A Sewer Runs Throught It

Conservative columnist David Frum makes a clear point: It doesn't matter whether Barack Obama is a Marxist, or how well acquainted he is with Bill Ayers. What matters is that he has risen to national prominence from the political and cultural sewer that is The Democratic Machine of Chicago.

A Political Sewer: Democratic corruption in Chicago is legend: The Democratic Machine has raised voter fraud to an art form. Dead people voting, shady real estate
deals, and the famous patronage system that punishes government job seekers for belonging to the wrong political party. The illegal diversion of taxpayer money and abuse of power has spawned untold lawsuits and prosecutions, but even the legal system is suspect. Third-world dictators have used Chicago as their model for decades.

A Cultural Sewer: Obama is locked in a mutual embrace with a culture that welcomes Marxist radicals and appoints them to prestigious community agitation boards and professorships. Unrepentant 60's terrorists are revered and given Citizen of the Year awards. This culture cheers the steady stream of anti-American diatribes roared from Christian pulpits and Nation of Islam platforms. And politicians populate the pews to earn street cred. Community organizers routinely shake down businesses via threats and intimidation.

Despite all the community activism, Chicago's poor minorities remain mired in grinding poverty and schools have not improved. Democrats control everything, but the liberal overlords train the masses to blame their problems on America, racism, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, mean Republican conservatives... Anything and anyone but themselves.

This is not a God Bless America Culture. It is a God Damn America Culture, and, disturbingly, the participants see nothing wrong with it.

Chicagoan John Kass gives us an inside view of Senator Obama's corrupt
culture.

This reminded me of an e-mail I got from an Illinois friend:

Body count. In the last six months 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago, 221 killed in Iraq. Sens.
Barack Obama & Dick Durbin, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., Gov. Rod
Blogojevich, House leader Mike Madigan, Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan
(daughter of Mike), Mayor Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley).....our leadership in Illinois.....all Democrats.

Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago. Of course they're all blaming each other. Can't blame Republicans, they're aren't any!

State pension fund $44 Billion in debt, worst in country.
Cook County (Chicago) sales tax 10.25% highest in country. (Look'em up if you want). Chicago school system one of the worst in country.
This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois.
He's gonna 'fix' Washington politics?

Charles Krauthammer asks,

Why are these associations important? Do I think Obama is as
corrupt as Rezko? Or shares Wright's angry racism or Ayers'
unreconstructed 1960s radicalism?

No. But that does not make these associations irrelevant. They tell us two important things about Obama.

First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. He found these men useful,and use them he did. Would you attend a church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit? Would you even shake hands with -- let alone serve on two boards with -- an unrepentant terrorist,whether he bombed U.S. military installations or abortion clinics?

Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency. Yet
Obama did, if not out of conviction then out of expediency. He was a
young man on the make, an unknown outsider working his way into Chicago politics. He played the game with everyone, without qualms and with obvious success.

Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window
these associations give on Obama's core beliefs. He doesn't share Rev.
Wright's poisonous views of race nor Ayers' views, past and present,
about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond.

DC has enough corruption and cynicism dressed up in stylish eloquence, it doesn't need the Chicago Machine. The average middle-of-the-road undecided voter knows this. But thanks to our press, which the Democratic party plays like a set of shrieking, growling, multi-toned bagpipes, the undecided voter doesn't know about Barry's Barrio and the stinking political and cultural sewer that runs through it.

Links:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/obamas_character_still_questio.html
http://townhall.com/Columnists/MichaelReagan/2008/10/09/why_ayers_matters
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjUwZWIwZTNhY2Y0YTFkYzFmZTIyZWUwZWNkYjk4ZGM=
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzFiZDgzZDY0ZTUzMTY2NjI2MzQwZmQzZTdjNDNiMzE=&w=MA==
http://www.slate.com/id/2201953