Will Common Sense Prevail in the House on the Debt Ceiling Vote?

Senator DeMint has finally proven to many Republicans that he has a lot rhetoric but never offers a plan of his own.   His threats against those in the House voting for Boehner plan were not something I would expect out of a US Senator.  Asked a good friend what other Senator would do this and he came up with LBJ and maybe John Kerry.  That's not someone a Republican Senator would want to be compared with IMHO.  DeMint telling House Members if they vote for the Boehner plan to raise the debt ceiling, they will be out of power for years is totally irresponsible.  He called a Tea Party Rally for yesterday and maybe 100 showed up to protest the Boehner bill -- they seemed to be as many reporters as Tea Party people for his rally:

Today's (7/28/11) Tea Party rally outside the Senate -- the "Hold the Line" rally -- attracted a few dozen activists, and about as many reporters. Here's a shot of Jim DeMint addressing the crowd, more members of which were in the shade to the right. 

Could this poor turnout along with the irresponsible Republican Study Committee's emails urging conservative groups to turn out their people to call Congress to tell them to defeat the Boehner bill have turned the tide in support of the Boehner bill?  Have some members of Congress finally realized that all these threats from DeMint and the National Tea Party leaders mean nothing in the long run.  What means something is that the United States does not default.

When DeMint steps up to the plate with a plan, I might listen but until then he needs to stop grandstanding and interfering in the business of the House.  With some of the candidates he and the Tea Party Express pushed in 2010, it kept us from having more votes in the Senate.  Do you realize how bad it was to have a DeMint Tea Party candidate defeated in AK with a write-in?  Looks like we are on the same page as The Wall Street Journal who seems to have their 'groove' back in their articles:

Strangely, some Republicans and conservative activists are condemning this as a fiscal sellout. Senator Jim DeMint put out a statement raking the Speaker for seeking "a better political debt deal, instead of a debt solution" (emphasis, needless to say, his). The usually sensible Club for Growth and Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, are scoring a vote for the Boehner plan as negative on similar grounds.If the Boehner plan fails in the House, the advantage shifts to Harry Reid's Senate plan. (my emphasis)

But what none of these critics have is an alternative strategy for achieving anything nearly as fiscally or politically beneficial as Mr. Boehner's plan. The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. 

Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.

This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell into GOP Senate nominees. (my emphasis) The reality is that the debt limit will be raised one way or another, and the only issue now is with how much fiscal reform and what political fallout. 

Read that paragraph from the WSJ  and wanted to start applauding the Journal for telling the truth.  Two of the worst candidates that Republicans have ever nominated came courtesy of DeMint and the Tea Party Express.

Quit Club for Growth yesterday for several reasons one being they have way overreached compared to when Senator Toomey was in charge, and their aligning with Sen DeMint left me no choice because I don't share his political ideology of 'my way or no way' so I asked for no more emails and no more of their snail mail newsletters which are a waste a lot of money.  One person quitting is not going to make a difference, but I wanted them to know that at least one person stood on their own principles and realizes that sometimes you have to compromise whether you like it or not.  That is something that the DeMint crowd cannot get through their heads as they truly believe only they have all the answers, but have no plan to present.  Kind of like all the rhetoric surrounding the Senate budget -- lot of talk and no substance.

Speaker Boehner has not been shy in saying this plan is far from perfect but once it passes the House, then its the democrats on the hook.  That should be clear to anyone with the least bit of political savvy which is missing in this 'my way or no way' culture among some members of Congress.  As for the National Tea Party Leaders, their voices have far less clout then they had a year ago before they started with the threats against Republicans.  Get that Republicans not Democrats.  Never have witnessed anything like it and the head of Tea Party Nation, Judson Phillips, who is being sued for breach of contract by a Las Vegas hotel, is calling for Speaker Boehner to step down.  Who is going to listen to him?

When article after article starts talking about facing reality, it is telling Republicans in Congress to get to get their act together and as Eric Cantor said "Quit whining and vote."

Reading this article from the WSJ has me sitting me nodding my head in agreement starting at the very beginning of Republicans opposing the Boehner bill playing into the hands of Obama.  They nailed the article right there by stating the truth.  Sometime today, we will know the truth if common sense prevails in the House versus the 'my way or no way' ideology.

• JULY 27, 2011

The GOP's Reality Test
Republicans who oppose Boehner's debt deal are playing into Obama's hands. 

The debt-limit debate is heading toward a culmination, with President Obama reduced to pleading for the public to support a tax increase and Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid releasing competing plans that are the next-to-last realistic options. The question now is whether House Republicans are going to help Mr. Boehner achieve significant progress, or, in the name of the unachievable, hand Mr. Obama a victory. 

Mr. Obama recognizes these stakes, threatening yesterday to veto the Boehner plan in a tactical move to block any Democratic support. The White House is afraid that it will pass the House and then become the only debt-ceiling vehicle if Mr. Reid can't get 60 votes for his own proposal in the Senate. This would short-circuit Mr. Obama's plan to blame the GOP for a U.S. credit downgrade, any market turmoil, a possible default, and the lousy economy too.
***
Under the two-phase Boehner plan, Congress would authorize $1 trillion in new debt in return for $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over the next decade. Most of that will come from caps on domestic discretionary spending over 10 years—the Pentagon and homeland security are exempt—with automatic spending cuts if the caps are breached. While one Congress cannot bind another, the proposal would at least guarantee real reductions in fiscal years 2012 and 2013. 

In the second stage, the House and Senate would convene a 12-member joint select committee with a deficit reduction goal of $1.8 trillion by November. The majority and minority of both chambers would each make three assignments, and any plan that secured seven votes or more would get an up-or-down vote in both chambers with no amendments. 

The danger for the GOP is that the committee could end up proposing tax increases, since the committee's only remit is the deficit, not the larger fiscal landscape or the size of government. A poorly chosen Republican nominee could defect, and any structural change to entitlements almost certainly can't pass the Senate. 

Then again, unless the plan passed, Mr. Obama couldn't request the additional $1.6 trillion debt ceiling increase that he would soon need. The political incentive is for a reasonable package, and many Senate Democrats also don't want to vote for tax increases before 2012. 

The debt-limit debate is heading toward a culmination, with President Obama reduced to pleading for the public to support a tax increase and Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid releasing competing plans that are the next-to-last realistic options. The question now is whether House Republicans are going to help Mr. Boehner achieve significant progress, or, in the name of the unachievable, hand Mr. Obama a victory. 

Mr. Obama recognizes these stakes, threatening yesterday to veto the Boehner plan in a tactical move to block any Democratic support. The White House is afraid that it will pass the House and then become the only debt-ceiling vehicle if Mr. Reid can't get 60 votes for his own proposal in the Senate. This would short-circuit Mr. Obama's plan to blame the GOP for a U.S. credit downgrade, any market turmoil, a possible default, and the lousy economy too. 

 (snip)

It's true that the Boehner plan doesn't solve the long-term debt problem, but Mr. Obama won't agree to anything that does. The GOP plan also may not prevent a U.S. national credit downgrade, but it has a better chance of doing so than Mr. Reid's. The Boehner plan is the most credible proposal with a chance of becoming law before the 2012 election.   

(snip) 

Excerpt:  Read More at The Wall Street Journal 

Obama has himself to blame for Muslim problem

When we first learned that Obama had become a 'Christian' at Rev Wright's Church of Christ, we began to question how he could sit in this church for 20+ years and not hear the black separatists message or acknowledge the fact the fact of Wright and Farrakhan's close relationship. If a black Christian minister hanging around together, traveling together, and giving the National of Islam leader Farrakhan an award doesn't make you go 'what?' nothing will.  That is exactly the relationship between Wright and Farrakhan who Obama also knew well.

Then the Obama campaign attacked all of us who questioned whether Obama was Muslim back then as it was common knowledge in Chicago that Rev Wright who was a former Muslim who was open to Muslims coming to his church pretending to be Christian for business purposes.  Why not for political purposes as well?

The fact that the Obama campaign insisted that Hussein, his middle name, not be used during the campaign but after he was elected, they embraced that name was another troubling problem about his link to Islam. Then we had the gotcha moment on ABC where he said Muslim and was corrected to Christian and the beautiful Islamic prayer moment all leading to many of us thinking his loyalties were to Islam, the religion of most of his Kenyan family. Since being elected, we have not changed our opinions and in fact, Obama's words and actions have strengthened our belief if he is not Muslim he leans very much toward the Islamic religion over Christianity and Jewish religions.

Obama has himself to blame for Muslim problem
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
August 20, 2010
(AP)

In 1985, Barack Obama had just arrived in Chicago for his new job as a community organizer when he headed to Smitty’s Barbershop, a tiny storefront on the South Side. As Smitty cut his hair, Obama listened to the men in the shop talk politics and racial grievance. When the barber finished, he handed Obama a mirror and said, “Haircut’s ten dollars. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Barack.”

“Barack, huh,” Smitty responded. “You a Muslim?”

“Grandfather was,” Obama said, according to his memoir Dreams From My Father.

Smitty’s question, which Obama didn’t exactly answer, prefigured a controversy that continues to this day.

A new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that 18 percent of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. That is up from the 12 percent who believed that in October 2008, just before Obama was elected president.

At the same time, the number of Pew respondents who say Obama is a Christian — in Dreams From My Father, he describes his conversion to Christianity under the tutelage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright — has declined from 51 percent in October 2008 to 34 percent now. And the number of people who say they don’t know Obama’s religion is growing, from 32 percent back then to 43 percent today.

The White House blames the situation on a “misinformation campaign” from Obama’s opponents. But Obama and his aides might also blame themselves for the way they’ve handled the Muslim issue over the years.

The question did not come out of nowhere. As Obama said, his grandfather was a Muslim. His father was raised a Muslim before becoming, by Obama’s account, “a confirmed atheist.” Obama’s stepfather was a Muslim. His half-sister Maya told the New York Times that her “whole family was Muslim.”

Obama spent two years in a Muslim school in Indonesia and later, in a conversation with the Times’ Nicholas Kristof, described the Arabic call to prayer, the beginning of which he recited by heart, as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.” Given all that, it is entirely accurate and fair to describe Obama as having Muslim roots.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

US harshly rebukes Israel on settlement plans (Obama gives "rare and harsh rebuke")

Yahoo
9-4-09
MATTHEW LEE

Alarmed by Israeli plans to build new housing units in settlements and dimming prospects for American peace efforts, the Obama administration on Friday put out a rare and harsh public rebuke of its main Mideast ally.

The White House said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's settlement plans were "inconsistent" with commitments the Jewish state has made previously and harmful to U.S. attempts to lay the groundwork for a resumption in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

"United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "We are working to create a climate in which negotiations can take place, and such actions make it harder to create such a climate."

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...



Comments: Whose side is Obama on? Muslim or Israeli? By his comments, it looks to be the Muslim side in the Middle East. Who is Obama to tell Israel where they can and cannot build. The American Jewish voters who supported Obama made a huge mistake. America has always been on the side of Israel but then we didn't have a President that ever bowed down to the Saudi King either!

Is Barack Obama a Muslim wolf in Christian wool?

By Reuven Koret
March 27, 2008
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12745.htm

The glib handling of criticism of his relationship with the anti-American ("God Damn America!") and anti-Israel ("a dirty word for Negroes") Reverend James Wright may have bought him a little time. But the legacy of dissimulation about his long-concealed identity is about to come crashing down around the ears of Barack Hussein Obama, courtesy of the assembled testimony of his family, friends, classmates and teachers.

The accumulated research indicates that Obama was in his childhood a devout Muslim, the son of a devout Muslim, the step-son of a devout Muslim and the grandson and namesake ("Hussein") of a devout Muslim. He was registered in school as a Muslim and demonstrated his ability to chant praise to Allah in impressive Arab-accented tones even as an adult. Just as he has not disavowed his "uncle" Jeremiah, neither has he disavowed his Muslim faith that he was born into, raised with, celebrated and never abandoned. He just covered it over with a thin veneer of his own self-styled "Christianity."

Although as an adult he would register as a Christian, and occasionally attend a Christian Church (but apparently not often enough to listen to the preaching of his pastor, or so he would claim) this was a necessary step for a man who from earliest boyhood has nurtured the precocious ambition to be President of the United States.

He was entered into the Roman Catholic, Franciscus Assisi Primary School, in Jakarta, Indonesia, on January 1, 1968, registered under the name Barry Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen whose religion was listed as Islam. Catholic schools accept non-Catholics worldwide. Non-Catholic students are typically excused from religious instruction and ceremony.

In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want to Become President.'"Iis Darmawan, 63, Senator Obama's kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. He wrote an essay titled, 'I Want To Become President,' the teacher said." [AP, 1/25/07]

Three years later, in 1971, Obama enrolled in the Besuki Primary School, a government school, as Barry Soetoro, Muslim. In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President.' His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga "asked her class to write an essay titled 'My dream: What I want to be in the future.' Senator Obama wrote 'I want to be a President,' she said." [The Los Angeles Times, 3/15/07]

All Indonesian students are required to study religion at school and a young Barry Soetoro, being a Muslim, would have been required to study Islam daily in school.

He would have been taught to read and write Arabic, to recite his prayers properly, to read and recite from the Quran and to study the laws of Islam.

In his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," Obama mentions studying the Koran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school."

"In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Koranic studies."

According to Tine Hahiyary, one of Obama's teachers and the principal from 1971 through 1989, Barry actively took part in the Islamic religious lessons during his time at the school. "I remembered that he had studied "mengaji" (recitation of the Quran)" Tine said.

The author of the Laotze blog writes from Jakarta: "The actual usage of the word 'mengaji' in Indonesian and Malaysian societies means the study of learning to recite the Quran in the Arabic language rather than the native tongue. "Mengagi" is a word and a term that is accorded the highest value and status in the mindset of fundamentalist societies here in Southeast Asia. To put it quite simply, 'mengaji classes' are not something that a non practicing or so-called moderate Muslim family would ever send their child to. To put this in a Christian context, this is something above and beyond simply enrolling your child in Sunday school classes."

"The fact that Obama had attended mengaji classes is well known in Indonesia and has left many there wondering just when Obama is going to come out of the closet." "

As I've stated before, the evidence seems to quite clearly show that both Ann Dunham and her husband Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo were in fact devout Muslims themselves and they raised their son as such."

The Obama Campaign told the LA Times he wasn't a "practicing Muslim." (3/14/2007). But his official website says: "Obama Has Never Been A Muslim, And Is a Committed Christian" (11/12/2007) That's not what his friends and classmates have said. Classmate Rony Amiris describes young Barry as enjoying playing football and marbles and of being a very devout Muslim. Amir said, "Barry was previously quite religious in Islam. We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house. If he was wearing a sarong, he looked funny," said Rony.

Amiris, now the manager of Bank Mandiri, Jakarta, recently said, "Barry was previously quite religious in Islam. His birth father, Barack Hussein Obama was a Muslim economist from Kenya. Before marrying Ann Dunham, Hussein Obama was married to a woman from Kenya who had seven children. All the relatives of Barry's father were very devout Muslims"

Emirsyah Satar, CEO of Garuda Indonesia, was quoted as saying, "He (Obama) was often in the prayer room wearing a 'sarong', at that time."

"He was quite religious in Islam but only after marrying Michelle, he changed his religion." So Obama, according to his classmates and friends was a Muslim until the confluence of love and ambitious, caused him to adopt the cloak of Christianity: to marry Michelle and to run for President of the United States.

In "Dreams," Obama sheds light on his formative years and the political views of his mother, an anthropologist and Islamophile who hated America and subsequently "went native." (It was her mother -- Barry's "other" grandmother who cared for him in his druggie teenage years -- that he would describe as a "typical white person" who was, he said scoldingly, fearful of black men and prone to making stereotypical racial remarks.)

Obama Senior also had three sons by another woman who are all Muslim. Although Obama claims Senior was an atheist, Senior was buried as a Muslim.

Barack Obama's brother Roy opted for Islam over Christianity, as the Senator recounted in his book when describing his 1992 wedding. "The person who made me proudest of all," Obama wrote, "was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol."Abongo "argues that the black man must "liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture." He urged his younger brother to embrace his African heritage.

In Kenya while he was a Senator, Obama stumped for his cousin, opposition leader Raila Odinga, the son of Senior's sister, a direct first cousin and nephew of Obama's father.

On August 29, 2007, Raila Odinga and Shiekh Abdullah Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which it pledges the support of Kenyan Moslems for Raila's election. In return, as President of Kenya, Raila agrees ... within 6 months re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Shariah as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions [and] within one year to facilitate the establishment of a Shariah court in every Kenyan divisional headquarters -- everywhere in Kenya, not just in "Muslim declared regions" -- and to popularize Islam, the only true religion ... by ordering every primary school in Kenya in the regions to conduct daily Madrassa classes.

In an interview with the New York Times, published on April 30th, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's younger half sister, told the Times, "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim."

Obama describes his new found "Christian" faith as: (1) Suspicious of dogma (2) Without any monopoly on the truth (3) Nontransferable to others (4) Infused with a big healthy dose of doubt, and (5) Indulgent of and compatible with all other religions.

On February 27th, speaking to Kristof of The New York Times, Barack Hussein Obama said the Muslim call to prayer is "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."

In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent."

The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada: "Allah is Supreme!

Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! I witness that there is no god but Allah I witness that there is no god but Allah I witness that Muhammad is his prophet? "

According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This simple yet profound statement expresses a Muslim's complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam. Obama chanted it with pride and finesse.

An American Expat in Southeast Asia blog, written by an American who has lived in Indonesia for 20 years and has met with both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, contains the following:

"Barack Hussein Obama might have convinced some Americans that he is no longer a Muslim, but so far he has not convinced many in the world's most populous Muslim country who still see him as a Muslim and a crusader for Islam and world peace."

"Barack Hussein Obama's race, his staunch opposition to the war in Iraq, his sympathy to Islam and Muslims worldwide and his Muslim heritage receive the Indonesian media coverage. There is no mention of his apostasy."

"A good example of how some of the Indonesian media is reporting on Obama's religion can be found in the following."

"What I found interesting in the article was the use of the word 'mengaku' when refering to Obama's conversion from Islam to Christianity. The word 'mengaku' in Indonesian means "claimed" and as such leaves the insinuation to the native Indonesian reader being that Obama might actually still be a Muslim.

But this is how Indonesians see Obama, they don't see him as an apostate at all, they see him as a crusader for the cause of Islam."

Obama wants it both ways, has always wanted it both ways. Black and white, Indonesian and American, Muslim and Christian. He loves playing one off the other, using one to hide the other even as the traces of the truth may be assembled to reveal the whole cloth of deception and self-promotion he has been weaving so skillfully since his childhood. No wonder he is a man of change. He IS a changeling, a veritable chameleon, adapting and amending his life story to fit the circumstances.

The charm may have worked once. It still works on some. It won't work forever in the age of the Internet. The fog of ambiguity and dissimulation is dissipated by the harsh, unforgiving and scrutiny of the blogosphere and its unlimited access to historical facts and time-stamped testimony.

Many have been puzzled why Obama could claim not to be familiar with Wright's rants. It turns out the Trinity Church, like many African-American churches, happily accepts believing Muslims within its congregation. And evidently many Muslims have no problems surrounding themselves with an anti-American, anti-Israel preacher who week in and week out wins the amens of his adoring congregation.

On Feb 15/08, Usama K. Dakdok, President of The Straight Way of Grace Ministry called Obama's Church and reported the following conversation: " I then asked the person who answered what I needed to do to join. She told me that I needed to attend two Sunday School classes in a row and then I would walk the aisle. I replied, "That sounds easy. One last question please. If I am Muslim and I believe in the Prophet Mohammed, peace be unto him and I also believe in Jesus, peace be unto him, do I have to give up my Islamic faith to be a member in your church? She answered: "No, we have many Muslim members in our church."

Indeed.

Credit for these reports and revelations -- assembling the statements of those who love and admire Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama -- belong primarily to the writers, researchers, and journalists cited in and contributing to the above references. Special hat tip to Ted Belman of Israpundit for putting most of the pieces together. One can be sure that more, much more, is on the way, before the first black muslim president enters the White House. Or not.

*****
Note:

Who are the Democrats electing as their nominee? Are they so intent on having a liberal represent their party that they have thrown caution to the wind with nominating someone fairly new on the scene with a Muslim background. What does this say about today's Democrat Party? More articles like this will be posted as they are found to show who is the 'real' Obama.

My bold and highlight!

Obama's Church

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Since we first drew attention to Barack Obama's Afrocentric church a full 12 months ago, other media have weighed in. And additional disturbing information has come to light.

At the core of the Democratic front-runner's faith — whether lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two — is African nativism, which raises political issues of its own.

In 1991, when Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he pledged allegiance to something called the Black Value System, which is a code of non-Biblical ethics written by blacks, for blacks.

It encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing black-only businesses and backing black leaders. Such racial separatism is strangely at odds with the media's portrayal of Obama as a uniter who reaches across races.

The code also warns blacks to avoid the white "entrapment of black middle-classness," suggesting that settling for that kind of "competitive" success will rob blacks of their African identity and keep them "captive" to white culture.

In short, Obama's "unashamedly black" church preaches the politics of black nationalism. And its dashiki-wearing preacher — who married Obama and his wife and now acts as his personal spiritual adviser — is militantly Afrocentric. "We are an African people," the Rev. Jeremiah Wright reminds his flock, "and remain true to our native land, the mother continent."

Wright once traveled to Libya with black supremacist Louis Farrakhan to meet with terrorist leader Muammar Qaddafi. Last year at a Chicago gala, Wright honored his old pal Farrakhan, who's fond of calling whites "blue-eyed devils," for lifetime achievement.

It comes as little surprise then that Wright would think Israel a "racist" occupier of Palestinians, while describing the 9/11 attacks as a "wake-up call" to "white America" for ignoring the concerns of "people of color." Wright makes the Rev. Jesse Jackson look almost moderate and patriotic. Yet this is whom Obama picked to baptize his daughters, plus to act as his "sounding board" during his presidential run.

The candidate already has heeded his church's "nonnegotiable commitment to Africa," spending an inordinate amount of his campaign time on the Kenyan crisis, for one. Obama has close family ties to Kenya, and even founded a school in his ancestral village — the Senator Obama School.

In the bloody conflict there, which already has claimed some 700 lives, Obama appears to have sided with opposition leader Raila Odinga, head of the same Luo tribe to which Obama's late Muslim father belonged.

Obama's older brother still lives there. Abongo "Roy" Obama is a Luo activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must "liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture." He urges his younger brother to embrace his African heritage.

Beyond family politics, these ties have potential foreign policy, even national security, implications. Odinga is a Marxist who reportedly has made a pact with a hard-line Islamic group in Kenya to establish Shariah courts throughout the country. He has also vowed to ban booze and pork and impose Muslim dress codes on women — moves favored by Obama's brother.

With al-Qaida strengthening its beachheads in Africa — from Algeria to Sudan to Somalia — the last thing the West needs is for pro-Western Kenya to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.

Yet Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaigning to speak by phone with Odinga, who claims to be his cousin. He did not speak with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?

It's a valid question, and one voters deserve to have debated regardless of the racial and religious sensitivities. Thanks to a media blackout of these issues, the electorate has yet to benefit from a thorough vetting of Obama.

We have to wonder how much of the national agenda Africa would consume under an Obama administration. Of the six "world threats" Obama lists in stump speeches, at least half of them concern that chronically troubled Third World continent.

Yes, some of his African priorities are noble, such as fighting AIDS and genocide. But how much U.S. aid, resources and presidential time would he devote to them? How much is enough? If Bill Clinton was America's "first black president," would Barack Hussein Obama be our first president for Africa?

Then there is the issue of his Muslim past. Obama, 47, was raised by two Muslim fathers and attended Islamic classes in Indonesia. He denies being Muslim, however, and says he "embraced Christ" while answering the altar call 20 years ago at Trinity. (Contrary to anonymous e-mail rumors circulating, Obama never took the oath of office on the Quran. He used a Bible, and Vice President Dick Cheney swore him in during his Senate ceremony.) This merely raises another concern, beyond that of the controversial church he chose to baptize him. If Obama were ever Muslim, even as a youth, he would now be viewed as an apostate, which in radical Islam is punishable by death. As Mideast expert Daniel Pipes has noted, a President Obama could be the target of a fatwah.

Still, his Muslim heritage is not the signal issue before the electorate.

It's his Afrocentric church, which preaches black socialism and black nativism, and his family ties to an African tribe that's fanning the flames of Marxism and militant Islam in a country once considered strongly democratic and a friend of the U.S.

"I believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change," Obama has asserted. He also says his faith has led him to question "the idolatry of the free market." If a President Obama's foreign and domestic policies are anything like the Afrocentric doctrine he's pledged to uphold, Americans will pay a hefty price, including those among the growing black middle class.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=285292746454291