Obama's advisers, notably David Axelrod and David Plouffe, knew that the youth vote, steadily increasing since 2000, could play a major role in the '08 election. And they guessed right, creating the most coordinated, directed, interactive youth effort in modern history.
Team Obama set up "camps" around the country to train students to engage the youth vote on their campuses, equipping them with "the nuts and bolts of presidential campaigning."14 So complete was the Obama campaign's obsession with lobotomizing the youth demographic that the cash-flushed Obama campaign even bought ads in video games, such as Guitar Hero and Madden NFL 09. As one campaign staffer bragged, "when you're buying commercials in video games, you truly are being well-funded."15
But the truly big money was spent on dominating college campuses with an unprecedented youth outreach effort. Team Obama's "youth consultants" soaked university campuses with radio and television advertising.16 They had more than five thousand paid field organizers overall, in addition to the Obama boot camps that were organized around the country.17
Barack's mastery of new media and technology created an online presence that did far more than release campaign talking points; it was an interactive hub that identified and connected supporters with each other, encouraged community blogs, generated field material for door-to-door peer interaction, and stacked volunteers to man phone banks. Then there was the cutthroat community organizing and the Students for Obama chapters that sprouted up on every major campus nationwide (one thousand in all). And how about those youthful gestures--"brush the dirt off your shoulder" reference comes to mind--which included the fist bumps, the three-on-three basketball tournaments, the DJs, and the ubiquitous assumption that Obama was, well, one cool cat. After all, Dear Leader uses a BlackBerry, we were told! Stop the presses! All the components were assembled to churn out the Zombies.
And churn out the Zombies they did. When Obama appeared before Super Tuesday outside the MTV studio, eighteen-year-old Michael Madison confessed his bro-mance with B.H.O. "I am a straight man completely in love with Barack Obama," he said. "In 2004, I heard him give a speech at the Democratic National Convention. I fell in love and I've been in love ever since."18
A student from Garden City, New York, who was also outside the MTV studio said, "The way he makes you feel, it's like when you're going to pick up a girl for a date."19
Most of us would agree that a politician shouldn't make you feel like you're on a hot date.
But tell that to blogger Michael Whack, at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. On O's website, in the community blogs section, we find this bit of reportage of Michael's encounter with Obama's radiant aura during a rope line appearance. After seeing a gentleman shake hands with Obama, Michael experienced the following:
As the guy drew back his hand I asked him, "You shook his hand didn't you?" Happily the guy said "Yes." I then said, "give me some of that" and the guy shook my hand with the same hand he had just clasped with Barack's. A woman friend of mine who was standing next to me saw me shake hands with the guy. I turned to her and said "He [the guy] just shook hands with Barack," to which she responded . . . "Hey, give it up." We then shook hands. . . . This chain of hand shakes went on for about five or six more persons. . . . I felt some solidarity with this stranger, consummated by a handshake and signifying some unspoken agreement presumably about Barack Obama and his core message of UNITY!20
Nauseated? If so, you're probably one of those conservative racists. Either that or you're just not stylish and down with the coolness, yo.
Mark Buhrmester, young Obama supporter, had an honest observation: "Having a hip candidate like him makes it difficult to support someone else. Barack Obama is in style, so if you don't support Barack Obama, it's like you're not in style."21
And there's the rub. For Obama Zombies, it's all about style over substance. It's all about feelings, not facts. Young people become liberals through osmosis today, whether it's on campus, through the media, or even with allegedly chic MTV programming. In this book we will analyze and demolish the liberal conveyor belt that spits out Obama Zombies, a machine that has robbed brains by the bushel. And what you see will make your jaw drop.
But make no mistake. We are on a collision course between government control and individual freedom, between the empowerment of people and the empowerment of massive and sprawling bureaucracies. This administration will shackle our generation to the whims of Washington if we don't get our act together and shake off the Obama hangover. "Youth is easily deceived, because it is quick to hope," said Aristotle.
And don't think your liberty is not at risk. But don't take my word for it. Hans Riemer--remember, he's B.H.O.'s youth director--explained this redemption: "government is a powerful way to make this country a better place."22 So, when B.H.O. says, "Change in America has always started with the young. They are not tied up with the world as it is, but rather, the world as it might be," pay careful attention through the means by which this "change" comes. Obama's "remaking" of America, as he dubbed it, comes through the power of Washington, the power of a few marshalling their desires on 300 million people.
And when more than 75 percent of college grads can't identify what purpose the First Amendment serves, and only slightly more than 50 percent can describe what a free market is, America is in real trouble.23 Perhaps that's because college students are subjected to so much liberal pablum. In fact, so lopsided was the support among college professors and administrators for Obama that they donated $19 million to his campaign, more than twelve times the amount academia donated to McCain!24 Think about that for a moment. Professors supported Obama by more than a 12-to-1 ratio. That's how out of step with the rest of the country the radical professoriate has become. Aren't liberals always talking about diversity? Where is it? Especially when you consider that 46 percent of the people--46 percent!--voted for John McCain, and B.H.O. barely eked out a majority. Some diversity!
Nevertheless, the confluence of the Liberal Machine's Hollywood tactics, the mainstream media's collective wet kiss for Team Obama, and the radical professoriate's unending love affair with Barack all combined to create a massive throng of Obama Zombies. On Election Day, 68 percent of voters ages 18-29 cast their ballots for B.H.O., whereas only 32 percent backed McCain. There has never been a gap that wide in any previous presidential election.25
In Florida, 61 percent of the youth vote went for Obama, while the race was about even in every other age demographic.
In North Carolina, Obama won an eye-popping 74 percent of young people, while McCain accrued all voters over thirty.26
In Indiana, 63 percent of young voters chose B.H.O., even though McCain prevailed with everyone else.27 But it wasn't enough. Heck, if only youth votes counted, McCain would have lost nearly every state.
Each election cycle there's much ado about the youth vote. Everyone tries to get it. There are an estimated 35 million voters ages 18-29. And of that, around 23 million voted. Conservatives cannot overlook the youth vote any longer. The 35 million "Millennials" must not be ignored. And in this regard, McCain was an awful candidate with an awful outreach to young people.
Besides, Gramps looked like death.
And you know what? We bought the Obama bulldoodle. Pure, unadulterated bulldoodle. During the campaign, Barack tried to shield us from his radicalism. Talking about it was "scare tactics" and typical Washington politics. But after just a year with B.H.O. in office, we know the truth: Quashing our freedoms is a daily sport for this bunch. And each freedom lost screws our generation for years to come.
It's time to slam educated elbows into the rib cages of the Obama Zombies.
The mindless followership must stop.
We helped make this mess.
We must clean it up.
Can we do it?
Yes, my brothers and sisters. Yes, we can!
OBAMA ZOMBIES
1
The Media Muzzle and the Hope-a-Dope Mantra
Liberal Media? What Liberal Me
dia? No Biased News Media Here! (Pssst . . . Vote for Obama!)
During the 2008 campaign, I saw the most honest, fair, and intrepid reporting of the candidates, especially of then-senator Barack Hussein Obama. Hard-hitting questions, engaging profiles, skeptical eyes, distrust of the politician--I saw it all.
And then, I woke up.
In the real world, no "reporting" or "investigating" occurred. Instead, journalists became fawning teenage schoolgirls licking the heels of their teen idol. Indeed, the sexual undertones (overtones?) were hardly secret. We had legions of Nina Burleighs covering Obama, zombies masquerading as reporters. I call them Nina Burleighs because Nina Burleigh was the Time contributor who said she'd be happy to give Bill Clinton a blow job for "keeping abortion legal" and "the theocracy off our backs." Back then, journalists were even surprised by Burleigh's comments. Sure, the press corps is overwhelmingly liberal, but few were that open about it, let alone sexual in their commentary.
How times have changed. It's amazing the power a skinny dude with big ears and a deep voice can wield. During the primary, when on his campaign plane talking on his cell phone, Barack Obama caused a gaggle of female journalists to get funny feelings in their pants. And by funny, I don't mean ha-ha funny. While being filmed, in the background you hear these female journalists moaning and wetting themselves over B.H.O. "Agent, sit down," several members of the press shouted. Their view of Obama was blocked. "You're killing us" and "Move, please move," they snickered, all while clicking away at their cameras like adoring fans to photograph Obama spanning his left leg across a row of seats. Yes, Obama was stretching. That's it. CNN even put the video on their website with this caption, "Obama in jeans: Sen. Barack Obama surprises the press corps by wearing jeans."1 Luckily, Nina Burleigh was at the tarmac when the plane landed to hand out kneepads to each of the oohing and aahing "reporters." And these are the people we're expecting to give us balanced, fair, and straightforward coverage? Yikes! While volumes upon volumes can be filled on the press corps's--dare I say erotic--love affair with B.H.O., the crowning moment of acknowledging the bias came out of the mouth of King Zombie himself!
During the star-studded White House Correspondents Dinner, packed with more than twenty-five hundred journalists, politicians, and celebrities, B.H.O. said this of the media: "Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me. Apologies to the Fox table."2
Well, you gotta give the man credit for that one; he's right. Hey, even a broken clock is right two times a day.
Speaking to the New York Times, longtime columnist Clarence Page inadvertently confirmed the gist of B.H.O.'s joke. "With this president, they [the media] just want to be in the same room," he gushed.3
Richard Belzer, the faux cop on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, summed up the night and the Obama presidency this way: "The difference is palpable. It just seems more glamorous. Now it's rock-star, Kennedy elegance," to which he added smugly, "Nothing wrong with being cool."
Belzer and Page may have forgotten that they elected Barack Obama, not Will Smith, to lead the country. But hey, for liberals, it's all about what you feel; facts are stubborn realities. Conservative media critic Brent Bozell summed up the news media's infatuation by saying that their new motto should be: "B.H.O., you had us at hello."
The cheering, fawning, slobbering, and lip-puckering had its benefits: jobs. After the election of His Holiness, more than a dozen prominent members of the media turned in their zombie media credentials for zombie White House credentials. They went to work for Barack! Yes! From reporting his campaign, to getting a biweekly check from him. These supposedly unbiased members of the media actually cashed in! Prostitutes don't have sex for free, you know. And if you think prostitute is too strong of a word, let's recall that the Washington Post was offering inside access to Obama officials for as much as $250,000 until the ruse was uncovered and made public.4
But don't take my word for it. Meet a few of the prostitutes for yourself. The following reporters were rewarded with administration jobs.
Warren Bass: Washington Post Outlook deputy editor, now adviser to Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
Daren Briscoe: Newsweek Washington correspondent, now deputy associate director of public affairs for the Office of National Drug Control Policy
Jay Carney: Time magazine Washington bureau chief, now the director of communications for Vice President Joe Biden
Linda Douglass: ABC News Washington correspondent, who was a senior campaign spokesperson for the Obama campaign and is now the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services
Kate Albright-Hanna: CNN producer, transitioned to director of "new media" for the Obama campaign, and was involved in the Obama transition website
Peter Gosselin: Los Angeles Times Washington correspondent, now speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
Sasha Johnson: CNN senior political producer, now press secretary at the Department of Transportation
Beverley Lumpkin: Justice Department correspondent for ABC News, now press secretary at the Justice Department
Roberta Baskin: a veteran of CBS News, ABC News, PBS, and ABC's Washington affiliate, now with the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services
Vijay Ravindran: chief technology officer for Catalist, a voter database provider which worked for the Obama campaign, now chief digital officer and senior vice president of the Washington Post Company. (Notice how this prostitute went in reverse--from the Obama campaign to the media. Can someone say "George Stephanopoulos," the Bill Clinton hack who is now host of ABC's Sunday news show This Week?)
Rick Weiss: Washington Post science reporter, now the communications director at the White House Office of Science and Technology
Jill Zuckman: Chicago Tribune Washington correspondent, now the director of public affairs for the Department of Transportation5
Okay, so you might be thinking, "Who cares? They work for Obama. Big deal." Well, it is a big deal. I wish it weren't, but it is.
Let's take Daren Briscoe as the first example. He was a Washington correspondent for Newsweek, writing extensively about the 2008 campaign. He penned one article with his colleague, a huge Obama Zombie, Richard Wolffe, on how Obama transcends race and is able to bring black and white together. It repeated the postracial narrative that Obama injected into his public persona, the narrative that the media unscrupulously ran with. The July 16, 2007, article was titled "Across the Divide: How Barack Obama is Shaking Up Old Assumptions About What It Means to be Black and White in America."6 The puff piece, masquerading as a legit report, gave credence to the lie that Barack "Typical White Person" Obama is a bridge to white Americans, that he is above and beyond the racial grievance-mongering that has defined demagogues like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Briscoe took his cue:
Many of Obama's supporters are enthralled by the content of his character--by his earnest desire to heal the nation's political divisions and to restore America's reputation in the world. Many also are excited by the color of his skin and the chance to turn the page on more than two centuries of painful racial history.7
The postracial meme certainly wasn't carried only by Briscoe and Newsweek. Obama staked his campaign on it. Other journalists followed suit in reporting it. NPR, for instance, said the "post- racial era, as embodied by Obama, is the era where civil rights veterans of the past century are consigned to history and Americans begin to make race-free judgments on who should lead them."8
The next up to bat is Jill Zuckman. She used to be the Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, that is, before she found her true love: working in the Obama administration.
On MSNBC News Live on July 8, 2008, host Tamron Hall discussed a TV ad by John McCain that emphasized his time as a POW, obviously noting McCain's love for his country. Hall asked Zuckman, still a "reporter," of course, how Obama could compete with such a powerful and moving personal biography. Her reply:
Wel
l, look, Senator McCain's got this great story about what he survived and what he endured and his campaign wants to tell that story as much as possible because they think that that's something voters respect and it gives them a sense of what he's made of. But Senator Obama's got a great American success story, too, and it's just a different one and I think voters are equally impressed with what he's all about.9
Ah, yes, the story of a kid who was sired by Ph.D. parents, went to two Ivy league schools, and grossed millions in book deals is somehow comparable to the hellish brutality Senator McCain faced as a prisoner of war. Beam yourself back down to reality, Zuckman. As a "reporter," Zuckman has referred to Obama as an "electrifying orator."10 Shortly after McCain tapped Sarah Palin to be the vice presidential nominee, Zuckman wrote, "On the campaign trail this week for the first time without McCain, Palin's down-to-earth persona has generated wild enthusiasm and boosted McCain in the polls. But it remains to be seen whether swing voters will interpret that persona as showing a lack of sophistication and seasoning at a time when Wall Street is in crisis and the nation is at war."11 Earn those leftist creds, Zuckman. Suggest that Palin is an inexperienced dolt. You go girl! Why not attach your resume at the bottom of the article with a note that says, "Hey Plouffe, Axelrod, and Obama: If you liked this hit piece call me and we'll do lunch and discuss my salary requirements."
Jay Carney, formerly Time's Washington bureau chief, now over in Joe Biden's office, was certainly no surprise. From the time that Obama announced his candidacy, Time ran seventeen Obama cover stories, all showing glowingly iconic images, cementing his cool factor. "How Much Does Experience Matter?" was one cover story, featuring Obama. Then-senator Obama's biggest knock against him was his age and his inexperience, especially when lined up against someone like John McCain. Time's editors understood this shortcoming of Obama, and as a result, helped carry water on his behalf.