Pray for Obama, Psalms 109:8

The left is going nuts over a T-shirt that reads; "Pray for Obama, Psalms 109:8." So what's the problem? When you look up the passage, the full import of the message becomes clear;....or maybe not. It depends upon whether the reader is a Democrat, or a Republican.

Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post writes of the shirt;

"And Psalm 109:8 is just straight up memetastic, appearing on bumper stickers and T-shirts, all of which carry the benign sounding message, 'Pray For Obama.' But, as Gawker's John Cook points out, this is just one more in a 'long line of cheekily coded Obama death threats.' The verse in question reads: 'May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.' That leads fairly naturally into the Psalm 109:9, 'May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.' You know, in case you miss the point."

He goes on to quote fellow 'huffer' Frank Schaeffer, who seems to views the shirt as a reflection of every sinister right wing thought imaginable.

"It's un-American. It's unpatriotic. And it goes to show that the religious right, the Republican far right have coalesced into a group who truly want American revolution. If it turns out to be blood in the streets and death, so be it. It's not funny stuff anymore. They cannot be dismissed as just crazies on the fringe. It only takes one. You know, look at the Boston Globe article from a few weeks ago that says the threat level faced by the Secret Service has gone up 400%, higher than any other time in 52 years, for any president, Democrat or Republican. These are no jokes."

At least Schaeffer is right about one thing, there are plenty of us, myself included, who want this government reigned back within it's Constitutional parameters, and believe that the only way that is going to realistically happen is with another American revolution.

All of this paranoid hoopla was started by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.



The fact of the matter is that, taken at face value, the shirt is no more sinister than the numerous Bush countdown clocks that graced the pages of various left wing blogs during the Bush administration. Only verse 8 of Psalms 109 is referenced, not verse 9. It is only the desire of the left to demonize the right which compels them to make more of it than it is. What is really interesting is that the left is never at a loss to accuse the right of that which the left is very often clearly guilty. Take for example this shirt.

The shirt reads: "For Gods Sake ....KILL BUSH. Save the United States and the Rest of the World."

Or, how about a good old fashioned 'wanted poster'.

The left has been quick to point out the threating messages displayed on posters and signs carried by 'tea party' goers. They of course, are choosing to engage in their own particular from of partisan selective memory, as the following images clearly attest.

The next image is what appears to be a sheet of postage stamps featuring President Bush with a gun pointed at his head, and was displayed in an art gallery exhibit at Columbia College in Chicago.


The Bible is a wealth of sound council for every need of the human condition, including, determining which way to lean politically.

"A wise man's heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him toward the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

Pro-Heathcare Rally? What Rally?

There was a pro-health care reform rally today in Washington DC. It was to start at noon and continued till 5:00 PM. If you did not hear about it, that is probably because nobody really covered it. Fox News Channel mentioned it briefly, and even showed a short video clip. The showing was so small by comparison to the massive anti-big government rally yesterday, that apparently, nobody in the MSM felt that it was even worth so much as the brief mention which Fox graciously gave it.

The 9/12 March on Washington rally yesterday was so huge that even MSNBC not only reported it, but estimated the numbers of attendees in the hundreds of thousands. Check out the video below.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Of the massive showing by tea party protesters yesterday, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said today that the 'tea party movement' does not represent the majority of Americans who support health care reform. Really, Mr. Axelrod! Hundreds of thousands of people from across the nation got up off their butts and traveled to Congress' door step to protest against it yesterday, while fraction of that showed up today to support it, and you, Mr. Axelrod, can make that statement with a straight face? I've got news flash for you, Mr. Axelrod! Perception is everything!

UPDATE: Daily Kos bemoans dismally small turn out. 09/14/09

A contributor to the Daily Kos website estimated the numbers at the pro-healthcare rally yesterday at anywhere from 500 to 1000 participants and blames the NFL for dismal turn out. Hey, check it out yourself, I couldn't make this stuff up. Here are a few shots from the rally.

Stuffing Alinsky Down the Democrats Throat

The American left is accustomed to being in the face of everyone that they consider an enemy or an obstacle. It has been a way of life for them since the sixties, and they have become very good at it. I have often referred to the left's modus operandi as the 'squeaky wheel method of political discourse.' It works really well, especially when it is implemented by organized groups with a common tactical strategy. Since 1971, the framework for that strategy has been Saul Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals.

Now the left finds itself on the receiving end of 'in your face, squeaky wheel activism' and they have no clue as to how to effectively deal with it. Seems they have never developed a contingency plan for the possibility that their opponents would use their own playbook against them by 'astroturf right wing extremists', but that is exactly what has been happening.

Rules for Radicals is in the Top 75 on Amazon.com's best seller list. The retailer has sold more than 1000 copies this month alone. If you go to that page and look at the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought...." section it becomes abundantly obvious that the people buying Rules are conservatives. So does this legitimize the 'astroturf' charge? If it does, so what; and who cares?

As a recovering leftist, I can say that if I were still among their ranks, deluded as I may have been, that I would be very concerned about the future of the leftist movement in America. Times have changed! The left no longer controls the whole of American media. The left has alienated the southern states and they can no longer be counted upon to vote solidly for the Democratic Party. They have pretty much played out the race card, and Americans have been force fed so much bleeding heart 'great society' crap sandwich that they are ready to spew.

The most effective aspect of the 'squeaky wheel' method is not just that it generates interest, but that it generates sympathy. Regardless of how the person felt about the issue before the clamor started, when they see people angry and upset over it, they are naturally compelled to rethink their own position. It is a very effective passive method of conversion. The left knows this, and they know that there is nothing that they can do to counter it. I believe that the Democratic Party is about to experience its shortest tenure of political dominance in their history.

"Socialist" is the New "N-Word": UPDATED

Almost from the very moment that Barack Obama threw his hat into the Presidential contender ring, the Democrats, Obama included, have failed to resist the temptation to play the race card. I am of course giving them an extreme benefit of the doubt for having tried to 'resist'. Be that as it may, it is obvious to any rational observer that they have played the race card to an incredulous extent. It seems that anyone, be it a group or an individual, who opposes the President on any issue runs the risk of being accused of racism. This is especially true with respect to the TEA party protesters and the citizens who are vociferously confronting their lawmakers at town hall meetings.

In the absence of clear evidence of racial motivation on the part of the dissenters, those making the charge are being forced into contriving loose and subjective interpretations of the signs, slogans, and words used by the protesters. A recent example of this came from MSNBC's Carlos Watson, who, in his "C-Note" segment made these remarks;

"Today I want to talk about a word that we're hearing more and more, and that's the word socialist. You hear it from a lot of conservatives these days, that's usually critiquing the President, or more broadly Democrats. And while that's certainly a legitimate critique, there certainly is an ideology that can and should be critiqued at certain times, it also some times is just a kind of a generic conservative bludgeoning tool. And that's alright, too, because you hear it on the Democratic side as well: rightwingnut, what have you."

"But what concerns me is when in some of those town hall meetings including the one that we saw in Missouri recently where there were jokes made about lynching, etc., you start to wonder whether in fact the word socialist is becoming a code word, whether or not socialist is becoming the new N-word for frankly for some angry upset birthers and others. I hope that's not the case, but it sure does say to you what David Brooks said the other day on T.V. which is that more credible conservatives have to stand up and say that there's a line that has to be drawn, that there's a line of responsibility that's important, and that extends to the words that we choose including how we choose even legitimate words like socialist." (NewsBusters.org)

'Socialist' is a code word? Socialist is becoming the new N-word? By what exercise in interpretive gymnastics or logic does Mr. Watson arrive at such a conclusion? From what he says, it is difficult to ascertain. He does, however make a valid point regarding the importance of being responsible in the words we chose to use in human discourse; perhaps we should begin with that. It might be helpful to examine some time tested rules governing the use and interpretation of the words which we use in human discourse. To that end, I offer the following from Johann August Ernesti, Elementary Principles of Interpretation

• "To every word there ought to be assigned...some idea or notion of a thing, which we call the meaning or signification of the word."


• "For there can be no certainty at all, in respect to the interpretation of any passage, unless a kind of necessity compels us to affix a particular sense to a word; which sense,...must be one; and unless there are special reasons for a tropical meaning, it must be a literal sense."


• "The literal sense of words is the sense which is so connected with them that it is the first order, and is spontaneously presented to the mind as soon as the sound of the word is heard."

Mr. Watson admits that the word 'socialist' is a "legitimate" word. Since it is a legitimate word, it has a literal meaning, which meaning is the primary meaning, unless there is some special reason to interpret it figuratively. There is every reason to believe that the critics of Obama are in fact using the word 'socialist' literally. See here, and here. There is also the fact that conservatives have used the word 'socialist' to refer other Presidents and Presidential candidates (George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, and Clinton, both Mr. and Mrs.) Mr. Watson must have a special reason in this case to interpret the word 'socialist' in a figurative way. He does have such a reason. Because he wishes to do so.

The fact of the matter is that there are individuals who have a problem with race. Mr. Watson is a perfect example.

UPDATE: 08/12/09

Since making his incendiary comments on Monday, Mr. Watson has been receiving a good deal of backlash; so much so that he now feels that his comments are being misinterpreted or somehow taken out of context. On his The Stimulist site, Mr. Watson ineptly tried to defend his absurd assertion.

"I wondered—let me repeat that: wondered—whether “socialist” was being used as a code word for the N-word, an outlet for racist anxiety and anger."

"Over the last 24 hours, I’ve been accused both of trying to silence dissent and race bait. I am interested in neither. Various e-mailers have said they don’t think anyone has literally meant the N-word. Maybe they’re right. But maybe not; just take a look at the hundreds of comments on YouTube. Either way, responsible people need to not kid themselves: there is clearly some meaningful racial animus behind some of the opposition to President Obama. (Again, I said some—not all or a majority.) Pretending otherwise is hypocritical, negligent, and dangerous."

"Again, I am certainly not arguing that criticism is inappropriate, or that critiques using the word socialist are necessarily out of bounds. We’ve seen the word used before, against Hillary Clinton in 1994, LBJ three decades before and many others."

Why is it the these elitists, who like to think of themselves as the smartest people in the room, are unable (or unwilling) to make a well reasoned argument, even in their own defense. Mr. Watson freely admits that the word 'socialist' has been used in its literal sense many times of other politicians, yet still offers no real argument to support his even "wondering" if it is being used figuratively with respect to Obama.