Greatest moral failure

At The Thirty-Thousand they have up a transcript of the Saddleback Civil Forum, which featured both Presidential presumptive nominees, and there are some things that, really, do bring up problems.  When asking Sen. Obama about the greatest moral failure of his life, Sen. Obama came out with:

Obama: Well, in my own life, I'd break it up in stages. I had a difficult youth. My father wasn't in the house. I've written about this. There were times where I experimented with drugs and I drank in my teenage years. And what I trace this to is a certain selfishness on my part. I was so obsessed with me and, you know, the reasons that I might be dissatisfied that I couldn't focus on other people. And you know, I think the process for me of growing up was to recognize that it's not about me. It's about —

[Warren: I like that. I like that.]

It's about ... absolutely ... but look, you know, when I find myself taking the wrong step, I think a lot of times it's because I'm trying to protect myself instead of trying to do God's work.

[Warren: Yeah, fundamental selfishness.]

And so that, I think, is my own failure.

Now here you have something that actually rings true!  Yes, it does tend to all be about him, doesn't it?  And yet, when he criticizes America's greatest mortal failure, here is what he comes up with:

Obama: I think America's greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we ... still don't abide by that ... basic precept in Matthew that: 'whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.' And that notion of — that basic principle applies to poverty. It applies to racism and sexism. It applies to, you know, not ... thinking about providing ladders of opportunity for people to get into the middle class.

I mean, there's a pervasive sense, I think, that this country, as wealthy and powerful as we are, still don't spend enough time thinking about the least of these.

Ah, so very leftist this 'America can't do right because we just don't do enough' while outspending every other industrialized nation on the planet, per person, in charitable giving.  Not to speak of government help.  I've looked at that before, and no matter which way you cut it, be it cash, per capita, time volunteered... all of those are owned in the top spot by the American people.  But, of course, we don't count when it comes to these things... I mean we still have poor folks!  Which, in any competitive economic system you will *always* have a top and bottom 5%.  And the poor in America live much, much better than most 'middle class' people elsewhere on the planet.  In some countries our poor would be wealthy, if living in awful conditions... but that is due to having a rich nation that provides much for us, not a poor one with rich leaching off of their poor cousins.

What Sen. Obama forgot to tell you is that he has BOTH these moral failings: narcissism and being a miser towards the poor.

Or at least one poor man.

His 26 year old half-brother who he has met twice in Kenya.

That individual, George Hussein Onyango Obama, lives in a hut on $1... a month.  Three cents a day, give or take.

Andrew Breitbart on 26 AUG 2008 in the Washington Times reports on this, as only an Italian magazine and two London papers have actually done anything on this story.

Perhaps Sen. Obama would trot out not 'being his brother's keeper' as an excuse for doing nothing.

Growing up with poor relatives, not only in the US but in Poland, I was very familiar of sending money to them, 'slipping them a 5-spot' or bringing food over or taking someone out for shopping and a meal.  We couldn't get much together for packages to Poland in the Communist era, but the family did what we could, being basically lower-middle class and having some parts of the family done-right poor.  Poor, but not angry, not railing against government save for its asinine ways, not looking for a hand-out as family provided for them.

The American people understand poor relatives or those that have personal problems, and accepted that they at least had opportunity because of their relatives who did well.

Add this to the long list of problems I have with Sen. Obama: criticizing others for the faults that he has and not working to fix.  That is more than hypocritical when it involves family...

 

Honor

Do as you say.

Say what you mean.

Mean what you do.