Saturday, November 12, 2011

This would explain so much *UPDATED*

Bookworm on Nov 08 2011 at 9:29 am

Normally, if I stumbled across a political hit piece rife with unsubstantiated accusations, I wouldn’t include it in any serious discussion at my blog. Depending on its target, I might read it with a certain amount of pleasure, and I might even provide a link for you guys, along with a warning that the linked post is unreliable. Indeed, that’s what I’ll do right now: the post to which I linked, and that I’m about to discuss, contains one man’s assertion of facts, with no corroboration. Nevertheless, I’m going to discuss it here because it explains something that’s baffled me about Obama: The absence of past girlfriend; indeed, the absence of any past friends before he appeared in Chicago’s political world.

Ever since Obama emerged on the national political scene, I’ve commented on the peculiar fact that no one from his past has stepped forward to reminisce about him. No former girlfriend has talked about dating him, no college roommate has achieved his 15 minutes of fame by telling about Obama’s collegiate escapades (or lack thereof). Jack Cashill has made a fairly convincing argument that the girlfriend in Dreams is the spittin’ image of Bill Ayers’ girlfriend, meaning that, as to Obama, she’s a fictional creation. Cashill also points out that, aside from this fictional character (who has never stepped forward to identify herself), Obama apparently led a completely chaste life until he met Michelle. But did he really?

Kevin DuJan argues that the real reason Obama has no romantic past is because he’s gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that ), and that Michelle is merely his beard:

You know full well the “journalists” on sites like Politico would have spent the last three years digging relentlessly into a Republican president’s past, repeatedly asking why not a single former girlfriend has ever stepped forward to identify herself or speak on the record about her past with the man currently in the Oval Office.

Isn’t it strange that the public’s never been introduced to A SINGLE GIRLFRIEND that Barack Obama ever had in high school, college, law school, or the days before he met his beard wife Michelle?

Don’t you wonder why the “journalists” of the Left have never done any in-depth profiles of Barack Obama’s male friends from his years at Occidental College in California, talked about his “roommate” while at Columbia, or wondered about any of his social activities through the years?

I know there are endless mysteries centered around a man whose college transcripts, vital records, and other important paperwork were apparently sealed away from the public in an impregnable vault somewhere cloaked in riddles and enigma — never to be seen by human eyes again — but if Barack Obama was a Republican he would have been outed as gay many years ago.

If Barack Obama was a Republican, the agenda-driven media would have hounded him about the nature of his relationship with his “bodyman” Reggie Love.

If Barack Obama was a Republican, the Left would have somehow gotten ahold of his lifetime membership at Chicago gay bathhouse Man’s Country and would have plastered those records across Politico to destroy his political career.

If Barack Obama was a Republican, the press would have quickly interpreted the dearth of girlfriends in his past as evidence of a surfeit of boyfriends and no one at the New York Times would have slept a wink until every Tom, Dick, or Larry in Barack Obama’s little black book was awarded his own reality show to gush about their down-low adventures.


As I said, everything above (as well as everything in DuJan’s whole post) is unsourced and uncorroborated speculation. Nevertheless, it finally adds the necessary air of verisimilitude to what has always been, for me, an unconvincing narrative.

Reading DuJan’s post, I had that light bulb moment where you think, “Well, that finally answers all my questions. That explains the missing past. He’s not a Manchurian candidate hatched by George Soros in a secret lab. He’s a gay guy whose past has been neatly buried because it’s not politically expedient for it to be known.”

DuJan’s statements reminded me of Sherlock Holmes’s advice to Watson? “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

What say you?

(Hat tip: The Radio Patriot)

UPDATE II: I have been informed that Kevin is being satirical: there have long been rumors out there about Obama’s sexuality, so Kevin is restating existing rumors, rather than making rumors up out of whole cloth, but his full-frontal attack has less to do with Obama’s sexuality than with Kevin’s frustration about the media’s stunning lack of interest in Obama’s past. I prefer my satire more light-handed, so that it’s actually recognizable as satire. As for me, I continue to believe that the best way to put to rest stories about Obama’s past is for the Obama and friends to stop hiding that same past.

UPDATE: Earl, in the first comment to this post, asks such a good question I think it deserves a full answer here, in the body of the post. You can decide whether what I write actually constitutes a good answer or if it is merely a full answer, as in full of something unsavory. Here’s what Earl wrote:

I do wonder how come you can entertain this narrative even for a single moment…..yet, doubt that Herman Cain may very well be the victim of a Chicago setup because he’s getting a bit too “uppity” for a conservative black man. Is the latter even marginally less believable than the former?


The reason I find these accusations worthy of note, although I’m fully aware that they lack support, is because, as matters now stand, they are at least as believable as the charges against Cain (and, as I’ll explain below, perhaps even more believable). I’ve already pointed out that, given the way in which the Ninth Circuit, in 1991, opened the floodgates to greenmail harassment claims, I don’t find the existence of the lawsuits themselves persuasive. There were just to many claims back then, and too many (some of which I worked on or researched) that were motivated by greed or revenge, rather than actual injury.

Having said that, if there is concrete, contemporaneous evidence that Cain is a serial harasser, I’m not going to perjure my soul by defending him. I did that once with Clinton, and still feel soiled. Currently, to the extent the charges are vague, or the accusers are so flaky it’s hard for me to take them seriously, I’m still inclined to view this as the usual liberal attack against a conservative black man. After all, we know that liberals, especially liberal journalists, will lie in defense of a greater political goal.

The looks at known and unknown facts, both about the accusations and about the media that advances those accusations. For me, though, the real issue is one of narrative: Clinton came to D.C. with a sordid reputation already well intact. The subsequent accusations were entirely consistent with the existing narrative. Both Cain and, to remind us of another black man whom the media pilloried, Clarence Thomas, did not come onto the national political scene with sullied reputations. The claims are inconsistent with their life narratives. It doesn’t mean the claims are untrue. But usually, if such claims are true, and there is a sordid past, the dominoes fall very quickly once the story finally gets out.

So that’s why I’m holding my fire re Cain. It’s not that I’m a rabid Cain supporter, because I’m not. I like him, but I have strong doubts about his ability to be president. If he’s soiled goods, I’d just as soon see him out of the game quickly and finally. That doesn’t mean, though, that I’m going to leap upon shady accusations from the MSM.

The other side of this is Obama. While Cain and Thomas had narratives inconsistent with sexual harassment, and Clinton had a narrative entirely consistent with sexual harassment, what’s been fascinating about Obama is the complete absence of a narrative. I’ve been fulminating about that black hole for years. It’s not credible that someone could have been born and raised in America (as I believe he was) and have absolutely no past beyond the snippets he grudgingly offers. The media’s lack of interest in this golden boy’s past was also incredible and offensive. To hark back to Sherlock Holmes, the media’s coverage or, more precisely, the media’s refusal to provide coverage, was the case of the dog that didn’t bark in the night. When those who are supposed to be watchdogs are completely silent, that too is suspicious.

I wouldn’t mind if Obama was gay. I don’t have any problems with the fact that people, in their private lives, loving their own sex. I would never presume to direct the heart. If a gay candidate was a rock solid gay conservative, strong on national security; dedicated to individual liberty (which, really, all gays should be); a believer in free markets; proud of his country; and supportive of traditional middle-class values, I would vote for him in a New York minute. My issue with Obama isn’t is sexuality, whatever it is, but the fact that he stands for so many things that offend me as a citizen: He’s weak on national security; dedicated to subordinating individuals to the power of the state; hostile to free markets; embarrassed by his country; and consistently undermines traditional middle-class values.

To sum it up, what really bugs me is the double standard. The media refused to bark or even sniff around Obama, despite the fact that the accusations against him are worthy of inquiry, while the same media used its bully pulpit and resources to provide wall-to-wall coverage savaging Clarence Thomas and now doing the same to Herman Cain. The double-standard is especially offensive given the fact that the Cain and Thomas accusations are inconsistent with the men’s known histories, while the Obama accusations mesh quite nicely, thank you, with Obama’s entirely unknown history.

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