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Glenn Beck
Obama 101: Behind the Policies and Background of Obama
Aired September 04, 2008 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, a special look at the policies and background of the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama. We`ll get past all the glowing media flattery and show you who this man really is, from pulpit scandals...
REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT, FORMER PASTOR, TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: God damn America.
BECK: ... to double standards, we will take a crash course on Obamanomics 101 and study his unorthodox foreign policy ideas. An hour on Obama that you cannot afford to miss.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: So, let`s get right to it. A close-up examination of the policies and the background -- by the way, hello, America. The background of Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama.
Joining me, Steven Moore, an economic editorial writer for the "Wall Street Journal"; "National Review" online`s Jonah Goldberg, and the author of "Liberal Fascism," and incredible book; also David Freddoso, author of "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media`s Favorite Candidate"; and Jerome Corsi, author of "Obama Nation: Leftist Policies and the Cult of Personality."
Jerome, what are you, four weeks at No. 1 on the "New York Times" list?
JEROME CORSI, AUTHOR, "OBAMA NATION": Yes, Glenn, four weeks since it came out. Thank you.
BECK: Tell me, because I`m going to -- I`m going to break this hour up into a lot of things. And I wanted to start with you, because you have a lot of stuff in your book about his friends.
There are a lot of Barack Obama`s friends, and as my mother used to say, show me your friends and I`ll show you your future. William Ayers is always dismissed. Lay the case out on William Ayers, please.
CORSI: Well, William Ayers, of course, is the Weather Underground bomber. And Obama began his career, his coming out party in 1995, and Ayers and Bernadine Dorns home.
And then for, you know, some 20 years, Obama has been working with Ayers, certainly since 1995, on a series of foundations: the Annenberg Foundation and the Woods Foundation. The boards of directors together, or in the Annenberg Foundation, Ayers created it, and Obama was on it. And together they spent the money of these foundations to implement their radical socialist agenda.
BECK: OK. Tell me, if you will, because a lot of people say, no, they just know each other. They`re not friends. Just because -- you know, just because they worked on boards together. Explain a little bit about the introduction of his candidacy at the Ayers home.
CORSI: Obama was in 1995 going to take the seat of Alice Palmer, who is also an extreme socialist. She`s an African-American who had actually gone to Russia and had attended communist party meetings and reported on them. And it was all very much of a leftist gathering.
Ayers and Dorns were like the stamp of approval on Obama, introducing them to their click of leftist friends for funding and for advancing his candidacy. So that very beginning was a chosen intentionally association with Ayers and Dorns to launch Obama`s career, and Obama knew exactly what he was doing picking him.
BECK: What are we missing here on this?
DAVID FREDDOSO, AUTHOR, "THE CASE AGAINST BARACK OBAMA": It`s -- I mean, that`s an accurate description of the relationship with William Ayers. We`re going to find out more soon, through the work of Stanley Kurtz at "National Review," who`s going through the Annenberg Challenge documents.
Senator Obama is the one who`s saying that "This is just another guy in my neighborhood," but in fact, that`s not true at all. It may turn out to be that they had a much closer relationship through their work together on the Annenberg Challenge.
BECK: What -- and what is the Annenberg Challenge?
FREDDOSO: This is what Doctor Corsi was mentioning. This is an educational philanthropy project in which they were trying to -- they were trying to change the way that schools were run, bringing in outside groups to help with them in Chicago.
BECK: Can either of you address the books that William Ayers has written on school? Some of the direct quotes of what he has said in his books?
CORSI: Well, his agenda -- I guess the most famous book is "Fugitive Days" that he published, I believe, in 2001, in which Ayers was unrepentant, saying that he wished he bombed more.
BECK: The -- the connection to Saul Alinsky. First of all, who wants to take on who Saul Alinsky is?
CORSI: Well, I`d be happy to do that if -- and also David can. I mean, Saul Alinsky was a radical socialist organizer. His main book was "Rules for Radicals." His methodology was you go in as a community organizer. That means, really, a rabble rouser.
You rub raw the discontent of the community, almost in a communist sense. You find class antagonisms. You learn to speak the grievances in the people`s own logic and language, and then you go for radical redistribution of income and wealth through gaming power and mobilizing the community.
BECK: So you say -- you say in the book that this is important to understand, because it ties into Obama`s change philosophy.
CORSI: Yes, in fact, Alinsky had change as his mantra. And by it, he meant radical socialist redistribution of income from the haves to the have-nots. That was the primary purpose.
Alinsky dedicated "Rules to Radicals" to Lucifer, whom he called the first radical. And he said it was a Machiavellian approach, which means you`ll lie, do whatever you need to do to get power, because the haves were going to lose to the have-nots, who were being championed by this community organizer.
BECK: OK.
FREDDOSO: Glenn...
BECK: Yes, go ahead.
FREDDOSO: If I can just add one other -- there`s another very interesting aspect to it. The theme is common that Senator Obama made in San Francisco about people are bitter, clinging to God and to guns. That is actually a paraphrase of something Saul Alinsky wrote in that same book, in "Rules for Radicals."
A very condescending view that he has of the middle class as people who are lost, who -- he says that they turn bitter, because they cling to certain fixed points that are elusory, but very real to them. They ask questions that Alinsky considers meaningless, like what does our flag mean to you? Interestingly, something that was just said at the -- and it was just said at the Republican convention. That`s Alinsky. You know, his influence coming through.
BECK: Do either of you guys -- do either of you guys believe that -- because William Ayers is a guy who said, you know, rise up, kill your parents. You know, take -- turn over and burn -- burn the -- basically, burn everything down to the ground and take that from the haves for the have-nots. Do either of you guys actually believe that Obama believes this stuff?
CORSI: Absolutely. I mean, Obama`s entire -- just take a look at his taxation policies. He wants to increase capital gains, because he says they`re unfair.
BECK: I understand that, but that`s radically different than kill your parents, which William Ayers was for.
FREDDOSO: I would say that it`s not the point that he actually shares Ayers philosophy or would ever do anything violent. That`s not the point.
The point is that he clings to this relationship. And he`s even defending Ayers now. His campaign is defending Ayers, despite the fact that he`s an unrepentant terrorist who set bombs and may, according to congressional testimony, may have even been involved or had knowledge of a bombing that killed somebody. That`s the important thing.
CORSI: Glenn, if I could just add...
BECK: Real quick.
CORSI: Real quick, it`s that Alinsky taught to say whatever is necessary to get power. That`s the Machiavellian approach. When Obama articulates policy positions, especially moving to the center, it may be completely calculated.
BECK: OK. Jerome, thanks a lot. The rest of the panel, stick around with me. We`re going to dig a little deeper into Obama`s policies. And that is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: You may not be able to tell from the way they shred Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, but there is one candidate that the media just loves. Give you a hint: name rhymes with Barack Obama.
I`m joined once again by my panel, Steven Moore, an economic editorial writer for the "Wall Street Journal"; "National Review" online`s Jonah Goldberg, author of "Liberal Fascism"; and David Freddoso. He`s the author of "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media`s Favorite Candidate."
All right. Let me -- let me -- let me start with Reverend Wright and the black liberation theology.
Jonah, tell me about black liberation theology.
JONAH GOLDBERG, AUTHOR, "LIBERAL FASCISM": Well, I mean, black liberation theology is a fairly radical left-wing approach to Christianity. It`s what some people would call a political religion.
It`s very focused, in Reverend Wright`s case, in a sort of black power ideology that is pretty closely tinged with Marxism. That, you know, one of the planks in the Trinity Church is that the membership reject middle- classness and the pursuit of being middle class, which is a sort of classic sort of Marxist formulation of things.
And I mean, David has studied the relationship with black liberation theology a lot more than I have. But you know, it`s interesting. I mean, just getting back to all this stuff about friends for a second, you know, people think this Ayers thing was what we were just talking about, is they want to dismiss it.
I`d like to ask people, if John McCain was on a board and friends with an abortion clinic bomber who constantly said he was unapologetic about it, I kind of think the media would make a big deal about it.
BECK: Well, I do, too.
STEVEN MOORE, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": I must point, Jonah, about black empowerment, because that`s what this is really about. It`s basically a theology that goes back to income redistribution.
And that`s central to what Barack Obama`s talking about. He`s talking about a Robin Hood scheme of taking from people who have, and not -- not having low-income people rise up through empowerment, but by taking from other people.
BECK: OK. So is it true, because you know, we`re talking about reparations.
MOORE: Right, exactly.
BECK: If you listen to Barack Obama, half listen, the first thing, and the sound bite that`s always played is, "I`m against reparations." The real story is, the full statement is, "because it doesn`t go far enough." His reparations is universal health care, and because he has said -- right, he has said that it helps African-Americans disproportionately.
MOORE: And the point here is that he believes that these are all entitlements. It goes back to reparations. Yes, these groups are entitled to your money and to all these tax dollars because of what happened 100 years ago.
BECK: So -- so David, as you`re studying him, I mean, what amazes me is that, in America, Marxism doesn`t seem scary. I don`t know why. But it doesn`t seem scary to people.
FREDDOSO: It is scary. You know, Reverend Wright, people should be even more scared beyond even beyond the issue of economic reparations with -- when it comes to Reverend Wright and Trinity Church, we`re talking about an explicitly racist theology.
On their Web site, to this day, it still cites James Cone`s book on black liberation theology as their founding principle. I got the book. You just start opening it up, page after page of embarrassing racist screeds about how whites -- whites basically can`t be saved. They`re hopeless oppressors. It says that white theology isn`t theology at all. Whiteness is the opposite of Christianity. This is -- this is the entire philosophy. This is the founding terrorism, you could say.
BECK: Any chance -- any chance that Barack Obama -- I mean, if his wife were the preacher, I`d get it. Because you know, every guy in America would go, you know -- he`d look in the camera and go, guys, she`s up there every Sunday. "I wasn`t listening." But how did he miss this? Is there a chance he missed this?
MOORE: No. It`s the people that he hangs out with. I mean, people are kind of wondering, what -- they said, well, it was only his preacher. It was only his best friend. But you know, you can tell a lot about a person by who they hang out with.
Now, look at who John McCain`s best friends are. They`re people like Orson Swindle, who talked last night, a fellow POW in the Hanoi Hilton. I mean, I think there`s a big difference between the quality of these people.
GOLDBERG: But real quickly, I want to add, if you actually listen to Barack Obama`s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, or the Barack-opolis thing, it was a very interesting thing he did.
He talked about America`s promise. Right? He said, it`s not the issue of America`s -- American dream. It`s America`s promise. Now, the thing is, the American dream is individually defined. Right? What makes me happy for me and my family is one thing. What makes you happy for you and your family is another thing. We all want to, you know, pursue our own -- it`s our own individual pursuit of happiness.
The American promise formulation, which goes right back to the progressive era -- remember the book Herbert Crowley wrote, "The Promise of American Life," which was the bible of the American progressive movement? What he does is he says the American dream isn`t the issue. It`s America`s promise, which is an entirely collectivist formulation. It`s what we all do together. It`s this cult of unity thing. It`s that we all have to sort of -- we all have to work together as one. And it is -- it`s a very well- articulated...
BECK: But they will say -- let me just -- I`m trying to play, because I`ve talked to enough people who say he doesn`t mean all this crap. That`s not what he`s talking about. He doesn`t see America this different.
GOLDBERG: He keeps insisting that he does. I mean, he keeps saying, don`t just say it`s just words. Right? And then there`s this whole rift about, you know, the Declaration of Independence wasn`t just words. He says words are incredibly important all the time. He says words are, you know -- that was the big fight between him and Hillary Clinton.
MOORE: That`s exactly what he did when he went to Europe. He basically went to Europe and he apologized about America. I mean, how un- American is that?
BECK: All right.
MOORE: To be embarrassed by your country?
FREDDOSO: He`s willing to say anything. He`s really willing to say just about anything. I really believe that that`s what people wanted to hear. This business about how anything about freedom or individuality means you`re on your own, that`s -- that`s a big populist vote getter. For Senator Obama, that placed his strength in the naivety of his listeners.
BECK: Tell me the one thing that you -- that you read and you said, "This is the key -- this is the key to understanding it all. This is the thing that every American should know because it`s so important."
FREDDOSO: The -- if I were to pick one thing, I would start -- I would talk about the court papers involved in how Chicago`s machine runs. The machine that Barack Obama has defended, endorsed, put his good name behind repeatedly. I really believe the man`s an opportunist and that that story says a lot about this.
BECK: OK. We`re going to get to that in just a second. And I also want to get to -- I want to get to the redistribution of wealth. Because again, it is semantics. You know, "I`m not for reparations." The whole sentence is, "because it doesn`t go far enough." You know, that`s what all of these universal education and everything else are for.
MOORE: This make George McGovern`s platform look moderate.
BECK: The last time we were in this situation, the last real big progressive movements that we`ve had, where the Congress -- where we had a progressive president, where we had a Congress that had no filibuster, we got the New Deal.
MOORE: That`s right.
BECK: Then we got...
MOORE: We got the Great Society in the `60s. Same situation.
BECK: Yes, yes, the Great Society. It was the second time that it happened. Now we`re entering possibly...
MOORE: That was the welfare state.
BECK: Right.
MOORE: And now this is all about expanding the welfare state through taxing the rich and giving the money to the poor. It`s a classic...
BECK: Do you believe that we -- that we fundamentally change, I mean dramatically, if this happens?
MOORE: I think this would put the American economy at such gigantic risk. And you know what? It`s not in the Constitution. All of the things you want to do: education, child care, or health care. They`re not in the Constitution.
BECK: Coming up next, the mainstream media loves Obama. Next.
(NEWSBREAK)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Back with our panel. Steven Moore is here. We have David Freddoso is with us, and Jonah Goldberg.
David, I -- you know, it`s my understanding that you wrote this book because you couldn`t take the media love affair anymore. Is that true?
FREDDOSO: Yes, I think that hearing Chris Matthews say he gets a thrill running up his leg once is one time too many, Glenn.
It`s -- it is true. As much as there`s been this fawning press and this cheerleading from certain other commentators on certain other cable networks, perhaps the more subtle form of media bias in Senator Obama`s favor has been the fact that the mainstream media have uncritically bought into this line that he is about change and hope, that he is a reformer, someone who has set aside petty concerns for the common good.
BECK: Let me be -- let me be a little more cynical.
FREDDOSO: Yes.
BECK: Are they that stupid, or do they know exactly what he`s talking about?
FREDDOSO: Depends on how -- a combination of hoping -- a combination of wanting to hope in someone. I think, actually, this is going on all over America. People really want something to hold onto. And they think that Obama comes along and offers the solution. He says, "I am he."
And this is a false messianic movement, because his entire message of change and hope is a great fraud that betrays the way he`s worked against bipartisan reform for his entire career.
MOORE: Here`s another point. I`ve been in Washington, D.C., for 25 years. There`s no change in this. More government spending, more regulation, more taxes. That`s all we`ve been doing for 25 years. That`s -- that`s why we have a $5 trillion, you know, national debt.
This is not a change agenda. There will be so many lobbyists in Washington if Barack Obama wins, they`ll have to make K Street, M Street, L Street for all the lobbyists.
BECK: How does he -- how does he hold onto power when he gets in as a reformer, and he does the things that he has said, but nobody seems to really be listening to.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: Go ahead.
FREDDOSO: He`ll manage. Politicians misrepresent themselves for a living. This isn`t even a partisan thing. This is something that`s just typical. This is the way it always happens.
MOORE: Except -- let me correct you on that one point, though. Liberals do that more often. Remember, Bill Clinton when he ran for president in 1992, remember what he said? Middle-class tax cut. That was a key provision of what he said he was going to do. That`s one of the reasons a lot of people voted for him.
Within about a week of being in office, oh, you know what? We can`t afford that middle-class tax cut. That`s why I think when he says he`s going to cut taxed for 95 percent of Americans, you`re dreaming if you think you`re going to get a tax cut with Barack Obama. He`s got $600 billion in spending.
GOLDBERG: I think this raises two important points. One is, you know, when people tell me how wonderful it would be to have the first black, you know, president, I agree. It would be. You know, everything else, it would be wonderful to have a black president, right?
But it would not be wonderful to have the first black president be a failed president, right? And he`s going to get rolled by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi all day long.
BECK: Who are just as progressive, if not more so.
GOLDBERG: There`s nothing -- there`s nothing in the record that says that Barack Obama won`t play ball with these guys. Right?
MOORE: That`s a really good point. And I`ve been looking at the evidence. And if you look at what happens to the stock market and the economy when you have both a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, it goes to hell. And that`s what`s dangerous. You have the triple play: Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.
BECK: More on Barack Obama with our panel in just a second. Hang on.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Since he won the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama has never really had the commanding lead in the polls that conventional wisdom would suggest that he should have. I mean, has there ever been a president that`s been hated as much as this one? Run for your lives. It`s George Bush and Dick Cheney. Somehow or another, he`s not putting the deal together.
Joined again by my panel Steven Moore, and economic editorial writer for the "Wall Street Journal;" "National Review Online`s" Jonah Goldberg, he`s the author of "Liberal Fascism;" and David Freddoso, author of "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media`s Favorite Candidate."
STEVEN MOORE, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Can I say one thing about this issue about the Democrats should have a big lead? Liberals must be kicking themselves right now. Jonah if they had picked about any other candidate except Barack Obama they would have a 20-point lead, but this guy for the all the reasons we`ve been talking about on this show is just too left for most Americans.
BECK: Here is the thing. Everybody just has this nagging doubt, like I`m not sure what it is.
Let me go to David. Tell me about the Chicago political machine. Everyone is saying Governor Palin, well, she doesn`t have experience. She actually went in and cleaned up her own party. One of the only other places in America where corruption is so rampant is Chicago. Did he ever change anything in Chicago?
DAVID FREDDOSO, AUTHOR, "THE CASE AGAINST BARACK OBAMA": The parallel is just fantastic between the two. You have two different states, opposite parties, corrupt one-party-rule where people are self-dealing, helping their families get rich, putting cronies on the payroll; exact same situation in Chicago and Alaska.
In the case of Sarah Palin, there`s a very compelling story of how she went in there and basically fought against almost every major political player in her state; tried to get the state party chairman removed. Got and ticked off the oil and gas port. Primary the sitting governor, and beat him; ran a candidate actually just recently against Don Young in Alaska. That`s a really compelling story of reform.
In Chicago, Barack Obama has shown he will endorse a stuffed bear if Mayor Richard M. Daley tells him to. And he`s endorsed people who are a lot worse for Chicago than a stuffed bear would be. Just two years ago, he endorsed a man named Todd Stroger for Cook County board president, and this is maybe not the most important thing in the world, but it`s one of the most dramatic examples where liberals and conservatives came together, bridged party divides to try to clean up their city`s politics. They were tired of the corruption.
And Barack Obama worked against them. And it`s part of a much broader pattern that really characterizes his entire career. This example is so recent, and it`s so -- it`s such an incredible story.
It`s in the recent print version of "National Review" called "Soldier for Stroger" about how Barack Obama thwarted the efforts of reformers in his city of Chicago beginning by refusing to get behind the liberal reformer who almost won the primary election that year, nearly knocked out the machine boss of Cook County. And then in the end, when liberals and conservatives were coming behind the Republican in the general election, once again, Barack Obama came to the rescue of the machine. Came in, endorsed this man as a good progressive Democrat, his name is Todd Stroger.
After winning with Obama`s blessing, Todd Stroger raised taxes and laid-off nurses, laid-off prosecutors; hundreds of nurses and dozens of prosecutors so that he could pay --
[3.37 Start Repeat]
Since he won the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama has never really had the commanding lead in the polls that conventional wisdom would suggest he should have.
I mean, has there ever been a president that`s been hated as much as this one? Run for your lives. It`s George Bush and Dick Cheney. Somehow or another, he`s not putting the deal together.
Joined again by my panel Steven Moore, and economic editorial writer for the "Wall Street Journal;" "National Review`s" online Jonah Goldberg, he`s the author of "Liberal Fascism;" and David Freddoso, author of "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media`s Favorite Candidate."
[4.08 End Repeat]
BECK: Let me go now to Jonah on the senate record. Anything in his senate record, anything, that shows any kind of ending the party politics, ending the divisions, reaching out, trying to stop corruption, trying to -- that`s what people, people don`t want change for change. They don`t want to become Marxists.
What they want is people to stop being dirty, scumbag robots in Washington, and be like them. People are screaming at the television all the time, going, this is what you`re doing now? They want an end to the typical politics in Washington.
JONAH GOLDBERG, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Right.
BECK: Any evidence?
GOLDBERG: And that`s the great contrast between Palin and him. Palin is basically a law and order marshal. And in terms of the senate there`s absolutely no record whatsoever.
He keeps talking about how he`s post partisan, he reaches across the aisle. He worked on a very tepid easy ethics bill. That`s the only thing that there is any bipartisanship. Beyond that, he votes 97 percent of the time party line Democrat.
He criticizes McCain for voting 90 percent with Bush. McCain`s record is better.
And one other point to be made here, is that to show you how left-wing he is, he`s the number one most liberal senator in the senate, according to the "National Journal" which is a completely nonpartisan respected journal. And he goes out to prove that he`s this bipartisan guy by picking the third most liberal senator.
The fourth most liberal senator is an avowed socialist from Vermont, Bernie Sanders.
MOORE: But you know, it goes beyond that because he keeps talking about getting rid of the corporate elitists in Washington but think about two bills he just recently supported. One was the Farm Bill which was a complete abomination. And how can he in good conscience, in a year when farmers are doing better than ever before food prices give money to some of the richest farmers. And then he also supported the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in big bank bailout.
I mean his actions and his votes in no way match this rhetoric of reform.
BECK: I have heard in the last few days every time they talk about Sarah Palin, it`s oh, she`s in bed with all those crazy conservatives. She`s just -- she`s just so pro-life, she`s forcing her daughter to have the baby.
Give me, David, the Illinois state voting record, the truth on how Barack Obama votes on abortion, and is he extreme at all?
FREDDOSO: Yes, I would say he`s a bit extreme. And perhaps a story that illustrates it best is his vote on the Infants Born-Alive Act.
There was a hospital in the southwest suburbs of Chicago that was taking small premature abortion survivors, tiny babies that had been born and were alive and simply leaving them to die without any thought of medical care. The fact that this was happening was indisputable.
The fact is that the attorney general of Illinois simply refused to do anything about it and Senator Obama was one of the people to prevent them from passing this bill. He tried anyway, to prevent them from passing this bill when they tried to do something about it by passing a new law.
And he voted -- I`m sorry. He was the only Illinois senator to speak against it in 2001 when it first came out. In 2003, he sat on the committee that voted on a version identical, word for word, with the exception of the State of Illinois and the federal government -- it was an identical bill to the one that the senate had passed.
Barbara Boxer went to the floor of the United States senate and said everyone should vote for this bill. This should pass unanimously. Everyone deserves the protections of this bill. Obama didn`t agree with that. He`s actually the person who I think cares least about, you know, preserving and protecting human life in its smallest stages.
GOLDBERG: Obama is to the left of Nero (ph).
MOORE: He`s essentially the extremist. They keep saying that Sarah Palin is an extremist. The truth is, as you were just saying, Barack Obama never saw an abortion he didn`t want.
FREDDOSO: For four years, he has misled people about this vote. He just had to recently admit that he was wrong. He had been smearing everybody who had been telling the truth and calling them liars, and he has still hasn`t apologized for that, by the way, which is the new politics.
BECK: Hang on, guys. Because I want to talk to you a little bit about the smears. I want to talk to you a little bit about how we survive and what is possibly coming in possibly the most politically correct world we`ve ever seen.
And Obama and foreign policy; where is he on that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Barack Obama`s original and naive foreign policy stance was, sit down and chat with whoever wants to talk to us. He`s dialed that way back since showing a tougher side. I don`t think I believe it.
The panel joins me again. So there is Joel Rosenberg, he`s the author of "Epicenter 2.0." Joel, let me start with you. Let me play a couple of pieces. This one, first, was Friday, April (sic) 8th and this is what Barack Obama said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I wholeheartedly condemn the violation of Georgia`s sovereignty. I think it`s important at this point for all sides to show restraint, and to stop this armed conflict.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Okay. Then on Saturday, he said this.
"Over the last two days, Russia has escalated the crisis in Georgia through its clear and continued violation of Georgia`s sovereignty and territorial integrity. I condemn Russia`s aggressive actions and reiterate my call for an immediate ceasefire," which he didn`t really.
And then he said this on Monday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: No matter how this conflict started, Russia has escalated it well beyond the dispute over South Ossetia and has now violated the space of another country. I reiterate my call for Russia to stop its bombing campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: This, by the way, this third statement is exactly where John McCain was on Friday. He kept moving. He seems to keep moving until he gets it right.
JOEL ROSENBERG, AUTHOR, "EPICENTER 2.0": Senator Obama in his acceptance speech told us, look, John McCain, if you want a debate on judgment regarding foreign policy and being a commander in chief, that`s a debate he`s ready to have. That`s a great debate.
The problem is senator Obama`s judgment is wrong. It`s flawed. His first instinct was to tell a Democratic free country to show restraint in defending itself from Vladimir Putin`s invasion. What kind of a judgment is that?
BECK: Hang on -- let`s go to Iraq.
ROSENBERG: It gets worse with Iraq.
BECK: I know. We`ve got the Anbar province. Nobody in the media is covering this. This was the most dangerous place in all of Iraq. Everybody said, oh, it could never be done. Barack Obama said more troops won`t help.
One U.S. soldier on the average was dying in Anbar. When they handed the keys to the city over to the Iraqis, our soldiers weren`t wearing Kevlar, They didn`t even carry a gun to the ceremony, and everything was fine. He`s been horribly wrong, and yet he`s still claiming victory.
ROSENBERG: And he wouldn`t admit it that he had flawed judgment either. You`ll recall that Terry Moran of ABC News, when Obama went to Iraq for only his second trip ever, said he wouldn`t say -- he refused to acknowledge that the surge had worked. And yet, it`s worked phenomenally well.
Senator Obama, when the surge policy was announced in January 2007 said not only did he say it wouldn`t work, but it would make things worse. Now that`s clearly been wrong. It`s been proven this week, as you say, 11 out of 18 provinces in Iraq are now under Iraqi military control. And so what type of foreign policy judgment is this community activist junior senator bringing to the table?
MOORE: You know, Joel, it`s even worse than that because now he was against the surge, which is allowing us now to withdraw troops. So now that we`re withdrawing troops, he`ll say, see, this is what I was for all along.
It wouldn`t be happening -- I think McCain put it very well. Do you want to withdraw the troops honorably or do you want to withdraw them dishonorably? That wouldn`t happen without the surge.
BECK: Here is the problem, guys. Can anybody help figure this -- this conundrum out, and that is, people care about the war when the media tells them it`s going poorly. Then, all of a sudden, they care. And then when it`s going well, the media doesn`t tell them it`s going well. Nobody says anything about it. They`re like, "Of course it`s going well. We`re America. It`s going to solve itself."
Nobody even talks about it. How do you demonstrate how wrong this guy has been every step of the way when the media won`t -- when the media agrees with him? They just want to, like, "I guess we were wrong, too. I guess we won`t point that out?"
Anybody have an answer?
ROSENBERG: That`s the $64 million question, right. But Senator Obama has invited the question by challenging McCain on debates on foreign policy even though John McCain offered ten debates this summer and he ducked them.
BECK: Right. Ok, Jonah.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
BECK: Go ahead. Let`s put you on the spot, baby. Come on.
GOLDBERG: This is always the problem for Republicans in this kind of environment, which is not that new, which is that the mainstream media circles the wagons around their anointed one, and the Republicans have to go over the heads of the mainstream media.
In one sense, McCain has advantages that say, George Herbert Walker Bush never had or that even in some ways Reagan never had in there are all these other media outlets, like this show. Like National Review Online, the Web, the bloggers; all that kind of stuff. It`s easier to get around those guys.
But we see with something like Palin, you know, where you hear these intense feeding frenzies that no matter how much Rush Limbaugh and all the good guys try to fight it, it`s going to -- they can destroy someone.
BECK: Jonah, let me come back to you then on this question. I have a magazine, "Fusion" magazine, and I just finished the October issue and the cover.
And I had an argument with my managing editor because I wanted the cover split in half. Obama split in half -- half of it, he`s the Messiah, the other half, he`s Mussolini. And the headline is "Messiah or Mussolini?"
She said that doesn`t make any sense. Of course, he`s not going to be Mussolini? I said, really, everyone in the press loved Mussolini for years. It only went bad when he joined with Hitler. He actually protected Jews.
The thing that Mussolini is, is he set up the system where you could not question him. He was the ultimate authority. That`s what this progressive movement is moving us towards.
ROSENBERG: Let me just say though, clever though that is, Obama is not a fascist. I think we can say that. He`s much more Jimmy Carter -- he`s much more Jimmy Carter.
BECK: Really? Hang on just a second. Let me ask you this. I know he`s not a fascist right now, but tell me, we`re talking about bailing out all the industries. There are people in Congress, the progressive movement, want to nationalize all of our industries, the big ones, the automakers, the airlines, the oil industries, et cetera, et cetera.
You tell me how it`s not fascist when you speak out against it and you`re called a racist or whatever for disagreeing with policies?
ROSENBERG: You know the differences. They`ve got a near lock on the media, but they don`t have a complete lock. Nevertheless, this week is important for the McCain/Palin campaign.
And I would say for example, Palin, one thing she needs to do is make it clear she is an expert. She may not be an expert on everything, but she`s an expert on energy. She understands; she runs the second largest energy- producing state in the country and built a $26 billion, 1,700-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the United States. She`s got to make it clear she understands national security is linked to our energy independence.
And that`s something that the other side doesn`t understand.
BECK: But nobody is doing -- nobody is talking about that. You know what happened today? Russia`s energy ministry said they`re being told to prepare now to shut off oil and gas to Germany and Poland, and nobody is paying attention to it.
MOORE: That`s why she`s such an important choice. She gets energy policy. Most of these people are against drilling up in Alaska and the Alaska National Wildlife.
They`ve never been up there. They`ve never been up to the North Slope. This idea that somehow drilling up there is going to hurt the environment or the bison is absolutely lunacy. She knows that.
BECK: Hang on you guys. We close in just a second.
The most important thing that you need been Barack Obama, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Steven Moore, economic editorial write for the "Wall Street Journal." "National Review Online," Jonah Goldberg is the author of "Liberal Fascism." David Freddoso, author of "The Case against Barack Obama - The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media`s Favorite Candidate" join me. One last discussion; I want to ask.
And David, let me -- I guess, let me start with you. The most important thing that America needs to know about Barack Obama.
FREDDOSO: The message of hope and change is very insincere. It is a cynical way of playing on people`s legitimate desire to get something different out of a political system that really is corrupt. It`s just that the reason the system is the way it is, is that there are so many politicians like Barack Obama. That`s something that I tried very hard in the book to explain.
BECK: All right, Jonah?
GOLDBERG: You sort of stole my answer. I think it`s essentially the same thing. I think that the problem -- you know the problem with Barack Obama at the end of the day is that he is -- he has managed, as a marketing campaign, to recast Michael Dukakis liberalism as if it is some sort of revolutionary and exciting thing. It is all about the packaging.
BECK: Steven?
MOORE: Every American`s taxes will go up under Barack Obama. Do not believe this 95 percent of American will get tax cuts. Every small business and every corporation will pay higher taxes and that`s where Americans get their jobs, from businesses. We cannot compete on a global scale if we`re raising taxes, Glenn, when the rest of the world is cutting them.
BECK: All right, so one last question. Steve, do you believe that he`s going to be elected? If you had to make a prediction --
MOORE: Think that the American people reject him. It`s just like Dukakis, McGovern, you know, Kerry, they keep putting up these left-wing liberals and the American people keep rejecting them.
BECK: Dave, he`s going to be rejected or elected?
FREDDOSO: It`s way too early to tell, Glenn. I think a good chance that he loses but I`m not going to throw -- put my neck out there and make a prediction.
BECK: Jonah, man up, Jonah, rejected or elected?
GOLDBERG: If you asked me five days ago you I would have said he`s going to lose. Right now I`m back into not sure.
BECK: Ok. Thanks, guys.
From New York, good night, America.
END
