan base in the media has gotten ahead of him on the matter. Will he be successful in his effort to deny his own views and thereby get an opportunity to implement them?

Next Tuesday, we may find out.