Dismissing the Story [Mark R. Levin, on the Corner at 10/27 01:11 PM]

This [quoted below] is how Ben Smith at Politico handles a major story about Obama’s socialist, constitutional, and world views. That is Obama’s own voice. Those are his own thoughts. That’s 2001, way after Obama’s eighth birthday. But to Smith, it’s just more oppo stuff we can expect in the last days of the campaign. So, Obama’s explicit embrace of “redistributing” wealth, his lament that the Warren Court wasn’t radical enough to redistribute wealth, and his criticism that the Constitution doesn’t explicitly allow for redistributing wealth is of no consequence. The revelation is to be viewed as nothing more than a political tactic by those who uncovered it and are talking about it. Pathetic.

Redistributive
October 27, 2008 (By Ben Smith 07:06 AM)
Categories: Barack Obama

Expect the oppo drawers to open this week on both sides, as the last chance to get out negative information arrives, and the RNC and Drudge today are driving a 2001 interview with a Chicago public radio station in which Obama talks about the value of “redistribut[ing] the wealth.” [see audio/video below] The context of the clip appears to be the civil rights movement, and the fairly commonplace observation (stated beginning with Martin Luther King) that the ’60s movement succeeded in winning African-Americans legal rights but stopped short of lifting them out of poverty. But Obama’s professorial talk about “redistributive change,” while perhaps an accurate way to talk about an agenda of raising taxes on the rich, sure isn’t the language he’d use today.

Sunstein Is Dissembling [Mark R. Levin, on the Corner 10/27 01:34 PM]

I just sent this to Ben Smith: Cass Sunstein and others, like Bruce Ackerman, have been touting this positive law stuff for years. They advocate institutionalizing the liberal agenda through the courts, particularly the 14th Amendment. Equal rights would be expanded to include “economic justice,” i.e., the equal (or more equal) provision of wealth, education, etc., among the citizenry. The agenda would not be subject to electoral results or congressional influence because it would be imposed from the judiciary. This is an extremely radical proposition, completely at odds with the Constitution itself and the Framers’ intent. And Sunstein and Obama know that the public would be appalled with their views if honestly presented to them. So, Sunstein denies it — even characterizing it as conservative, and Obama’s spokesman calls the 2001 interview a distraction. It is neither.

Me: Quoting Ben Smith, “…sure isn’t the language he’d use today.” Sure? Except when Barack Obama accidently slips out of David Axelrod’s carefully crafted “moderate” character, while talking to a plumber in Ohio,