Topic category:  Government/Politics

Last October The New York Times killed an Obama/ACORN expose to protect its presidential candidate, Senator Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.

This week New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd began her desperate defense of the now politically hard-pressed President Obama and outrageous attack on the "bold" and "fresh" Congressman Wilson this way:

"The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind.

"Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn’t."

Obama did lie to become President and he's lied as President, especially about the consequences of his radical agenda.

Anyone who thinks that Obamacare would not add a penny to the national deficit is moronic and Obama is not that.

It would be counterproductive for Obama to play the race card himself, so Ms. Dowd did it for him, as follow: "...fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"

That shows bias...the bias of Ms. Dowd!

Ms. Dowd fulminated: "The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring 'You lie!' bumper stickers and T-shirts."

Milquetoast?

Wikipedia: "From 1972 to 1975, Wilson served in the United States Army Reserve, and then as a Staff Judge Advocate in the South Carolina Army National Guard assigned to the 218th Mechanized Infantry Brigade until retiring from military service as a Colonel in 2003."

Ms. Dowd's had a tough summer, so, "fair or not," she shamelessly charged that "Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber."

As to her summer, a furious, frustrated Ms. Dowd vented: "I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race."

It has NOTHING to do with race. It has to do with freedom.

Ms. Dowd's view seems to be that critics of "Democratic presidents" are crazed:

"I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton."

But race does not explain that "frothing," since Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Clinton were not black or half-black.

Credit Wilson with "influencing" Ms. Dowd.

Ms. Dowd: "...Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted 'liar' at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it."

Unfortunately, Wilson's race-neutral two words may have made Ms. Dowd embrace delusion instead of recognize deception.

Of course, Ms. Dowd's goal is to keep Obama in power and to suppress criticism.

Ms. Dowd:

“'A lot of these outbursts have to do with delegitimizing him as a president,' said Congressman Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the South Carolina delegation. Clyburn, the man who called out Bill Clinton on his racially tinged attacks on Obama in the primary, pushed Pelosi to pursue a formal resolution chastising Wilson.

“'In South Carolina politics, I learned that the olive branch works very seldom,' he said. 'You have to come at these things from a position of strength. My father used to say, "Son, always remember that silence gives consent."'"

Even if truth is not to be considered a defense, shouldn't the First Amendment trump a rule against calling a President a liar on the floor of the House of Representatives?

The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Wilson was rude, admittedly, but he was speaking peaceably and petitioning for a redress of a grievance.

Ironically, Ms. Dowd, having misdescribed Wilson as "milquetoast," felt a need to excuse Obama's reaction to Wilson's words, lest he be perceived as 'milquetoast."

Ms. Dowd:

"Barry Obama of the post-’60s Hawaiian ’hood did not live through the major racial struggles in American history. Maybe he had a problem relating to his white basketball coach or catching a cab in New York, but he never got beaten up for being black.

"Now he’s at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension. Even if he and the coterie of white male advisers around him don’t choose to openly acknowledge it, this president is the ultimate civil rights figure — a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe."

Having played the race card and tried to protect Obama, Ms. Dowd blamed "the South" in general and South Carolina in particular:

"For two centuries, the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds. In Obama, they have both.

"The state that fired the first shot of the Civil War has now given us this: Senator Jim DeMint exhorted conservatives to 'break' the president by upending his health care plan. Rusty DePass, a G.O.P. activist, said that a gorilla that escaped from a zoo was 'just one of Michelle’s ancestors.' Lovelorn Mark Sanford tried to refuse the president’s stimulus money. And now Joe Wilson.

“'A good many people in South Carolina really reject the notion that we’re part of the union,' said Don Fowler, the former Democratic Party chief who teaches politics at the University of South Carolina. He observed that when slavery was destroyed by outside forces and segregation was undone by civil rights leaders and Congress, it bred xenophobia.

“'We have a lot of people who really think that the world’s against us,' Fowler said, 'so when things don’t happen the way we like them to, we blame outsiders.' He said a state legislator not long ago tried to pass a bill to nullify any federal legislation with which South Carolinians didn’t agree. Shades of John C. Calhoun!"

But the tea parties this year were not about secession or limited to South Carolina or the South.

It is Ms. Dowd whose writing is "loco."

To Ms. Dowd, Obama is wonderful and the problem is wicked racists being unfair to him, not Obama's radical agenda and appointees, and those wicked racists must be intimidated.

Ms. Dowd:

"It may be President Obama’s very air of elegance and erudition that raises hackles in some. 'My father used to say to me, "Boy, don’t get above your raising,"' Fowler said. 'Some people are prejudiced anyway, and then they look at his education and mannerisms and get more angry at him.'

"Clyburn had a warning for Obama advisers who want to forgive Wilson, ignore the ignorant outbursts and move on: 'They’re going to have to develop ways in this White House to deal with things and not let them fester out there. Otherwise, they’ll see numbers moving in the wrong direction.'"

The truth is that Obama got more votes because he is half-black than he lost for the same reason.

His "numbers" have been moving down during his presidency, and race is NOT the reason.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.