Fauntroy on CBS Early Show Discussing Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama

Here is a clip from an appearance I made on the Thursday, July 20 edition of the CBS Early Show.  Along with Keli Goff, I opined on Jesse Jackson's desire to conduct a surgical procedure on Barack Obama.  Delicate!!

I fear that focus on Jackson's language obscures what may well be a legitimate criticism. As a progressive, I'm deeply worried about the continued blurring of the line between church and state and the Faith-Based Initiative represents a significant threat to that line. Moreover, the initiative was sold to Blacks as an opportunity to get more resources into Black communities. However, studies have shown that the money didn't meet the promises.  In my opinion, the Faith-Based Initiative needs to go away, not be given more money.  That debate won't take place because everyone is focused on what Jackson said.

What studies? What studies have shown that money doesn’t meet the promises?

It’s just money to programs that are legally required to be completely secular. The federal, state, and local government gives untold millions to these groups every year. This program is just an overhyped version of that.

The idea is that private charities are often more efficient in providing services to the poor than the inefficient government. Talk to any social worker - they’ll agree. There are great programs that could benefit from more government funding, and they’re being conducted by the churches. Obama knows this, having organized in communities. Read his book.

Michael Fauntroy please get out of my head. 

I am so sick and tired of Democrats treating Obama like Jesus.  Yes, Jackson spoke out of turn, but damn someone has to say something about Obama’s sprint to the right of center.  Some black leader has to say something.  Obama was able to capture the nomination because of the overwhelming support of black people yet he disregards the politics of his core supporters in an effort to win the White House. 

All these black people are hitching their hopes and dreams to him and he treats their values and concerns like nuisances that can be ignored until the election in Nov.

Somebody’s going to end up short.  He’s either going to betray to his supporters on the left or the folk he’s wooing. 

Jackson’s just speaking to that.

For Black People, I pray, their failure to have Brain Integration is alarming. Jessee Jackson and Al Sharpton could never be replaced with a mixed male who have to ignore Blacks to be considered for the Presidency. Blacks human rights have been buffered by Jessee Jackson and Al Sharpton for more then 3 decades. Now Black human rights are considered old politics while youth are shot down by police like they are on duck hunts. Blacks must understand that there is room for Obama, Jesse, and Al. Our children, not grown folks, need them all. Obama even though I currently am supporting him has given way more political positioning of the Hispanics, Jews, and Caucasian women, meanwhile telling black males not to be boys and offering nothing to the most obviously devasted community. He Promised a Dream act to education for illegals. Jerusalem to the Jews, equal pay and abortion rights to the women. Blacks he preached what they already knew, a shortage of Black males, through genocide and incarceration, drug addicition, and generational economic deprivation. With all this it is a wonder that 30 percent of Black males are in the homes, and another percentage visit and have contact with their children, compared to groups not devasted by generational opppression. What about the Black child Education Act of educational choice and vouchers. No he is too busy catering to the teachers Unions, who want to keep using Black children to send their children to private schools, while our children are literally forced out of Edcuation. Black People had better break out of their slave mentality of getting a crumb posed to represent their interest, when he has to ignore Black interest, to get elected. If he ignores Black issues now, when he gets in there, those same people he had to cater to before getting in there, will still be there. If he can not assist Blacks, tell Obama to keep his conversation, focused on all Americans, and stop telling our youth they will never be a rap artist or Basketball player. He did not offer Black children any educational Act, like hispanics, so he needs to shut up. Blacks better not give obama a slave vote. He think he has Blacks, because of his complexion,but Blacks should demand more then the Hispanics or tell Obama a Mixed President may be more harmful to the Black Community, since he would have to ignore them for his Corporate and White, and Jewish, and Hispanic Constituencies. Blacks can’t get anything, then they better think about the free votes they give to the Democratic Party, and be Sophisticated enough to register as Independents, so a fight for their vote, will give their children a fighting chance.

The news media has report on every gaffe or any questionable conduct by Barack Obama and his surrogates as far back as the democratic primary. They are reported on for weeks, when Hillary Clinton and now John McCain are giving a pass. It is beginning to look like it is becoming racially motivated by this type of reporting. Please report on this injustice. I added a report from the Huffington Post to back up my claim.

This article is from the Huffington Post.
During this past week: McCain called the most important entitlement program in the U.S. a disgrace, his top economic adviser called the American people whiners, McCain released an economic plan that no one thought was serious, he flip flopped on Iraq, joked about the deaths of Iranian citizens, and denied making comments that he clearly made—TWICE. All this and it is not even Friday! Yet watching and reading the mainstream press you would think McCain was having a pretty decent political week, I mean at least Jesse Jackson didn’t say anything about him.
But let’s unpack McCain’s week in a little more detail.
1. McCain unambiguously called Social Security “an absolute disgrace.” This is not a quote taken out of context. John McCain called one of the most successful and popular government programs, which uses the tax revenues of current workers to support retirement benefits for the elderly “an absolute disgrace.” This is shocking - and if uttered from Obama’s mouth would dominate the news coverage and the Sunday shows, as pundits would speculate about the massive damage the statement would cause him among retirees in Florida.
2. McCain’s top economic policy adviser calls Americans a bunch of “whiners” for being worried about the slumping economy. Words cannot fully explain how devastating this statement should be from Phil Gramm. You would think it would be enough to sink McCain’s campaign. Of course McCain only thinks that the economic problems are psychological.
3. Iraqi leaders call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, McCain gets caught in a bizarre denial and flip flop. The Iraqis now want us to begin planning our withdrawal - McCain however wants to stay foooorrreeevvveerrrr. So what does McCain say - First, he refuses to accept Maliki’s statement as being true. Then he concedes that it was an accurate statement, but was probably just a political ploy to curry favor with his own people and WOULD NOT influence his determination to keep US troops in Iraq indefinitely. Yet, McCain in 2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations said that if the Iraqis asked us to leave, we would have to go. No matter what. But that was apparently a younger and less experienced John McCain.
But let’s just look at his comment that Maliki’s statement is “just politics.” If that is true, then it must also be true that the American military presence in Iraq is so unpopular with Iraqis that the government is forced to push for a timetable in order to survive at the ballot box. That’s a reason to stay for 100 years.
4. McCain’s economic plan to cut the deficit has no details and is simply not believable. There are so many things here. McCain pledges he would eliminate the deficit by the end of his
first term (the campaign latter flip flop flipped about whether it was four years or eight years), but does not provide any details about how he would do it. Economists on both sides of the political aisle said that this was simply not believable, especially given McCain’s other proposals to a) cut individual and corporate taxes even further, b) extend the Bush tax cuts and c) massively increase defense spending on manpower (200,000 more troops) and d) maintain a long-term sizable military presence in Iraq.

5. McCain’s deficit plan includes bringing the troops home represents a major Iraq flip-flop. Speaking of the long-term military presence - a story that has gotten absolutely no attention is that McCain now believes the war will be over soon. The economic forecasts made by his crack team of economists predict that there will be significant savings during McCain’s first term because we will have achieved “victory” in Iraq and Afghanistan. The savings from victory (ie the savings from not having our troops there) will then be used to pay down the deficit. The only way this could have any impact on the deficit in McCain’s first time is if troop withdrawals start very soon. So McCain believes victory is in our grasps and we can begin withdraw troops from Iraq pretty much right away—doesn’t sound that different from Obama’s plan does it. Someone should at least ask McCain HOW HE DEFINES VICTORY - and why he thinks we will achieve it in the next couple of years.
6. McCain campaign misled about economists support. In the major press release the McCain campaign issued to tout its Jobs for America economic plan that would balance the budget in 4 years, it included the signatures of more than 300 economists who the campaign claimed to support the plan. Only problem is that the economists were actually asked to sign up to SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Um, hello?
7. McCain makes a joke about killing Iranians. Haha… that’s just McCain being McCain. I am sure that is exactly how it is being reported in Tehran. This guy is running for President not to become a talk radio pundit. Yet according to the AP this was just a humanizing moment between candidate and spouse - I am not sure when joking about the deaths of civilians became humanizing.
8. McCain denies, flatly, that he ever said that he is not an expert in economics. Are you kidding?
9). McCain distorts his record on veterans benefits in response to a question from Vietnam Veteran, who then proceeds to call McCain out on it.
10.) McCain demonstrates he knows nothing about Afghanistan and Pakistan. McCain said “I think if there is some good news, I think that there is a glimmer of improving relationship between Karzai and the Pakistanis.” Pat Barry notes how crazy this comment is…“Just what “glimmer” is McCain talking about?? Maybe he’s referring to President Karzai’s remarks last month, which threatened military action in Pakistan if cross-border attacks persisted? Or maybe McCain is talking about Afghanistan’s allegations that Pakistan’s ISI was involved in a recent assassination attempt on Karzai? Maybe in McCain’s world you could call that a silver-lining, but in reality-land I’d call it something else.”
Any one of these incidents and comments would dominate the news cycle if they came from the Obama campaign. Yet McCain barely gets a mention. The press like to see themselves as political referees - neutral observers that call them like they see em’. But they want this to be a horse race and so all the calls right now are going one way. How else can you explain the furor last week over the Obama “refine” comment - which represented zero change in Obama’s position on Iraq - and the “swift boat” mania over Wesley Clark’s uncontroversial comments (psss… by the way McCain exploits his POW experience in just about every ad - yet he says he doesn’t like to talk about it).
This Sunday expect the ten incidents above to get short shrift from pundit after pundit, because after all Jesse Jackson said he wanted to cut Obama’s nuts off.

Rod,

I understand your take on McCain’s shortcomings.  We are not discussing McCain.  The topic is Obama’s decision to abandon the progressive politics that won him the nomination and how progressives should respond.

What’s your take on that?

I’ve seen you on CSPAN discussing your work very intelligently but I’m very disappointed in the quality of your blog. Maybe it’s your brevity but Paul alludes to it. You make an unsubstantiated reference to “studies.”

You decry the media’s lack of effort but when you have the chance with your own blog to take the discussion further you fail to do so. Also, you don’t seem to consider that for historic reasons the separation of church and state may take on a different configuration for blacks whose leadership disproportionately arises from the clergy and who also share many culturally and religiously conservative views. Hence the reason for the broad base of support engendered by Bill Cosby. Overall, the post seems to shoot from the hip and doesn’t appear to be considered. Lester Spence is a serious critic of Senator Obama but his blog exudes scholarship, not just meandering opinion.

I’ve seen you on CSPAN discussing your work very intelligently but I’m very disappointed in the quality of your blog. Maybe it’s your brevity but Paul alludes to it. You make an unsubstantiated reference to “studies.” This act alone is a violation of your charter which promises “no spin” and “to go beyond conventional wisdom.”

You decry the media’s lack of effort but when you have the chance with your own blog to take the discussion further you fail to do so. Also, you don’t seem to consider that for historic reasons the separation of church and state may take on a different configuration for blacks whose leadership disproportionately arises from the clergy and who also share many culturally and religiously conservative views. Hence the reason for the broad base of support engendered by Bill Cosby. Overall, the post seems to shoot from the hip and doesn’t appear to be considered. Lester Spence is a serious critic of Senator Obama but his blog exudes scholarship, not just meandering opinion.

come on Michael, leave the rhetoric of the left behind and engage in open discussions here.  Paul is correct, as has been stated before that churches and community religious based organizations present certain services at a fraciton of the rate the same service is provided by government.  Obama is being wise to invest in faith based organizations as a tangible means to a end of increasing support to inner cities.  The separation of church and state line of thinking you subscribe to is fallacy.  If you could only get over your own politics Michael you have the makings of a truly inspiring and intelligent commentator.  Realize your full potential don’t stunt it.

There’s not just one, “the” faith based initiative. Obama’s plan is wholly unrelated to the failed Bush system, something the media have been quick to gloss over. I suggest you read more in-depth material on his proposal.
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